Category: Alternative Subsidy

Y2Kyoto: Stop Making Sense

Alternative Subsidy Great Reset Y2Kyoto 27 Comments

5 Things I Truly Don’t Understand About The ‘Inevitable Energy Transition’

In a world that is apparently getting both warmer and colder because of global warming, how is it that we can increasingly rely on non-dispatchable (i.e., intermittent, usually unavailable), weather-dependent electricity from wind and solar plants to displace, not just supplement, dispatchable (i.e., baseload, almost always available) coal, gas, and nuclear power? In other words, if our weather is becoming less predictable, how is it that a consuming economy like ours can, or should even try, predictably rely on weather-dependent resources? ERCOT exemplifies this: the Texas grid operator has around 31,000 MW of wind capacity but goes into winter expecting only 6,000 MW (just 20%) of wind farms to be available to generate electricity. Again, in the marketplace, the “alternatives” you keep hearing about are proving to be far more supplemental than alternative.

Further, good wind and solar spots are finite, based on geography, so new builds, naturally, will be forced into areas that are less windy and less sunny, lowering their already very low 35% capacity factors. And because they devour immense swaths of land, interrupting a whole host of things, that Renewable Rejection Database is mounting very quickly. If wind, solar, and electric cars too are as effective and low-cost as so many keep promising us, there would obviously be no need for government subsidies for broad adoption. Yet, there is, gigantically so. Huge amounts of taxpayer money going into this, what I call “the holy climate panacea triad,” are vulnerable to changing politics and bound to become politically untenable at some point:“Ford Is Losing $66,446 On Every EV It Sells.”

Leading The Charge

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult 38 Comments

That E-transit is still on the lot in Rosetown, for anyone interested…

“This isn’t the first time Ford has reimagined the future and taken our own path,” said Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford. “We have an extraordinary opportunity to lead this thrilling new era of connected and electric vehicles, give our customers the very best of Ford, and help make a real difference for the health of the planet.”

A little over a year later, Ford Model e is a pit of losses, while Ford Blue remains the cash cow of the whole group. Ford has just released its first quarter results. For the first time, the carmaker has detailed its earnings by division.

[…]

One fact is striking: Ford only delivered 12,000 electric vehicles in the first quarter, which means that the carmaker lost $58,333 for each clean car sold during this period.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy climategate Great Reset Subsidy Fraud Boy 30 Comments

It’s not about the emissions, it was never about emissions.

The rush to subsidize and mandate EVs is animated by a fatal conceit: the assumption that they will radically reduce CO2 emissions. That assumption is embedded orthodoxy not just among green pundits and administrators of the regulatory state but also among EV critics, who take issue with a forced transition mainly on grounds of lost freedoms, costs, and market distortions.

But the truth is, because of the nature of uncertainties in global industrial ecosystems, no one really knows how much widespread adoption of EVs could reduce emissions, or whether they might even increase them. (And no, this has nothing to do with the truth / joke that Teslas are coal-fired when fueled at night in many places.) While grid realities will indeed matter more than most realize, the relevant and surprising emissions wildcard comes from the gargantuan, energy-hungry processes needed to make EV batteries. This is one of those technical issues that tends to attract slogans, simplifications, and illusions of accuracy; a better understanding requires some patience.

That’s why “whose the biggest emitter” is a losing argument. The electrification of everything is fueled by rent seeking, political donations and naked cronyism. Emissions are just the cover story.

Y2Kyoto: State Of Anorexia Envirosa

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult Y2Kyoto 18 Comments

They really don’t like you, and they’re doing something about it.

In Enemies of Progress, author Austin Williams suggests that ‘the mantra of sustainability’ starts with the assumption that humanity is ‘the biggest problem of the planet’, rather than the ‘creators of a better future’. Indeed, many climate scientists and green activists see having fewer people on the planet as a key priority. Their programme calls not only for fewer people and fewer families, but also for lower consumption among the masses. They expect us to live in ever smaller dwelling units, to have less mobility, and to endure more costly home heating and air-conditioning. These priorities are reflected in a regulatory bureaucracy that, if it does not claim justification from God, acts as the right hand of Gaia and of sanctified science.

They will never admit to failure: To aspiring central planners and their enablers in the media, empirical evidence that their policies are backfiring is merely proof of the need to double down. From this, a horde of otherwise intelligent people earnestly believes that proactively destabilizing the grid is not the cause of grid instability.

Leading The Charge

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 31 Comments

The prototype Winnebago ERV2 “features a clever and well-appointed interior”…

As I crawled around in the dark, checking the connections to the electrical hookup, my neighbor told me the power was out across the entire campsite. This was a problem. While other campers began using their gas-powered tow vehicles to run their appliances, I had no such luxury. The eRV2—which follows the 2022 e-RV concept and previews a production electric RV—is based on the Ford E-Transit and uses that vehicle’s stock 68.0-kWh battery.

While the chassis battery can transfer juice to the so-called house battery, the trip out to the campsite made me hesitant to sacrifice precious driving miles. Even sticking to 60 mph in the right lane, I still drained nearly half of the charge on the approximately 40-mile trip to the campsite. Ford quotes a 108-mile range for the high-roof E-Transit, and Winnebago says its testing revealed an average range of 120 miles. But the eRV2 traveled just 70 miles at 70 mph—we couldn’t do our standard highway test at 75 mph as the Winnebago tops out at 74 mph—and the dashboard readout never displayed more than 90 miles during our time with the vehicle, possibly due in part to the cold weather.

If you prefer to build your own, that E-Transit is still sitting on the lot in Rosetown.

Sparky cars for the masses!

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult Cronies 27 Comments

Whoever calls this an investment with a straight face is utterly delusional. An investment implies an identifiable return related to the profitability of the company. In this case, taxpayers can kiss the money goodbye. In a race with the United States to see who can go bankrupt first, Canada is obviously not going to win, but we seem to think it shows character to die trying.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government agreed to subsidies that may top $13 billion over a decade to land an electric-vehicle battery plant by Volkswagen AG, the company’s first gigafactory outside Europe.

The money is provided through an unprecedented contract negotiated by Trudeau’s industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne. Canada will provide annual production subsidies as well as a grant toward the factory’s capital cost — effectively matching what the German automaker could have received via the Inflation Reduction Act if it had located the plant in the U.S., according to government officials.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 9 Comments

Fishermen Endangered by Offshore Wind’s Political Power

Apparently left out of this cozy relationship is one keenly affected group: more than 1 million people in the U.S. who work in the seafood industry, including 158,811 commercial fishermen. Fishermen have been shouldering longer hours and more expenses as private equity takes over their industry. Now, they are grappling with the prospect that offshore wind farms will box them out of fishing areas and further imperil their livelihoods.

For generations, East Coast fishermen have plied the same waters where turbines the height of 70-story skyscrapers will soon be spinning. The Atlantic’s Outer Continental Shelf is comparatively shallow, making it easier to anchor turbines deep in the ocean floor. Steady winds blow through the entire year. But it’s also along the shelf’s ridges that currents mix and sunlight penetrates, allowing microorganisms and fish to flourish in a complex ocean ecosystem.

Federal scientists, the commercial fishing industry and industry regulators each have sounded the alarm about potential harm to fish spawning habits and about the lack of compensation for losses suffered by fishermen who will be displaced by the offshore wind industry. The Interior Department has ignored or downplayed those warnings.

Via

Y2Kyoto: Moby Sick

Alternative Subsidy CreepyJoeBiden Y2Kyoto 11 Comments

Steve Milloy;

Greenpeace launched its “Save the Whales” campaign on April 27, 1975. But in the ensuing years, Greenpeace has gone full Orwell. Greenpeace is no longer interested in saving the whales. It may actually be aiding and abetting the Biden administration and the offshore wind industry in killing whales supposedly to “save the planet.”

Since December, dozens of whales and dolphins have washed up dead along East Coast beaches, especially the New Jersey coast. There are no eyewitnesses to, and no video of, the deaths so no one knows for sure what is killing the animals.

The deaths are coincident, however, with an increase in activity by the offshore wind industry as it surveys locations to erect its turbines. These surveys include seismic testing that involves bouncing sounds off the bottom of the ocean. It is possible that these sounds impair sound-sensitive whales and dolphins in such a way that deaths can result.

Green activists certainly believed as much when the Natural Resources Defense Council sued the U.S. Navy over its sonar testing in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Greens also oppose seismic testing when conducted by the oil industry in its offshore activities.

The Biden administration denies that there is evidence that the whales and dolphins are being harmed by the offshore wind industry.

“At this point, there is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could potentially cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys,” says the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And not only does Greenpeace embrace the agency’s denial, but it denounces links between offshore wind seismic testing and the whale and dolphin deaths as a fossil fuel industry-funded “right-wing disinformation campaign.”

So what’s the truth?

Once again, there are no eyewitness or video. But there is some inconvenient paperwork.

As it turns out, the federal agency has actually issued permits to the offshore wind industry to kill whales, dolphins and even seals. And not just one or two members of the species.

A currently proposed permit would allow New Jersey-based offshore wind developer Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, L.P., , a partnership of foreign-owned wind companies, to kill 42 whales, 2,678 dolphins, and 1,472 seals.

Not very green. But it gets worse.

Among the 42 whales that Atlantic Shore Offshore Wind has been licensed to kill are 13 whales that are listed as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act. Three whales are the North Atlantic right whale, a species federal regulators are wielding to wreck the Maine lobster and groundfishing industries on behalf of the offshore wind industry.

And this is not the only such permit. There are others already issued with more on the way. Each one allows for the killing of dozens of whales and thousands of dolphins and seals. And all this permitted killing is just for the survey phase of construction. There is the actual erection of wind turbines, and their operations and maintenance still to come.

Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose!

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 39 Comments

Hydro-Quebec press release, October 25, 2022;

“We are proud to contribute to the development of this network by hosting the first charging site for heavy and medium-duty vehicles. Ideally located near the municipal garage, it will allow us to accelerate our green shift started a few years ago for the eco-responsible management of our fleet of vehicles and motorized equipment.”

CTV News, April 9, 2023:

Hydro Quebec said that roughly 300,000 residents were still without power Saturday morning following Wednesday’s ice storm.[…] Some Pontiac residents are anticipating being in the dark for upwards of a week – the longest stretch without power since the ice storm of 1998. “We haven’t even seen a truck; we haven’t seen or heard of anything,” says Thompson “[Hydro Quebec] keeps telling us to be patient because there’s several thousand people without power.”

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Bricks

Alternative Subsidy Roadkill 38 Comments

You don’t have to be stupid to buy into the EV claims.

America is steadily switching to electricity for its driving fuel. But the early days of EV ownership are filled with bugs and small frustrations. Even the aspects of the experience that promise to be easy aren’t always easy at first.

When J.D. Power analysts studied the experience of using public EV chargers, they found drivers frustrated with defective chargers and balky payment apps. More than 20% of public charging attempts last year ended in failure, analysts found.

But that’s OK because public charging is rare, right? The promise of electric cars includes an easy, cheap refuel at home every night while you sleep.

That’s not working out well yet, either.

But it helps.

New World Order

Alternative Subsidy Climate Cult Ethical Energy 11 Comments

Terry Etam: The axis of the world is shifting.

Here in the weird West, where we set aside our vast wealth, bountiful resources, technological prowess, best-in-history medical/safety establishments, and other assorted existential victories to get into fistfights about whether more racism will eliminate racism and who can go to the bathroom where, we are used to watching ancient conflicts take place on the other side of the world, shaking our head, and wondering either “Why can’t they all just get along” or “Well that’s unacceptable, better step in.”

The weird west has long gotten involved in many of these conflicts because of, well, o-i-l. It’s been that way since the 1950s, probably longer; the west’s insatiable thirst for hydrocarbons has driven a lot of international shenanigans and weird relationships. Recall that after a gang of terrorists hijacked four planes and flew them into the US’ most fundamental landmarks on home soil, and that more than half of those terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, the US promptly and expectedly retaliated – by invading two other countries, and going for tea with Saudi Arabia. Kind of transparent, that one.

But that established hydrocarbon-based camaraderie is fading fast, and it doesn’t look like the West has a game plan in response. That’s about as far as I’ll wade into geopolitics because the whole mess is grossly complicated (who hates who again this week?), other than to point out how rapidly things are changing and how that is impacting the energy world.

More: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MbS) is no longer worried about pleasing the United States as his relationships with other global superpowers including China and Russia have strengthened.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

Alternative Subsidy 49 Comments

a thread by John Lee Pettimore;

800 sq. ft. of solar panels weigh 1 ton. 2.5 lbs per sq. ft. 40-340 watt panels is what’s needed to power a typical family home. This depends on sun zone, amount of snow cover etc. Approx. cost $10,000 dollars for panels. 10K divided by 20 yrs.=$500 per yr.

There is approx. 140 million housing units in the United States. 112000000000 sq. ft. of solar panels would be needed to power just the homes excluding all industry. 4017.44 sq. miles of panels. How much mining/manufacturing do we have to do to make that amount of solar panels?

280000000000 lbs or 140000000 tons. So we know in order to make one ton (t) MG-Si (Kato, et. al) (solar wafers for solar panels) it takes 2.4 tons of quartz, 550 kg of coal, 200kg oil coke, 600kg charcoal and 300 kg of woodchips. This excludes glass, plastic, copper and aluminum.

350000000 tons of quartz, 7574000 tons of coal, 2800000 tons of oil coke, 82600000 tons charcoal, and 4060000 tons of woodchips.

So we know the industrial sector is the greatest energy end-user in the United States, reaching a consumption of some 26.9 quadrillion British thermal units in 2021.

So how much mining would we need to do for solar panels to cover the industrial sector?

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