The electric chip truck catching a ride on the diesel semi. pic.twitter.com/SsHCzCiczP
— Robin Speer (@rcspeer) September 12, 2023
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Europe shows the way to a new energy future– During the 41 days from August 1 to September 10 the European wind fleet had an average hourly output of 39.5 GW. Capacity is 255GW, so European wind had an average 15.5% capacity factor during that period.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm …
… recently took 4-day EV caravan trip across the southeast to “draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars.”
What happened next is like a scene out of VEEP…
Steve from Rockwood – The irony is not lost that a politician is in an Armada of high-priced vehicles to make a point on Earth sustainability and a young family with children appear to be in the way.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
‘Biggest clean energy disaster in years’
No new offshore windfarms will go ahead in the UK after the latest government auction, in what critics have called the biggest clean energy policy failure in almost a decade.
None of the companies hoping to build big offshore windfarms in UK waters took part in the government’s annual auction, which awards contracts to generate renewable electricity for 15 years at a set price.
The companies had warned ministers repeatedly that the auction price was set too low for offshore windfarms to take part after costs in the sector soared by about 40% because of inflation across their supply chains.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
And stinking giant fans don’t need us.
Despite lavish subsidies and tax credits under the Biden Administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, the US offshore wind industry is in turmoil after the world’s largest wind producer said it may be forced to walk away from multi-billion dollar wind projects on the eastern seaboard.
The world’s largest publicly listed offshore wind producer, Oslo-based Ørsted, on Wednesday saw its shares fall more than 25% after it said it may be forced to take massive write offs due to what its CEO calls “severe” economic and logistical conditions in the US for renewable energy.
On a conference call with investors, CEO Mads Nipper warned the company may be forced to walk away from five major US wind projects off New Jersey, Virginia and New England. He blamed a combination of supplier delays, higher interest rates and a lack of government subsidies.
“The situation in US offshore wind is severe,” he said.
It came a day after a long-awaited auction of offshore wind parcels in the Gulf of Mexico attracted just two bidders in a blow to Biden’s plans for building 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030.
Y2Kyoto: Carbon Credit Fraud
But I repeat myself;
A number of major carbon traders are finding that offsets they bought may now be valueless.
Trafigura Group, the world’s largest trader of carbon removal credits, has suspended a consignment as it awaits the results of an investigation into the forestry project behind the units. The situation has led the company to replace the offsets in a contract with a corporate client and instead keep the stranded credits on its own books.
Hannah Hauman, global head of carbon trading at Trafigura and a former oil trader, says the complete loss of value seen in some corners of the voluntary carbon market is unlike anything she’s witnessed in oil markets.[…]
Since the first carbon credit was traded roughly 35 years ago, the market has been hit by a steady stream of scandals that have led to wild price swings and even collapsing valuations. That has implications not just for firms trading such credits, but also for companies that use them to underpin green claims to customers and regulators.
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
WSJ: The Electric-Vehicle Bubble Starts to Deflate
It’s ironic, to say the least, that the U.S. is seeking to imitate China’s economic model at the moment that its industrial policy fractures. Look no further than its collapsing electric-vehicle bubble, which is a lesson in how industries built by government often also fail because of government.
Tesla last week slashed its prices in China to boost sales in an oversaturated EV market. In July Tesla and other auto makers in China agreed to stop their EV price war, only to scrap the cease-fire days later owing to government antitrust concerns. While lower prices may benefit consumers, auto makers in China are bleeding red ink and going bust.
A plethora of Chinese EV start-ups launched in the past decade, fueled by government support, including consumer incentives and direct financing. Auto makers churned out EVs to suck up subsidies. Giant property developer Evergrande Group launched an EV unit as its real-estate empire began to implode, but now the EV unit is foundering too.
About 400 Chinese electric-car makers have failed in the past several years as Beijing reduced industry subsidies while ramping up production mandates. Scrap-yards around China are littered with EVs whose technology has become outdated, redolent of its unoccupied housing developments created by government-driven investment. […]
Cox Automotive reported this month that EV inventory had swelled to 103 days of supply in the U.S., about double that of gas-powered cars. Auto makers and dealers are discounting EVs to sell their growing supply. The average EV price paid by consumers has fallen 20% compared with a year ago to $53,438, driven by Tesla’s price cuts and dealer incentives.
Ford recently reduced its EV production targets as its losses and unsold inventory grow. At the end of June, it had 116 days of unsold Mustang Mach-Es, and GM’s electric Hummer had more than 100 days of supply. And this is in a growing economy.
Traditional auto makers will have to raise prices on gas-powered cars to compensate for their EV losses. A United Auto Workers executive said Sunday that Stellantis is threatening to move production of its Ram 1500 trucks to Mexico from suburban Detroit, no doubt to reduce costs. The EV jobs President Biden touts will come at the cost of union jobs building gas-powered vehicles.
Meantime, EV start-ups are floundering as interest rates climb, and they struggle to scale up manufacturing. Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy in June. Nikola Corp. warned this year that it had “substantial doubts” about its ability to stay in business.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Good morning, Alberta.
At this moment 92.1% of Alberta's electricity is being produced by fossil fuels. Wind is at 1.6% of capacity and producing 0.7% of total generation, while solar is at 0.2% of capacity and producing 0.02% of total generation. At the same time we are importing 408 MW or 4% pic.twitter.com/C3CxA9Jp5b
— Reliable AB Energy (@ReliableAB) August 22, 2023
Don’t make me come up there!
There’s two ways to comply with Canada’s recent legislation regarding online news: either pay every time a user on your social media platform links to said news, or block the link and pay nothing. Meta has chosen the latter option.
The federal government’s response: We demand that you make a different choice! If you don’t, well, …. we’ll complain a lot because what else can you do when you’ve painted yourself into a corner.
The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta lift a “reckless” ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.
Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that “Meta’s actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible.”
You’ll Own Nothing, Eat Bugs And “Shelter In Place”
Evacuating thousands of people ahead of wildfires and hurricanes is gonna be lit when we're all forced into EV's. #masscasualtyincidents https://t.co/5TqsqF8Pw7
— Katewerk (@katewerk) August 19, 2023
Y2Kyoto: Screw The Whales
The poster fish of the environmental movement have outlived their usefulness.
Wind energy companies and their foundations have donated nearly $4.7 million to at least three dozen donations to major environmental organizations. Linowes has made public a report and a database documenting the conflicts-of-interest she discovered. — The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a granting organization, took up to $1 million from wind energy companies Avangrid and Shell, and then distributed it to other environmental groups. In August 2020, the National Audubon Society received a $200,000 grant from the New England Forest and Rivers Fund. — The same year, the Nature Conservancy received a $165,218 grant from the New England Forest and Rivers Fund. The Nature Conservancy has supported offshore wind since at least 2021. — NJ Audubon has partnered with wind farm developer Atlantic Shores, a joint venture between Shell Oil and EDF Renewables. Ocean Wind, another wind energy developer, has sponsored NJ Audubon’s World Series of Birding event multiple times. The wind industry has also made hefty donations to scientific organizations.
Trucking blues
Buried in the stories about the collapse of Yellow Trucking is an even bigger, but unfortunately commonplace story, about how taxpayers poured billions into an organization and received a 100% loss for their efforts.
If you are a taxpayer, you know all this, your government being a 29.6 percent shareholder of Yellow and all. The Trump administration’s Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act dished out $500 billion to businesses, states and municipalities as a result of the coronavirus. Yellow Corporation received $700 million of the $735.9 million set aside for national security loans.
Once the loan was funded, Yellow executive officers and directors received stock options and Yellow stock went up ten times in price from the bailout to the end of 2021.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans
“We’re not here to win you over, we’re here to answer your questions.”
So, watch Elemental Energy answer questions of Elk Point, Alberta landowners.
h/t Yeti
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Buses
Kamala and Biden’s golden boy just filed for bankruptcy. Taxpayers were funding Proterra, America’s biggest electric bus company, and now the money’s missing. The whole thing was a political pump and dump scheme and top Democrats were all involved. pic.twitter.com/ZPzTgDMn2S
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 9, 2023
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
All in all*, they’re just another brick on the road.
The owner of a 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat with an extended-range battery regrets buying the electric truck after attempting a road trip, only to abandon it and finish the drive with a gas-powered rental vehicle.
Dalbir Bala of La Salle, Man., left the truck in Minnesota last month after he said he tried unsuccessfully to charge the battery at two different charging stations.
“It was really a nightmare frustration for us,” Bala said.
He bought the truck — which is advertised as having a range of 515 kilometres — for $115,000 in January. He spent an additional $16,000 installing chargers at his home and his trucking business, and upgrading his residential electrical panel.
Bala, his wife and three kids left on a trip to visit Wisconsin Dells, Wis., and Chicago for business, on July 27. The truck was fully charged when they left their home just south of Winnipeg, and Bala had plans to stop at level 3 charging stations, which provide faster charges, located along the planned route.
China Recruits BLM to Protest for Slavery
Remember how Russia supposedly elected Trump using only the television ad budget of a failed congressional race in Amish country?
The Senate intelligence report actually found that “most of the videos” put up by Moscow “pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization”.
The Russians had created their own Black Lives Matter groups, activists and protests. Their favorite ‘Black Russian’ hate groups included Marxists who under their “gender non-conforming” leader marched through Atlanta shouting, “Kill the police! To get free, you’ve got to kill the pigs.”
Not to be outdone, the People’s Republic of China decided to join the fun by paying black nationalists to organize rallies against a ban on solar panels produced by its slave laborers.
In a historical irony, black nationalists went out to protest in defense of slavery.
h/t Reader
Y2Kyoto: The Tides Turn
Orkney Council to spend £150k to dispose of £1 wave device
A wave energy converter bought by Orkney Islands[Scotland] council for £1 is expected to cost £150k to decommission.
The council purchased the Pelamis wave device in 2017 for a nominal sum in the hope of saving it from destruction, given its heritage value to the island.
But it has failed to find a use for the 180m (591ft) long wave machine and is now looking to dispose of it.
The council received £45,000 at the time for any disposal costs, but has spent almost all of it on maintenance.
The power to waste money knows no bounds.
Socialisme pour les Quebecois
Central planning is like a washing machine cycle that never ends:
Step 1: Subsidize production.
Step 2: When production exceeds consumer demand, subsidize the losses.
Step 3: When the losses become terminal, pay producers to exit the industry.
Step 4: When prices rise, go back to Step 1.
The first stage of the production-cut program is voluntary. Those that agree to participate must leave the industry for a minimum of five years. Two-thirds of the cost will be covered by Farm Income Stabilization Insurance, a taxpayer-funded provincial program that, when market prices are low, covers the costs of production. One-third will be paid by Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec.
This will mean that every producer who remains in the sector must pay $2.86 to the union for every hog they sell, to cover producers’ share of the expense, according to reporting by La Presse. The pool of cash will be used to pay producers who leave.
“We understand we need the taxpayer helping us‚ but at the same time we bring lots of money, too,” Mr. Roy said.
The Chickens Come Home To Roost
We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars
Running out of battery is as easy as running out of gas. The trick here would be to run out in a safe location. We planned to keep driving until the truck stopped moving, but we didn’t know exactly where that would be. Like gas-powered cars, some EVs have a little extra emergency range left after the gauge reaches zero.
That in mind, we struck out for the Santa Clarita River Valley north of Los Angeles, an agricultural community with only a pair of slow Level 2 wall chargers available for EV drivers and no Level 3 DC Fast chargers for 25 miles in any direction. Once we’d worn out the battery, we’d call Rivian Roadside Assistance and see what happened. Where would they tow us? How much would it cost? How long would it take to charge up enough to get home? We were going to find out.