Peter Foster;

Amid hundreds of graphs, charts and tables in the latest World Energy Outlook (WEO) released last week by the International Energy Agency, there is one fundamental piece of information that you have to work out for yourself: the percentage of total global primary energy demand provided by wind and solar. The answer is 1.1 per cent. The policy mountains have laboured and brought forth not just a mouse, but — as the report reluctantly acknowledges — an enormously disruptive mouse.

 

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has in recent years become an increasingly schizophrenic organization. As both a source of energy information and a shill for the UN’s climate-focused sustainable development agenda, it has to talk up the “transition to a low-carbon future” while simultaneously reporting that it’s not happening. But it will!

Related: Professor Valentina Zharkova Breaks Her Silence and CONFIRMS “Super” Grand Solar Minimum.

h/t rd

The Widespread Social And Environmental Destruction Behind Electric Car Batteries And E-Mobility.

Note: This post has been generating a No Tricks Zone pop-up for some of our readers. I don’t believe it’s harmful, but I’ve changed the configuration of the link in hope that it resolves the glitch.

That’s not the longest romance. pic.twitter.com/HBMesPisbA

— David Walker (@walkerdavide) October 20, 2018

Tough week for Subsidy Fraud Boy.

Shares of Tesla plunged as much as 9 percent Friday after news of a pair of C-suite executive resignations and a bizarre video showing CEO Elon Musk smoking pot on a podcast, capping a tumultuous month since Musk launched the company into controversy with a take-private tweet.

 

The stock opened Friday’s session at $260.10 before paring losses slightly. Shares were roughly 7 percent down after the first hour of trading, closing down 6 percent. It extends a painful week for the automaker. As of Friday’s close, the stock lost more than 11 percent on the week.

@WallStCynic – There is no Model Y, pickup truck, semi or Roadster. Or solar roof either, for that matter. These products do not exist. And $TSLA is not building the capacity to make them. I have never seen a company simply make things up on such a grand scale. It’s legally breathtaking!

Oops.

Toyota is recalling more than 1 million of its hybrid vehicles worldwide over a potential fire risk.
 

The automaker said Wednesday that the safety recall covers its Prius, Prius plug-in hybrid and C-HR SUV models and is intended to repair a problem with their electrical systems, which in some cases can cause fires.

It’s why you keep coming back to SDA — for tomorrows news today:  Tesla stock has its worst day in two years

The New York State Thruway Authority — the governing body of a major toll highway that runs across the state — has taken part in New York’s attempts to transition to renewable energy. From 2013 to 2015, the authority built five wind turbines along the thruway in the western corner of the state.
 
The project was expensive, with the five windmills costing $4.8 million and another $500,000 for design expenditures. The authority believed that the turbines would pay for themselves, saving as much as $420,000 annually on energy bills.
 
However, the project did not go as planned.

Depends on what the plan was.

 Oops…

In CBC’s report earlier this week, workers at the Henvey Inlet wind farm site said they were under such intense deadline pressure to clear the land to make way for turbines that crews continued to blast rock despite extreme fire hazard conditions.

 

They said they managed to douse several fires sparked by the ongoing construction. But when the Argo got stuck in the bush late in the afternoon on July 18, flames spread and quickly got out of control, the workers said.

h/t Jamer

Related: What exactly is a flex alert and why does California need one?

New data show Canadian investment in clean technology has cooled off over the past three years, despite myriad programs introduced by Ottawa to boost spending on green infrastructure and shift the country towards a lower carbon economy.

 

Canadian private sector investment in clean technologies have fallen by half since 2014, dropping to a combined US$9.4 billion over the past three years, compared with US$19.5 billion between 2012-2014, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Investments rose to US$3.3 billion last year, compared to US$2.3 billion, but is less than half of the peak in 2014. Investments in the first two quarters of 2018 appear to be below the fourth-quarter running average, BNEF data shows. […]

 

“Any time you have a ratcheting down of subsidies, in the immediate aftermath you see a total destruction of the market,” said Amy Grace, head of North American research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Do tell.

h/t raid

They were promised there’d be no physics.

The single board member of state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power to oppose the closure of the Wolseong No. 1 nuclear reactor in North Gyeongsang Province has spoken out about his reasons.  […]

 

He claimed the government’s aim of boosting the proportion of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2030 is “a far stretch.”

 

 

The government insists that Korea has the conditions to support both wind and solar power. But Cho disagrees. “The technology to produce high-quality power from a small amount of wind still needs developing, and the government is being too hasty.” He added that whole mountains may have to be razed for solar parks, and such systems require numerous power substations.

Britain’s gone nine days with almost no wind generation, and forecasts show the calm conditions persisting for another two weeks.

 

The wind drought has pushed up day-ahead power prices to the highest level for the time of year for at least a decade. Apart from a surge expected around June 14, wind levels are forecast to stay low for the next fortnight, according to The Weather Company.

Via WUWT

China’s unexpected move to slash incentives for solar power has sent stocks into a free fall and prompted analysts to lower forecasts for global installations this year amid expectations that a glut of excess panels would send prices tumbling…

WUWT;

Using a recent forecast prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Lesser’s analysis shows that, over the period 2018 – 2050, the electric generating plants that will charge new EVs will emit more air pollution than the same number of new internal combustion engines, even accounting for air pollution from oil refineries that manufacture gasoline.

 

I am so ahead of my time.

h/t TimR