https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=7336059e81
As noted in my post this past Sunday, no amount of fake happy talk in the so-called “Glasgow Climate Pact” can obscure the obvious fact that nobody agreed to anything. To read the text of the “pact,” everybody claims to think that this whole “decarbonization” thing to “save the planet” is real. We’re all going to do something really, really significant, but it will be next year, or maybe the year after that. And meanwhile, nobody has made any remotely serious effort to cost this thing out. Are we talking about a ten percent increase in the cost of energy for this decarbonization project, or will it be a doubling, or maybe a tripling — or maybe even a multiplication by ten?
With tens of trillions of dollars at stake in the world economy, let alone the majority of humanity at risk of energy poverty, you would think that we would be far down the road toward detailed engineering studies of what the decarbonized energy world will look like and exactly how much it will cost. But it is exactly the opposite. Everywhere — or at least everywhere in the Western countries — government functionaries with degrees in English or Political Science (or maybe Gender Studies) issue edicts that carbon emissions will be reduced “50% by 2030” or “90% by 2050,” without any knowledge or understanding of how that may be accomplished.
So, as the costs of attempting to “transition” away from fossil fuels start to hit home, will anybody actually go through with the project? I think that the chance of that is about zero. China and India show how it works. To judge by their actions (rather than their words), they have long since figured out that solar and wind energy can’t succeed in running a modern economy, so they mouth empty platitudes to placate the Western zealots, make unenforceable promises that only come due after everyone is dead, and forge ahead with massive development of coal power. And even more telling are recent developments in Western jurisdictions. When the first hint arrives that fossil fuel restrictions are going to impose cost increases large enough for meaningful numbers of voters to notice, even the bluest of blue U.S. states take about three minutes to abandon their “decarbonization” promises.
For the latest from India, check out this piece from Reuters today headlined “India’s Jindal plans to start building Botswana coal mine in 2022.” Recall first that at the just-ended COP26 in Glasgow, India supposedly “pledged” to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2070. You would not be wrong to infer that the year 2070 was selected to be safely after all current world leaders are long since at least retired, and most likely dead. Today’s Reuters piece, on the other hand, gives the here and now:
India’s Jindal Steel & Power Limited . . . will start building a coal mine in Botswana’s southeastern Mmamabula coalfields in 2022, aiming to supply the export market and a planned coal power plant, a company official said. The Indian industrial giant aims for the mine to produce 4.5 million tonnes of coal per year.
It’s a big project, but a tiny part of the proven coal resources of the African country of Botswana:
Despite the global shift from coal, Botswana is pushing ahead with developing its estimated 212 billion tonnes of coal resources.
