RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/

As my last post reported, the Official Party Line from our government holds that we have this “100% Clean Electricity” thing about 90% solved. As the government-funded NREL put it in their August 30, 2022 press release, “[a] growing body of research has demonstrated that cost-effective high-renewable power systems are possible.” But then they admit that that statement does not cover what they call the “last 10% challenge” — providing for the worst seasonal droughts of sun and wind, that result in periods when there is no renewable power to meet around 10% of annual electricity demand. That last 10%, says NREL, will require one or more “technologies that have not yet been deployed at scale.”

But hey, we’ve got 90% of this renewable transition thing solved. How hard could figuring out that last 10% really be?

And on that basis the government has embarked upon forcing the closure of large numbers of power plants that use fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, as well as on suppressing exploration for fossil fuels and other things like pipelines and refineries. After all, if we’re transitioning at least 90% to renewables, we won’t need 90% of the fossil fuel infrastructure any more, will we?

Actually, that’s completely wrong. Until the full solution to the so-called “last 10% challenge” is in place, we need 100% of our fossil fuel backup infrastructure to remain in place, fully maintained, and ready to step in when the wind and sun fail.

Let’s take a brief look at what bridging the last piece of the renewable transition actually looks like.

NREL’s August 2022 Report titled “Examining Supply-Side Options to Achieve 100% Clean Electricity by 2035” lays out several scenarios for supposedly achieving that goal. For all the scenarios, the most important piece is the same: building and deploying lots more wind turbines and solar panels. (The scenarios differ in the degree of deployment of other elements like transmission lines, battery storage, carbon capture technology, and additional nuclear.). As foreseen by NREL, by 2035, total electricity generation capacity in the U.S. has more than tripled, with the large majority of the additions being wind and solar. There is substantial overbuilding of the wind and solar facilities, presumably to provide enough electricity on days of light wind or some clouds, while having large surpluses to discard on days of full wind and sun. Some storage has been provided, but mostly “diurnal” (intra-day) and not seasonal.

https://the-pipeline.org/decolonize-the-green-movement/

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to find places where the Left’s rhetoric and ideals fail to align with their real-world actions. Their years of pearl clutching about election denialism after making a celebrity of election denier Stacey Abrams and, more recently, selecting election denier Hakeem Jeffries to replace Nancy Pelosi as Democratic House Leader are examples which come immediately to mind.

But there are darker examples. For instance, if you’ve spent any time in the presence of Leftist academics over the past quarter century, you have likely observed their obsession with colonial imperialism, which they contend to be among the greatest evils ever perpetuated by man. Though the major western empires were dismembered over the course of the 20th century, the Left’s fixation on imperialism is justified by the claim that that system has left indelible marks on both the imperialists and their former colonial subjects to this day. And yet, as Michael Schellenberg has pointed out, a form of imperialism is still alive and well…  and being practiced by prominent Left-leaning environmentalist governments:

The narrative is that imperialism is, by its very nature, exploitative, that it consisted of, in Shellenberger’s words, “rich nations taking raw materials from poor nations and leaving behind poverty rather than development.” While the historical reality might be more complicated than that presentation suggests, the modern day geo-political reality perfectly matches this critique. Keen-for-Green Germany is paying African nations not to use coal to help save the planet… and then using the coal itself.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/12/german-climate-alarmists-glue-themselves-to-munich-airport-runway-disrupt-flights/

Less than two weeks after shutting down Berlin airport, German climate activists stormed the airport in Munich and disrupted the air traffic in one of Europe’s busiest transit points.

On Thursday, German media outlets said that a gang of militant activists swarmed a runway and glued themselves to the tarmac. According to reports, police and fire brigade were rushed to the scene to free the glued militants from the runway.

The climate-extremist group “Last Generation,” which operates across Europe, took responsibility for the disruptive action. “Several activists of the “Last Generation” protest movement glued themselves on a runway at Munich Airport,” German state TV channel Tagesschau reported. “This led to the closure of the northern runway for about 45 minutes,” the broadcaster added.

German weekly Der Spiegel reported the details of the incident:

According to Munich Airport, one of the airport’s two runways has been shut down due to a climate protest. The activists have glued themselves to the runway north of the airport, an airport spokesperson said. The disruption in air traffic is to be expected.

The police went on a large-scale operation. “The activists are currently being removed [from the runway] by the police and taken into custody, ” the Upper Bavaria North police headquarters said.

Meanwhile, the police have disbanded the gathering, according to their own statement, and the disruption lasted less than an hour. The last person glued up [to the tarmac] was taken into custody of the airport police and fire brigade at 11:09 a.m. [Translated by the author]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pentagon-goes-to-climate-war-biden-administration-green-rule-weapons-contractors-11669835241?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The war in Ukraine is draining U.S. arms stockpiles while geopolitical risks grow. Yet the Biden Administration is worried about—you can’t make this up—the climate impact of U.S. weapons and wants to impose costly green mandates on federal contractors.

A little-noticed rule-making proposed by the Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration last month would require federal contractors to disclose and reduce their CO2 emissions as well as climate financial risks. The rule would cover 5,766 contractors that have received at least $7.5 million from the feds in the prior year.

Smaller contractors would have to publicly report their so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions—i.e., those they generate at their facilities and from the electricity and heating they use. Firms with larger contracts would also have to tabulate their upstream and downstream Scope 3 emissions, including those from customers, suppliers and products used in the field.

For example, weapons manufacturers would have to quantify and disclose the amount of CO2 generated from their own facilities; manufacturers that produce steel, computer chips and motors used in their weapons; propellants and fuel; and even munition storage areas. It’s unclear if CO2 emissions will influence procurement decisions.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/david-solway-2/2022/12/06/buying-a-country-home-a-few-important-tips-n1651343

Having decided to sell our city dwelling and purchase a new home in the country, my wife and I compiled a list of instructions for our real estate agent, almost as if we were house seekers on HGTV. Ample space was an obvious prerequisite. Reasonable proximity to an urban center for cultural, medical, and other needs and amenities was desirable — close but not too close, as semiotician Roland Barthes said about family. A congenial surrounding would be essential to avoid feng shui miseries.

The first item on the list, however, was absolutely crucial, namely, the solid assurance that a prospective wind farm anywhere in the vicinity would be out of the question. Governments and corporations have a way of staking out land to erect these atrocities without community consultation. The results are horrendous.

To begin with, wind turbines violate environmental principles, given that each turbine needs approximately 80 gallons of industrial oil and 12,000 gallons of PAO synthetic based on crude as a lubricant; the equipment to build windfarms runs on petroleum; there is no way to recycle the 150 ft. blades, which means landfill will be at a premium; and each turbine generates a humongous footprint. Some industry sources report that a wind farm typically requires up to 40 acres per megawatt of capacity. One must also factor in power substations and new access roads. All this apart from the fact that wind farms, for that matter solar panels as well, are not only eyesores but bird killers par excellence. Of course, we are not environmentalists but cannot help wondering how the Greenies square the desecration of the environment with their ostensible values. For the harm they do to the environment is immense.

If this were not bad enough, the insistent thrum of the rotating blades is known to produce psychological harm as well. I first became aware of the affliction some years back when a rural village in my native Quebec went collectively neurotic. The story made the middle pages of a few newspapers and then was quickly dropped. But there is no doubt that people who live near a wind farm suffer from headaches, sleeplessness, and nervous breakdowns, not to mention irrecoverable property depreciation. Which may explain why government ministers, corporate CEOs, and Green enthusiasts do not live anywhere near the installations they variously promote, build and profit from. They are dacha-smart.

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3762043-europes-climate-obsession-could-prove-deadly/

The wind has died down again in Europe. Unless you’re selling kites or umbrellas, you probably don’t care.

But if you’re a public official, responsible for making sure your citizens stay warm this winter, you may be panicking. In the climate-obsessed European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK), where a decades-long war against fossil fuels caused a radical shift to unstable power sources and enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy chokehold, a growing dependence on wind power is again a source of anxiety.

As the Wall Street Journal reported recently: “wind speeds in Hamburg fell to around 5 meters a second, or about 11 miles an hour, according to the weather forecasting site windy.com.” That wind velocity is apparently the “minimum speed required for electricity generation.”

The Journal explains, “Speeds of around 15 meters a second, or 33 mph, are needed to produce maximum power generation.” Come again? The U.S. weather service declares winds of 31 mph to 63 mph “gale force”; so, all those wind towers being built on the continent and in the U.S. require massive wind speeds to be fully productive? Who knew?

The sad fact is our politicians don’t know, and neither, it seems, do the people running Europe. Even as European countries rush to destroy their economies by pandering to unrealistic climate goals, the U.S. ignores the devastating results.  

EU countries have made every wrong turn imaginable in catering to their aggressive climate lobbies — making harmful decisions of exactly the kind being foisted onto Americans via the Biden White House. The climate zealots in the Biden administration, who have plugged global warming considerations into every policy plank of every federal agency, seem to have learned exactly nothing from Europe’s entirely self-inflicted woes.  

Europe decided some years ago to move away from fossil fuels, banking on renewables like wind and solar power to supply an increasing portion of their energy needs. Incredibly, today the most-consumed renewable fuel on the continent is wood, which one team of climate scientists says “emits more CO2 emissions than coal.”

https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/12/03/study-hey-these-offshore-wind-farms-arent-good-for-the-ecosystem-n515359

There are wind farms being put up all over the place these days, including in many rural areas of the United States. But the offshore wind farms that have been constructed in the North Sea by various European power companies have created a forest of towers rising up over the waves. But that’s not a problem, right? After all, this is the “clean energy” we were all promised and we’re saving the planet so everyone can feel better about themselves. The Biden administration recently announced plans to accelerate offshore wind farm construction in the name of “environmental justice, biodiversity, and protecting our oceans.” But according to one peer-reviewed study published in a prominent nature journal, those wind farms aren’t really good for the ocean ecosystem at all. And they create “substantial” negative impacts on marine life and ocean conditions. Oops. (The Blaze)

In September, the Biden administration announced its “ambitious” plans to expand American offshore wind energy “while advancing environmental justice, protecting biodiversity, and promoting ocean co-use.” A new study has cast significant doubt on whether the White House’s plan and similar initiatives to tackle so-called climate change can be accomplished without creating some substantial negative environmental changes all their own.

In addition to impacting regional atmosphere, “multiple physical, biological, and chemical impacts on the marine system have been identified,” all resultant of these “environmentally jus[t]” solutions.

Previously, researchers had only theorized about the impact of the wind wake effect offshore wind farms had on marine life and ocean conditions. A peer-reviewed study published in the Springer Nature journal “Communications Earth & Environment” revealed that the effects of these wind farms are “substantial.”

https://www.city-journal.org/climate-change-conference-devises-wrong-solutions

It’s often said that members of Generation Z are clueless, and the signs that these young people held at the November COP27 conference are evidence of that proposition. They fail to see the big picture. Let’s accept, for the moment, the premise of their advocacy: that human activities produce greenhouse gases (GHGs) such as carbon dioxide, which give rise to atmospheric warming, and thus to some degree of disruption and damage. Even so, as these health-care professionals should know, any cure should not be worse than the disease—but that’s precisely what we see in many proposed remedies for climate change.

Climate activists are clamoring for expensive interventions, including massive transformations of energy production, modes of transportation, building design, and even diminished population growth. They also want huge amounts of monetary compensation paid to poor countries to offset climate change-related environmental and economic damage. The most popular interventions include monumental expenditures on subsidies for wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles. But will these measures produce the desired results? And isn’t it possible that depriving taxpayers of the vast resources required to fund climate measures would itself produce negative effects?

The En-ROADS climate model, created by and maintained by Climate Interactive and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, provides answers. En-ROADS is a highly complex, interactive model with a simple interface that allows users to explore and understand the effects of various interventions that influence climate, including the use of coal, nuclear, wind, and solar power, increasing the numbers of electric vehicles (EVs), the planting of trees, and so on.

En-ROADS examines the effects on temperature rise of global implementation of these various parameters out to the year 2100. It predicts that, if nothing is done by then, the planet’s temperature will rise by about 3.6 degrees Celsius. Maximal global use of wind turbines, solar panels, and other renewables would reduce that rise by only 0.2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. Maximal incentives for a transition to electric vehicles globally would yield a similar reduction. For shorter periods, such as 30 years from now, those reductions, taken together, would amount to less than 0.05 degrees Celsius—in other words, negligible. Is this worth a price tag of more than $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States?

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-11-29-dont-be-so-sure-that-the-climate-extremists-have-won

Undoubtedly, the question right now at the top of everyone’s mind is, When is the Manhattan Contrarian’s Energy Storage Report coming out? After all, he previously promised it for September, and then October, and here we are almost in December and we still haven’t seen it.

It’s a fair question. Being a blogger, I don’t have much appreciation for the formalities of the publication process. In blogging, you finish the post, do a quick proofread, press “Publish,” and there it is. With this, it has been rounds of peer review, editing, typesetting, proofreading, and so forth. However, I’m now told that the official issue date will be Thursday, December 1.

After the publication, I’ll have several posts expounding on parts of the Report, particularly those portions that cover topics I have not already beaten to death here on the blog. But for now I want to focus on the most important aspect of this, which is: Don’t get discouraged in thinking that the climate extremists have “won.” They have not.

It does not really matter that the climate extremists at the moment control all of the commanding heights of our culture — the media, academia, most big corporations, and the Executive Branch of the government. What matters is that the cultists are proposing a new utopian energy system that will not work and cannot work. It’s only a question of when and how it fails — and of how big the political blowback will be when that happens. The main Achilles heel of the proposals is the problem of energy storage.