RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-6-25-this-energy-transition-thing-really-is-not-happening

From reading the left-wing media, you know (or think you know) that there is an energy “transition” going on. This is something that must happen as a matter of urgent necessity. Vast government subsidies are being disbursed to assure its rapid success. Fossil fuels are rapidly on the way out, while wind and solar are quickly taking over.

For example, you may well have seen the big piece last August in the New York Times, headline “The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think.”

Across the country, a profound shift is taking place . . . . The nation that burned coal, oil and gas for more than a century to become the richest economy on the planet, as well as historically the most polluting, is rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels.

But if you read that piece, or any one of dozens of others from the Times or other “mainstream” sources, what you won’t find are meaningful statistics on the extent to which fossil fuel use is declining, if at all, or the extent to which renewables like wind and solar are actually replacing them.

That’s why the Manhattan Contrarian turns instead to dry statistical data to try to get the real story. Several years ago I discovered an annual book of energy data called the Statistical Review of World Energy. At the time, the Statistical Review was produced by the international oil company BP. I first covered one of these Reviews in this post from July 2019. A couple of years ago BP apparently decided to get out of this business, and turned the product over to something called the Energy Institute. EI then produced a Statistical Review in June 2023 (covering 2022), and now is just out on June 20, 2024 with a Statistical Review covering 2023.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/06/26/if-the-nations-power-grid-cant-cope-with-ai-hows-it-supposed-to-handle-millions-of-evs/

The Washington Post ran a lengthy article last week bemoaning the fact that AI (artificial intelligence) is sucking up so much power that it’s already straining the nation’s electric grid and is bad for the environment.  Seriously? So, how will the grid be able to handle the millions of electric cars environmentalists want to force on the road? The answer might shock you.

The Post reports that:

“As the tech giants compete in a global AI arms race, a frenzy of data center construction is sweeping the country. Some computing campuses require as much energy as a modest-sized city, turning tech firms that promised to lead the way into a clean energy future into some of the world’s most insatiable guzzlers of power. Their projected energy needs are so huge, some worry whether there will be enough electricity to meet them from any source.”

The article quotes Tamara Kneese, a project director at Data & Society, saying “Coal plants are being reinvigorated because of the AI boom. This should be alarming to anyone who cares about the environment.”

Yet, at the same time, we keep being reassured that the power grid will have no problem handling the millions of “clean” electric cars that President Joe Biden and his climate-crisis pals want to force onto the market, each of which draws massive amounts of electricity off the grid as they recharge.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/06/25/google-labels-govt-weather-data-unreliable-and-harmful/

Earlier this week, we published an editorial arguing that government data didn’t support various claims about climate change. And we predicted Google would demonetize it. We were right. (See: Heat Wave Sets Off New Round Of ‘Climate Crisis’ Lies.)

Shortly after that article was published, Google’s AdSense informed us that it had “disabled ad serving” on that page because the article contained “unreliable and harmful claims.” (We have one spot on our pages for AdSense ads, mostly to track Google’s efforts to demonetize content. See the list of related editorials below.)

So what was “unreliable” or “harmful” about that editorial? Google doesn’t say. It just says we have to “fix” it if we want their ads to run on that page.

What we can say is that Google has effectively labeled official government data as “unreliable and harmful,” since all the evidence we provided was from official sources.

The editorial pointed out that claims about more frequent heat waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires – claims that get repeated ad nauseam by the mainstream press and by climate activists – are not supported by the official data.

We included charts and cited the sources of the data – sources such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Interagency Fire Center, the government-run GlobalChange.gov, etc.

Here’s how Google defines “unreliable and harmful.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/climate-cultists-on-the-loose/

As far back as the 1960s and ‘70s, activists on a mission to save the planet from various environmental cataclysms (none of which ever materialized) have resorted to stoking panic to generate support for their hysterical pronouncements that all life on earth faces imminent extinction. “I don’t want you to be hopeful,” young climate activist icon Greta Thunberg once lectured the one-percenters of the Davos crowd. “I want you to panic.” Fear is a more deep-seated motivation than rational argument, especially if people are no longer falling for the sophistry and manipulated statistics from scientists corrupted by the promises of Green Reset profit and power.

Now that most people aren’t falling for the fear-mongering anymore, climate activists have given up trying to win support by manipulating people emotionally; instead, they have resorted to a counterintuitive strategy of simply antagonizing people – with traffic blockades, the destruction of priceless works of art, and eco-terrorism. The latest climate change protests include such unhinged actions as painting the Stonehenge monument, launching a sex strike, and riding naked through the streets of Madison, Wisconsin.

Last week a pair of environmental protesters from the widely-detested Britain-based Just Stop Oil group spray-painted the famed ancient Stonehenge megaliths orange, before being tackled by tourists. “We have to come together to defend humanity or we risk everything,” said a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil. Blah, blah, blah.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-6-19-in-case-you-think-someone-has-the-answer-to-new-yorks-looming-energy-disaster

In this post last week, I took note that New York’s electric grid system operator, NYISO, has recently issued some clear, if muted, warnings of the impossibility of the energy transition mandated by the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). In a November 2023 Report, NYISO stated (deeply buried at page 52) that “DEFRs are needed to balance intermittent supply with demand,” and those DEFRs must be “significant in capacity.” DEFRs are the elusive and not-yet-invented “dispatchable emissions-free resources.” At a conference the following month, NYISO’s VP for System Integration Planning, Zachary Smith, reiterated the need for these DEFRs in large amounts. Smith presented charts quantifying the capacity of DEFRs needed for New York to “balance” its prospective intermittent wind/solar supply as something in the range of 30+ GW. 30 GW is close to the peak electricity demand for the entire state, and is approximately equivalent to the existing capacity of New York’s fleet of natural gas plants, all of which are mandated to be closed by 2040.

So what is the answer to the great DEFR conundrum? New York’s Public Service Commission, operating from its usual playbook, has initiated a proceeding, under the name Proceeding 15-E-0302, to uncover the answer. My New York co-blogger Roger Caiazza calls this the “DEFR Proceeding,” although I don’t find the PSC using that name. Everybody gets to submit their brilliant thoughts and ideas. So far there seem to be well over 22,000 items entered in the docket — more than any human being can ever read.

In just the past few days, some big comments from important players have floated in. On Monday (June 17), a comment appeared on this DEFR docket co-signed by two environmental NGOs, Earth Justice and the Sierra Club. These are two of the very biggest, best funded, and most vociferous advocates of the urgent necessity of an immediate energy transition away from fossil fuels. With their hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue and scores of staffers, surely these guys must have found the answer to the DEFR conundrum.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/mayorkas-claims-global-warming-makes-him-better-at-dealing-with-crises/

FEMA, which has been drained by being redirected to deal with Biden’s open borders invasion, needs money to smuggle more migrants around America.

The city government of El Paso, Texas, is busing illegal migrants to the Big Apple on the dime of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino told the DCNF Monday. The federal agency covers the travel costs of illegal migrants through a grant program.

But, according to the as yet unimpeached Secretary Mayorkas, global warming has prepped him to deal with hurricanes.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during an interview with the Associated Press that the U.S. is prepared to go into an intense hurricane and wildfire season, but he did raise concerns about budget shortages.

Mayorkas said that the department is well equipped to deal with hurricanes and other natural disasters this summer, adding that more intense national disasters, partially due to climate change, have allowed the agency to gain experience in dealing with crises.

“As the impacts of climate change have been more and more evident, we have seen and experienced increasing frequency and gravity of extreme weather events,” Mayorkas said.

“Extreme weather events” are much of a myth as FEMA’s competency.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/06/eco-vandals-came-to-stonehenge-they-wont-stop-there/

Environmental stewardship may be a laudable goal, but some radical environmentalists believe their ends justify extreme, damaging means.

Eco-vandals are at it again in England, having launched an attack on the priceless ancient historical site Stonehenge.

Two activists from the radical environmental group Just Stop Oil desecrated the ancient monument with orange powder paint. The site was saved from further attack only by the immediate intervention of another person at the site, who seized their paint equipment.

Just Stop Oil lied on X, formerly Twitter, that this wasn’t a major problem for the historical site because the paint “will soon wash away with the rain, but the urgent need for effective government action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate and ecological crisis will not.”

No doubt the irony that they likely traveled to the site in carbon-emitting vehicles to spray propellant-filled industrial dyes onto a historical landmark, then recorded the whole thing on a petroleum products–filled camera, is lost on these eco-vandals.

“Stonehenge at solstice is all about celebrating the natural world — but look at the state it’s in! We all have a right to live a life free from suffering, but continued burning of oil, coal and gas is leading to death and suffering on an unparalleled scale,” Niamh Lynch, an Oxford student who participated in the stunt, said in a statement.

The official Stonehenge X account replied to the activists, telling them the site was both protected and environmentally sensitive, and that they should “expect a prison sentence.” Local police have so far arrested two people, likely the two who recorded themselves attacking the site.