Category Archives: Energy

The True Cost of Rockefeller Agriculture & the New Food Agenda, by Ryan Matters

Posted on January 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

You will eat bugs and beefless beef . . . and you will be happy! From Ryan Matters at off-guardian.org

Shortly after World World Two, The Rockefeller Foundation set forth on a quest to bring about a transformation of world agriculture.

They did this, in part, by “socially engineering” the scientific culture to not only accept but promote the use of GMO foods and dangerous biotechnologies.

And now, they are at it again.

This new attempted policy change is outlined in a document titled “The True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the US Food System.

In the report, mention is made of both the Covid-19 crisis and the climate crisis, claiming that now is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to effect “transformative change” in food production.

The report is the result of a collaboration between the Rockefeller Foundation, various academics from leading universities, the World Wildlife Fund and the True Price Foundation. Leading the analysis were members of “True Price”, a Dutch company that describes itself as a

social enterprise with the mission to realize sustainable products that are affordable to all by enabling consumers to see and voluntarily pay the true price of products they buy”.

Leading the True Price team is Michel Scholte, an alumnus of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Network, Adrian de Groot Ruiz, also a former WEF “Global Shaper” and Herman Mulder, former Director-General at ABN AMRO, one of the world’s leading agribusiness banks!

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Energy, Governments, Politics, Science

Tagged

No SWIFT, No Gas: Russia Responds To Western Threats As US Tries To Orchestrate Workaround, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 27, 2022 | Leave a comment

Russia is not without economic weapons of its own, particularly if the U.S. and Europe should try to bar it from SWIFT, the international banking network. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

While the situation along the Ukrainian border appears to be deescalating – aside from US/UK’s panic coalition, a top Russian official says that if the West follows through on a threat to cut the Kremlin off from the SWIFT payment system, Europe won’t receive Russian oil, gas, or metals.

Vladimir Putin signs a natural gas pipeline in the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok on September 8, 2011. (DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was in discussions to ban Russia from the Swift global payments system with the United States, calling it a “very potent weapon.”

“I’m afraid it can only really be deployed with the assistance of the United States though. We are in discussions about that,” he added.

Nikolay Zhuravlev, Vice Speaker of the Federation Council, responded to Johnson’s threat – telling Russia’s state-owned TASS that Europe would suffer the consequences of such a move.

“SWIFT is a settlement system, it is a service. Therefore, if Russia is disconnected from SWIFT, then we will not receive [foreign] currency, but buyers, European countries in the first place, will not receive our goods – oil, gas, metals and other important components of their imports. Do they need it? I am not sure,” said Zhuravlev – who noted that while SWIFT is convenient and fast – it’s not the only game in town when it comes to financial transactions.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Banking, Business, Energy, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History

Tagged , ,

New Energy Regulations Will Make Every Room In Your House More Expensive, by Mike “Mish” Shedlock

Posted on January 24, 2022 | Leave a comment

Your government hard at work, making your life still more miserable. From Mike “Mish” Shedlock at mishtalk.com:

The Biden administration moves to make appliances more expensive and less effective.

Energy Efficient Home Image from Energy.Gov 

Energy Efficient Home Image from Energy.Gov

How to Make Every Room in Your House More Expensive

Ben Lieberman, a former staff member on House Energy and Commerce Committee, has an interesting Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal on Biden’s regulatory overreach.

Please consider a a Regulatory Burden for Every Room of Your House by Ben Lieberman. That is a copy-free link, not behind the WSJ paywall.

  • The Kitchen. The Trump administration took steps to fix the Energy Department’s efficiency standards for dishwashers that had the unintended consequence of increasing the time to clean a load of dishes from an hour or less in older models to well over two in new ones.
  • The Bathroom. In one of several agency measures that limit freedom of choice, the DOE has tightened water-use limits for certain types of showers. In addition, for those who prefer incandescent light bulbs surrounding their bathroom mirror (or anywhere else), the DOE is targeting these bulbs with energy-efficiency standards likely to boost their price to $7 each, leaving LEDs as the only viable option.
  • The Laundry Room. Washing machines have been hit with multiple rounds of energy and water-efficiency regulations that have compromised performance and even forced some owners to buy and use special products to eliminate the stink that accumulates in the new models. Compliant dryers, like the new dishwashers, take longer to do the job.
  • The Basement. Your next new furnace may be significantly more expensive, thanks to regulatory changes percolating through the Biden DOE bureaucracy. Furnaces are currently available in natural-gas or electric versions, but the DOE is all-in on the war against gas, which environmentalists hate because it’s a fossil fuel and thus a contributor to climate change.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Economics, Energy, Government, Law, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged ,

How The Shale Revolution Saved Europe from a Great Blackout, by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on January 23, 2022 | Leave a comment

American shale oil is filling in the European green energy gap. From Daniel Lacalle at dlacalle.com:

In October, the governments of Austria and The Netherlands warned of the risk of a “great blackout”. Soaring natural gas prices, lack of security of supply and a challenging outlook of pipeline deliveries from Russia made the governments exceedingly nervous about the chances of providing cheap and reliable energy for homes in winter.

However, an unexpected ally has prevented an energy crisis in Europe and, ironically, it is an ally that was banned in most European nations: Shale gas.

About half of the record U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas volumes shipped in December 2021 went to Europe, up from 37% earlier in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

While most European nations banned the exploration and development of domestic natural gas resources many years ago, the United States has plenty and competitive supplies thanks to the shale oil and gas revolution, which has made the country almost energy independent. Domestic natural gas production has exceeded U.S. demand by about 10%, according to Reuters.

There is a lesson for the U.S. here. Many European energy policies have been ideologically directed, and massive energy subsidies and political intervention have not strengthened the competitiveness of the economy, secured energy supply, or even reduced significantly carbon emissions.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, Governments, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged , ,

This Is Your Last Chance, Part Two, by Robert Gore

Posted on January 21, 2022 | 44 comments

SWITZERLAND-POLITICS-ECONOMY-WEF

The biggest trend change in history.

Part One

Supposedly collectivists will reap the rewards of the only things they produce—destruction and death. After the collapse, a global collectivist government will replace the current multiplicity of collectivist governments. Most of the collapse’s survivors will become slaves living on subsistence doled out by the small aristocracy that will rule the planet. The real work will be done by artificially intelligent machines. The slaves will be pacified chemically and electronically through ubiquitous virtual reality technologies and monitored ceaselessly while the aristocrats live in unimaginable splendor. Those who resist pacification and enslavement will be “corrected,” or if that fails, murdered.

This is simply a straight line projection of the present and recent past that ignores a fully evident counter-trend still gathering steam. After a centuries-long, bull-market run, government as an institution has topped out. The plans and predictions of the global totalitarians are the overconfident rationalizations of newly minted millionaires at the top of bull markets—the “permanently high plateau” in 1929, the “new economy” in 2000, “house prices only go up” in 2007, and “the Fed’s got our backs” now.

We already have shining examples of totalitarian collectivist failure in really big countries with lots of people—the Soviet Union and Communist China. The former collapsed after tens of millions died, the latter made a mid-course correction towards more freedom after tens of millions died.

Blithering idiots attribute those failures to incomplete control by the totalitarians or claim collectivism can only work when the whole world is completely enslaved. They ignore the core quandary of collectivist control—it produces nothing. Collectivist governments steal, they don’t produce. A global collectivist government will produce exactly what the current multiplicity of collectivist governments produce: nothing. Yet, this government will supposedly build the world back better from the ashes of financial, economic, and political collapse.

Continue reading →

44 Comments

Posted in Banking, Business, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Energy, Environment, Financial markets, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Horseshit, Law, Media, Medicine, Military, Movies, Politics, Propaganda, Science, Society, Surveillance, Technology, Tyranny

Tagged , , , , ,

Electrocuting Themselves, by Eric Peters

Posted on January 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Me too” is generally a terrible idea in business, especially when the government thinks it’s a swell idea. From Eric Peters at ericpeters.com:

The key to selling something is to not sell the same thing everyone else is selling. Elon Musk grasps this concept.

His electric emulators do not.   

Perhaps the latest sales figures will help them to grasp it. It appears that Tesla is about to become the best-selling luxury car brand in the United States, toppling BMW – which held the title for many years.

Arguably, because what BMW was selling during those years was something different than what Elon is selling.

Some will recall the old BMW slogan about  Ultimate Driving Machines. It wasn’t just a slogan. BMW invented the luxury-sport sedan with iconic models like the 2002 of the ‘70s. The numbers signified two-door sedan, two liter engine – connected to a manual transmission. It was a car you drove.

Other luxury cars drove you places.

The distinction isn’t about better or worse but rather about the differences. If you wanted the sounds and sensations of a high-performance sports car Matryoshka-doll’d within the body of a luxury car, the compass needle pointed toward a BMW store.

There was nothing else quite like a BMW.

Mercedes, meanwhile, specialized in overbuilt, under-stressed road-bound tanks that would last 300,000 miles. They were plush and even a little stodgy in contrast to the BMW’s taut and youthful.

These was nothing quite like them either.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Energy, Government, Technology

Tagged ,

The Hulu Model as applied to Transportation, by Eric Rivers

Posted on January 10, 2022 | 1 comment

Who wants to own a car or anything else when you can pay for things offered as a service that you pay for over and over again? From Eric Rivers at ericriversautos.com:

The car companies plan to stop selling cars in favor of selling “transportation” – as a “service” – instead.

The main reason for this reorientation of their business model is simple: People increasingly cannot afford to buy cars – the average transaction price is now about $35,000 which is  a sum roughly equivalent to half the average American family’s annual income and thus, not sustainable as a purely financial matter.

Meanwhile, cars – themselves – are becoming soul-less appliances very much like cell phones in terms of their interchangeable homogeneity and their disposability.

People are for that reason losing interest in them.

But cars are very much unlike  cell phones in one critical way: their cost. It’s one thing to throw away a smartphone after a year or two; another to do the same with a $35k car after four or five. This problem is going to get much worse, very soon – for two more reasons.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Business, Energy, Environment, Government, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged ,

Is Going Green Really Worth It? By Rick Mills

Posted on January 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

Many things look good until you see how much they cost. From Rick Mills at mishtalk.com:

That’s the question Rick Mills at “Ahead Of The Herd” addresses in his most recent column.

Ahead Of the Herd

Headlong Into Electrification

This is a guest post. Everything that follows is by Rick Mills and does not necessarily reflects my views.

I find the ideas presented by Mills to be well presented and worthy of consideration.

Damn the consequences, Rushing headlong into electrification, the West is replacing one energy master with another, says Rick Mills.

Emphasis in Italics Mine, Bolding His.

The United States and its allies, such as Canada, the UK, the European Union, Australia, Japan and South Korea, face a dilemma when it comes to the global electrification of the transportation system and the switch from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy.

On the one hand, we want everything to be clean, green and non-polluting, with COP26-inspired goals of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050; and several countries aiming to close the chapter on fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, including the United States which is seeking to make half of the country’s auto fleet electric by 2030.

Yet many of these same countries are continuing to go flat-out in their production of oil and natural gas — considered a bridge fuel between fossil fuels and renewables, wrongly imo, for environmental reasons — a/ because they want to be energy-independent; and b/ because they have to. Germany is a good example of a country that tried to switch too soon to renewable energy, retiring its nuclear and coal power plants, only to find that the wind and sun didn’t produce enough electricity. Germany is now having to rely on Russian natural gas and the burning of lignite coal to keep the lights on and homes/ businesses heated throughout the winter.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Economics, Economy, Energy, Environment, Governments, Politics, Propaganda, Science

Tagged ,

Robert Gore Interview With Texas TL In Excile

Posted on January 8, 2022 | 6 comments

I had a great interview with TL Davis Friday night. We talked about a variety of interesting and controversial issues, including economics, the obscene national debt, Covid, vaccines, foreign policy, tyranny, impending collapse, oil (TL has long experience in the oil patch), and writing (we’re both writers). Sorry the Rumble feed bleeds into the book links and I don’t know how to fix it, but you’ll still be able to enjoy the interview.

6 Comments

Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Energy, Financial markets, Foreign Policy, Government, History, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Tyranny

Tagged

The Lessons of I-95, by Eric Peters

Posted on January 7, 2022 | Leave a comment

What do you do when an EV’s battery runs down after an hour or two and you’re stranded for 12 to 20 hours in something like the recent I-95 nightmare. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

A few days ago, Virginia – home to this writer – was hammered by a sudden-onslaught blizzard that dumped almost a foot of snow along the I-95 corridor, the name we Virginians use to reference the stretch of Interstate 95 that runs from Richmond up to Northern Va, near DC – before it threads up the east coast to New York and beyond.

The snow was so fierce and heavy it paralyzed traffic on I-95, which became a kind of extended parking lot for much of the distance between Richmond and Northern Virginia, which is more than 100 miles.

Thousands of drivers were stuck inside their cars, for as long as 27 hours – which is more than one full day, if you’re counting. This is extremely inconvenient – as well as uncomfortable, assuming your car isn’t an RV with beds in the back and cable TV.

It could be something else – if your car happens to be electric.

EVs don’t like sudden, unplanned things – because they’re more likely to be not ready for them – since it takes them hours to charge, if not plugged in to a “fast” charger – and none of these are at home. You have to drive to where they are.

This is hard to do if you can’t drive to where they are.

Back-up electricity for EVs is also harder to store – and much less portable. If the power goes out because of a snowstorm and you have a five gallon jug of gas in the garage or shed, you can drive your car – your not-electric car – about 100 miles, easily, even if it’s a “gas guzzler.” Easy to find more gas along the way.

If the the power goes off and your energy hog EV (a Tesla carries around 1,000 pounds of battery pack, necessary to deliver the touted “ludicrous” speed) is empty, it will be harder to find a can of kilowatts.

Or go anywhere.

People who own EVs found out about these limitations during one of the regularly occurring hurricanes that hit Louisiana and the gulf area a few years back; many didn’t have the luxury of time to charge – in time to get away from the hurricane.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Collapse, Energy, Government

Tagged ,