Tag Archives: Renewable energy

Here’s Why the New Climate Agenda Could Lead to an Energy Crisis of Epic Proportions, by Chris MacIntosh

Posted on October 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

Markets smoothly make the transition from older products to new ones, governments do not. A lot of people may freeze if its a cold winter because governments are trying to force a transition to renewable energy sources that have serious disadvantages compared to what they’re supposed to replace. From Chris MacIntosh at internationalman.com:

energy crisis

We’re going to eliminate your food now so that you can eat something else in the future that we have not yet got available.

What could possibly go wrong? But that is what is effectively happening in the energy market.

“California energy regulators approved energy efficiency standards aimed at vastly expanding the use of electric appliances for space and water heating in new homes and businesses, in a shift away from using fossil fuels to heat and cool buildings.”

Congress is pushing to end all oil drilling in most US offshore waters, thwart potential mining in the western part of the country, and invest billions of dollars in conservation. This is a $31.7 billion measure, approved 24-13 by the House Natural Resources Committee, and would also impose new fees on oil and mining companies while “funding drought relief, conservation, and other programs.”

This sounds like a boondoggle if ever there was one.

It is now set to be folded into a broader multi-trillion-dollar “social reform and climate change bill” that is taking shape in the House.

I am quite sure they’ll slip this bill in under a seven-foot stack of paper, which all these pointy shoes will sign without even reading.

And we’ll march onwards towards a truly epic energy crisis.

They are pushing this agenda in what they are calling “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” to advance a bold, ambitious investment in the people of the United States.

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“The Revenge of the Fossil Fuels”, by James Rickards

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Sunshine and windpower are renewable, but they’re also intermittent and their technology is nowhere near to making them a replacement for fossil fuels. From James Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:

What have the climate alarmists been screaming about for the past 40 years or so? Their agenda is well-known. They want to close nuclear plants; shut down coal electric generators; eliminate natural gas and oil-fired electrical plants; and substitute wind, solar and hydropower in their place.

According to the fanatics, this substitution of renewable energy sources for so-called “fossil fuels” and uranium-powered plants would reduce CO2 emissions and save the planet from the existential threat of global warming.

Everything about this climate alarmist agenda is a fraud.

The evidence that the planet is warming is slight and the effect is likely temporary with global cooling in the forecast. The contribution of CO2 emissions to any global warming is not clear and is at best unsettled science and at worst another fraud.

Most importantly, global energy demand is growing much faster than renewables can come online, meaning that oil, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear energy will be needed whether renewables grow or not.

Wind and Solar Won’t Cut It

Wind turbines and solar panels cannot be the backbone of a modern energy grid because they are intermittent sources. Wind turbines require continual wind and solar panels require continual sunlight. Turbines don’t produce when the wind stops. Solar panels don’t produce at night or on cloudy days.

I have firsthand experience with this because I once built the largest off-grid noncommercial solar panel array in New England. You learn quickly to do laundry, run the dishwasher and use other high-energy electrical appliances on sunny days because you’ll need to conserve your batteries through the snow and rain.

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Green Policies Return the World to Coal, by Clarice Feldman

Posted on October 11, 2021 | 1 comment

Renewable energy is not yet ready for prime time, and mistakenly thinking that is has meant that coal, the dirtiest of energies, has had to pick up the slack. From Clarice Feldman at americanthinker.com:

There’s scarcely a place in the modern world that will not be feeling the high cost and discomfort of a shortage of energy supplies and their increasingly soaring prices. Lebanon already is. Due to a shortage of oil, the two power plants that supply 40% of that country’s electricity shut down. There is no electricity in Lebanon and will not be any for some days.

It’s an extreme case, but even the United Kingdom, the EU, the U.S., and China are running up against diminishing ability to obtain the necessary energy supplies to keep things running smoothly. Some of the shortages are due to accidents, like the cutting of an undersea cable to the UK, but most are due to green policies and stupid political choices, ironically shutting down oil and gas-fired power plants and fossil fuel exploitation and transport at the demand of the greens, who grossly overestimate both global warming and the ability of air, sun and water to take their place. Ironically, this means coal — the dirtiest possible fuel — is back in huge demand,

Despite an import ban on Australian coal, China relented and has begun unloading Australian coal because of an extreme power crunch. Coal is now in demand in Europe as gas prices soar and the EU’s energy policies are in large responsible:

The ideological split will drive a wedge between the European Union, a long-time champion of a coal phaseout, and corporate interests as market conditions favour gas-to-coal switching. The switching ratio has slid in coal’s favour in the last weeks of June 2021 and judging by the current futures structure, it will stay in place until at least Q2-2022 [snip] Given the natural limitations to further coal utilization, in Germany the main interaction in the upcoming weeks will be between coal and wind. Coal-fired electricity generation rose to multi-year highs in the first weeks of September when every single day saw wind generation only a fraction of its usual strength and speed. Now, the situation has changed somewhat as wind started blowing again, dropping hard coal generation to an average generation rate of 7.5-8 GWh, still some 30-35% higher than at this time of the year in 2020. Yet still, Germany’s travails are far from over, especially with December looming large on the horizon. According to preliminary plans, that month alone three nuclear plants will stop operating in Germany — Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen — with a combined (non-intermittent) capacity of 4 GW, representing the penultimate wave of nuclear phase-out closures before 2022 sees the last 3 reactors decommissioned. Such substantial capacity would need to be replaced with either coal or gas, with profitability skewed overwhelmingly towards the former. [snip]

The current coal demand surge should force the European Union to reconsider its position on coal — as polluting as it might be, it could still help alleviate energy crunches across Europe when the situation demands it. As things stand today, the upcoming four years would see at least seven countries phasing out coal: Portugal (2021), France (2022), UK (2024), Hungary, Italy, Ireland and Greece (all 2025). As Europe has seen nine consecutive year-on-year increases in aggregate coal burns, perhaps more switching flexibility and less bans could still be the way forward.

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The Energy Transition Will Take Decades Not Years, by Tsvetana Paraskova

Posted on October 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

You’re not just going to flip one switch off and one switch on and seamlessly shift economies and consumers from coal, gas, and oil to renewable energy. From Tsevetan Paraskova at oilprice.com:

  • With natural gas, coal, and oil prices all soaring this summer, it is clear that a successful energy transition will take decades not years
  • Some energy transition proponents may have confused Covid energy demand destruction with a change in consumer behavior
  • The truth is that an energy transition can only occur when clean energy can be provided both cheaply and reliably

This year’s global demand for all three fossil fuels has sent a message to overly enthusiastic proponents of the energy transition – hold your horses.

Those who predicted last year the demise of oil, gas, and coal after the pandemic and those who said that peak oil demand was already behind us because lasting changes in consumer behavior would reduce the use of crude are now facing reality.

Global oil demand is just a few months away from reaching pre-pandemic levels, while natural gas and coal demand have already exceeded the 2019 volumes.

Sure, international airline travel is still struggling because of COVID-related travel restrictions in place in many countries. But economies are bouncing back, industries are growing, and the world needs a lot of energy, once again.

Fossil Fuels Support Economic Growth

And fossil fuels continue to supply most of that energy and will do so for years to come. Last year’s slump in fossil fuel consumption is being erased, and those who expected oil, gas, and coal demand to never return to pre-COVID levels now know they were wrong.

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Europe’s Energy Crisis Presents A Real Danger, by Daniel Lacalle

Posted on October 5, 2021 | Leave a comment

Europe’s governments have created an energy crisis for Europe. A severe winter could be disastrous. From Daniel Lacalle at app.hedgeye.com:

Europe’s Energy Crisis Presents A Real Danger - AdobeStock 9699481

This week the wholesale price of electricity has exceeded the psychological barrier of 200 euros per megawatt hour in most countries of the European Union.

Although the daily price currently only affects 15% of the energy sold, since the rest is locked for almost twelve months since last winter at much lower prices, it is a sign of future risk. Thousands of contracts are going to have to be revised with huge price increases in the next three months when the locked contracts expire.

The price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has soared to $34/mmbtu delivered in December and January. In comparable energy terms it would be about $197 per barrel of oil equivalent, according to Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, the price of natural gas (NBP) has risen more than 200% in 2021.

The price of CO2 emission rights has increased more than 1,000% since 2017, and more than 200% in 2021. This concept, which is a hidden tax for which the governments of the European Union are going to collect more than 21 billion euros in 2021, adds to the inflationary spike.

These extraordinary tax revenues should be used to mitigate the price increases in consumer bills and avoid an energy crisis in Europe that will sink the recovery.

Two key factors explain the rise in energy prices and in both there is a responsibility of governments: The forced closure of the economy is a key factor to understand the damage generated in the supply chains, and the prohibition of investment in gas resources and abandoning nuclear in Germany has led to a more volatile and expensive energy mix in peak demand periods.

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Forget About Peak Oil – We Haven’t Even Reached Peak Coal Yet, by David Blackman

Posted on August 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

While the US government tries to tether its people and businesses to unreliable renewable energy, most of the rest of the world’s use of coal and oil continues to grow. From David Blackman at forbes.com:

Despite all the heavy dissemination of narratives and talking points about a “climate emergency” and the “energy transition” during 2021, the ongoing economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic proves that the world still heavily relies on fossil fuels to provide its constantly growing energy needs. Indeed, as the demand theory try in vain to revive their own always-wrong narrative, it now appears that the world has yet to even meet the peak of demand for the least environmentally friendly fuel of all, coal.

This is especially true in China, India and much of Asia, where thousands of coal-fired power plants have seen record usage levels in the face of a major heat wave this summer. Bloomberg week that China’s enormous demand for coal this summer has caused commodity prices to spike to the highest level seen in 2 months, briefly climbing above 900 yuan/ton (roughly $139.31 at current exchange rates) on Friday.

The global futures price for coal set a new record high in May as supplies ran low. Australian coal – China’s main international supplier – hit $150 per ton in July, the highest level seen since 2008. The demand is so high in China that it has even led to implementation of electricity rationing in some parts of the country as supplies run short.

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Arrogant Totalitarian Control, by Robert

Posted on March 16, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Biden administration intends to price fossil fuels out of the market in favor of renewables whose actual costs are higher than fossil fuels and lack fossil fuels’ benefits (e.g., they don’t stop working when the sun isn’t shining or the wind doesn’t blow). From Robert at iceagenow.com:

A war on reliable, affordable American energy – Increasing the cost of “fossil fuels” by 10 times, even 20 times (Gasoline at $30 a gallon? $60 a gallon?)

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“Within hours of taking office, President Biden resurrected the Obama era “social cost of carbon” Interagency Working Group – but with added directives that will easily let it concoct a final cost of $100, $150 or even $200 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel operations,” writes Paul Driessen.

“The new directives include other greenhouse gases and totally subjective and malleable “considerations of environmental justice and intergenerational equity.” Climate “scientists,” modelers, economists, “ethics experts” and of course “diverse stakeholders” will participate in the process. Skeptics of dangerous manmade climate chaos can wade in as well, but their input will likely be ignored and canceled.

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The Greening of the Grid Froze Texas, by Tom Luongo

Posted on February 25, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Texas fiasco demonstrates what happens when rational, market-driven energy policies give way to virtue signalling and political incompetence. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

Polar winds scream out of Canada in seeming revenge for Joe Biden canceling the Keystone XL pipeline.

Texas’ power grid collapsed as temperatures more likely in Sioux Falls than San Antonio roared in plunging more than 4 million people into darkness and without heat.

How can this have possibly happened in a place whose entire cultural identity revolves around producing energy?

Simple.

Texas’ deregulated energy market went green over the past decade. In the past ten years, according to the EIA, Texas retired more than 5,000 MW of coal-supplied power while spinning up more than that in windmills.

Wind produces the marginal, or last, megawatt in Texas, in this case the last 17%. Nuclear provides the first megawatt, less than 10%.

Natural Gas provides most of the megawatts.

One would think in a world which is getting hotter that putting windmills and solar panels would be a good idea.

I’m sure that’s what the CEO’s of all those energy providers across Texas thought as well. And our government at every level incentivized this. The cultural zeitgeist of ‘sustainability’ and ‘renewables’ overrode, as it always does, common sense.

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Oil and Debt: Why Our Financial System Is Unsustainable, by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on February 25, 2021 | 1 comment

Energy is and will always be the dominant variable. From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

How much energy, water and food will the “money” created out of thin air in the future buy?

Finance is often cloaked in arcane terminology and math, but the one dynamic that governs the future is actually very simple.

Here it is: all debt is borrowed against future supplies of affordable hydrocarbons (oil, coal and natural gas). Since global economic activity is ultimately dependent on a continued abundance of affordable energy, it follows that all money borrowed against future income is actually being borrowed against future supplies of affordable energy.

Many people believe that alternative “green” energy will soon replace most or all hydrocarbon energy sources, but the chart below shows why this belief is not realistic: all the “renewable” energy sources are about 3% of all energy consumed, with hydropower providing another few percent.

There are unavoidable headwinds to this appealing fantasy:

1. All “renewable” energy is actually “replaceable” energy, per analyst Nate Hagens: every 15-25 years (or less) much or all of the alt-energy systems and structures have to be replaced, and little of the necessary mining, manufacturing and transport can be performed with the “renewable” electricity these sources generate. Virtually all the heavy lifting of these processes require hydrocarbons and especially oil.

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Achtung Baby! (It’s Cold Outside) – Germany’s “Green” Energy Fail Rescued By Coal And Gas, by 21st Century Wire

Posted on February 10, 2021 | Leave a comment

Solar and wind power are great until the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, like during the dead of winter when demand for power skyrockets. From 21st Century Wire at 21stcenturywire.com:

Barely a week after Davos luminaries met with world leaders and Silicon Valley oligarchs to plot their latest phase of the Great Reset, the underlying provenance of their entire ‘climate emergency’ thesis is still struggling to correspond with reality.

Their much-celebrated “Zero Carbon” agenda which virtue-signaling leaders like Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden are currently advocating for – is proving to be a lot more difficult to achieve in reality than it is on their elaborate UN Agenda 2030 Powerpoint slides, computer modeled projections and Zoom calls.

No one is being hit with this sobering reality more than the Europe’s premier green trailblazer, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is currently in the grips of Europe’s record-breaking freeze this winter.

Stop These Things reports…


Germany’s held up as the world’s wind and solar capital. But, at the moment, the ‘green’ stuff can’t be purchased, at any price.

Its millions of solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice and breathless, freezing weather is encouraging its 30,000 wind turbines to do absolutely nothing, at all. [Note: don’t forget about the constant supply of electricity from the grid that these things chew up heating their internal workings so they don’t freeze up solid!]

So much for the ‘transition’ to an all wind and sun powered future – aka the ‘Energiewende’.

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