Green Energy / Climate Issues - Failures - Lies and Falsehoods

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Cryptocurrencies are “mined” as computers operate “proof of work” algorithms that solve complicated mathematical problems, thereby earning new tokens. According to the letter — signed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and other lawmakers — the amount of power used to procure the coins now rivals the total annual energy usage of countries like Norway or Sweden, and may surpass the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions ascribed to electric cars.

The letter urges Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan to “require emissions and energy use reporting by cryptominers.”

“State and federal regulators currently know little about the scope of the problem. There is no national or state reporting requirement or compilation of the locations of cryptomining facilities in the United States, and no federal regulations specifically governing cryptomining,” the lawmakers explained. “Consequently, policymakers and the public do not have a comprehensive source of information about where these operations are located, how much energy they consume, and what their sources of energy are — and without the energy use and source reporting, there is a subsequent lack of data regarding the associated air emissions of pollutants or carbon dioxide.”




 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

Biden's quiet 'Green New Deal' in corporate America


ESG is more powerful than legislation because activists force behavior by cutting off necessary capital or insurance from disfavored companies and industries or using their influence to cancel those who don’t comport with their politics. This is happening in Utah.

The company that provides business insurance to a Utah-based power plant owned by cities in Utah and Nevada recently informed the company it will no longer insure the plant. The insurer has signed onto a net zero climate initiative originating in Europe. The insurance market for such power plants is highly consolidated, so there are not a lot of options.

Why did the insurer decide to stop providing insurance? Because the power generated is derived from coal. If we follow this to its natural conclusion, insurance companies committed to net zero climate initiatives have declared war on citizens of our state through the implementation of economic sanctions. If this agenda is successful and the activists and NGOs behind these actions can convince all insurance providers to play along, which many of them have, power will be shut off to large portions of the population.

ESG is coercive capitalism, the use of capital and insurance to drive a political agenda. S&P Global recently began publishing ESG ratings on states. The analysis includes ambiguous and open-ended categories such as how a state scores on "managing carbon," "political unrest stemming from community and social issues" and "adverse publicity that results in reputational risk." What other state historically has suffered more "adverse publicity…result[ing] in reputational risk" than Utah?

To our knowledge, such subjective criteria have not previously factored into borrowing costs. Utah has methodically and carefully managed revenues and debts over decades to maintain the best credit rating in the world, which allows the state to borrow money at the lowest rates in the market and save taxpayer dollars on necessary infrastructure projects. But that may not matter if organizations like S&P continue to publish a subjective political rating. Investors could point to an ESG rating and decide Utah is undeserving of the lowest market rates because we have the wrong policies. Beyond that, will we now have to coddle the press for fear of adverse publicity damaging our reputation and thereby hurting our borrowing costs?
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Most Americans are all for doing “something” about climate change but aren’t willing to pay very much to do it. If it’s a problem, it’s a global one. The U.S. cannot fix it alone. Every nation must participate. Some, like China, simply refuse and its use of coal is rising so fast that it wipes out any benefit the reduction of U.S. carbon emissions has had.

Most Americans don’t realize how reliant on China the Biden plan is. The hoped-for transition to producing electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar can’t happen without cheap Asian-made solar panels being allowed into the United States. Without them, the nation can look forward to rolling brownouts – which the White House would like to avoid in the coming summer months, causing it to move quickly to suspend the tariffs on them for two years, despite credible evidence of dumping.

Allowing Chinese-made solar panels and solar panels that use materials made and mined in China, probably by slave labor, into the U.S. marketplace because our government’s policies created a need for them is bad policy. The president’s use of the Defense Production Act to increase American-based solar panel production is a diversion, as Nick Iacovella, a senior vice president at the pro-manufacturing group Coalition for a Prosperous America inferred when he said, “You can’t say that you want to spur domestic production, and then allow the Chinese to continue to dump product, which is a direct threat and something that is working against increasing domestic production.”

What Biden wants and is doing takes U.S. energy resources off the board and stifles the innovations of producers working to supply Americans with cleaner, more affordable energy. Former Congressman Harold Ford, D-Tenn., got it right when he urged President Biden to “stop vilifying U.S. energy producers, many of which are leading the development of technologies to mitigate carbon emissions and make the transition to cleaner energy.”




 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

Dem Sen. Heinrich: ‘We’re Going to Solve Inflation with a Climate Bill’ and ‘Every Bill’ Should Deal with Climate


On Wednesday’s broadcast of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) argued that Democrats should say that “we’re going to solve inflation with a climate bill” and that in Congress, “we need to be doing climate all of the time now” and that “every bill we do, whether it’s an appropriations bill or whether it’s a policy bill,” should have climate provisions because “we’ve reached a point where our climate is truly at a tipping point. We’re losing this battle and losing control of the weather.”

Heinrich stated, “t really is our addiction to fossil fuels that is driving the out-of-control frustration and inflation that our constituents are feeling.”

He added, “And honestly, I think that every bill we do, whether it’s an appropriations bill or whether it’s a policy bill, we need to be doing climate all of the time now. Because as you’ve seen from not only Texas, the southwest, Europe, we’ve reached a point where our climate is truly at a tipping point. We’re losing this battle and losing control of the weather. And we need to be acting with every single opportunity, whether that’s the administration, whether that’s Congress, whether that’s state and local leadership.”

Heinrich further stated that “inflation is also a critical, critical issue. And we need to connect the dots and say, well, we’re going to solve inflation with a climate bill that is going to bring down the cost of energy for consumers and switch us over to cleaner, cheaper sources of energy.” And that “the solution to many of our inflationary issues really is some of the policies that are in that climate bill.”
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Instead, we have a new class of globalist elites who believe that they should control the planet and the lives of everyone on it. Economically secure and politically independent people are difficult to control, so we find ourselves in a situation where our economic security and our political independence are being threatened by those who have made their fortunes in the system they now seek to undermine.


There is no security without food. Global efforts to control farmland and farming, therefore, are creating worldwide worries.

Protests have erupted in the Netherlands in response to "green" regulations to reduce nitrogen emissions, which come mostly from farmers, by half. (Similar regulations imposed in Sri Lanka destroyed that country's agricultural output and its economy.) The Dutch government has stated that "there (will not be) a future for all farmers" to continue to operate, and EU politicians are calling for a certain percentage of farms to be closed or sold. "Solidarity" protests are now taking place in Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain.

China owns more than $2 billion in U.S. farmland. Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest private owner of farmland in the United States, with more than 270,000 acres. Just this month, he acquired another 2,100 acres of farmland in North Dakota. The purchase was originally blocked, but the state's attorney general ultimately permitted the sale to go through because the farmland "will be leased back to farmers."




 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
The protest was staged at the Uffizi Galleries where the 10-foot tall painting is housed alongside other works by the 15th-century artist. A trio of demonstrators arrived with a sign reading, in Italian, “Last Generation, No Gas No Coal,” police said. One activist helped hold the banner while the other two attached themselves to the 540-year-old masterpiece. All three were reportedly members of a protest group called “Ultima Generazione,” which translates to “Last Generation.”

No damage was done to the painting. Its protective covering was installed several years ago.

The protesters, two women and one man, were all Italian. They were arrested and told not to return to Florence until 2025.



 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
🔥 Yesterday, ZeroHedge ran a story headlined, “Germans Taking Fewer Showers In Response To Cost Of Living Crisis.” It should have read, “Germans Take Fewer Showers as Sacrifice for Elite’s Russia Sanctions.”

A Bild newspaper poll found the majority of Germans are getting smellier by the minute: 62% of respondents said they’d recently reduced their time in the shower, and are also showering less often. Almost half of the respondents (45%) said they were preparing for a difficult winter, like stocking up on firewood, or buying wood-burning stoves and generators.

Earlier this month, Hamburg’s environmental minister warned Germans about mandates if they don’t get their energy usage down voluntarily: hot water could be rationed, and maximum room temperatures could be set by the government. Another minister said Germans should just try turning off the heat and wearing sweaters.

Frans Timmermans, European Commission vice-president, recently suggested EU citizens should “support Ukraine” and help Russia sanctions by taking fewer showers, by not driving their cars, and by airing their clothes out instead of washing them. I’m not making that up.

Remember, Germany is in the midst of a heat wave.





It’s a very sweaty time in Germany right now. No showers? Just “air out” clothes? It must be a European thing.

Earlier this month, Summit News ran a related story headlined, “Germany’s Largest Residential Landlord to Impose Heating Rationing For Tenants.”

That would be illegal in the United States. Just saying.

The article says Germany’s largest residential landlord — which owns a half-million properties — has notified tenants it will impose energy rationing this winter, which will automatically cut tenants’ heating at night, because of falling gas imports from Russia.

Heater temperatures will be strictly limited to a maximum of 62 degrees.

So. No showers, no heating. These Ukraine sanctions are really teaching the Germans a lesson they won’t forget!

 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

US Postal Service Set to Make 40 Percent of New Mail Trucks Electric


The Pollution Myth​

The push to make USPS adopt electric cars is based on the assumption that electric vehicles are more environmentally-friendly than combustion engine vehicles. Multiple studies have shown this to be false.

In a 2018 article for Politico, Jonathan Lesser, the president of Continental Economics, revealed that newer combustion engine vehicles tend to be “really clean” when compared to old ones.

“Today’s [combustion engine] vehicles emit only about 1 percent of the pollution than they did in the 1960s, and new innovations continue to improve those engines’ efficiency and cleanliness,” Lesser wrote.

After taking into consideration the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s projected number of new electric vehicles, Lesser found that the net reduction in CO2 emissions between 2018 and 2050 will only be “about one-half of one percent of total forecast U.S. energy-related carbon emissions.” This is a change so small that it will have “no impact whatsoever” on climate, Lesser asserts.

A 2020 study by Michael Kelly (pdf), the emeritus Prince Philip professor of technology at the University of Cambridge, found that if the UK were to replace all its combustion engine vehicles with electric vehicles, the country will need almost twice the annual global production of cobalt, almost the entire world’s neodymium, over 50 percent of the world’s 2018 copper production, and three-quarters of the global output of lithium carbonate.

If all vehicles in the world were to be electrified, it would need such a large output of raw materials that even exceeds the known reserves of these materials. The environmental impact of mining these materials on such a large scale, some of which are toxic, would be massive.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
A recent report by CRES Forum cited data showing Russian gas transported via pipeline to Europe has 41% higher greenhouse gas emissions than U.S. liquified natural gas to Europe, even taking into account the emissions produced by shipping the material.

Just this week, the Institute for Energy Research released a new report arguing that, when correcting for various errors in how greenhouse gas emissions are currently calculated, oil produced in California has lower emissions than foreign crude oil imports, including from places such as Iraq, Ecuador, and Saudi Arabia.

A few weeks earlier, the World Bank published data showing the U.S. has made great strides in reducing flaring, which is the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction. Biden has said he wants to end the practice by 2030.

The U.S. has seen a 46% reduction in flaring intensity, the volume of gas flared per barrel of oil produced, over the past decade and last year was better than almost every country at limiting it, according to the World Bank data.



 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

The Battery That Will Make Fossil Fuels & Nuclear Power A Thing Of The Past



It seems mad that in this day and age, we are still digging up oil and burning it for power. This archaic method not only destroys the planet, it is also expensive and has even kickstarted wars. But a recent innovation could make fossil fuels, and even some next-gen power sources, completely obsolete by making solar and wind far cheaper and greener. Welcome to the miraculous world of the CO² battery.

Firstly, what is a CO² battery?

Well, it is a system that stores energy by changing the state of carbon dioxide in a closed loop. When the battery is discharged, it is just a massive dome filled with atmospheric pressure carbon dioxide. To charge it, the carbon dioxide is pumped out of the dome and compressed, which heats it up. The heat is removed and stored in a device known as a TES (Thermal Energy Storage), which turns the carbon dioxide into a cold, dense liquid that is then stored in tanks. Now energy is stored as heat in the TES and as pressure in the liquid carbon dioxide tanks.

Discharging the battery is a two-step process. Firstly, the tanks are opened, which releases the high-pressure liquid carbon. As the carbon exits the tank, the pressure drops, which causes it to transition back into a gas and rapidly expand. This gas is then passed through the TES, where it is heated and expands even further. This double expansion creates colossal pressure, which is channelled through a turbine that spins a generator and makes electricity. The now atmospheric pressure carbon dioxide is then pumped back into the dome, ready for the battery to be charged again.




Sounds like a Perpetual Motion Machine
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member

‘You Will Own Nothing, And Like It’ — The Real ‘Clean Energy’ Future



“Mining has been called the ‘blind spot’ of the green energy transition,” Yeh writes. “On land, it has been associated with biodiversity loss, overuse of water resources, tailings waste, labor, and geopolitical issues.”

The stuff also can be mined from the ocean, but more than 100 environmental groups are opposed to deep-sea mining and more than 653 marine science and policy experts from over 44 countries have called for a moratorium on it because of the harm it would cause.


So, if raping the earth and ravaging the seas to get the minerals needed for “clean energy” are off the table, what’s left?

Ah, the global elites have the answer!

Just get everyone to give up ownership of their cars, cell phones, and other stuff that needs power to operate. If we all shared the stuff, we’d need less of it.

“More sharing can reduce ownership of idle equipment and thus material usage,” Yeh says.

Other leftists have been singing the same song. Late last year, a transport minister in the United Kingdom declared that we had to move away from “20th-century thinking centered around private vehicle ownership and towards greater flexibility, with personal choice and low carbon shared transport.”

Of course, getting people to give up their cars for the “good of the planet” won’t be easy.

And so, “to enable a broader transition from ownership to usership, the way we design things and systems need to change too,” the article says. “Introducing more of these circular models requires significant effort and changes to our current way of life.” (Emphasis added.)

(We are quite certain that the sharing part would apply only to the hoi polloi, not the elites who populate organizations like World Economic Forum.)

We can’t be the only ones who read things such as this and wonder What. Is. The. Bloody. Point??

Even if the left’s “clean energy” vision were to become a reality, the impact on global temperatures would be negligible, if there was any impact at all.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Ok, read a few more articles - and I walk back a bit. The CO2 used is a closed system - it doesn't consume or release CO2 anymore than a lead battery consumes or releases lead.

So I misunderstood the use of CO2, which really doesn't add or subtract anything from the environment significantly. It's not a scrubber. And it clearly needs an exterior source of energy to compress the CO2 and later, to heat it back up. It is interesting, but no more than simply using excess energy at a plant to store compressed - well, anything, hydrogen, AIR, whatever.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
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