Green Energy / Climate Issues - Failures - Lies and Falsehoods
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The Beginnings of an All-Out Energy Catastrophe
Some congressional Democrats have actually reacted to the oil supply cut by explicitly calling for the insane idea of completely ceasing our military engagement with Saudi Arabia and propelling the kingdom into the arms of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And we’re not talking about “Squad” members but House members from swing districts, like Tom Malinowski of north-central New Jersey and self-styled “pro-business” moderate Susan Wild of Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
But maintaining engagement with the cradle of Islam, which for many years has been an invaluable ally to the United States against potential nuclear-armed terrorist state Iran, and encouraging the far-from-free and often morally objectionable Riyadh regime to continue on its slow if not dubious path of domestic moderation, is vital to the security of America and the free world. Just as we joined with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, we have to live in the real world and work with disreputable powers in opposing greater evils and real threats, particularly Iran.
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The United States, which defied the experts and became energy independent under Trump, has under Biden shown friend and foe in the world alike just how weak its international hand is. A presumed superpower that is at ideological war with its own domestic energy industry is in no position to negotiate anything with the world’s major oil suppliers. This president, upon taking office last year, scrapped the Keystone XL pipeline that was a few months away from transporting 800,000 barrels of oil a day into the United States. Soon thereafter he issued a series of executive orders obstructing all new oil and natural gas leases on government-held land. This administration has the ignoble distinction of having provided the fewest oil leases of any in the post-war period. It has abused the Defense Production Act of 1950, enacted to support the Korean War effort, to subsidize the production of solar panels.
We are already experiencing the highest inflation in four decades, with a recession already happening or about to. After pleading with and being rebuffed by an ally we called a murderer, we may now pivot and implore an outright enemy in South America to supply us with the U.S. economy’s lifeblood, which we could and should be supplying for ourselves. Biden has already depleted our emergency Strategic Petroleum Reserve by about 40 percent, down to 416 million barrels, its lowest level since 1984.
We have been led out onto thin economic ice, which could collapse beneath us given the wrong combination of conditions—say, a serious global oil shock raising the price-per-gallon into double digits, compounded by deep recession, the spread of Europe’s double-digit inflation to our shores, and some unforeseen military aggression abroad.
Experiencing that magnitude of disaster, few among the hordes of unemployed will find much mirth in the Biden gas pump stickers reminding them, “I did that.”
Energy Inflation Isn’t An Accident, It’s A Planned Demolition
Foremost among these is the steep decline in U.S. oil refinery capacity triggered when Covid lockdowns crushed demand but continued after the economy reopened. There has never been such a large fall in operable refinery capacity. Moreover, Gulf Coast refineries were operating at 97 percent of their operating capacity in June 2022. As Toomey remarks, “There isn’t any more blood to be squeezed out of this turnip.”
Toomey identifies five factors driving this decline in refinery capacity. EPA biofuel blending mandates impose crippling costs on smaller refineries. When conventional refineries are converted to processing biofuels, up to 90 percent of their capacity is lost.
Biofuel mandates cost consumers far more than federal excise taxes. Toomey demonstrates that the Biden administration’s claim that biofuel mandates protect consumers from oil-price volatility is totally false; biofuel prices, he writes, “are essentially indexed to the price of crude oil.”
Biden could order the reversal of the EPA’s retroactive biofuel threshold rules. That he has not done so demonstrates that the administration isn’t serious about making energy affordable again. High prices for fossil fuel energy are an intended part of the plan.
Corporate and Wall Street ESG policies are another factor driving refinery closures, especially of facilities owned by European oil companies to meet punishing decarbonization targets that will effectively end up sunsetting them as oil companies. If finalized as proposed, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate disclosure rules, with the strong support of the Biden administration, will heighten the vulnerability of U.S. oil and gas companies to climate activists and woke investors to force them to progressively divest their carbon-intensive activities, such as refining crude oil, and eventually out of the oil and gas sector altogether.
To these should be added aggressive federal policies aimed at phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles in favor of electric vehicles (EVs); an administration staffed from top to bottom by militants who believe that climate is the only thing that matters in politics; and an increasingly hostile political climate (“You know the deal,” Biden said of oil executives when campaigning for the presidency. “When they don’t deliver, put them in jail”).
Foremost among these is the steep decline in U.S. oil refinery capacity triggered when Covid lockdowns crushed demand but continued after the economy reopened. There has never been such a large fall in operable refinery capacity. Moreover, Gulf Coast refineries were operating at 97 percent of their operating capacity in June 2022. As Toomey remarks, “There isn’t any more blood to be squeezed out of this turnip.”
Toomey identifies five factors driving this decline in refinery capacity. EPA biofuel blending mandates impose crippling costs on smaller refineries. When conventional refineries are converted to processing biofuels, up to 90 percent of their capacity is lost.
Biofuel mandates cost consumers far more than federal excise taxes. Toomey demonstrates that the Biden administration’s claim that biofuel mandates protect consumers from oil-price volatility is totally false; biofuel prices, he writes, “are essentially indexed to the price of crude oil.”
Biden could order the reversal of the EPA’s retroactive biofuel threshold rules. That he has not done so demonstrates that the administration isn’t serious about making energy affordable again. High prices for fossil fuel energy are an intended part of the plan.
Corporate and Wall Street ESG policies are another factor driving refinery closures, especially of facilities owned by European oil companies to meet punishing decarbonization targets that will effectively end up sunsetting them as oil companies. If finalized as proposed, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate disclosure rules, with the strong support of the Biden administration, will heighten the vulnerability of U.S. oil and gas companies to climate activists and woke investors to force them to progressively divest their carbon-intensive activities, such as refining crude oil, and eventually out of the oil and gas sector altogether.
To these should be added aggressive federal policies aimed at phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles in favor of electric vehicles (EVs); an administration staffed from top to bottom by militants who believe that climate is the only thing that matters in politics; and an increasingly hostile political climate (“You know the deal,” Biden said of oil executives when campaigning for the presidency. “When they don’t deliver, put them in jail”).
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If they hadn't turned in all their guns they could have taken back their country and ended the stupidity.
Instead they'll suffer for it.
Green power firms face windfall tax to fund lower energy bills
Summary by Ground NewsBusiness secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg has launched plans for a cap on revenues of low-carbon electricity generators. It effectively amounts to a temporary windfall tax on the sector's profits.
Government plans cap on revenues of renewable energy firms
The Energy Prices Bill will be introduced in the commons on Wednesday to bring into law its plan to help households and businesses with soaring energy costs over the winter and beyond.
But late on Tuesday, the government revealed the bill would also seek to "sever the link between high global gas prices and the cost of low-carbon electricity" through a new temporary "cost-plus revenue limit" in England and Wales.
The government said the price of gas decides the price of electricity, so as gas prices soared over the last year, many of Britain's wind farms and solar farms were paid a lot more than normal for their products, even though their costs had not increased very much.
Renewable firms were "benefiting from abnormally high prices, while consumers are having to pay significantly more for energy generated from renewables and nuclear, even though they often cost less to produce", it said.
Democrats face a green energy fiasco
When the act became law, the Repeat Project estimated that the legislation could, by 2030, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 42% below 2005 levels.
However, that outcome depends on more than doubling the historical growth rate of electricity transmission in the U.S. Currently, electricity capacity grows at just over 1% per year. Even doubling the growth rate will not be adequate, according to the researchers at Project Repeat.
The $379 billion of green energy subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act will increase demand for the consumption of electric-powered vehicles, heat pumps, and other electrified goods. Electricity demand will increase. The supply of electricity must grow to meet demand. Democrats routinely enact policies to increase demand, but they ignore supply. Inflation and shortages follow. See, for example, the Affordable Care Act health reform law .
Increasing the growth rate of electricity transmission will not happen without comprehensive legislation on permitting reform. Moreover, the magnitude of the task to transform the U.S. economy can only be fully understood in the context of the land required for green energy projects. Consider that researchers say wind and solar expansion would require up to 590,000 square kilometers of land. That amount of land is larger than New England plus Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. That is big. It will not happen.
When the act became law, the Repeat Project estimated that the legislation could, by 2030, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 42% below 2005 levels.
However, that outcome depends on more than doubling the historical growth rate of electricity transmission in the U.S. Currently, electricity capacity grows at just over 1% per year. Even doubling the growth rate will not be adequate, according to the researchers at Project Repeat.
The $379 billion of green energy subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act will increase demand for the consumption of electric-powered vehicles, heat pumps, and other electrified goods. Electricity demand will increase. The supply of electricity must grow to meet demand. Democrats routinely enact policies to increase demand, but they ignore supply. Inflation and shortages follow. See, for example, the Affordable Care Act health reform law .
Increasing the growth rate of electricity transmission will not happen without comprehensive legislation on permitting reform. Moreover, the magnitude of the task to transform the U.S. economy can only be fully understood in the context of the land required for green energy projects. Consider that researchers say wind and solar expansion would require up to 590,000 square kilometers of land. That amount of land is larger than New England plus Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. That is big. It will not happen.
19-State Coalition Launching an Investigation into Six Major Banks Over Ties to UN Net-Zero Banking Alliance
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced today that his office and 18 other attorneys general served six major American banks with civil investigative demands. These demands act as a subpoena and seek documents relating to the banks’ involvement with the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), which is part of a trend toward environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. Missouri, Arizona, Kentucky, and Texas are leading the investigation,
The banks served with demands include Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. NZBA-member banks must set emissions reduction targets in their lending and investment portfolios to reach net zero by 2050. According to the NZBA’s governance document:
Europe now has a natural gas oversupply (if you include ships waiting to unload)
When Russia started playing with the gas supply, prices went way up but now the opposite is happening. Prices have dropped below $100 for the first time in months and there are lots of liquified natural gas tankers floating off the coasts of Europe waiting to unload.
Wind Farm Demolished For Coal Mine
The German coal mine Garzweiler, operated by energy company RWE, admits the situation appears to be "paradoxical" — sacrificing one energy source for another — but defended the decision as necessary to strengthen supplies amid the ongoing energy crisis, Oilprice.com reported.
"We realize this comes across as paradoxical," RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen said in a statement. "But that is as matters stand."
One of the wind farm’s eight wind turbines was dismantled last week, and two others are expected to be taken down next year. The remaining five turbines will be dismantled by the end of 2023, said a spokesperson for the company that builds and runs the wind farm.
RWE’s decision to expand into the Keyenberg wind farm, which is located in North Rhine-Westphalia, has drawn the ire of climate activists.
North-Rhine Westphalia’s ministry for economic and energy affairs repeatedly advocated against the destruction of the wind turbines.
"In the current situation, all potential for the use of renewable energy should be exhausted as much as possible and existing turbines should be in operation for as long as possible," a ministry spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week, according to the Guardian.
The German coal mine Garzweiler, operated by energy company RWE, admits the situation appears to be "paradoxical" — sacrificing one energy source for another — but defended the decision as necessary to strengthen supplies amid the ongoing energy crisis, Oilprice.com reported.
"We realize this comes across as paradoxical," RWE spokesperson Guido Steffen said in a statement. "But that is as matters stand."
One of the wind farm’s eight wind turbines was dismantled last week, and two others are expected to be taken down next year. The remaining five turbines will be dismantled by the end of 2023, said a spokesperson for the company that builds and runs the wind farm.
RWE’s decision to expand into the Keyenberg wind farm, which is located in North Rhine-Westphalia, has drawn the ire of climate activists.
North-Rhine Westphalia’s ministry for economic and energy affairs repeatedly advocated against the destruction of the wind turbines.
"In the current situation, all potential for the use of renewable energy should be exhausted as much as possible and existing turbines should be in operation for as long as possible," a ministry spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week, according to the Guardian.
Massachusetts offshore wind project "no longer viable"
A wind energy company named Avangrid has been in the process of developing a massive offshore wind farm called the Commonwealth Wind project, working with the support of the state of Massachusetts for several years. When completed, it was to be a 1,200-megawatt energy source. A second offshore project from Mayflower Wind was to produce an additional 400 megawatts. But now, the companies behind both of these projects have asked the state to put the plans on hold. The reason given was that the projects are “no longer viable” under the current conditions and they will be unable to move forward for the time being. But the reason for hitting the brakes has little to do with technology or weather and a great deal to do with the economy. (New Bedford Light)
As noted above, these wind farms aren’t being put on hold because the wind suddenly stopped blowing offshore. (Though that does happen from time to time.) Nor were the developers running into problems with their turbines, or at least no more than usual. As with so many things in American politics and the industrial sector… it’s the economy, stupid.
The problems being cited by the developers are no doubt familiar to almost all of you by now. They are describing global commodity price increases, sudden increases in interest rates, and supply chain woes that are slowing production and driving up costs. Declining labor force levels are adding additional concerns. All of these factors are combining to make the construction of the project unsustainable.
There’s an obvious bit of irony in seeing the same state and federal government actors who have pushed “green energy” down everyone’s throats sitting on this particular sideline. Those same people whose policies helped drive this collapse in the supply chain and the labor market, along with the spike in the prices of pretty much everything, are now watching as one of their signature “clean energy” achievements falls victim to the conditions they created.
Ooops.