Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Following The Science?

On Friday, Just the News posted an article about some recent comments by Representative. Cori Bush, D-Mo, about the causes of recent problems with the American electric grid.

The article reports:

A House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing Tuesday examined threats to the security and reliability of the U.S. electricity grid, which can lead to more blackouts.

While reliability assessments regularly find that increased reliance on wind and solar, increased demand from electrification, an underbuilt electrical delivery network, and rapid retirements of on-demand generators are creating an increased risk of blackouts, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., ranking member of the subcommittee, instead blamed other sources of the problem, namely, white supremacy. She also threw in “climate change” for good measure.

The article notes:

Fallon (Pat Fallon, R-Texas, chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs) also talked about threats from cyberattacks by “foreign adversaries” meant to cripple the grid. “It’s critically important for Congress to engage in serious discussions to identify the risks to this reliability and safeguard our grid against threats,” Fallon said.

He said many of these risks are caused by the federal government, including the attempts to get rid of all fossil fuels, which he said are needed for providing consistent power generations. He also pointed to regulations that are increasing demands on the grid, including more electrification of appliances and heat, as well as electric vehicle mandates.

Bush, in her opening statement, argued that the problems of electricity reliability were unrelated to wind and solar. Fossil fuels, Bush said, were the problem, and they were especially harming non-white people.

“Decades of pollution and overuse and over reliance on fossil fuels have disproportionately harmed black and brown communities in St. Louis, and throughout the world,” Bush said.

If we truly want to know what the problem is with our electric grid, we only have to look to Germany and Spain–both countries attempted to build an energy infrastructure based solely on green energy, and both countries discovered that was not possible. The sun does not shine all of the time, and the wind does not blow all of the time. Reliable back-up sources of energy are needed. It is time to take an honest look at natural gas and nuclear energy as the path forward to lowering pollution. It is also time to acknowledge that although America needs to make an effort in the direction of cleaner energy, until China and India stop building coal plants, our efforts are insignificant.

Public Safety vs. Green Energy

On Sunday, The New York Post posted an article about the number of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries from e-bikes in the last two months.

The article reports:

FDNY Chief Fire Marshal Daniel Flynn told The Post that fires related to lithium-ion batteries have gone up nearly nine-fold since the pandemic, with more blazes related to the batteries happening in the last two months than in all of 2019.

“It’s the prevalence of these e-devices on our streets, there’s way more of them now than ever before,” Flynn said.

The fire chief attributed the popularity of the e-bikes and scooters to the “gig economy” boom in 2020, which saw people purchase the devices on the cheap-side in droves to do delivery jobs.

He added that the vehicles have also become popular among commuters.

“People bought these devices some three years ago, and now they’re aging,” he said, noting that many don’t know the dangers caused by the wear-and-tear on the batteries’ energy cells.

“We’ve seen people try to fix it or modify it themselves, go to shops from unauthorized vendors or take it on themselves to replace the old batteries,” he added. “We tell people not to go with the cheapest option and seek out the manufacturer directly.”

It’s this improper maintenance and defects from older models that have caused a number of blazes related to lithium-ion batteries to soar, according to the FDNY.

While there were only 30 fires related to the batteries in 2019, the number more than tripled by 2021, with 104 fires reported. That year also saw four fatalities, while no one was reported to have died from the blazes in 2019 or 2020.

Part of the problem is the use of improper replacement batteries:

FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh vowed in February to continue cracking down on businesses that offer to replace individual battery cells from old ones, a fire code violation that creates what she called “Frankenstein batteries.”

“They kill people, they have killed people and they will kill more people if businesses continue to operate in this manner,” Kavanagh said.

But while New York has pushed businesses and consumers to follow new UL standards for the batteries, Flynn noted that there was little the city could do about older units coming in from other states that do not require such regulations.

I think the technology needs some work.

Recognizing The Major Problems In The Environmental Movement

On Wednesday, Stream posted an article by a former environmentalist listing five reasons why he gave up “green policies.”

Here is the list:

Failed Climate Change Predictions

Science is about accurate prediction. If Newton’s theory had failed to predict how apples fall, then it would be useless.

Few scientists have been as bad at this (basic) job as climate scientists. In one of the most comical episodes I’ve ever seen, climate scientists erected signs in Glacier National Park predicting its glaciers would be gone in 2020 — only to be forced to leave the signs after the predictions proved false. For a year, tourists to the park were met with a monument to the legacy of climate science: They stood looking simultaneously at glaciers … and the sign that promised, on the good authority of climate science, that the glaciers were not there.

Where Did the Wild Spaces Go?

Thoreau said of nature: “We need the tonic of wildness.” Thoreau was right about me at least. One of my primary motives for being an environmentalist was that I believed natural wild spaces were good for the soul.

…And that brings us to wind farms. I hate wind farms. They kill birds and destroy forest habitats. The blades are made of materials that fill waste dumps and can’t be recycled. They require lithium batteries that have to be mined with methods that create the very kinds of problems the “clean energy” movement is supposed to solve.

Politics Over Facts

Speaking of facts: The relationship between science and politics only works when the causal arrow between them goes from scientific facts to politics.

Bullying Over Debate

One of the clear signs that a movement is rotten is when it resorts to silencing its opponents rather than debating them. The modern “green” movement contains the worst set of bullies I’ve ever seen; indeed, they serve as primary fodder for my forthcoming book called Liberal Bullies.

Lack of a Cost/Benefit Analysis

Even at the height of my pro-environmentalist sentiment, I wasn’t opposed to all oil drilling. I know we need energy; I use it every day. I just wanted moderation that purposefully preserved a significant amount of wild nature. Well, across the board, the green movement increasingly just bludgeons us with simple-minded ideas that ignore the obvious costs of their policies.

Keep in mind that list comes from someone who at one time supported the green energy movement. It’s time for the rest of the supporters of the movement to wake up.

 

Many Europeans See The Threat

Farmers in Europe are fighting the restrictions that the World Economic Forum are attempting to impose of them in the  name of climate change. The protests have now spread to France.

Breitbart reported Monday:

Kicking off the “Siege of Paris” on Monday, thousands of farmers took to their tractors in a coordinated attempt to block off entrances to the French capital in protest against globalist green policies they say are destroying their ability to stay in business.

In an escalation of the latest example of popular uprisings that have come to define President Macron’s tenure in office, farmers descended in their tractors to shut down major highways leading into Paris on Monday following a week of similar protests throughout the country.

According to the Le Figaro newspaper, farmers successfully enacted blockades on eight major highways, with tractors lined up for tens of kilometres around the ring road surrounding Paris. In total 16 highways and 30 administrative departments around the city were impacted by the demonstrations on Monday, while separate farmer uprisings continued in at least 40 other locations throughout the country.

Requiring farmers to kill their cattle and the farm in certain ways limits our food supply. A hungry populace is easier to control–if you don’t agree with what the government is doing, they will decrease your food allowance.

The article also notes:

In addition to targeting Paris, at least 80 tractors enacted a blockade of the A7 highway and elsewhere outside Lyon, where local farmers have also spoken of a “siege” of the city.

“A siege normally lasts a long time, we are not specialists in blocking but we will maintain it for as long as it takes,” said the head of the regional branch of the FNSEA union Michel Joux. “There is palpable tension and exceptional motivation.”

Critical roads leading into Marseille, including the A7 and A55 motorways were subject to “snail operations” local officials said, adding that the A50 is “currently at a complete standstill”.

The battle between agriculture and green agenda proponents is set to become a key issue in the upcoming European Union Parliament elections in June, with farmers and rural communities rising up in France, Germany, Poland, Romania and previously in the Netherlands over green regulations, which they claim have become too much to handle on top of the rising cost of fuel and inflation.

Green energy has never been about keeping the planet clean–it has always been about control.

The Problems With Electric Vehicles Are Becoming Obvious

WITN posted an article on Wednesday about the impact of the current cold snap on electric cars.

The article reports:

OAK BROOK, Ill. (WLS) – Tesla drivers in the Chicago-area are complaining about charging stations not working due to the extreme cold, leaving them with dead batteries.

Many Tesla owners were stranded Monday with dead batteries from the cold and not enough working charging stations at a location in Evergreen Park, Illinois. For most of the day, the temperatures were expected to be below zero with wind chills from -25 to -35 degrees.

“Our batteries are so cold it’s taking longer to charge now. So, it should take 45 minutes, [but] it’s taking two hours for the one charger that we have,” said Tesla owner Brandon Welbourne. “I have seen at least 10 cars get towed away from here because the cars, they died, they’ve run out of battery.”

In nearby Oak Brook, some drivers who went looking for a charge waited hours.

“Right from outside the highway, there’s a whole line of cars, over 20 cars, all Tesla cars … and every single car is a Tesla in this whole parking lot,” said Tesla driver Sajid Ahmed. “We’re waiting and waiting for over an hour. It’s unfortunate that these cars are sitting dead in the spots.”

For many drivers, it was too late. Their cars died during the long wait, and they had to leave their vehicles stranded and wait for the stations to get up and running again.

We should also note that charging an electric vehicle is not the five minute process that filling up your gas tank is–in cold or hot weather. Green energy is a nice theory. However, until we perfect it, we really shouldn’t encourage drivers in parts of the country where the weather is extremely cold to invest in electric cars.

The Consequences Of Going Green

The following post appeared on Twitter on Sunday:

Green energy is a great theory. However, in extreme conditions, it may not be useful and may even result in death. Let’s balance windmills and solar panels with reliable backup energy sources so that people can stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Tell Us Something Without Actually Telling Us Something

Recently WWAYTV3 in Wilmington, North Carolina, reported that Hertz is cutting back on its rental of electric vehicles.

The article reports:

Hertz, which has made a big push into electric vehicles in recent years, has decided it’s time to cut back. The company will sell off a third of its electric fleet, totaling roughly 20,000 vehicles, and use the money they bring to purchase more gasoline powered vehicles.

Electric vehicles have been hurting Hertz’s financials, executives have said, because, despite costing less to maintain, they have higher damage-repair costs and, also, higher depreciation.

“[C]ollision and damage repairs on an EV can often run about twice that associated with a comparable combustion engine vehicle,” Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr said in a recent analyst call.

And EV price declines in the new car market have pushed down the resale value of Hertz’s used EV rental cars.

“The MSRP declines in EVs over the course of 2023, driven primarily by Tesla, have driven the fair market value of our EVs lower as compared to last year, such that a salvage creates a larger loss and, therefore, greater burden,” Scherr said.

Simply put, people are generally willing to pay a certain amount less for a used car than for a new one. As the price of new car goes down, that also pushes down what people are willing to pay to buy a used one.

As of now, electric cars are not the answer to green energy. There are serious ethical questions about the mining of the lithium that is used to make the batteries, and there are safety issues–don’t try to evacuate from a hurricane in an electric car if the puddles you are driving through contain salt water–that can cause the car to ignite. Iceland successfully uses hydrogen as fuel for its busses. There are other options for cutting pollution than electric cars.

Irony

On Saturday, Just the News posted the following headline:

UN climate confab may have largest carbon footprint in event’s history, more than 400 jets

Aren’t those the people who want us to drive mini electric cars and eat bugs?

The article reports:

The upcoming United Nations (UN) climate conference in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), known as COP28, appears likely to have a larger carbon footprint than any previous UN climate change summit.

More than 70,000 people are expected to show up to COP28, about 25,000 more people than last year’s summit, COP27. The conference, which runs from Nov. 30 through Dec. 12, will focus on global strategies to reduce emissions and accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels in favor of green energy.

About 40,000 people attended COP26 in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland,  while nearly 45,000 people attended the 2015 summit in Paris, France, where the Paris Climate Accords were signed.

Conference attendees have drawn scrutiny in previous years for traveling to and from the event in private jets while lecturing on the importance of reducing emissions. Notably, a luxury concierge service has been offering to arrange private jet charters ahead of this year’s conference.

In addition to flying in and out of the UAE, many attendees will also stay in high-end hotels and have access to “environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, delicious and nutritious food and beverage,” according to COP28’s website.

On October 16, 2021, Zero Hedge posted the following headline:

UN Climate Change Conference Reportedly Using Diesel Generators To Charge Teslas Being Used As Shuttles

Some highlights of that article are posted here.

The article also notes:

One of the key issues to be discussed at COP28 is the shape of a so-called “loss and damages” fund, a de facto international climate reparations program. Special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry recently suggested that the U.S. will pay “millions” into the fund, a number that many activists and representatives of poorer countries find to be inadequate. China is unlikely to have any significant obligations to the fund because it is classified as a developing country, despite its status as the world’s top emitter and second-largest economy.

If you have not yet figured out that the purpose of climate change is to take money away from the countries that have it and give it to China and other ‘developing’ countries, you have not been paying attention.

Has Anyone In Washington Actually Read The U.S. Constitution?

On Saturday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

Biden invokes emergency wartime powers to boost heat pump production with $169M in federal funds in administration’s latest push to replace gas appliances

  • Biden will fund nine manufacturers with $169 million from last year’s climate bill
  • Funding is the first under emergency authority on the basis of climate change
  • Biden is using the powers under Defense Production Act to boost green energy

There is no reason to use emergency powers because of climate change. The first question here is how much money did these nine manufacturers pay Joe Biden or his family recently? It also should be noted that heat pumps are not efficient in temperatures below 40 degrees. We had a heat pump in our first house in North Carolina and on the rare occasions that the temperature dropped below 40 degrees, the house was cold and we had to resort to small portable heaters. There is no way that this is better for the environment than gas heat. Where does the Biden administration think that electricity comes from?

The article reports”

President Joe Biden will use special wartime powers to boost US production of heat pumps, by funding nine manufacturing projects with $169 million from last year’s climate bill, the Energy Department said on Friday.

The awards were granted under the emergency authority of the Cold War-era Defense Production Act (DPA), which Biden invoked on the basis of climate change to boost spending on clean energy technology. 

‘The President is using his wartime emergency powers under the Defense Production Act to turbocharge US manufacturing of clean technologies and strengthen our energy security,’ said Biden’s National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi in a statement.

Heat pumps can heat and cool homes and businesses more efficiently using thermal transfer, which moves heat from one area to another, rather than generating new heat.

President Biden’s wartime powers do not apply in this case, and I hope either Congress slaps him down or that a court case is quickly put together to stop this nonsense.

This Green Energy Thing Just Isn’t Working

On Friday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the current state of green energy.

The article reports:

Wind and solar are both terrible methods of generating electricity, both expensive and unreliable. The one thing that can make the situation worse is the drive to electrify everything, including motor vehicles. The impracticality of this “green” vision has become blindingly obvious, and the “green” movement has begun to fall apart.

The article cites a few recent articles on the subject.

From the Telegraph: “Electricity prices ‘must rise by 70pc to pay for more wind farms.’”

No new wind farms will be built off Britain’s shores unless the Government lets operators earn more money from the electricity they produce, the chief of the nation’s biggest generator has said.

Tom Glover, country chair of RWE’s UK arm, said the price offered by the Government to wind farm operators must rise by as much as 70pc to entice companies to build.
***
His warning follows the disastrous result of the last offshore wind allocation round in September, which ended in a humiliation for ministers with not one company offering to build new offshore wind farms.

From Robert Bryce: “Ford Lost $62,016 For Every EV It Sold In 3Q.”

The bloodbath in Ford Motor Company’s EV division continues. On Thursday, Ford reported an operating loss of $1.3 billion in its EV division during the third quarter. That translates into a loss of $62,016 for each of the 20,962 EVs it sold during the period.

That’s a smaller loss than the company recorded in the second quarter, when it lost $72,762 for each EV and the $66,446 it lost per EV during the first quarter.
***
In its October 26 press release, Ford provided an additional comment on the EV losses, saying, “According to the company, many North America customers interested in buying EVs are unwilling to pay premiums for them over gas or hybrid vehicles, sharply compressing EV prices and profitability.” …

That’s a truth bomb of the first order, one to which veteran observers of the EV hype should rightly reply, “ya think?” Consumers, that is, consumers who aren’t part of the Benz and Beemer crowd, have been unwilling to pay premiums for EVs throughout the century-long history of the EV business. The question that Ford shareholders should be asking the company’s management, and CEO Jim Farley in particular, is obvious: “What the hell took you so long to recognize that customers aren’t willing to pay high prices for EVs?”

I don’t know if I can ever forgive Ford for what it did to the Mustang!

This is what happens when the government interferes in the free market.

Always Follow The Money

If green energy is so good for the planet, how come it is killing whales and enslaving children in Africa? Seems like a fair question.

On Tuesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about a new proposed green energy project.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden wants to shrink a Pacific Ocean marine sanctuary meant to protect endangered whales in order to accommodate offshore wind energy factories—one of them owned by a major Democratic donor.

What a coincidence.

The article continues:

The Biden administration late last month proposed cutting about 1,400 square miles of ocean and coastline from an Indian tribe’s proposed national marine sanctuary to make room for wind turbine infrastructure. One of these factories would belong to Invenergy, whose founder and CEO Michael Polsky has given more than $400,000 to Democrats since 2016. His company shelled out $2.4 million to lobby the White House, federal agencies, and Congress this year.

The proposal reflects a conflict between efforts to fight climate change and those to preserve natural habitats. The Biden administration’s proposal would benefit green energy companies and generate renewable energy, but environmental groups have sounded the alarm on such projects noting that they kill birds and whales—the very wildlife that the marine sanctuary seeks to preserve. The proposal also reflects the green energy industry’s status as a major player in the Democratic Party. Biden has invested billions of taxpayer dollars into renewable energy projects backed by liberal billionaires, enriching them in the process.

Polsky’s major contributions from the past several years include a total of $72,000 to the House Democrats’ campaign committee in 2020 and 2022, and $35,500 to the Democratic National Committee in 2016—the same year he poured $75,000 into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Polsky has also donated to Republicans and Invenergy’s political campaign committee, but of the roughly $500,000 he has contributed to political causes since 2016, more than $400,000 has gone to Democrats according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

Sorry, green energy is a scam. Until the government gets out of the way and allows the free market to sort out the science, green energy will be a very expensive and political boondoggle. The current technology in green energy is reminiscent of the search for a perpetual motion machine. We haven’t found one yet.

A New Definition Of Security

On Saturday, Just the News posted an article about a recent statement made by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The article reports:

Praising Biden’s historic green energy funding and 100% clean electricity goal by 2035, Granholm said “With all this electrification, we could slash our net crude oil imports by almost 60%, and that strengthens energy security.”

Granholm, who appeared with Vice President Kamala Harris also said Harris “has been amazing inside the White House as the champion for clean energy.” 

One of the most common critiques of Biden’s green agenda is that it has thus far achieved the opposite of energy security. Regulators claimed in May that more than 66% of the country is vulnerable to summer blackouts because of “new environmental rules” cracking down on fossil fuels. 

The regulators explained that the government is causing a spike in energy demand at a pace faster than renewables can match.

I don’t have a problem with cutting crude oil imports–if we open up American drilling and regain energy independence, we can be a net exporter of oil again. The world economy is based on oil. It is the commodity that fuels our manufacturing, our transportation, enables trade, and makes the lives of people who live in countries with ample energy much more pleasant. A number of European countries have switched away from green energy because they discovered that it could not meet the energy needs of their population.

The article also notes:

Center for Industrial Progress President and founder Alex Epstein wrote that “Joe Biden’s escalating bans on domestic fossil fuel production, combined with mandates of unreliable solar and wind overwhelmingly produced by unreliable China, are an existential threat to our energy security and therefore our national security.”

This isn’t the first time Granholm has made this claim. In April, she also stated of her trip to Japan that Biden’s green agenda will “address how the acceleration of the clean energy transition will help strengthen global energy security.”

Green energy is the modern equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. It’s a great idea, but I suspect that it will always remain just slightly out of reach.

Protection From Climate Variations

Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D

As I wrote in prior articles, the evidence that man’s use of fossil fuels is the cause of climate change/variations is very weak to non-existent. The climate has always varied due to natural causes unrelated to man’s activities. Given these facts, the question becomes how can mankind continue to protect itself from these naturally occurring climate variations? Let’s examine some options.

Can mankind protect itself from climate impacts? Absolutely. Thanks to fossil fuels we have already been doing so. For instance, in 1920 it is estimated that over 500,000 people died worldwide from negative climate impacts. By 2020, that total was reduced to 11,000. Amazing what human innovation can accomplish when given free rein! Nature is indifferent to the survival of mankind and presents many threats to our existence such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, viruses, bacteria, etc. besides climate variations. The Marxist climate extremists, so-called “greenies”, would have us believe that nature is benign and not a threat to mankind’s survival. All we have to do us “commune” with nature and all will be well. How naive! It is though they believe that all man-made things are bad and that naturally occurring things are good. The truth is that mankind’s survival and success in prospering is due to our ability to over-come the threats presented by the natural world.

Let me give you a personal example. For several years, I lived on a small farm that had several apple trees. Never having lived on a farm, l thought that in the Fall the trees would be loaded with nice juicy apples. In reality, each Summer, hordes of beetles would descend on the trees and practically denude them of foliage. Diseases also appeared as well as worms that marred the apples. Without modern insecticides and disease protection apple production as we know it would not occur. Without machines powered by fossil fuels, and fertilizers, overall global food production could not meet the needs of the global population

Overcoming the harsh realities of nature, requires abundant and inexpensive energy sources and allowing the human mind to continue to innovate ways to protect us from the ravages of nature. Of course we want to do so at minimum negative impact on the environment which we have been doing with considerable success. For example, coal fired electrical plants in the United States now emit considerably less noxious emissions than in the past.

All energy production has risks as well as benefits. For example, the wind turbines that the greenies adore destroy thousands of birds, and now we are seeing the killing of endangered whales and other marine life. The increased life span of humans, dramatic decrease in infant mortality, malnutrition, etc. are due to industrialization based on fossil fuels. We need to ensure that we have access to air-conditioning and heat to protect us from climate temperature variations. Solar and wind power can never do this. Nor will the eating of bugs and creation of laboratory produced meat feed the global population.

We must stop the environmental extremists and those profiting from government programs and tax incentives from destroying the fossil fuel industry if we are to save our civilization. We must tell our elected officials that the move to green energy must be stopped before it is too late.

It Only Works If We All Do It

I am not at all convinced that man is capable of changing the earth’s climate. However, if we are going to attempt such a thing, we all need to participate. It does no good for America to cripple its economy by demanding more higher usage of inefficient green energy while China is building coal plants at a rapid rate.

On Friday, Cowboy State Daily reported:

As much as it’s reported that the world is going through a transition away from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy, the data doesn’t support it. 

The International Energy Agency released its 2023 Coal Market Update on Thursday, which shows that global coal consumption in 2022 rose by 3.3% to a record 8.3 billion tons. While the use of coal in European countries and the United States has declined, those reductions are offset by increases in Asian countries, primarily India and China. 

Thirty years ago, the U.S. and European share of coal consumption was 40%. By 2024, the IEA predicts it will fall to 8%. 

Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, told Cowboy State Daily that the efforts to reduce emissions in the U.S. by shutting down coal plants will have no impact on global warming because Asian countries are moving full steam ahead with coal. 

“The environment doesn’t have glass walls surrounding the United States,” Bear said. 

The article concludes:

Bear said the Biden administration’s drive to lower the United States’ emissions while China rebuffs any attempt to drive its down will put America at a disadvantage with the Asian country. 

“The more that we put constraints on the United States emissions, the more difficult it is for us to compete with Asia, economically and militarily. And those are dangerous things,” Bear said. 

Bear said that as the nation moves toward wind and solar energy, which drive up energy costs and degrade reliability on the nation’s grid, the more American businesses and industries will suffer. 

“If the cost of energy is so high that you can’t, as a young person, create something new and build a business, then you’re killing the American dream,” he said.

The Biden administration’s energy policies are working very hard to make America a third-world country.

When Reality Shows Up

Green energy is a wonderful theory. So is the perpetual motion machine. However, both are limited by the laws of physics, and the first is limited by practicalities regarding cost.

On Saturday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about some of the current problems being encountered by wind farms.

The article reports:

A couple of weeks ago, Sweden’s government ditched plans to go all-in on “green energy,” green-lighting the construction of new nuclear power plants. Shortly afterward, fossil fuel giant Shell announced it was scaling back its energy transition plans to focus on . . . gas and oil!

Now it looks like specific wind farm projects are beginning to topple due to strong economic headwinds. Recent, Rhode Island’s leading utility decided to nix a project called Revolution Wind 2 because the cost of the electricity was deemed too high.

…In Europe, Swedish energy firm Vattenfall will stop the development of a major wind project in the United Kingdom after a surge in costs (Hat-tip Hot Air’s Beege Welborne). Once again, the issue was related to surges in energy costs.

The economic headwinds associated with wind farms are beginning to be noticed.

…. Even as the White House is welcoming it with open arms and the Democrats’ climate law is channeling money in its direction, strong economic headwinds are blowing in the opposite direction – inflation and rising interest rates have hit the industry hard.

And then there’s the whales: Some citizen groups and conservative media have blamed a rise in whale strandings and deaths this year on the nascent wind farm projects – a connection scientists have so far found no evidence for.

The combination has made it a precarious time for offshore wind, said Jason Grumet, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, the trade group representing US clean energy.

“This is the vulnerable moment where the benefits are on the horizon,” Grumet told reporters this spring. “Because we don’t have the benefits of it on the table. We don’t have massive facilities producing energy, lowering prices in those states.”

Currently, green energy is not the answer to anything. The climate-change fear mongering is simply a way to eliminate the middle class and gain more control over the world’s population.

In February 2019, I posted an article that included the following:

In March 2016, I posted an article with the following:

…Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

I can’t post this quote often enough. It needs to engraved in the minds of every American.

When You Are Beholden To People Who Want You Gone

On July 4th, The Daily Wire posted an article about gallium and germanium, two minerals needed for the production of electric vehicles, solar panels, military hardware, and more.

The article reports:

Communist China announced this week new plans to restrict the export of two minerals critical to the production of electric vehicles, solar panels, military hardware, and more.

The minerals — gallium and germanium — and dozens of other related metals will be subject to new export regulations that are aimed at punishing the West for restricting China’s ability to access advanced semiconductors.

China dominates the global market as leading producer for both of the minerals, an advantage that they gained by “suppressing the price,” according to Christopher Ecclestone, principle at the natural resource research firm Hallgarten & Co. When they stop suppressing the price, “it suddenly becomes more viable to extract these metals in the West, then China again has an own-goal,” Ecclestone said.

“For a short while they get a higher price, but then China’s market dominance gets lost – the same thing has happened before in other things like antimony, tungsten and rare earths,” he added.

The article concludes:

Some experts said that the move would have little-to-no impact — in terms of what consumers notice — over the course of the next year because existing stockpiles will fill the gap. They cautioned that if the dispute carries on longer than a year than a ripple effect will be felt.

Others said that the move will “will have an immediate ripple effect on the semiconductor industry, especially with regards to high-performance chips.”

The Biden administration’s relentless push for green energy makes America more dependent on importing the items necessary to support that industry. Many of the ‘green energy’ items require minerals that are mined in conditions that are more harmful to the earth than fossil fuel ever dreamed of being. Before we sell ourselves on ‘green energy,’ there are some things we need to think about–the impact of windmills on ocean life, the lifespan of solar panels and how to dispose of them, the lifespan of windmill blades and how to dispose of them, the impact of windmills on America’s bird population, and most importantly–the national security issues involved. America can be energy independent with the current fossil-fuel-based economy. Let’s not mess it up.

More Fact Checkers

On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about President Biden’s recent speech on Bidenomics.

The article reports:

President Joe Biden promised a “fundamental break” with “trickle-down economics” in a speech on Wednesday in which he relied on a number of misleading claims to make his point.

Touting “Bidenomics,” the White House’s name for its economic agenda heading into the 2024 race, Biden floated a plan that would involve spending more taxpayer money and boosting union labor.

Here is the fact check on that speech:

“My predecessor enacted the latest iteration of the failed theory. Tax cuts for the wealthy. It wasn’t paid for, and the estimated cost of his tax cut was $2 trillion.”

Former President Donald Trump‘s tax cuts did not benefit only the wealthy, and they didn’t cost the government nearly as much as critics claimed.

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office actually said the government is expected to collect more revenue over the next decade than it had projected before the tax cuts were signed into law.

In fiscal 2018, the first year after Trump signed the tax cuts into law, the federal government actually collected slightly more revenue overall than it had the previous year.

We learned this during the Reagan administration–when you cut taxes, revenue goes up.

The article continues:

“Wind and solar are already significantly cheaper than coal and oil. You’re not going to see anybody building a new coal-fired plant in America — not just because I’d like to pass a law to say that; it’s too expensive.”

One key reason that renewable energy is now cheaper than traditional energy production is because the Biden administration has offered sweeping tax breaks and subsidies to green energy companies.

…“Today, inflation is less than half of what it was a year ago. And that inflation [was] caused by Russia and by the war in Ukraine and by what was going on.”

Inflation still remains significantly higher than before Biden took office, even if it has fallen from the heights of last year.

Before Biden took office, the consumer price index, a measure of inflation, rose 1.4% for 2020.

The CPI climbed 4.9% from April 2022 to April 2023, meaning prices this year are still rising far faster than before Biden’s inauguration.

While inflation was indeed worse last year, with prices jumping by 8.6% between May 2021 and May 2022, it remains a significant problem for many at nearly four times the level it was before Biden’s presidency.

…“When I took office, unemployment was over 6%. With the American Rescue Plan, we provided relief and support directly to working-class families. Our economy came roaring back. Unemployment dipped below 4% by the end of my first year in office.”

Like Biden’s claim about the number of jobs created, this statement is misleading because the unemployment rate was artificially high when he took office.

The unemployment rate had already begun to come down from its high of 14.8% in April 2020 by the time Biden took office.

Ending lockdowns and easing pandemic restrictions were the primary drivers of the unemployment rate’s fall, but Biden opposed both as a presidential candidate.

…“Just in my first two years in office, my team and I reduced the deficit by $1.7 trillion.” 

Biden has previously touted the deficit reduction that occurred on his watch, and it’s been misleading every time.

The national debt grew by $7.8 trillion during Trump’s four years in office.

But much of that occurred in 2020 as a result of emergency pandemic spending.

The deficit at the end of fiscal 2020 was more than triple what it was at the end of fiscal 2019, a result of the massive rescue packages Congress passed to blunt the effects of lockdowns.

…In fact, Biden has pushed for record levels of spending, and he asked Congress for relief funds in 2021 well in excess of what was needed at the time.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

The Looming Carbon Tax

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the Democrat’s plan to determine the amount of energy used in the production of goods.

The article reports:

Fresh from the looming trainwreck that is the deal to increase the debt limit, four Republican senators recently signed onto legislation that would require the Biden administration to study the feasibility of . . . a national tax on energy that would be collected at the gas pump and in electricity and heating bills.

The four Republicans — Senator Cramer (R-ND), Senator Cassidy (R-LA), Senator Graham (R-SC), and Senator Murkowski (R-AK) — joined five Democrats in asking Team Biden to determine the amount of energy used — and carbon dioxide emitted — by various countries in the production of essentially everything that makes modern life possible (aluminum, iron, steel, plastic, crude oil, batteries, etc.).

Eventually, the information would be used to impose tariffs on those countries who — in the view of the Biden crew — emitted too much carbon dioxide while creating those products.

The article notes:

Unfortunately for American consumers — and this is the important part of the story — the process will lead inevitably to the federal government setting a price for carbon dioxide in these United States.

That means only one thing: a nationwide tax on carbon dioxide, which is, of course, really a tax on energy in all its forms. Such a tax would be incredibly regressive, would damage the economy, and make everything grown, made, or moved more expensive.

The sad, sick part of this story is that the Republican senators are fully aware of that conclusion; they are in fact counting on it. Senator Cramer told the Washington Post that: “We spend so much time as Republicans saying hell no to people who want to tax carbon . . . . this is the low-hanging fruit of climate policy or trade policy or whatever you want to call it.”

In August 2010 , I posted an article about carbon trading in America. The article was about the failure of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a trading place for carbon credits. The only thing you really need to know is who lost money when Congress failed to pass Cap and Trade legislation that would have necessitated the existence of the CCX.

I reported in August 2010:

“The biggest losers have been CCX’s two biggest investors – Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and Goldman Sachs – and President Obama, who helped launch CCX with funding from the Joyce Foundation, where he and presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett once sat on the board of directors.”

Green energy is about money–not about ecology.

Powered By Unicorns

On Friday, Front Page Magazine posted an article about the future of green energy. There are a lot of things that the people who are trying to turn all of America’s power ‘green’ are either ignoring or unaware of.

The article quotes an article from The New York Times posted on Thursday:

PJM Interconnection, which operates the nation’s largest regional grid, stretching from Illinois to New Jersey, has been so inundated by connection requests that last year it announced a freeze on new applications until 2026, so that it can work through a backlog of thousands of proposals, mostly for renewable energy.

It now takes roughly four years, on average, for developers to get approval, double the time it took a decade ago.

And when companies finally get their projects reviewed, they often face another hurdle: the local grid is at capacity, and they are required to spend much more than they planned for new transmission lines and other upgrades.

Many give up. Fewer than one-fifth of solar and wind proposals actually make it through the so-called interconnection queue, according to research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

So we can create all of the solar and wind energy we want, but if we have no way to distribute it, it is useless.

 

I Can’t Believe He Said That

On Tuesday, Wattsupwiththat posted a video of John Kerry speaking about climate change at Davos. I can’t figure out how to put the video here, but if you follow the link above, you can watch the video.

This is the transcript:

0:00 And when you stop and think about it, it’s pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings because of whatever touched us at some point in our lives, are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet.

0:20 I mean, it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about, quote saving the planet.

0:26 If you said that to most people, most people they think you’re just a crazy tree hugging lefty, liberal, you know, do good or whatever, and and there’s no relationship.

0:35 But really, that’s where we are.

The elite echo chamber at Davos is nothing more than an elite echo chamber. The scientists who disagree with the elite echo chamber are marginalized or silenced. The green energy movement is killing people and wildlife as the elites go on their merry way. They are not going to save the planet–they are simply going to make life more difficult for the rest of us.

The Scam Of Green Energy

On Wednesday, Daniel Horowitz posted an article at Conservative Review pointing out what we should have learned from the Christmas energy crisis in America.

The article notes:

What’s the modus operandi of our dystopian government? Creating a needless deadly crisis, blocking the effective way for dealing with it thereafter, and foisting upon the world instead a dangerous and ineffective way of dealing with it. That might sound a lot like COVID, but it’s largely what officials have been planning for a long time with energy, and now that the population is primed for lockdowns, disruptions, and total authoritarian control as a result of COVID, that is what they plan to do with our energy grid. All for a lie.

This was the coldest Christmas in a half-century in much of the U.S., with many localities setting records, including those not accustomed to the cold like Tallahassee, Florida. Many of us are disgusted at those limiting our natural energy in favor of novel, ineffective energy, thereby causing a doubling or even tripling of home heating bills. But we must also realize that if they had their way, we’d have no heating in our homes at all.

Just like the supposed source of COVID and how to deal with it were lies, our energy crisis is wholly contrived and built upon the lie of global warming. Typically, you would have to make sure we are 100% correct about the “science” behind such irrevocable economic and societal changes before committing civilization suicide by destroying the only reliable sources of energy we have. But in a post-“Great Reset” world, this is par for the course. In fact, the science behind global warming is just as flimsy as the science behind lockdowns, masks, and mRNA shots.

The article notes how inaccurate past climate-change predictions have been:

During the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, chief climate priest Al Gore asserted, “Some of the models suggest … that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.” Predictions like this upended our lives with more expensive and more decrepit vital products and services being produced for a generation under the false pretense of taming a crisis that never existed. It turns out that since 2012, the mass of Arctic sea ice is up 31% and Greenland is gaining, not losing, ice. Meanwhile, Antarctica, which was always gaining ice during the period when the Arctic was losing ice, subsequently lost ice last decade and is now regaining it. In other words, the science behind polar ice caps seems to be rooted in the same cherry-picked timing and data as the faux science behind global warming causing either fewer or more hurricanes.

Yet somehow, we are to believe the science is all figured out on how to tamper with global temperatures, just like it was with COVID. Rather than people being more primed to believe in government control after COVID, any thinking person should be even more suspect of official climate lies and the accompanying life-altering policy changes governments want to induce based on them. And boy, would these policy changes be life-altering.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is becoming even more apparent that the quest for green energy is not about the environment at all–it is about creating a society where a small group of people control the lives of everyone else.

An International Propaganda Effort

On Wednesday, Fox News posted the following headline, “Biden admin is funding foreign reporters to write climate stories, emails show.”

The article reports:

The Biden administration funded a foreign “reporting tour” last year, sponsoring several overseas journalists who cover climate change, internal State Department emails showed. 

In March 2021, high-ranking State Department officials discussed a proposal to sponsor foreign journalists to “have experiences that educate them on reporting on climate change,” according to the emails obtained by Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) and shared with Fox News Digital. In the email exchange, officials from Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry’s office and the Office of Global Change (EGC) praised the program as a “fantastic” and “great” idea.

“Jean Foschetti at the FPC mentioned this to me about a week ago,” a State Department official whose name was redacted wrote in an email on March 23, 2021. “Sounds like a great reporting tour idea; basically, the FPC will sponsor multiple foreign reporters to have experiences that educate them on reporting on climate change. Can EGC and SPEC take a look and clear?”

“Thanks for sharing … I think this sounds like a fantastic FPC (virtual) reporting tour and I’m looking forward to the stories that will come out of this,” a second redacted official responded one day later.

The article continues:

The FPC reporting tour — titled “Combating the Climate Crisis Through U.S. Innovation” — ultimately took place during a two-week stretch in May 2021. The event was designed to “promote the Administration’s goal of prioritizing the fight against climate change through global efforts to reduce emissions,” according to the State Department.

“The FPC … offered this virtual program to enable journalists to remotely develop their reporting about the United States’ renewed approach to addressing the climate crisis and its innovation and research, particularly in the areas of reducing emissions and renewable energy,” the State Department states on its website. 

While the State Department quietly announced the program in 2021, though, it failed to mention that it would be funded by U.S. taxpayer money or that the foreign reporters would be “sponsored.” It is unclear which reporters and outlets were sponsored by the State Department program.

The tour came as the Biden administration was moving forward with its aggressive green energy and climate push.

Evidently Twitter was not the only government-funded propaganda campaign. We need to put a stop to all green energy programs until we make sure that our current energy infrastructure can meet the growing energy needs of Americans. It should be pointed out that the unregulated flow of immigrants into America will also increase the energy needs of America. Windmills, solar panels, and electric cars are at the mercy of the weather–does the sun shine, is it too cold for windmills to turn, and how far will your electric car travel in zero degree weather? They may play a role, but they should not be major players until the technology is greatly improved.

Was This Money Wisely Spent?

On October 25th, WattsUpWithThat posted an article about spending on green energy and the results of that spending.

The article reports:

Economist Jeff Currie of Goldman Sachs (Global Head of Commodities Research in the Global Investment Research Division): “Here’s a stat for you, as of January of this year. At the end of last year, overall, fossil fuels represented 81 percent of overall energy consumption. Ten years ago, they were at 82. So though, all of that investment in renewables, you’re talking about 3.8 trillion, let me repeat that $3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuel consumption from 82 to 81 percent, of the overall energy consumption. But you know, given the recent events and what’s happened with the loss of gas and replacing it with coal, that number is likely above 82.” … The net of it is clearly we haven’t made any progress.”

The article includes the following graph:

The article also includes the following Tweet:

I think it is time to go back to the drawing board.

Giving Away Important Technology

On Wednesday, The Daily Wire reported that the Department of Energy’s Inspector General is investigating why the Biden administration gave promising green energy technology to China instead of creating manufacturing jobs in America.

The article reports:

The Department of Energy’s Inspector General is reviewing why the Joe Biden administration gave promising battery technology, developed by taxpayer dollars, to a Chinese company instead of making the batteries in the U.S.

China is now reportedly building one of the largest battery grids in the world using the technology, which could store huge amounts of solar energy without degrading over time or requiring lithium, mitigating a major environmental impact of current green technology that ends up in landfills.

The article continues:

In 2021, there was an “illicit Department of Energy (DOE) transfer of a fifteen million dollar, taxpayer-funded advanced battery technology to China,” Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) wrote in a letter to the DOE’s internal watchdog.

The company that received the license “plainly stated on their official website that they planned to manufacture the batteries in China,” even though the license included “a requirement that the batteries be ‘substantially manufactured’ in the U.S. As these stipulations were continuously violated, DOE never raised any concern,” they wrote.

“We are concerned that this is an overt dereliction of duty by DOE, and that this case may be emblematic of a department that routinely and flippantly permits government-funded technology to be transferred to China,” the senators concluded.

The article explains exactly what happened:

In 2017, Yang (Gary Yang, one of the scientists who helped develop the technology, so that he could commercialize it) — an American citizen who was born in China — obtained a sublicense from the DOE to allow a Chinese firm to make the batteries. In 2021, he transferred the license outright to a Dutch company called Vanadis Power, which said it would make the batteries in China but eventually move production to Europe to comply with European rules.

America had those rules too, but seemed less strict about enforcing them. On July 7, 2021, UniEnergy emailed a government manager at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to request approval to transfer the license to Vanadis, and within 90 minutes, the government granted approval, even though Vanadis’ website said it would make the batteries in China.

Unnamed DOE officials told NPR they often rely on “good faith disclosures” — in other words, the honor system.

I would love to see a list of Americans who are in some way involved in the finances of the Chinese company involved.