Wind Power Off NY Has To Cost More

Few people are as concerned about the weather as commercial fishermen. For them, a day on the ocean is always a life or death situation, in as much as their work is amongst the most dangerous there is. And few people are as concerned about the environment as commercial fishermen, whose very livelihood depends on the health of the biosphere.

Helping keep track of the industry is the venerable and reliable publication, The National Fisherman. An article giving the 411 on wind power and the financing to enable it in the New York City area is here. 

In order for renewable wind power to exist at all in the area, consumers will need to pay between 54% and 27% more than projected when these projects were approved. If the terms aren't modified it seems unlikely that turbines will be spinning kilowatts into the Big Apple. It's a bait and switch, a promise that has to be broken and a normal feature of the renewable industry. 

The Josh Kaplowitz keeping an eye on the Empire/Beacon project for the American Clean Power Association was for 5 years at the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of the Solicitor as attorney-advisor to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Offshore Renewable Energy Programs, the same bureaucracy tasked with regulating this effort.

According to their website, the American Clean Power Association:  is the leading voice of today’s multi-tech clean energy industry, representing 750 utility-scale solar, wind, energy storage, green hydrogen and transmission companies. ACP is committed to meeting America’s national security, economic and climate goals with fast-growing, low-cost, and reliable domestic power.

   

newsweek.com

One Member, Bison Energy Company, San Francisco, CA, has just completed two solar projects in Japan. Another, Grenergy of Birmingham, AL, boasts 11GW of projects world-wide. Imperial Star Solar is a member based in Cambodia. The ACPA  includes another 747 members dedicated to eliminating "dirty" energy and also making money. 

Update:  On 10/12/2023 the New York State Public Service Commission denied the petitions filed by a group of offshore wind developers and a state renewable energy trade association for modifications to existing contracts that would raise costs to consumers by billions of dollars. 

News From The White House On Midwest Renewable Energy

According to Reuters, this is what somebody at the White House, maybe Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, had to say about renewable energy in the Upper Midwest:  

 

Sept 5 (Reuters) — President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday said the U.S. will spend $7.3 billion from 2022's Inflation Reduction Act to fund clean energy projects helmed by rural electric cooperatives.

The 16 funded projects will reduce energy costs and increase reliability for rural Americans, who tend to pay more for energy, the White House said.

The first project will allocate nearly $573 million to Dairyland Power Cooperative in La Crosse, Wisconsin, for four solar installations and four wind power installations in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois.

"One in five rural Americans will benefit from these clean energy investments, thanks to partnerships with rural electric cooperatives like Dairyland. Put simply, this is rural power, for rural America," said agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement.

 

Other first-round selected projects in the upper Midwest to receive funds include:

• Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. With this funding, Basin Electric Power Cooperative will procure both additional renewable energy generation and enhance existing cooperative-owned renewable assets, which are expected to total over 1,400 megawatts across Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
• Great River Energy, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. This New ERA investment will be used by Great River Energy and its member-owners to procure 1,275 megawatts of renewable energy across rural portions of Minnesota and North Dakota. These projects include large-scale wind energy projects, distributed renewable energy projects, and innovative demand side management investments that complement their existing portfolio.
• Minnkota Power Cooperative, North Dakota and Minnesota. This New ERA investment will support Minnkota Power Cooperative’s pursuit of a carbon capture and storage project (Project Tundra) as well as the procurement of 370 megawatts of wind energy in North Dakota.
• The projects, funded by the IRA's Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program, will prevent more than 43 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually and support more than 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs, the White House said.
  
  

  Rural electric cooperatives serve 42 million people, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

  The administration in August said it was investing $2.2 billion in overhauling the nation's power grid, which has been pressured by extreme weather events even as data centers demand more power.

  Biden was set to announce the funding in Westby, Wisconsin, on Thursday alongside Vilsack.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------
  

  Project Tundra is the addition of a carbon capture facility to the Milton R. Young Power Station near Center, N.D. Those involved say that the it will capture up to 4 million tons of despicable CO2 annually or 11,000 tons daily or 458 tons per hour. 

  It seems that the possible problems with the project have been solved.

  Corporate heavy-weights like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Peter Kiewit and the Energy and Environmental Research Center are doing their thing. 
  

The Data Center Explosion

 

gettyimages

No, the data centers aren't blowing up. The growth of AI has increased the need for places to keep the servers that store the data that record everything that passes through the world-wide web. Tremendous investments are being made in them.  Amazon is building $87 billion worth of data centers. 

Chances are that these huge digital libraries won't involve the employment of thousands of digital librarians but they will have other effects on the neighborhoods where they are built. The most significant are the demand that will be made for electrical, water and other municipal services.

At the same time that the country is attempting an irrational move away from fossil fuels in electrical generation by adopting "renewable" sources such as untested and unreliable solar and wind power, it will face a dramatically increased power requirement. The current giants of AI have already leased over 2.3 gigawatts of power in North America this year. In the planning stages are data centers that will consume another 15 gigawatts of power that could supply four million homes.

Perhaps these data centers could be supplied exclusively with power produced by solar panels and wind turbines. Maybe they should be required to do so.   

 

instituteforenergyresearch.com

The average nameplate capacity of newly installed wind turbines has risen to 2.75 MW. Supplying the currently leased data center demand would require at least 836 turbines operating at maximum capacity 24/7/365, an impossible situation. In the case of solar panels, typical powerhouse additions will produce 5 kw from 500 square feet, or so they say. The currently leased data centers would need an array of 460,000 solar panels covering well over 5300 acres or about 8 1/2 square miles that would produce power during only a portion of the day.

 

 

greencitysolar.net

The variability of renewable power supply means that sufficient power must be available from dedicated sources in amounts available not only to the data centers but also to the surrounding areas. According to plans this demand will increase quickly. No doubt messages are being passed back and forth by management about the subject at this very moment. 

Projected Growth In Electricity Demand

An article in the September 30 edition of the Wall Street Journal goes into some of the generalities of what is likely to be a huge demand crunch in electrical power brought about by the construction of AGI data centers in the US. According to the article Goldman Sachs predicts that 47 gigawatts of power production will be needed just to supply the new data centers expected to be on-line by 2030. Before expanding the infrastructure required to supply the increased demand, power companies want assurance that the volumes and prices thereof will be guaranteed, something the data center mavens don't wish to do. 

The US government, through the Inflation Reduction Act and other programs, is deeply involved in subsidizing future electrical production, especially via tax credits. This is a Whig operation. Just as the early 19th century Whigs and their "American System" used federal income, mostly tariffs and land sales, to reward their cronies, the current federal government is operating in a similar fashion. No one can know or predict if the value produced by the tech business is worth the expense or even necessary at all. Furthermore, if humongous data centers are to be the key to the continued existence of the Yankee culture and economic growth shouldn't it be profitable for them to be privately financed? If a private interest needs huge amounts of power to operate its business shouldn't it also expect to construct a generating station of its own nearby? Regulated utilities aren't meant to feed huge percentages of their output to single customers. Supposedly private solar and wind power facilities are able to sell excess power to the utility that supplies them. Couldn't the data centers do so as well?  

Ultimately, as Paul Feyerabend pointed out:    “In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality.”

Complicating the situation is the simultaneous effort to eliminate hydrocarbon based power production in favor of "renewables". As projected, all hydrocarbon based generation will be replaced with wind and solar in a relatively short period of time.

As the West slithers toward a socialism run by the elites and financed by the proles, it resembles nothing so much as the great failed Soviet "5 Year Plans" that were so ridiculed by the Cold War Yankees.  

Glauconite

 Sadly, glauconite is found in some of the areas where offshore wind turbine installations have been planned in the northeastern US. It turns out the substance makes it impossible to correctly install the pilings that support the giant wind turbines that are to eventually supply the renewable energy for portions of New England. The presence of the mineral has made some parts of existing leases unusable for that purpose. Three of the 19 leases, Empire Wind, Sunrise Wind and Beacon Wind. all contain areas of glauconite. Equinor, a state-owned international energy firm headquartered in Stavanger, Norway, holds the leases on Empire Wind and Beacon Wind. Sunrise Wind is a project of Ørsted, the world's largest developer of offshore wind turbine installations in terms of numbers. They are located in Denmark.

Fisherman's associations and government agencies have had reservations about turbine siting in the area for a number of reasons. The glauconite issue has led to a smaller number of proposed turbines in the known affected areas but the details of the investigations made by the companies themselves have not been released.

Originally, Empire Wind was to supply 2.1 GW of power from 130 turbines and supply electricity to a million homes. Beacon Wind's production was planned to be 1230 MW and Sunrise 924 MW. Of course that's when the wind is blowing with sufficient intensity.

Why Renewable Energy Is An Existential Crisis

 

foxnews.com

There have been apocalyptic predictions through all  of recorded history. In the past, they were generally based on offense to the gods or immoral behavior, also an offense to the gods. In the present age, when God is dead and the dominant atheists are in charge, the predictions of universal destruction are based on the violations of natural law, determined by science. 

It turns out that contemporary science is as much of a religion as Lutheranism or Hinduism. It's based on a similar mythology. But that's not actually the point. The focus isn't on a mythology, it's about money.

The energy business, the business that keeps the giant gears of commerce turning, is a very new one. The first commercial oil well was drilled near Titusville, PA, in 1859, only 164 years ago, its product being used to produce kerosene for home lighting. Shortly after that engines were developed that ultimately led to vehicles like the Chevrolet Corvette and Volkswagen Beetle. Despite some fits, starts and bankruptcies the world came to embrace fossil fuels for powering transportation, electrical generation, home and commercial heating and eventually the majority of energy used in the developed world.

In science, business and government nothing stands still for very long. Hydro power, one of the oldest forms of energy production, remains to this day a very minor one. Related to geographical and geological elements, there are no new sites usable for the necessary dams.

Nuclear fission power has been successful but the fear that it inspires imposes huge and expensive issues in siting, regulation, construction and maintenance. Many plants are being shut down. Even those operating under current licensing can only produce electrical power and don't make a meaningful contribution to transportation.

Fossil fuels, hydro power and nuclear power are mature industries. The players involved are very much involved. There are no openings for new operators. The multi-billion dollar major oil companies, while engaged in a certain amount of competition among themselves, have no fear of an entrepreneur setting up the exploration, development, refining and marketing that enables them to be profitable. People complain about "big oil" but that's the only kind there is. There's no such thing as "Mom and Pop oil".

Hydro power is a cooperation between utilities and the government. It is what it is.

Nuclear power is also a cooperative effort between utilities, the regulatory branch of government and the contractors able to build and maintain nuclear reactors. Its unlikely that any new companies will enter that field.

That's what makes the war on CO2, climate change and renewable power so important. It's an environment open to new players, just as the fossil fuel industry was a century and a half ago. However, in that era, fossil fuels only had to outdo wood, sperm oil, sails and water wheels. It was easy. Fossil fuels advantages were quite apparent and they became dominant except in the most isolated situations.

Those advantages still exist. All things being equal, renewables of whatever kind can't improve on the performance of fossil fuels at this time. The renewable advocates must develop a strategy that allows them to join and surpass their fossil fuel enemies. It's climate change.

The forces that have joined the renewable push and fossil fuel elimination are formidable. The leaders are academia, the government, media, business and legal industry. Academia, in an age of unquestioned scientific and technological wonder, may be the most trusted division of western culture. They are the researchers that discover the problems to be faced and construct the needed solutions. This means that they are showered with funding both public and private that enables them to build facilities and hire employees. They have discovered that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, 421 parts per million and rising, is likely to rapidly raise the global temperature to an extent that life on earth will disappear. Forcibly removing a portion of the current atmospheric CO2 and eliminating it as a by-product of fossil fuel combustion are necessary for survival of life.

Government, always on the alert for opportunities to expand its power has become closely involved in renewable resources. 

The media, using academia as a source for its apocalyptic predictions, feels a need to broadcast them in lieu of "It's another nicer day, today. The Kardashians are out getting some sun".

The entreprenurial spirit, constantly in search of new opportunities, has embraced renewable power with a vengeance. Solar power, on and offshore wind turbines, fusion power, battery-powered electrical vehicles and whatever comes next are relatively undeveloped fields that are receiving substantial research and funding. The American fetish with the "new" also plays a part in the rapid adoption of untested solutions to imaginary problems.

The legal industry, omnipresent in every aspect of American life, will, as always, extract its toll from each transaction or dispute.

The most interesting feature of the renewable craze is that those involved with the four components identified above move seamlessly from one to the other, back again, and to another, multiple times. Academics and institutional figures move to government, then to business, sometimes to media, and are often members of the bar. They are all taking advantage of the opportunity that academic researchers have given them by identifying an innocuous gas as the most dangerous thing on earth. This isn't about science, its about money.        

More Problems With Renewable Energy

It isn't just the complexity, expense and unreliability of so-called renewable energy that keeps it from taking over our lives. It turns out that integrating solar power, wind power and hydrogen power into the existing system is plagued with both technical and bureaucratic  problems.

This piece describes in a general way what hasn't been happening in the field. Maybe the process is so complex that diagnosing the individual issues and the possible approaches to their resolution is more difficult than actually producing the product itself. 

 

clipground.com

It appears that the renewable generators are more interested in joining the grid than the grid is in accepting them. There may be some disagreement as to who is responsible for the expense of the connection. Utilization of "free" power is more expensive than we've been led to believe.

Wild Springs Solar Energy project near New Underwood, South Dakota has been approved by regulators to go into operation providing up to 128 megawatts of electricity to Basin Electric Power Cooperative. Originally scheduled to begin supply on May 1, the date has been moved up to March 15. No word on if this is the date when power will actually move from Wild Springs to Basin Electric on that day or if that's simply the date when it will be permitted.

   

For now, the wind power jobs are gone

The Albany Times-Union explains that the predicted 870 jobs building wind turbine dynamos and the blades that turn them at the nearby Port of Coeymans on the Hudson River won't happen as things currently stand. This is because major offshore wind developments adjacent to New York, the Attentive and Community Offshore projects, have been cancelled. About 2,718 megawatts of wind-produced energy won't be added to the state power grid. Other projects remain in the works. 

The center-piece of the Port of Coeymans effort was to be a facility where the components of wind dynamos, blades and submarine towers would be assembled and then transported down the Hudson to the sites off Long Island. As might be expected, the cost of the yet-to-be built factory has exploded from an initial estimate of $350 million to a current $604 million.

The Iron-Air Battery

It's obvious that "renewable" electricity isn't completely reliable. Solar panels don't supply juice at night or in very cloudy conditions. Wind turbines don't turn when the breezes fail. In order to provide electricity at times like those, when using renewables there must be a method of storing a portion of the electricity produced should conditions deteriorate. One way now in development is the iron-air battery. 

 

Form Energy's 2023 iron-air battery module prototype. Image courtesy of Form Energy

Xcel Energy intends to use these batteries to store renewable energy at its power plants at Becker, MN and Pueblo, CO. These batteries, yet to be built, will be expected to store solar and wind power electricity for 100 hrs, in the case of the Sherco Generating Station in Becker to the extent of 40 mw from 4 iron-air batteries being built and supplied by Form Energy in Somerville, MA. The plant being replaced in Becker now produces 680 mw on a continuous basis. A solar panel array currently under construction on the site is designed to put out 480 mw. In other words, the battery storage capacity will be less than 10% of the power supplied by the new renewable system.

Junk Wind Turbine Blades Are A Problem

Updating a wind farm near a small southern Minnesota community has meant the replacement of over a hundred immense fiberglass turbine blades. The no-longer functional blades remain on a rented lot in the village of Grand Meadow where they've been an eyesore and nuisance for four years, according to this story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

A convoluted story begins with Florida-based Next Era Energy, who did the blade replacements, then  a Spanish company, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, who made a deal with River Cap Ventures to recycle the blades, which didn't work out. Wind farm owner and regional power supplier Xcel Energy says it can't do anything because it doesn't own the scrap blades. Estimates for their disposal amount to a half million dollars. Public regulators have been no help in the matter.

What this incident illustrates is that renewable energy projects are far more complicated than their advocates admit and more expensive as well. 

Back in the 1940s, the Vermont Public Service Commission erected a wind turbine on Grandpa's Knob near Rutland. The first sleet storm caused it to fly to pieces and it wasn't replaced. Certainly in that era wind turbine design and the materials used to build them were in their infancy. Engineers  now know much more about the necessary designs and the available materials are more suitable. More recently, a turbine at the St. Cloud, Minnesota VA campus failed in its purpose but hung around immobile for years before being demolished at considerable expense, a huge embarrassment for those in charge. Even if a wind farm is successful, however that might be measured, it must be maintained and repaired just as hydrocarbon-fueled generators must be. Turbines will go off-line and their production must then be replaced by other sources until they are put back into action. 

Far North Wind Turbines

 

                       adn.com

 

Doyon Drilling, an Alaska Northslope oil development company, has installed two wind turbines to augment the diesel generators that have supplied power to contractors at Prudhoe Bay since activity began there in the 1960s. 

" Based on historical wind data, the turbines have an estimated daily output of 1,440 kilowatt-hours. That’s equivalent to burning about 100 gallons of diesel fuel, Doyon said."

While that doesn't seem very significant, if there's any place where wind turbines might make a smidgen of economic sense it would be at Prudhoe Bay. The harsh elements of the area will put the equipment to the test and information gathered will be useful in later projects, should they be undertaken. 

Climate Change And Democracy, Courtesy Of David Brooks

New York Times writer and east coast pseudo-intellectual David Brooks has this to say about climate change on "PBS News Hour":   

 “I’m old enough to go back to John McCain and Lindsey Graham 20 years ago, who supported — who proposed a big climate change bill. Back then, you had Republicans and Democrats both with climate change proposals. Back then, there was about a 20-point gap between Democratic views of climate change and Republican. Now, it’s a 50-point gap. And so, why is that? Well, one, everything’s more polarized. Two, Republicans are more manufacturing than they used to be. And, three, and I think most important, it’s just become a sign of political machismo that whatever polite opinion — if polite opinion says A, then we say Z. And so, drill, baby drill, is a way to offend the elites.”

He continued, “And the weird thing is, that, if you look at a bunch of other numbers — and I looked at some Pew data — three-quarters of Americans support global climate change treaties, 69% think we should be carbon-neutral, 66% support government subsidies for wind and solar. So, the Republicans who have taken this extreme position are not only, in my view, going against the science. They’re going against pretty large majorities on a bunch of these sub-issues.”

 

 fair.org

According to Brooks, if a majority of Americans have positive opinions about climate change it's time to do something about it. "Pretty large majorities" should be  the index on fighting climate change, it there even is such a thing, not falsifiable scientific research. It's interesting that Brooks casts the argument as one that can be sectioned into two political views. The Democrats want to save planet earth, the Republicans wish to destroy it. 

He mentions "going against the science". What's that supposed to mean? Only a few highly-specialized individuals have even a rudimental knowledge of climate science. Many of these scientists, including a Nobel prize-winning physicist, feel that the AGW existential threat is fantastically overblown.

In Yankee Land the democratic tradition of selecting leaders by a vote extends to decisions about scientific and economic matters. The US Federal Reserve admits that it doesn't know for sure if any of its policies are going to actually produce the results desired. Yet, they are allowed to experiment with the fortunes and lives of people to whom they have no particular allegiance. The very universal ignorance of the general population and its leaders has allowed charlatans to propose and conduct schemes that are in the best tradition of entrepreneurial capitalism, making a lot of money. This is the basis of solar power, CO2 sequestration, wind turbines and what will eventually add up to trillions of dollars in wasted money in futile efforts to create a world-wide climate where it's always 74F and it always rains 30 inches a year.

If the Pew survey majorities are in favor of international climate treaties, a carbon neutral economy and government subsidies for wind and solar power that must mean that common consumer products, clothes dryers, for instance, are being sent to recycling centers and sales for them have dropped dramatically. It's probably not the case, however.

"Drill baby, drill" doesn't offend the elites. It's impossible to offend them. It merely reinforces their opinion that what they believe is the truth.    

Hydrogen Enthusiasm

An article in the Monday WSJ tells of an interest in the production of hydrogen by fossil fuel entities in the US gulf coast area who are in a good position to use one of the most developed methods, steam-gas reforming. This process uses natural gas as both a heat source and feed stock to separate hydrogen from natural gas with the consequent by-product of CO2, supposedly the big problem in climate change. Other techniques continue to be explored.

Exxon Mobil seems to be covering all the bases by both getting into hydrogen production and expanding their capabilities in fossil fuel, having recently purchased Pioneer Natural Resources and its assets in a $60 billion deal. Competitor Chevron then made a similar move, acquiring Hess. These companies propose to capture the CO2 and sequester it deep in the earth, perhaps for many centuries. They will continue to produce and market petroleum products.

The WSJ article points out that there's a belief that the US has an advantage over other countries which have gotten into solar and wind power more quickly in that the US already has a significant infrastructure advantage and processing capability in hydrogen, a competitive advantage in the world-wide fight against boiling seas. They're probably hoping that other governments will buy their product or processes rather than continue to destroy the atmosphere.

The economics of the hydrogen revolution remain unclear. According to stackexchange.com:

 "Combustion is a gaseous phase phenomenon. Oil and gasoline have a high enough vapor pressure at ambient temperatures to produce a gaseous phase of fuel above the liquid. In contrast, hold a lighter up to a piece of wood and try to get it to light. It won't—at least not for quite some time. This is because solid fuels must first undergo endothermic pyrolysis before real combustion can occur. This produces a slew of products which are what truly undergo combustion when solids are burned. Because combustion is exothermic, once a high enough temperature is reached the solid will autopyrolyze, making combustion a self-sustaining reaction."

This means that in general hydrocarbons are in a gaseous state during the combustion process, as is the oxygen with which they combine. Ordinarily both gases are only slightly above atmospheric pressure when combustion takes place. Unless some other process is used, a cubic foot of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure produces about one third the BTU of a similar volume and pressure of natural gas. Combustion of natural gas is likely to be much more energy efficient and economical than hydrogen, even if some CO2 is a by-product.

The moves made by oil producers are meant to protect their position in US and world industry regardless of the politics involved.

  

European Renewable Subsidies Inadequate

Chinese over-production of solar panels in the international push for renewable energy has had its most damaging effect on European manufacturers, according to this Reuters article. Far down the list on government subsidies, they are closing plants in Europe and working on moving them to the US, where taxpayer money levels the playing field between the Chinese and the Yankees for now. There's a lamentation over the loss of jobs, jobs being an inevitable selling point in the energy transition story, but nowhere else. All businesses concentrate on employing the smallest number of people they can.

This curious circumstance, where fighting an existential threat is subordinated to financial considerations, creates another perspective on the renewable energy business. 

 

 

 greencitysolar.net

The reality is that the fossil fuel, or actually hydrocarbon, energy business is a developed one. Oil, coal and gas producers, refiners and distributors have been around for long enough to be able to work out the kinks in an industry that is at the center of the world economy. Through its history many of them have also failed and left the scene but the survivors are now entrenched and there will be few or none new competitors. It's unlikely that an entirely new competitor to Exxon will appear in the hydrocarbon marketplace.

"Renewable" energy, on the other hand, is open to different approaches to solving the problem of CO2 release into the atmosphere and arresting climate change, which has been occurring for the many millions of years of the earth's existence. While solar panels and wind turbines are capable of supplying energy on an intermittent basis and batteries may be developed to store some of that energy, it doesn't seem possible that their exclusive use is possible for a society that depends on reliable electricity. 

The biggest problem is an economic one. Integrating solar and wind energy into the existing power grids of the developed countries will be far more expensive than just solar panels and wind turbines. Although it's no longer a big number, the cost will be in the trillions of dollars, dollars provided by taxpayers and consumers, since that is the only source.

This amount of money isn't going to be used as fuel for boilers. It is going to be the income for corporations and their investors jumping into the unfamiliar territory of changing the world's energy structure. Just as with the development of the automobile over the last 120 years, many of these inexperienced newcomers will fail and disappear. Hudsons, Edsels, Studebakers and Packards, and hundreds of other marques, no longer roam the highways. However, these products were made and marketed by private, unsubsidized  companies. Their failure was felt by the owners and employees but not in any major way by the public at large.

The unholy alliance between academic research, government and crony capitalism is the impetus for government's intrusion into the energy field and the subsidies that fuel an expensive remedy for a problem that may not exist, the solving of which may well be more of an existential threat than that supposed problem.    

No Chinese Windmills

 Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age, gave a speech at Princeton University in New Jersey on April 8 concerning the opening of an investigation into Chinese subsidies to the production of equipment for European "wind parks". Describing thousands of acres devoted only to gigantic twirling windmills as a "park" is more Orwell speak but that's PR. 

 

 politico.com

The substance of the Danish bureaucrat's talk was that the Chinese over-production of subsidized turbine equipment would lead to their domination of that  market, just as they became the world's major producer of solar panels and EVs. At the same time as her presentation US Treasury matron Janet Yellen was on her way back from a week-long visit to the Celestial Empire involving conversations on that subject with upper level Chinese economic figures.

Any kind of an analysis of this situation leads to the same conclusion. Saving the world from existential climate change is secondary to making money. Since global north nations are commanding the elimination of CO2 from the energy complex, solar panels and wind turbines are an immediate requirement needed to replace deadly hydrocarbon generators. If those components are purchased at low prices from Chinese suppliers the profit potential for the transition is dramatically reduced, even though the electricity produced by foreign equipment is identical to Danish power. Ironically, most, if not all, wind farms and solar arrays are heavily subsidized.

The European Union should be happy that they will be  able to quickly and cheaply arrest climate armageddon with the help of the Chinese. But that's not the case. In the beginning, some observers felt that climate change anxiety was being spurred by Marxist or radical elements. That may have been true to some extent, especially in academia. But the farther along the fight to save the planet progresses, it turns out that government policies and corporate aims are closely aligned. Academics, media figures, un-elected bureaucrats, financial titans and eco-oriented businesses all have a big stake in CO2 elimination.

The Chinese response, from Asia Times: “The EU’s approach obviously violated the free trade principle and seriously interfered with the normal cooperation between Chinese and European industries,” He Yadong, a spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Commerce, said Thursday. “It is a typical form of protectionism. The EU should not hold high the banner of fighting climate change with one hand while wielding the stick of protectionism with another hand,” He added.

There's also no time to fool around in addressing the as yet undetectable problem. Global events and domestic politics have a way of intruding on even the best plans and who can guarantee that existential anthropogenic global warming will stay high on the list of human concerns into the future. The time for financial rewards is now.    

 

 

The Future Of The IRA

The Inflation Reduction Act. That's the Orwellian moniker of legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 16th, 2022. It hasn't reduced inflation.

It's actual goal was authorizing $783 billion in federal money to combat climate change. Evidently there wasn't enough money for the congressional Whigs to finance the fake efforts of their cronies, off-shore wind turbines, solar panels, direct capture CO2 pipelines and sequestration, hydrogen research and carefully orchestrated propaganda. Funds were also needed to gain the support of academia and the media to create the anxious atmosphere necessary for public acceptance. 

 greencarreports.com

A large share of the general population, if they thought about the "problem" at all, felt that the issue was an example of Marxist thinking intruding on the US capitalist system. They were wrong. The climate crisis was a great  opportunity for both existing energy providers and an entreprenurial capitalist class looking for entry level openings with huge subsidies.

The election of 2024 may have changed that. The president-elect has made known his skepticism of the climate emergency and his plan to roll back provisions of the IRA. If successful this will create financial negatives that will compromise the survival of the new entrepreneurs and disappoint the existing energy structure. Since there have already been deals and commitments based on the IRA, all of which involve big money, there will be much conversation between business moguls, their congressional allies, the relevant bureaucrats and the involved researchers. Modifying legislation once enacted is even more difficult than initially creating it because dependencies have been created. 

 

anker.com

Ultimately, the situation is an example of the failure of the democratic process and government in general that ends when all the money isn't gone but redistributed among the oligarchs. 

 

 

Texas Panhandle Wildfires

azcentral.com

The Smokehouse Creek wildfire in the Texas panhandle north of Amarillo beginning on February 26 has been met with outrage by the landowners whose property has been incinerated and also by the insurers who might be forced to pay their claims. Legal papers have been served on Xcel Energy to force them to preserve a downed power pole near Stinnett, Texas, toppled by high winds, that may have ignited the blaze.

While the damage caused by the fire and the possible liability of Xcel Energy are major considerations, there are other important issues. Insurers and others note that there are deficiencies in the maintenance and repair of transmission and distribution lines in many electrical systems. The insurance industry is likely to take a closer look at electrical distribution infrastructure because there's a general feeling that a large percentage of utility poles have reached the end of their service life. 

This means that not only will expensive new lines be needed to tie in new renewable sources like solar arrays and wind turbines but also the existing power grid will have to be brought up to a more reliable condition.

It's likely that insurers and state regulators will require inspections and assessments of grid infrastructure by independent entities. Remediation of deficiencies will add to the bill for renewable adoption which will be passed along to the consumer. It's going to be expensive.   

Central Bank Digital Currency

 "Many individuals throughout the world have no access to bank accounts, so a CBDC would give them a way to be paid, hold their money, and pay bills. CBDCs could also decrease the maintenance a complex financial system requires, reduce cross-border transaction costs, and give people who use alternative money-transfer methods lower-cost options."

The above quote is from an Investopedia on-line article on Central Bank Digital Currency. Already adopted in vibrant commercial centers the Bahamas, Jamaica and Nigeria, no doubt to satisfy the demands of the locals, it's probably just a matter of time before the existing digital currency in other localities is replaced by an even better one. Of course adoption of the CBDC will give those without bank accounts the ability to be paid, hold money and pay bills that they haven't had for the last 5000 years or so. While the CBDC may reduce costs throughout the financial system there will surely be some costs. After all, the construction of the giant and complex AI data centers isn't a charity, somebody is looking to make big bucks with an immense digital filing system. The same would be the case with CBDC. 

Most important, any CBDC, as with the digital funds now in use, is completely reliant on reliable electricity. Without power an ATM, which dispenses printed fiat money, is useless. The locals will absolutely need a smart phone to participate in the economy at all but the most primitive level. Depending on the vagaries of wind or sunshine for access to one's money is another problem for which the Net Zero fanatics have yet to consider or provide a solution.

It will be interesting to see if the adoption of a CBDC in the enlightened West will be dependent on a real democratic process or the faux democracy that presently exists where important government decisions are made at the direction of elites, in this case no doubt those of Wall Street.

 

  

The International Court Of Justice Has Spoken

Thank goodness Reuters has its eye on the ball and is keeping track of the decisions of the International Court Of Justice at the Hague, Netherlands. Judge Yuji Iwasawa and 14 other members of the United Nations court have decided that  "Greenhouse gas emissions are unequivocally caused by human activities which are not territorially limited."

Ten years ago 190 countries signed the Paris Agreement to take actions that would limit global temperature increases to 1.5 C. The signatures on the agreement don't seem to have meant much.

The finding is only a preliminary move and what follows isn't binding, ie. internal combustion automobiles won't be immediately banned and hydrocarbon power won't be replaced entirely by solar  panels and wind turbines. Countries that allow the continuation of green house production won't be invaded by electrically-powered UN tanks. They will, however, be frowned upon by the compliant nations, should there be any.

Advanced societies are dominated by mathematics and numbers. In the case of climate anxiety the figure 1.5C has been adopted as a line not to be crossed. Like the 6 foot social distance of the Covid paranoia, it's needed to have a number to legitimize the theory. Why not .75C or 3C? Furthermore, how is a temperature increase measured over the entire surface of the earth simultaneously? That really doesn't seem possible. Doesn't science, genuine science, include the quality of predictability? If a glass of pure water is placed in a freezer with a temperature of 0F we know that ice will be the result, always. While science and technology have allowed the prediction of weather into the near future there's been no success in doing so over the many decades that are involved in climate change. 

If the International Court of Justice wanted to achieve something of true value they would attempt to eliminate the barbaric practice of circumcision of infant boys.

Chapter 2. Chief Justice Iwasawa made a 2 hour speech indicating that a signatory failure to rein in fossil fuel production and subsidies could result in "full reparations to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation and satisfaction provided that the general conditions of the law of state responsibility are met." How exactly the injuries and reparations are determined isn't specified.

The fifteen justices are:

Yuji Iwasawa    President                           Japan

Julia Sebutinde   Vice President            Uganda

Peter Tomka                                         Slovakia

Ronny Abraham                                      France

Abdulgawi Yusuf                                    Somalia

Xue Hanqin                                               China

Dalveer Bhandari                                        India

Georg Nolte                                            Germany

Hilary Charlesworth                               Australia

Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant                 Brazil

Juan Manuel Gomez Robledo Verduzco      Mexico

Sarah Cleveland                                          USA

Bogdan Aurescu                                          Romania

Dire Tladi                                              South Africa

Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud                          Jordan

Phillipe Gautier                                           Belgiuim

They will apparently decide if one country has released enough green-house gases to negatively affect another country and what the compensation for that will be.

The United States withdrew from compulsory ICJ jurisdiction in 1986.

 

 

 

Federal De-Funding Of Research

An article in on-line publication "Unherd" attempts to describe the cause of the slashes in federal academic research funding as the monolithic ideology found in the ivy-covered halls. If only it were that simple.

The reality is that a huge portion of academic research funding has gone to validating neo-Whig projects designed to produce fortunes for entrepreneurs. These would be AI data centers and associated software, hydrogen fuel implementation, wind turbines, solar power arrays, CO2 sequestration, big battery development and other similar fantasies. Academic scientists apply for grants to investigate these subjects, their findings are covered by the media and the entrepreneur/capitalists go into action beside the government regulators, who change sides regularly and are part of the process of distribution of federal funds.

The ideology involved isn't political, it's all about money for everyone involved. The US capitalist system has reached a point where the immense growth of the post-WWII economy has become obsolete in financial terms. It's a mature system. The railroads have all been built, airports, too. Steel mills, automobile factories, factory farms, dead tree media, educational institutions, retailing, etc. have all reached a point where further development will be of minor importance if it happens at all. Just as manifest destiny was the great opportunity for the Whigs, the non-hydrocarbon energy scheme is the growth industry for their descendents.

This is dismissing the corruption and dishonesty in peer-reviewed academia, where more and more research is found to be phony.