Solving climate crisis will require a total transformation of global energy

“Discoveries, like resources, may well be infinite: the more we discover, the more we are able to discover.”
― Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource

Simon challenged Ehrlich to choose any raw material he wanted and a date more than a year away, and he would wager on the inflation-adjusted prices decreasing as opposed to increasing. Ehrlich chose copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. The bet was formalized on September 29, 1980, with September 29, 1990, as the payoff date. Ehrlich lost the bet, as all five commodities that were bet on declined in price from 1980 through 1990, the wager period.[1]
Simon–Ehrlich wager - Wikipedia

 

This is a chart of the inflation-adjusted price of oil:

https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

While it has been highly volatile since 1973 and dove sharply from 1980-1990, the term of the Simon-Ehrlich bet, the overall trend is self-evidently up. It is also worth noting that the prices of the five metals in the bet depend fairly strongly on oil prices, both as an input to mining and refining and as an indicator of overall demand in the economy. If Ehrlich had known any economics, he would have known that the sky-high price of oil at the beginning of the bet was certain to come down over the subsequent years, and with it, the prices of almost everything with a large oil cost input, including refined metals.

 

Sorry, but I'm going to have to file that under "So what?" Simon's insight is not dependent on the price of oil.

 

Sadly, people must relearn multiple times that you can't just conjure energy out of the air, no matter how virtuous your signals.
Vijay Jayaraj: Coal Shortages Threaten Blackouts for 2.7 Billion Chinese and Indians
Guest Blogger
Asia’s and Europe’s energy crisis is a stern warning to politicians who advocate replacing coal, oil and natural gas with more expensive and intermittent wind and solar — a switch that…

 

Green energy is not the solution; it's the problem.
Useless Green Energy Hitting The Wall
October 13, 2021/ Francis Menton

• 
  In the field of litigation settlements, people sometimes talk about a “win, win” scenario — a settlement structure where both sides can get some advantage and simultaneously claim victory.
  
  
• By that criterion, what is “green” energy (aka intermittent wind and solar power)? The public pays hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies to get the things built, and in return it gets: sudden shortages and soaring prices for coal, oil, gas and electricity; and dramatically reduced reliability of the electrical grid, leading to periodic blackouts and risks of many more of same; and despite it all fossil fuel use doesn’t go down.
  
  
• It’s a “lose, lose, lose.”
  
  
• As the world comes out of the pandemic and the international economy returns to attempting to fulfill normal consumer demand, you can see green energy hitting the wall pretty much everywhere you look. It’s just a question of which data points you want to collect for a day’s entertainment.
  

READ MORE

 

As I've said many times before, there is not a single form of "clean, renewable energy" that can be produced or maintained without using coal, petroleum, or its byproducts. Solar only works when the sun is out. Wind only works when its blowing. Coal, oil, gas and nuclear all work no matter what...

 

Welcome to the energy transition. Bring your winter coat.
German Energy Prices “Going Through The Roof”, Supply Tightens As Leaders Botch Energy Policy
By P Gosselin on 23. October 2021

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Political energy mismanagement in Germany now risks inflicting tremendous pain on citizens as energy shortages intensify and prices skyrocket. Coming winter of discontent?

Energy prices going through the roof
By Fritz Vahrenholt, first published at Tichys Einblick
(Translated/edited by Pierre Gosselin)

Prices for natural gas, coal, oil and electricity have been rising massively since the middle of the year. The price of a kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity has almost tripled to 13 euro cents per kWh on the Leipzig wholesale electricity exchange.and the price of natural gas has increased fivefold. . . .

 

Winter heating is tricky.

Storage is the answer.

 

Doubtful.

 

It turns out wind energy advocates have been lying.

CCC’s Net Zero Plans Rely On Dramatic Rise In Windy Days
Guest Blogger
Reposted from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

OCTOBER 24, 2021

By Paul Homewood

h/t Philip Bratby

The Committee on Climate Change have been caught cheating:


Modelling used to justify the “feasibility” of the net zero target assumed a dramatic fall in the number of days of calm weather, when many turbines stand still, according to new analysis.

Data obtained from the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the official advisory body, following a legal battle, shows that a series of assumptions underpinning its advice to ministers included a projection that in 2050 there would be just seven days on which wind turbines would produce less than 10 per cent of their potential electricity output. So far this year, there have already been 65 such days, and in 2016 there were as many as 78. . . .

 

Pro-wind advocates are lying.
New Data Refutes Cheap Offshore Wind Claims
Guest Blogger
And where do these claims about cheap wind power come from? The Committee on Climate Change: . . .

 

Wind power is bad for your health.
Wind Power Health Effects (latest from Scientific Reports)
Guest Blogger
In view of the adverse health impacts of exposure to turbine-generated LFN, it is recommended that the government set regulations on the requisite distances of wind turbines from residences, for…

 

The Great Walkback has begun.

Reemergence Of Energy Sanity? Europe Now Considers Nuclear, Natural Gas As Sustainable
By P Gosselin on 29. October 2021

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German online heise.de reports here that the European Commission now “aims to classify nuclear power and natural gas as sustainable”, likely in a bid to avert an energy supply meltdown.

Previously Europe had excluded nuclear power and natural gas as a climate-friendly source of energy, but now that energy prices have begun to skyrocket and power grids become unstable and risk blacking out, Europe appears to be waking up from its wind and sun fantasies.

Suddenly nuclear and natural gas (a fossil fuel) will be joining renewable energies wind and solar power as being “sustainable and climate friendly”. . . .

 

It remains to be seen whether this resistance movement will gain traction.
Nigel Farage Demands a UK Net Zero Referendum
Eric Worrall
“This could well be my latest campaign…”: Nigel Farage, Britain’s most determined politician, who gave over 20 years of his life to liberating Britain from the European Union, has a…

". . . Nigel Farage is perhaps Britain’s last hope of averting the net zero madness, before Britain utterly commits to wrecking their own economy. If determination is Britain’s national trait, Nigel Farage is a true son of that proud British heritage. But Farage is a lot older than the young man who set out to liberate Britain from the European Union. Even the determination of someone like Farage cannot continue forever."

 

Europe's "green" biomass electricity generation is apparently a significant contributor to warming.
Black carbon aerosols heating Arctic: Large contribution from mid-latitude biomass burning
Charles Rotter
The year-to-year spring variation in Arctic black carbon (BC) aerosol abundance is strongly correlated with biomass burning in the mid-latitudes. Moreover, current models underestimate the contribution of BC from biomass…

 

Not realistic. Even the best scaled up battery back ups only last for a few hours, sometimes less, when it comes to supplying urban needs. In addition we have nonsense like bitcoin mining that consumes massive amounts of pointless energy, more than many countries consume, and it is growing.

 

Explain how storage works sufficient to make it efficient. Next, explain how storage doesn't compete with land needs for food. Next, explain how storage doesn't include the use of petri chemicals to support it.

The simple facts are that so far renewables are at best temporary, have built if don't use by dates which means constant replacement of parts, etc. These aren't answers, they are future proofed revenue streams.

 

The hype is peaking.
Manhattan Contrarian Announces The Arrival Of "Peak Oil-Hysteria"
November 03, 2021/ Francis Menton

• 
  Do you remember the “peak oil” scare? That was the claim, heard everywhere in the early 2000s, that nearly all the world’s discoverable oil had already been found, and we would shortly enter a time of inexorably declining production and rapidly escalating prices. This 2018 article in Forbes by Michael Lynch traces the “modern” version of the “peak oil” scare to a 1997 piece in the Oil & Gas Journal by a guy named Colin Campbell. Campbell argued that oil reserves were “rapidly depleting,” that there was “comparatively little left to find,” and that “the world's economic and political stability, which relies on an abundant supply of cheap oil, is in serious jeopardy.”
  
  
• Oil production isn’t at a peak, and never was. But here’s something closely related that really is at or near a peak from which rapid decline should be expected: Oil-Hysteria. Oil-Hysteria is the delirium that holds that the production and use of oil (and for that matter other fossil fuels) for the benefit and happiness of humanity are grave sins and are destroying the planet.
  
  
• And thus today, after reviewing the evidence, the Manhattan Contrarian has announced the arrival of “Peak Oil-Hysteria.” It is here. Not 2050. Not 2030. Now.
  

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A few hours is all that's needed evenings. Tesla literally just halved the cost for their new battery. Silly pessimism.

Agreed

 

I have a better idea. Prove that these issues are a problem, and if so, an unsolvable one.

https://www.irena.org/newsroom/arti...es,, complementing utility-scale applications.

https://insideevs.com/news/545593/panasonic-progress-tesla-4680-cells/

 

And oil has well and truly peaked *empathy*

 

Tesla halved the cost of their new battery by switching to a version that won't store as much energy. I am not sure how you would see that as progress.

 

LOL.... sorry, not interested in writing your term paper for you today. We don't have efficient storage. Period. Some folk shave ideas, for sure, but currently no solution. Of those who have ideas, the land footprint of said storage is enormous, even give best guesses. And the number of storage facilities would be endless, as well as dispersed. You cannot avoid these pitfalls. Sorry. Simple task. Take total world electricity production, today, and then distribute that land usage for estimated storage capacity to sustain that production number. And then start taking that land away from other uses, like food production or living area. The math doesn't work in your favor.

 

Doubtful.

“Our supplies of natural resources are not limited in any economic sense. Nor does past experience give reason to expect natural resources to become more scarce. Rather, if history is any guide, natural resources will progressively become less costly, hence less scarce, and will constitute a smaller proportion of our expenses in future years.”
― Julian L. Simon

Forget About Peak Oil - We Haven’t Even Reached Peak Coal Yet August 16, 2021

Despite all the heavy dissemination of narratives and talking points about a “climate emergency” and the “energy transition” during 2021, the ongoing economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic proves that the world still hea...

 

Because it is not just about Tesla