Fantastic Article. If you dig you will find that Rewiring America founders are active investors in electrification startups (but don't talk about it) that stand to benefit greatly from outlawing combustion or subsidizing electrification
Generally I think both sides could come together with some small tweaks to messaging and strategies. Promote nuclear, renewables and new fossil fuels. Don't ban gas, but make it easy/cheap to upgrade to heat pumps (and if you already have gas, then it can serve as a great reliable back up) etc etc.
This post definitely respresents the polarization of these issues. Yes there is big money lining up behind left energy policies that really need to be sense checked becase they are hamful in the long term. But historically there has been way more influence behind anti energy transition intiatives whether from corporates or the Koch's as you mention, so the influence is just catching up.
Would love a follow-up to this article identifying $ going to moderate causes with sensible solutions.
What is commonly overlooked in this race to electrify everything is the need for fossil fuels for all of the transportation required. There is no replacement. Renewables don't transport anything.
The fact that we do not live in a society where information is as open & available as we would like to think should come as no surprise to any of us. What the author fails to mention is that there is an equivalent "dark money" machine pushing the fight against renewable energy & for hydrocarbons. It is touched on in this article:
I agree with your first sentence, but what government functions without some form of corruption of ideas or data? Europe until recently was far further down the road of corrupted platforms than we were. The creation of what was envisioned as a common market by its proponents in the 1950's, the EU has become a vast political machine which removes the dictates of individual governments which are subordinated to the whims of a group of elite paternalists. In any event, we've in a two year period caught up to Europe through the administration's unilateral decision making on things it has no business shredding. Yes, we once played the game with the oil lobby, but even if you go back to the 1970's, adjusted for inflation the subsidies given to Exxon, Shell, Texaco, etc were dwarfed by the direct and indirect money from the federal government now and during the Obama catastrophe to "green energy". Worse, Joe Biden who is essentially a hand puppet with not a gram of rectitude, has through possibly illegal executive fiat, quashed the marketplace through direct manipulation of the EPA, Interior, and even DOHS.
Add to this backdrop the self righteous hand wringing by useful idiots of George Clooney's or Bill Gates' ilk, and you now have an echo chamber of government, institutions and corporations all bending the masses to their will in an unending effort to turn our energy generation upside down. None of the proponents of this game have the least worry about the cost...why should they when they can afford their ill fated plans. Green legislation and corporate backing is a slow rolling catastrophe that almost none of the citizenry either understands the ramifications of or has asked for. We are serfs and our overlords want no outside input. Look no further than House members talking about silencing climate change and energy "disinformation".
I hope you truly do care about how this is all playing out, David. I'm in my 50's and have never been this frightened by governmental and corporate intervention in a functioning market system. The liberals have gone completely insane in their hatred of reasoned discourse AND constitutional government. They're nuts.
The fact that we no longer have representative government (please support ranked-choice voting & an end to partisan gerrymandering - both of which are feasible in the current social climate) should be a cause for distress all around. I don't understand why more people don't get upset at the concept of a "safe congressional seat." In modern politics, the people who define the districts are just engaging in a game of having the politicians select their voters when it should be the other way around.
The government has become an advocacy game for the ultra rich with only minimal input from the populace. While "both sides" have arguments that possess some merit, the discussion quit being merit based several decades ago. Now the general feeling seems to be, as you suggest, that "the other side" has gone completely insane (can you really support the kind of advocacy being put forth by the MAGA crowd?). part of this is the fault of the social media platforms which amplify the loudest & most insane (i.e. click producing) voices.
Regarding the merits, or lack thereof of renewable energy, it would be nice to have a merit based discussion. Currently, hydrocarbons have an oligopoly on transportation & huge influence over electrical generation as well. In my mind, oligopolies & monopolies are fairly similar & equally toxic. I would like to see a true marketplace based on real merits & not fear mongering. All energy generation is a matter of trade offs, particularly when we are limited to one viable biosphere. There is a lot of money invested in breaking that oligopoly but still plenty of money supporting it.
I did a little research a decade ago that suggests the level of influence:
Click the tab on organizational size. You don't have to look very hard to appreciate the fact that much of the world's economic power lies with the hydrocarbon industry. Now don't get me wrong, hydrocarbons have made modern civilization (with all of it's merits & faults) possible & for the most part, these companies earned their dominance. However, the world is not nor should it be static. the question becomes, in what direction will the dynamics take it?
First, I appreciate the thorough response. It displays none of the mental capture sought by either side of the political divide. And clearly enhancing the efficiency of existing energy sources and exploring novel energy development with as painless a set of trade-offs as possible is necessary In a world that values flourishing human life. Good on you
As long as there have been human beings there has been influence. I have great influence over my family in almost every area of life. Companies desire to wield it over government and their customers and most politicians want to wield that influence over everyone possible. As Chomsky wrote, anybody who announces that they're running for higher office should be immediately suspected. Perhaps that's cynical, but his point is made. I no more believe that Obama went from law school to being a city government flunky in Chicago because he gave a shit about the city than I do the notion that I can make the vast quantities of energy necessary to support an ever increasing global demand by making lots of pretty solar panels. Obama is an egotist and solar arrays are chock full of problems starting with their production and ending in the toxic runoff they create when fractured. We live in a world of conflation and outright lying perpetrated by "experts" who either care about their careers or money more than reality. I expect vested interests to act....aelf-, interested. But what the green energy juggernaut and government + institutional Covid reaction has showed in excruciating detail is the amount of prevarication and disdain for humanity supposedly independent actors show every damned day. I can't disagree about the MAGA conservative leadership displaying the same capture as the insane Left. But, and this is extraordinarily important, two things are true about our MAGA countrymen and women. One, the leaders are not 1960's Bull Connors crushing dissent and demanding some people be treated like farm animals. They are demagogues and know which side of their bread is buttered. These folks know how to sell political access to the "drill baby, drill" masses and it's revolting. But were it not for their sheer volume, conservatives would be even more terrorized than they are. The second thing that I see displayed in full measure is the left's sheer and unadulterated hatred of rural people, particularly whites. Show me a Midwest farmer who needs 500 gallons of diesel per month to keep his local Superfresh in corn and butter and I'll show you a guy whose lifestyle, religion and skin color is detested by folks who want fertilizer outlawed, cows euthanized, religion made illegal and tractors to be forcibly taken and maybe replaced by some idiotic electric contraption. That is the definition of a MAGA Republican. Which one do you think is more rational, somebody of his ilk who might possess a passing flirtation with racism due to his monocolor surroundings or a poor black city resident who doesn't particularly like white people. My answer is neither. They're both of equal value. But ideological capture has become an expert level profession of large swaths of self righteous douche bags in our coastal populations who value their artisanal coffees and ersatz farmer's markets to coal miners, rural farmers or factory workers. Those are so many cardboard cutouts to be burned, while urban blacks are hailed as noble chiefs.
I guess what I'm trying to get across is that the language and methods of persuasion surrounding energy from the left is utterly divorced from rationality. Jacobson is a complete liar or a bad expert. And oil companies are RUNNING at solar since they want....money and influence. That is indisputable. And labelling the rural middle of the country as the problem and talking about ensuring they can't read anything that they agree with because "disinformation" is a malthusian proposition that will end in bloodshed or individual rights being forcibly removed from Americans.
And, Africa and India. They want cheap energy. They don't want what rich multiculturalism wants them to want, which is to continue being totems of noble savagery for the enjoyment of elite assholes. I appreciate you engaging and your patience. I'll read the linked articles you laid down when I can do more than look at my phone which is what I'm doing.
Thank-you Chris, I appreciate rational engagement & none of us likes to think of ourselves as "captured" or in any way not in possession of free will. of course the truth can be much more subtle than any of us realizes & constant vigilance is important, along with the humility to recognize that each of us can be subject to non rational influence. I would enjoy further discussion on the biases & limitations of humans but, alas, I need to go & deliver a talk to my local "philosophical" society (yeah, in quotations because realistically, they lean more towards natural philosophy than the metaphysics which is my inclination (& not my topic tonight;-).
That sounds like a great evening to me. I'm headed to trivia in Baltimore City which is a huge highlight of my week. Two of my sons and a friend of mine will try to dominate the competition! Have a fine evening.
As the recent example in Ukraine of the harms of Germany's economy being beholden to Russian energy, the subtext of Robert's article is that those that control of energy wield significant political power. The curious result of gas bans is that typically MORE gas is consumed. The reason is thermodynamics. A non-combined-cycle natural gas fired power plant maxes out at about 33% efficiency in converting the energy in natural gas into electricity. That means that any end use of electricity for heating that is not at least three times as efficient relative to resistance heating ends up using more natural gas (or other dispatchable energy source.) The best-case thermodynamic efficiency of heat pumps is 300%. However, when it is below about 40 degrees F outdoors, the thermodynamic efficiency of heat pumps plummets. When it gets very cold outside, the heat pump's auxiliary resistance heater is activated. Watch the power meter start spinning rapidly then. Thus, a "bait and switch."
I wanted to point out the distorted thermo efficency claims of heat pump advocates and the federal government's own figures myself in responding to another commenter. Administration flunkies are touting the greatness of electric vs gas home heating to a public that has no idea of the constant cost of heat pumps to anyone dealing with freezing temps during the winter months, as in 3/4 of the country. And that's being optimistic. Woudn't it be great if the average citizen asked his/her HVAC contractor for advice rather than being force fed false data by our government using our tax dollars.
The U.S. EIA data below supports my contention. The state of California is one of the leaders in establishing municipal natural gas bans. See this September 22, 2022 Bloomberg article, "California Moves to Ban Natural Gas Furnaces and Heaters by 2030." If those bans were really environmentally and economically beneficial, the year-to-year use of natural gas would be declining. Instead, since 2019, the annual use of natural gas for California electricity generation is INCREASING. See the details at https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3045ca2A.htm BTW, California's residential electricity rates are among the highest in the nation. What this portends for the U.S. is ominous both for ratepayer's energy bills and for the environment.
In this piece, we compared GA to CA. We showed the EIA data (rates) and outlined the differences between the two state's approaches to "renewables".
We noted CA is barely hanging on to its last nuclear power plant (Diablo Canyon) while in GA two AP-1000s are about to crank up to 2.2 GW of CO2 emissions-free electricity.
The EIA report doesn't appear to separate the difference in costs between modern electric heat pumps from much more expensive resistance heating when it makes heating costs comparisons between natural gas and "electric". According to the article in the link below, when the source of electric heat is an efficient heat pump, electric heating is significantly cheaper than gas. The article also claims that the EIA reports uses total household electricity costs, not just the electricity used for heating. In the interest of having a candid discussion of the topic, I would be interested in hearing Robert discuss the point made in the linked article.
I note your point on the funding source. My question when comparing the cost of various heating sources with "electric" heating is what type of electric heating is being discussed. Another government source claims, "Today's heat pump can reduce your electricity use for heating by approximately 50% compared to electric resistance heating...", so just comparing gas heating with electric needs to be more specific about the type of electric heating. (https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems)
Heat pumps really are a Goldilocks use case. You need a pretty small range of outside temperatures to gain substantially on gas in terms of electricity used; this is especially so in newer homes that meet insulation inspection as there isn't a frequent call to heat in a 50° ambient temperature and a linear increase in need below that. Below 40° as Gene points out, heat pumps rapidly decline in efficiency. Talk to anyone in the Northeast or Midwest about costs and you'll find that come December or even November, heat pumps start looking mighty expensive. An anecdote, my brother lives close enough to me that he has the same utility; in early fall his heat pump is modestly cheaper than my forced hot air (high efficiency unit). By November his cost is double mine in a house that is roughly 30% larger.
Quoting from your comment, "Today's heat pump can reduce your electricity use for heating by approximately 50% compared to electric resistance heating...", That implies only 200% thermodynamic efficiency. Note my comment made recently. reducing total natural gas use typically requires around 300% thermodynamic efficiency, which is the best-case value for heat pumps. Heat pump efficiency depends on outside temperature. Below around 40 degrees F, the heat pump efficiency plummets.
From the Saul Griffith report for Rewiring America you noted:
"Solar, wind, and nuclear are the resources we have that far exceed our demands. Solar and wind are the cheapest, and have fewer complications than nuclear energy. Some scientists, such as Mark Jacobson at Stanford, argue that an all–renewables strategy can supply our energy needs globally.5 This bold claim has sparked some controversy (and a lawsuit), but if we allow some nuclear energy and use tricks to smooth out daily and seasonal variations (described in Chapter 7), the claims of Jacobson’s critics evaporate. We’re blessed with enough zero–carbon energy to meet our needs and even expand our wants — we just have to harness that energy sensibly."
"Some nuclear".
"Mark Jacobson at Stanford"
"We're blessed with enough zero-carbon energy....we just have to harness that energy sensibly"
Translation - OK, our celebrity scientist was wrong. And suing people doesn't change that. BUT with "some" nuclear (which we will fight to the death to prevent; judge us on past actions, not present happy talk!), it'll all be just fine. p.s. no, we haven't figured out that what we are proposing won't work.
You know how to determine if an energy source is viable and absolutely necessary in 2023...? If Alex Ocasio Cortez, the least useful person in almost any room, suddenly begins pushing it. Since she doesn't know how to read, it took a trip to Japan last month for AOC to suddenly decide that nuclear isn't going to destroy the planet. Instead it's the only way we can begin to afford all of those incredibly costly and destructive turbines and solar farms.
We almost used the same Abrams pic in the piece we released yesterday. We had it underneath the line:
"It also vividly demonstrates a recurring theme in government and modern environmentalism: no amount of failure is too much to succeed."
(But alas, with the other population, food production and other visuals, it put us over the email length limit for the post! :)
Two serious comments:
1) The aggregate assault on this whole ideological charade cannot withstand the fact, data, reason and logic-based stones being thrown at it on Substack forever. What you, Doomberg, BF Randall, Roger Pielke, Jr., and many others are doing to expose it will bring it down. Just like Solzhenitsyn helped bring down the USSR. We believe that and, in fits and starts, are attempting to help.
2) It occurs to us there is danger ahead for all of us related to #1. Look at your decades of work, and everything you've posted since joining Substack, Robert. Look at Doomberg's energy/environmental-related work. Same with BF Randall. Same with Roger Pielke, Jr.
From this very post today:
"Last June, McCarthy (who has since left the Biden administration) declared that she was in favor of having big tech companies censor speech involving climate change. In an interview with Axios, she said “tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation.”
We are threatening a lot of people in the Climate-Industrial Complex (our preferred term for 20 years). This includes a lot of people in California behind what we exposing, including many with money from, and in, Big Tech. Including specific people and NGO's.
It occurs to us that eventually these same people are going to lean on our publisher to do what McCarthy is suggesting.
When, not if, that happens, things are going to get interesting. Suffice to say it will be a big test of free speech for this platform we've fallen in love with. And for free speech in western civilization.
All of us are using publicly available information to do the heavy lifting of investigative journalism that the mainstream media won't do. (We all know why.) I
Imagine how different the world would be had it never been allowed to have the Gutenberg press.
Imagine how different it could be if the best thing since - Substack - were pressured by the same forces we're writing about to shut down this Brandeis sunlight machine as "disinformation".
We live in interesting times. We love writers who have courage in interesting times. Keep up the super work, Robert!
It is truly unfortunate that Elon Musk's intellect stops before striking wisdom. He is captive to an absurdist belief in renewables and battery tech as forces of incredible, wonderful change for the planet. Given his otherwise rational views on speech and liberty, I can only hope that he puts the environmental Kool Aid down and thinks deeply on these matters. We would all be better for having a rich cast off from the Mind Head of lefty dogma.
Agreed. But Elon is also all in on the wind and solar madness. He isn't that far removed from Jacobson in his utopian version of reality in which a little slice of west Texas could be dotted with solar arrays and wind farms and voila! Energy solved. No mention of the necessary concrete, steel, precious metals and minerals, etc necessary to complete the transformation. And after all, as a guy who owns a largish battery company, Musk isn't going to note it will take several hundred years of mineral extraction compressed into a few to create the batteries necessary to back up the continental grid for even 30 minutes.
Though he is a visionary, Musk's outlook is captive to a static outlook just like the myriad of PhD's at universities who swallow their skepticism amidst a sea of federal grant money.
I feel like one of those "ping pong balls" in the nuclear fusion videos from years ago.
So much crap being thrown at us these days from every direction. It is having the effect they intend; wearing us out and depressing us. Wearing us down until we have little energy to keep fighting. Just once it would be nice to feel like we had some big guys on our side. We are Davids fighting numerous Goliaths but the outcome appears to be different. 🥺
It seems like only yesterday when robber barons did things like build a national library system and unnecessarily employing thousands of workers building Rockefeller Center as the Depression raged. Now they just want to take your home, force you to eat grasshoppers, sell you scratchy sweaters to keep you warm in your hovel between shifts at the Central Committee Wind Turbine Plant Number 1, and pledge obeisance to our overlords for their kindness and elite knowlege and power lest you be thrown in prison. Gee that sounds an awful lot like Communism under Stalin
The GOAL of the Secular Ruling Families & Billionaires is to reach 2030 with a smaller Herd of modern moron slaves. They will use all the tools available to Them in order to reach the GOAL.
Unless modern moron slaves are willing to cull instead of being culled there is no point in wasting Time with this sort of information mainly because modern moron slaves really don't care about reading about this sort of stuff. And the few that read are aware that they can't do anything about this.
Our current Civilization was built by Them... They own the MAIN SYSTEM and this simple fact allows Them to control all the myriad of sub-systems.
If anyone reading seems this is exaggerated look for evidence no further than to the absolute SUCCESS of OPERATION COVIDIUS.
If They want to stop giving modern moron slaves GAS, They will.
The tax code should be trashed as it is too complicated and incredibly unfair. “Nonprofit” status should be abolished; many large nonprofits have become hedge funds and the system has been convoluted with “private foundations “ that do zero public good.
Fantastic Article. If you dig you will find that Rewiring America founders are active investors in electrification startups (but don't talk about it) that stand to benefit greatly from outlawing combustion or subsidizing electrification
Generally I think both sides could come together with some small tweaks to messaging and strategies. Promote nuclear, renewables and new fossil fuels. Don't ban gas, but make it easy/cheap to upgrade to heat pumps (and if you already have gas, then it can serve as a great reliable back up) etc etc.
This post definitely respresents the polarization of these issues. Yes there is big money lining up behind left energy policies that really need to be sense checked becase they are hamful in the long term. But historically there has been way more influence behind anti energy transition intiatives whether from corporates or the Koch's as you mention, so the influence is just catching up.
Would love a follow-up to this article identifying $ going to moderate causes with sensible solutions.
What is commonly overlooked in this race to electrify everything is the need for fossil fuels for all of the transportation required. There is no replacement. Renewables don't transport anything.
The fact that we do not live in a society where information is as open & available as we would like to think should come as no surprise to any of us. What the author fails to mention is that there is an equivalent "dark money" machine pushing the fight against renewable energy & for hydrocarbons. It is touched on in this article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/
Of course, "Real Clear Energy," where I found this article, is quite transparent in it's bias towards hydrocarbons.
I agree with your first sentence, but what government functions without some form of corruption of ideas or data? Europe until recently was far further down the road of corrupted platforms than we were. The creation of what was envisioned as a common market by its proponents in the 1950's, the EU has become a vast political machine which removes the dictates of individual governments which are subordinated to the whims of a group of elite paternalists. In any event, we've in a two year period caught up to Europe through the administration's unilateral decision making on things it has no business shredding. Yes, we once played the game with the oil lobby, but even if you go back to the 1970's, adjusted for inflation the subsidies given to Exxon, Shell, Texaco, etc were dwarfed by the direct and indirect money from the federal government now and during the Obama catastrophe to "green energy". Worse, Joe Biden who is essentially a hand puppet with not a gram of rectitude, has through possibly illegal executive fiat, quashed the marketplace through direct manipulation of the EPA, Interior, and even DOHS.
Add to this backdrop the self righteous hand wringing by useful idiots of George Clooney's or Bill Gates' ilk, and you now have an echo chamber of government, institutions and corporations all bending the masses to their will in an unending effort to turn our energy generation upside down. None of the proponents of this game have the least worry about the cost...why should they when they can afford their ill fated plans. Green legislation and corporate backing is a slow rolling catastrophe that almost none of the citizenry either understands the ramifications of or has asked for. We are serfs and our overlords want no outside input. Look no further than House members talking about silencing climate change and energy "disinformation".
I hope you truly do care about how this is all playing out, David. I'm in my 50's and have never been this frightened by governmental and corporate intervention in a functioning market system. The liberals have gone completely insane in their hatred of reasoned discourse AND constitutional government. They're nuts.
The fact that we no longer have representative government (please support ranked-choice voting & an end to partisan gerrymandering - both of which are feasible in the current social climate) should be a cause for distress all around. I don't understand why more people don't get upset at the concept of a "safe congressional seat." In modern politics, the people who define the districts are just engaging in a game of having the politicians select their voters when it should be the other way around.
The government has become an advocacy game for the ultra rich with only minimal input from the populace. While "both sides" have arguments that possess some merit, the discussion quit being merit based several decades ago. Now the general feeling seems to be, as you suggest, that "the other side" has gone completely insane (can you really support the kind of advocacy being put forth by the MAGA crowd?). part of this is the fault of the social media platforms which amplify the loudest & most insane (i.e. click producing) voices.
Regarding the merits, or lack thereof of renewable energy, it would be nice to have a merit based discussion. Currently, hydrocarbons have an oligopoly on transportation & huge influence over electrical generation as well. In my mind, oligopolies & monopolies are fairly similar & equally toxic. I would like to see a true marketplace based on real merits & not fear mongering. All energy generation is a matter of trade offs, particularly when we are limited to one viable biosphere. There is a lot of money invested in breaking that oligopoly but still plenty of money supporting it.
I did a little research a decade ago that suggests the level of influence:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/0B64VZROKfWDTb1BObVBCSTFtc1U/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=111903736968841482304&resourcekey=0-ECgViKONxr6_zgoeMMwu9Q&rtpof=true&sd=true
Click the tab on organizational size. You don't have to look very hard to appreciate the fact that much of the world's economic power lies with the hydrocarbon industry. Now don't get me wrong, hydrocarbons have made modern civilization (with all of it's merits & faults) possible & for the most part, these companies earned their dominance. However, the world is not nor should it be static. the question becomes, in what direction will the dynamics take it?
First, I appreciate the thorough response. It displays none of the mental capture sought by either side of the political divide. And clearly enhancing the efficiency of existing energy sources and exploring novel energy development with as painless a set of trade-offs as possible is necessary In a world that values flourishing human life. Good on you
As long as there have been human beings there has been influence. I have great influence over my family in almost every area of life. Companies desire to wield it over government and their customers and most politicians want to wield that influence over everyone possible. As Chomsky wrote, anybody who announces that they're running for higher office should be immediately suspected. Perhaps that's cynical, but his point is made. I no more believe that Obama went from law school to being a city government flunky in Chicago because he gave a shit about the city than I do the notion that I can make the vast quantities of energy necessary to support an ever increasing global demand by making lots of pretty solar panels. Obama is an egotist and solar arrays are chock full of problems starting with their production and ending in the toxic runoff they create when fractured. We live in a world of conflation and outright lying perpetrated by "experts" who either care about their careers or money more than reality. I expect vested interests to act....aelf-, interested. But what the green energy juggernaut and government + institutional Covid reaction has showed in excruciating detail is the amount of prevarication and disdain for humanity supposedly independent actors show every damned day. I can't disagree about the MAGA conservative leadership displaying the same capture as the insane Left. But, and this is extraordinarily important, two things are true about our MAGA countrymen and women. One, the leaders are not 1960's Bull Connors crushing dissent and demanding some people be treated like farm animals. They are demagogues and know which side of their bread is buttered. These folks know how to sell political access to the "drill baby, drill" masses and it's revolting. But were it not for their sheer volume, conservatives would be even more terrorized than they are. The second thing that I see displayed in full measure is the left's sheer and unadulterated hatred of rural people, particularly whites. Show me a Midwest farmer who needs 500 gallons of diesel per month to keep his local Superfresh in corn and butter and I'll show you a guy whose lifestyle, religion and skin color is detested by folks who want fertilizer outlawed, cows euthanized, religion made illegal and tractors to be forcibly taken and maybe replaced by some idiotic electric contraption. That is the definition of a MAGA Republican. Which one do you think is more rational, somebody of his ilk who might possess a passing flirtation with racism due to his monocolor surroundings or a poor black city resident who doesn't particularly like white people. My answer is neither. They're both of equal value. But ideological capture has become an expert level profession of large swaths of self righteous douche bags in our coastal populations who value their artisanal coffees and ersatz farmer's markets to coal miners, rural farmers or factory workers. Those are so many cardboard cutouts to be burned, while urban blacks are hailed as noble chiefs.
I guess what I'm trying to get across is that the language and methods of persuasion surrounding energy from the left is utterly divorced from rationality. Jacobson is a complete liar or a bad expert. And oil companies are RUNNING at solar since they want....money and influence. That is indisputable. And labelling the rural middle of the country as the problem and talking about ensuring they can't read anything that they agree with because "disinformation" is a malthusian proposition that will end in bloodshed or individual rights being forcibly removed from Americans.
And, Africa and India. They want cheap energy. They don't want what rich multiculturalism wants them to want, which is to continue being totems of noble savagery for the enjoyment of elite assholes. I appreciate you engaging and your patience. I'll read the linked articles you laid down when I can do more than look at my phone which is what I'm doing.
Cheers.
Thank-you Chris, I appreciate rational engagement & none of us likes to think of ourselves as "captured" or in any way not in possession of free will. of course the truth can be much more subtle than any of us realizes & constant vigilance is important, along with the humility to recognize that each of us can be subject to non rational influence. I would enjoy further discussion on the biases & limitations of humans but, alas, I need to go & deliver a talk to my local "philosophical" society (yeah, in quotations because realistically, they lean more towards natural philosophy than the metaphysics which is my inclination (& not my topic tonight;-).
That sounds like a great evening to me. I'm headed to trivia in Baltimore City which is a huge highlight of my week. Two of my sons and a friend of mine will try to dominate the competition! Have a fine evening.
As the recent example in Ukraine of the harms of Germany's economy being beholden to Russian energy, the subtext of Robert's article is that those that control of energy wield significant political power. The curious result of gas bans is that typically MORE gas is consumed. The reason is thermodynamics. A non-combined-cycle natural gas fired power plant maxes out at about 33% efficiency in converting the energy in natural gas into electricity. That means that any end use of electricity for heating that is not at least three times as efficient relative to resistance heating ends up using more natural gas (or other dispatchable energy source.) The best-case thermodynamic efficiency of heat pumps is 300%. However, when it is below about 40 degrees F outdoors, the thermodynamic efficiency of heat pumps plummets. When it gets very cold outside, the heat pump's auxiliary resistance heater is activated. Watch the power meter start spinning rapidly then. Thus, a "bait and switch."
I wanted to point out the distorted thermo efficency claims of heat pump advocates and the federal government's own figures myself in responding to another commenter. Administration flunkies are touting the greatness of electric vs gas home heating to a public that has no idea of the constant cost of heat pumps to anyone dealing with freezing temps during the winter months, as in 3/4 of the country. And that's being optimistic. Woudn't it be great if the average citizen asked his/her HVAC contractor for advice rather than being force fed false data by our government using our tax dollars.
The U.S. EIA data below supports my contention. The state of California is one of the leaders in establishing municipal natural gas bans. See this September 22, 2022 Bloomberg article, "California Moves to Ban Natural Gas Furnaces and Heaters by 2030." If those bans were really environmentally and economically beneficial, the year-to-year use of natural gas would be declining. Instead, since 2019, the annual use of natural gas for California electricity generation is INCREASING. See the details at https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3045ca2A.htm BTW, California's residential electricity rates are among the highest in the nation. What this portends for the U.S. is ominous both for ratepayer's energy bills and for the environment.
In this piece, we compared GA to CA. We showed the EIA data (rates) and outlined the differences between the two state's approaches to "renewables".
We noted CA is barely hanging on to its last nuclear power plant (Diablo Canyon) while in GA two AP-1000s are about to crank up to 2.2 GW of CO2 emissions-free electricity.
It is hard to see CA rates going anywhere but up. It's equally hard to see GA rates ever reaching CA's current rates. https://envmental.substack.com/p/sacrificing-humanity-on-the-green-766
How are these non-profit groups not just forms of legalized money laundering? Same crap happens in the urbanism/alt transportation world.
https://principledbicycling.substack.com/p/the-streetsblog-files-part-i-of
Like in Bryce’s story here, NUCLEAR was not mentioned, WHY?
Believe me or NOT
THATS WHERE ALL OF THIS TYPE OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY IS HEADING........
Taking the long way to get there whether unintended may have serious even more than sticking with FF’s
How in the HELL is leading on alternative energy e.g. wind, solar the US not once again be eating out of CHINA’s hands not just for
Neodymium, Praseodymium, terbium etc..... but
Nuclear!!! for that is the ultimate control in power over all sectors!
NOT JUST THE ELECTRIC GRID
NUCLEAR being the only energy source to transform all three sectors!
The EIA report doesn't appear to separate the difference in costs between modern electric heat pumps from much more expensive resistance heating when it makes heating costs comparisons between natural gas and "electric". According to the article in the link below, when the source of electric heat is an efficient heat pump, electric heating is significantly cheaper than gas. The article also claims that the EIA reports uses total household electricity costs, not just the electricity used for heating. In the interest of having a candid discussion of the topic, I would be interested in hearing Robert discuss the point made in the linked article.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/heat-pumps/heating-will-be-costly-this-winter-but-much-less-so-with-a-heat-pump
Note carefully at the bottom right of Canary Media's home page the following: "© 2023 Canary Media — Powered by RMI." Yep RMI is Rocky Mountain Institute, highlighted in this article about dark money.
I note your point on the funding source. My question when comparing the cost of various heating sources with "electric" heating is what type of electric heating is being discussed. Another government source claims, "Today's heat pump can reduce your electricity use for heating by approximately 50% compared to electric resistance heating...", so just comparing gas heating with electric needs to be more specific about the type of electric heating. (https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems)
Heat pumps really are a Goldilocks use case. You need a pretty small range of outside temperatures to gain substantially on gas in terms of electricity used; this is especially so in newer homes that meet insulation inspection as there isn't a frequent call to heat in a 50° ambient temperature and a linear increase in need below that. Below 40° as Gene points out, heat pumps rapidly decline in efficiency. Talk to anyone in the Northeast or Midwest about costs and you'll find that come December or even November, heat pumps start looking mighty expensive. An anecdote, my brother lives close enough to me that he has the same utility; in early fall his heat pump is modestly cheaper than my forced hot air (high efficiency unit). By November his cost is double mine in a house that is roughly 30% larger.
Quoting from your comment, "Today's heat pump can reduce your electricity use for heating by approximately 50% compared to electric resistance heating...", That implies only 200% thermodynamic efficiency. Note my comment made recently. reducing total natural gas use typically requires around 300% thermodynamic efficiency, which is the best-case value for heat pumps. Heat pump efficiency depends on outside temperature. Below around 40 degrees F, the heat pump efficiency plummets.
From the Saul Griffith report for Rewiring America you noted:
"Solar, wind, and nuclear are the resources we have that far exceed our demands. Solar and wind are the cheapest, and have fewer complications than nuclear energy. Some scientists, such as Mark Jacobson at Stanford, argue that an all–renewables strategy can supply our energy needs globally.5 This bold claim has sparked some controversy (and a lawsuit), but if we allow some nuclear energy and use tricks to smooth out daily and seasonal variations (described in Chapter 7), the claims of Jacobson’s critics evaporate. We’re blessed with enough zero–carbon energy to meet our needs and even expand our wants — we just have to harness that energy sensibly."
"Some nuclear".
"Mark Jacobson at Stanford"
"We're blessed with enough zero-carbon energy....we just have to harness that energy sensibly"
Translation - OK, our celebrity scientist was wrong. And suing people doesn't change that. BUT with "some" nuclear (which we will fight to the death to prevent; judge us on past actions, not present happy talk!), it'll all be just fine. p.s. no, we haven't figured out that what we are proposing won't work.
Union of Corrupt Shills
Stole that from someone (forgot who) else.
You know how to determine if an energy source is viable and absolutely necessary in 2023...? If Alex Ocasio Cortez, the least useful person in almost any room, suddenly begins pushing it. Since she doesn't know how to read, it took a trip to Japan last month for AOC to suddenly decide that nuclear isn't going to destroy the planet. Instead it's the only way we can begin to afford all of those incredibly costly and destructive turbines and solar farms.
Superb work, as usual, Robert!
We almost used the same Abrams pic in the piece we released yesterday. We had it underneath the line:
"It also vividly demonstrates a recurring theme in government and modern environmentalism: no amount of failure is too much to succeed."
(But alas, with the other population, food production and other visuals, it put us over the email length limit for the post! :)
Two serious comments:
1) The aggregate assault on this whole ideological charade cannot withstand the fact, data, reason and logic-based stones being thrown at it on Substack forever. What you, Doomberg, BF Randall, Roger Pielke, Jr., and many others are doing to expose it will bring it down. Just like Solzhenitsyn helped bring down the USSR. We believe that and, in fits and starts, are attempting to help.
2) It occurs to us there is danger ahead for all of us related to #1. Look at your decades of work, and everything you've posted since joining Substack, Robert. Look at Doomberg's energy/environmental-related work. Same with BF Randall. Same with Roger Pielke, Jr.
From this very post today:
"Last June, McCarthy (who has since left the Biden administration) declared that she was in favor of having big tech companies censor speech involving climate change. In an interview with Axios, she said “tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation.”
We are threatening a lot of people in the Climate-Industrial Complex (our preferred term for 20 years). This includes a lot of people in California behind what we exposing, including many with money from, and in, Big Tech. Including specific people and NGO's.
It occurs to us that eventually these same people are going to lean on our publisher to do what McCarthy is suggesting.
When, not if, that happens, things are going to get interesting. Suffice to say it will be a big test of free speech for this platform we've fallen in love with. And for free speech in western civilization.
All of us are using publicly available information to do the heavy lifting of investigative journalism that the mainstream media won't do. (We all know why.) I
Imagine how different the world would be had it never been allowed to have the Gutenberg press.
Imagine how different it could be if the best thing since - Substack - were pressured by the same forces we're writing about to shut down this Brandeis sunlight machine as "disinformation".
We live in interesting times. We love writers who have courage in interesting times. Keep up the super work, Robert!
It is truly unfortunate that Elon Musk's intellect stops before striking wisdom. He is captive to an absurdist belief in renewables and battery tech as forces of incredible, wonderful change for the planet. Given his otherwise rational views on speech and liberty, I can only hope that he puts the environmental Kool Aid down and thinks deeply on these matters. We would all be better for having a rich cast off from the Mind Head of lefty dogma.
Agreed. But Elon is also all in on the wind and solar madness. He isn't that far removed from Jacobson in his utopian version of reality in which a little slice of west Texas could be dotted with solar arrays and wind farms and voila! Energy solved. No mention of the necessary concrete, steel, precious metals and minerals, etc necessary to complete the transformation. And after all, as a guy who owns a largish battery company, Musk isn't going to note it will take several hundred years of mineral extraction compressed into a few to create the batteries necessary to back up the continental grid for even 30 minutes.
Though he is a visionary, Musk's outlook is captive to a static outlook just like the myriad of PhD's at universities who swallow their skepticism amidst a sea of federal grant money.
I'm right there with you. SpaceX has already fundamentally changed space travel by orders of magnitude.
Not only is natural gas the cheapest fuel but its also the cleanest and most efficient.
Hard to imagine why a group of people would be working overtime to destroy Western Civilization.
These people share a mechanistic ideology, according to the author of "The Psychology of Totalitarianism."
Not really.
Not once you understand that those same people figured out something 30 years ago and have used it in this manner every since.
No voting booths or revolutions are needed. Too slow and bloody. Too many phones to capture it all.
All one needs to do in order to achieve the same is control energy. Energy underpins EVERYTHING on which modern voters rely.
And to do that, all one has to do is scare the public into believing that profligate energy use is going to kill them. Or worse, their kids.
That's the running tragicomedy on planet earth since 2000.
They are NAZI's who want absolute power over the world. THE FOURTH REICH.
Unfortunately, their surnames and pedigree would seem to suggest otherwise.
I feel like one of those "ping pong balls" in the nuclear fusion videos from years ago.
So much crap being thrown at us these days from every direction. It is having the effect they intend; wearing us out and depressing us. Wearing us down until we have little energy to keep fighting. Just once it would be nice to feel like we had some big guys on our side. We are Davids fighting numerous Goliaths but the outcome appears to be different. 🥺
It seems like only yesterday when robber barons did things like build a national library system and unnecessarily employing thousands of workers building Rockefeller Center as the Depression raged. Now they just want to take your home, force you to eat grasshoppers, sell you scratchy sweaters to keep you warm in your hovel between shifts at the Central Committee Wind Turbine Plant Number 1, and pledge obeisance to our overlords for their kindness and elite knowlege and power lest you be thrown in prison. Gee that sounds an awful lot like Communism under Stalin
Focus on one Goliath and do like David... Cull him! Anything else is indeed a waste of Time and Resources.
If you aren't willing to cull, then I suggest you stop using the WWW and "smart"phones and just Live in the most Balanced way you possibly can.
Robert, remind me to tell you about McCarthy’s activities in and around the King Gold Mine disaster and the Clean Power Plan.
The GOAL of the Secular Ruling Families & Billionaires is to reach 2030 with a smaller Herd of modern moron slaves. They will use all the tools available to Them in order to reach the GOAL.
Unless modern moron slaves are willing to cull instead of being culled there is no point in wasting Time with this sort of information mainly because modern moron slaves really don't care about reading about this sort of stuff. And the few that read are aware that they can't do anything about this.
Our current Civilization was built by Them... They own the MAIN SYSTEM and this simple fact allows Them to control all the myriad of sub-systems.
If anyone reading seems this is exaggerated look for evidence no further than to the absolute SUCCESS of OPERATION COVIDIUS.
If They want to stop giving modern moron slaves GAS, They will.
😕😕😕
Why so much confusion?! 1st time reading about Reality?!
Here, this might help... https://postimg.cc/t7by4c9n
Now you have a glimpse of what we are facing.
The tax code should be trashed as it is too complicated and incredibly unfair. “Nonprofit” status should be abolished; many large nonprofits have become hedge funds and the system has been convoluted with “private foundations “ that do zero public good.
Non-Profits are legal money laundering for the elites these days.