63 Comments

And this is why the world economics and power will move to those countries. The west is done,put a fork in it. We cannot bounce back k from the lunacy to many decades of brainwashing into believing government and other "experts".

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well done Robert. Africa still has to develop in this century, the population has middle class aspirations, and there is no way that coal won’t be part of the solution.

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Thank you for this sobering perspective. Isn't it, that coal fired power plants are much faster to build than nuclear power plants? Isn't e-mobility's electricity demand behind the build-up of coal fired power plants?

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On your ‘nine states’ slide, Pennsylvania needs to colored blue.

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Dec 20, 2023·edited Dec 21, 2023Author

Good catch. Thanks. Fixed.

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The oil industry plan has always been to get rid of coal to replace it with methane, their product. The mining of methane through its creation from kerogen in fracking, is what created global warming in the first place because it reduced the pressure over methane hydrates created with fresh water flooding in tertiary recover efforts in lower carbonate rock. In 2003, the UN put out a book about where it began, in our oceans, in 1972. Never made the news.

We should keep coal as the interim measure and get rid of methane fracking.

Really think it is a bad idea to keep turning the rock civilization stands on to mush and methane gas. We recently learned that because we have been pumping too much water out of the earth, its spin is altered. Guess who pumps the most water out of the earth. It is not agriculture, plants that returns 10 times more water than they use through their transpiration function.

Really wish someone would take a look at the correlation between rising levels of methane atmospheric gas, its oxidants, formaldehyde and water vapor, and the extinctions that began in 2000 of bees, bats, birds, etc. Is the new respiratory problems in children and dogs related? Lung cancer increasing? Given we now have massive columns of formaldehyde descending on us every afternoon beginning at 4pm, we need to take a look because no one can escape a gas.

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Cool story Bro.

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The coal and nuclear graph says it all - China is far out stretching the rest of the world towards massive industrialization, through coal and nuclear, which it has already done beautifully by providing us everything we need/want up until now. I doubt that plan will change just get more expensive as it monopolizes the markets further.

The demise of the West before our eyes in our lifetimes is happening now and we are letting it happen for some far fetched story about the climate going to end us in the next few years. Our stupidity is ending us, and the late realization that we have de-industrialized at our own expense is still not a reality for most.

Energy security needs to come now, but it will not happen in a few short years, since politicians cannot preform in a timely fashion, if at all, and in the interim wind, solar and batteries will not save us.

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Any governmental body assembled is an nothing more than a large industry conference allowing invested interest a seat at the table to shape the rules of the game and the COP meetings are no different. With every passing meeting more energy, emissions, & carbon is used which is the COP meetings & agreements are suppose address and solve. Yet what ends up happening is through poor planning, poor execution, exemptions, unintended consequences, poorly designed incentives, creates the opposite of stated goals. Every single remedy or stated goal of COP has FAILED on every level, and has metamorphosize-in scale & scope-to an entrenchment of systems & intuitions where vested interest are fighting over their piece of government handout and protection using agreements, treaties, declarations, goals, & an orgy of tax incentives(payments). In sense creating the accounting system design to give the appearance of emission reduction while at the same time allow for the continue usage of the resources that are "contributing" to said problem.

Much more to say in detail but the point is fossil fuels are being reinforced and won't go anywhere but up in price, usage, & volume.

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The reality is the time table from brown field to power down the wire is far shorter for a coal plant than a nuke. Boiler plants will burn some gawd awful fuel and make power out of it, which works with China's coal quality. If you doubt it, visit a waste to energy facility where they incinerate municipal trash to make power.

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Suffice it to say there is a difference between a 10MW Navy Nuke plant and a 1000MW power station. But the over-regulation is real.

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28 flops in a row. Helluva record there.

I agree on the N2N policy but the whole notion of climate (i.e. temperature in the troposphere) being a) under control of human behaviour and b) mainly a factor of CO2 emissions (hydrocarbons or natural planetary releases) has been debunked by creditable scientists such as Prof. Lindzen whom you just had on your podcast. Solar activity, clouds and water vapour are much more of a factor on tropospheric temperatures according to them so we need to quash the CO2 = climate change BS whenever it comes up. A good example of this is the Hunga Tonga volanic eruption in early 2022 - it propelled 50,000 olympic-sized swimming pools of water up into the stratosphere. The effects of this event are still lingering including depleting the ozone layer over Antarctica:

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-eruption-depleted-ozone.html

The wackos in the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Earthjustice only persist because of the wrong view that CO2 equates to "global boiling". That and billionaire carpet-baggers.

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COP 28

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Here’s the most recent coverage.

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mm

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Excellent work Robert. At the conclusion of your Power Hungry podcasts, you always ask your guests, “what gives you hope?” What gives me hope is the work that you and your colleagues do to help educate and enlighten readers and listeners worldwide, of todays energy challenges and sensible solutions. Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

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Thanks very much.

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Bloomberg and his allied NGOs should be declared domestic terrorists and prosecuted. If their plans come to fruition thousands of Americans will freeze to death in the future.

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This is rather the (so far) Iron Law of Mis-incentives as applied to reducing net CO2 emissions. If one does not tax net CO2 emissions, they are unlikely to diminish.

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I'm not sure that the COPs are a financial bonanza for all those Sweeties. If you recall, at COP 15 in Copenhagen it was widely reported that the gals were giving freebies to delegates. Perhaps things have changed in the intervening years. Especially since the quantity of COP attendees seems likely to outpace any growth in the cadre of sex workers. Supply and Demand may work their magic, resulting in the financial rewards you suggest.

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How unreasonable (I hope not at all) am I in thinking that one small way individuals and smaller entities can both mitigate the claimed effects of global CO2 production, and provide a viable safety net/alternative against the effects of imposed decarbonization is to invest in small hybrid systems that allow local/individual real-time choices between energy use, reliance on wind-based supply-and-storage, and fossil-fueled backup. Is the combination of individual responsibility and local authority a tolerable pursuit?

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How do you do that and guarantee supply continuity? Because that is the issue.

No electric grid in the winter on the canadian prairies will kill a lot of people, compared to climate change which will kill none.

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First, I'm on your side here, but do you have a reference for your statement "climate change will kill none"? I agree, but there is a dearth of peer-reviewed literature on the subject of the benefits of climate change. Friedman has some interesting information, but no references. Suggestions, sir?

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If all else fails, here is the gold standard, referencing real data

Willis is a gem.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/

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Thanks. This is what I was looking for. The article also referenced the Alimonti paper, which has infamously been censored (no other word for it) from the literature. Please see my response below to "voza0db" regarding the thermal cycle. As usual, the numbers are secondary to the conclusion: No amount of “hard work” can change the laws of physics. The problem isn’t changing those laws, it’s getting people to understand those laws exist and that solutions to energy problems must recognize and work within the confines of those laws.

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Yes, the biggest failure in climate science, retracting a paper because it contradicts the narrative not that it got anything wrong.

A crime scene, if i was in charge.

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-alimonti-addendum

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Hi Barry.

The assumption from climate change alarmists is that the poles will melt, accelerating sea level rise to 5mm a year from 2-3mm/year, and then humans will die as they sit there watching that 5mm per year come in until they drown.

I would wish for that to be be sarcasm but its not, there is no other way to interpret people screaming that hundreds of millions with die "if we don't do something NOW"!!!!!!

Looking at it, its not up to me or anyone to prove a negative.

Its up to those predicting those deaths to show it.

Through the previous century of "catastrophic climate change", we see the data shows decreasing extreme weather, fires, and climate related deaths, along with ever increasing crop yields and general human well being. If someone wants to make the argument all those trends are going to reverse, they need to show their work.

As Roger has shown repeatedly on this website, all this predicted death and mayhem is based on ludicrous assumptions like RCP8.5.

As always, the people saying we face existential threat in 2050/75/2100 are the ones saying there is a climate crisis today, so why would i believe a liar today regarding their prediction for tomorrow?

As to the benefits of climate change, i see it everywhere i look. All stats are positive as we warm out of the LIA.

Again, need to have them show the negatives, when they try its easy to blast them out of the water for the nonsense they truly are.

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