For several years now I have paid attention to the supply and demand factors for the production of energy. It seems to me that the standard of living we enjoy in Australia and developing countries aspire to, is based on an abundance of cheap and reliable energy. I have mentioned in at least one earlier essay the wonderful museum in Ceduna, in South Australia, which offers visitors a working example of every machine, and there are dozens of them, used before the arrival of electricity. A lot of old guys maintain these machines, and they are properly proud of them too. I remember one or two of the machines from my childhood. Electricity made most of them obsolete quite quickly. You pressed a switch and an electric motor did all the work. Electric motors were simple and easy to repair, too, as well as cheap to replace.
More recently we have been subjected to a great cry from those fixated on ‘alternative energy’ sources. To save the planet we must wean ourselves off fossil fuels and replace them with ‘sustainable’ energy sources, largely wind and solar. There are problems with this project, for wind and solar suffer from intermittency and need back-up, which has to be provided by fossil fuels. Both wind and solar need lots of land to be at all useful, because their energy density is weak. Nonetheless, the cry continues, and it is most useful to see what in fact the components of energy supply actually are. The British Petroleum (BP) oil company has been publishing statistics on this subject since 1951, and it recently brought out its 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy, which you can read here. I have to accept that the BP data are as close to correct as they can be, and there is a great deal about their methodology in the Review. The data allow both snapshots of a given point in time, like 2019, and also a long-term trend.
Now you might think that an oil company would be forthright in pointing out the great utility of oil, if only for transport, let alone for the generation of electricity. But no. BP is careful to be politically correct. The CEO of BP is Bernard Looney (I make no comment), says that BP is aiming to be a net-zero emissions company by 2050. More:“The world’s carbon budget is finite and running out fast; we need a rapid transition to net zero”.
Alas, his charts and tables, as below,
don’t suggest that anything much in the way of a rapid transition is happening now, or likely to happen soon. Over the past twenty-five years world consumption of primary energy has almost doubled, but its components are proportionately much the same as they were in 1994. The consumption of coal, oil and gas has increased quite impressively; nuclear energy has not, and is much the same; there is somewhat more hydroelectricity, and renewables, which were tiny in 1994, are now producing somewhat less than nuclear power stations. Even if you extend the trend for a further twenty-five years it seems highly unlikely to me that there will be any such rapid transition.
That is just to assume that current trends remain constant. I have doubts that such constancy is possible. Batteries can store a little energy for a short time, while something else is switched on and kicks in, but they don’t generate power, despite what many people seem to think. There seems to be increasing resistance around the world to the plonking of wind turbines and solar arrays on otherwise useful land, both for aesthetic grounds and in the case of turbines medical grounds as well. Rooftop solar is becoming an inconvenient source of grid power. And the life of solar cells and wind turbines is becoming a worry. Those consumers who opted for solar arrays when there was a government inducement to buy them will find out soon whether or not the long-term investment actually does pay off. Developing countries able to do so are investing in coal as well as renewables. Just about any country that has the raw material is searching for and exploiting oil and gas. There is no way that a poor country can get rich quickly by opting for renewables. They want to have the same living standards as we do. Why wouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they?
I’ve used the BP data because they are historic, and can be arrived at reasonably accurately. Projections are the devil, for so much depends on techn0logical advances of many kinds, and on whether or not ‘peak oil’ is arriving, has arrived or will arrive in some short-term future. Since the demise of oil as a cheap energy source has been predicted, wrongly so far, since the 1950s, it is hard to know what to think. But most projections I have seen build on the 2019 figures that BP provided, and continue the trend in a sort of linear fashion. Here is an example.
History and projection
Its projections, be it noted, started fifteen years ago! Its projection of renewable availability was more up-beat than the reality of 2019, but the big three, coal, oil and gas, were much where they were predicted to be in 2005. My guess is that its projections for 2035 will be pretty similar to the reality in that year, only fourteen or so years away. May I live to see it! If alive I’ll be waiting for the preparation of Queen’s celebratory telegram, if she still sends them.
If you want to see a graph of ‘peak oil’ here’s one.
I do not know on what data and estimates the decline is based. Note that the real peak was not to be 2017 but about now. That seems to be the case for most global estimates of peak oil. It is always coming. Even in 2050 the decline in global production looks to be somewhat short of twenty per cent. What we will all be doing then is moot.
To return to the present, the future and our own country, I can see little point in our trying to lead the world, or be among the big players, in ‘decarbonising’ Australia and showing the way to the otherwise benighted. Yes, I recognise that it is the fashionable thing to do, and that our governments talk about it in a muddled sort of way. But we have abundant coal, enough to supply our electricity for a couple of centuries at least. We can afford to buy our oil from overseas. We have plenty of gas, if we were sensible enough to reserve the best of it for ourselves.
Of course, to do that we would have to say, as confidently as we could, that there is no climate emergency, that the small increases in CO2 in the atmosphere over the past thirty years have coincided with a greening of the planet and a rise in food production, that natural variation is very much a part of climate change, and that the notion of ‘climate sensitivity’ doesn’t seem to be born out by observations and argument, and more similar caveats.
I don’t see this happening any time soon. But the more I study actual data the more I want to argue that the climate activists are having themselves, and the rest of us, on. The sooner we all wake up, the better.
Apology: My operating system has been changed, and I am still unsure of how to use the new version. The present bolding has no significance, and the graphs could be better, I agree. I’m still learning!
Folks are waking up to the fact that the entire CAGW scare was the biggest hoax in human history. With prominent alarmists such as the two Michaels (Moore and Shellenberger) throw the scam under the bus, the light breaks through the darkness. There will come a “tipping point” of accurate information at which a majority discover it has been conned. It can’t happen soon enough.,
Karabar
Actually more folks are waking up to the fact that CAGW is not the biggest hoax in history and in fact not a hoax at all.
The “tipping point” of accurate, scientific information has been passed – only SkyNews, Hansonite rednecks and Trumpy-trolls have yet to catch up.
“The “tipping point” of accurate, scientific information has been passed – only SkyNews, Hansonite rednecks and Trumpy-trolls have yet to catch up.”
Well, it has certainly beej passed by alarmists, whose knowledge of the scientific method could be inscribed on the back of an aspirin with a crowbar!
Or writing with a 3 inch paintbrush on a postage stamp sized corner of the scrap of paper Rudd and the dopey communications minister (his name escapes me but I still see his face, frightening) used to justify NBN.
Gail Tverberg offers a rather more bleak analysis.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/06/25/covid-19-and-the-economy-where-do-we-go-from-here/#more-45201
It is about time these climate alarmist, beligerents, catastrophists and doommongers ( yes I also can use words starting with “d” ) read ( and I mean READ) the source documents. This is the lecture ” On Radiation” by John Tyndell FRS on Tuesday 16 May 1865 to the Royal Society. He is the discoverer of the IR absorption properties of numerous gasses by experimentation ( yes, a rare word in climate “science” and the climate a,b,c and d crowd). At chapter 13 he described water vapour as “…exercises a very potent action.” and ” aqueous vapour is especially opaque”. He correctly identified water vapour as THE gas “protecting its (Earth) surface from the deadly chill which it would otherwise sustain”.
As far as CO2 , he described it at chapter 14 as “..one of the feeblest of absorbers of the radiant heater by solid sources”, which he referred to as the “calorific rays” .
After seeing Planet of the Humans” and now the public apology from Michael Shellenberger, I suggest the climate alarmists etc prepare their humble pie. It will be a large one!
JMO
If you want a CO2 effect experiment – try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1BZeSbtyaA
Any increase in global heating due to water vapour leads to converting what otherwise would have been a logarithmic response into a linear response. As temperature rises – water vapour increases.
There is plenty of science since Tyndell.
So with such cherry-picking, you should be spending time baking your own humble cherry pie.
Surely you aren’t still touting that inane CO2 experiment around!
Yes BJ, our blith, like Rebecca, is a determined believer.
Just not in science.
Why make sense when you can just weep your way through national energy policy?
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/07/why-its-time-to-get-emotional-about-climate-psychology/
A good article Don and I couldn’t agree more with your conclusion.
Perhaps co2 is providing some extra forcing but it doesn’t really matter, because the developing countries want all the fossil fuels they can find for their citizens over the coming decades, whether we like it or not.
So called net zero emissions is just another fraud and we should vote against these con merchants at every opportunity.
BTW I also hope you get your telegram from Her / His Majesty at the allotted time.
BTW here’s that co2 emissions graph AGAIN from Wikipedia since 1970.
Look at China, other countries and India ( just starting) and please start to wake up.
And please understand that SH countries emit about 7% of all Human co2 emissions and CSIRO states that the SH emissions are already NET ZERO. See CSIRO Cape Grim Tassie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
Great work Don. Does any one know of any research being undertaken that oil is not the product of broken down plant matter but from sulphur compressed at great pressure within the earths crust and seeping out through fissures. I think this is right – Dr Hubble was the more recent scientist to forward this theory. Looking forward to Alice and Neville contributions on this topic.
The four sun spots are doing their job – lower temps and higher rainfall so far across Australia.
As long as China, India and other developing nations continue on their current course (and there are no solid indicators that they will change course), then anything Australia does is pointless virtue signalling. I might give some confortably well off alarmists a warm feeling, but (even if the alarmists are correct), the effect will be invisible. It will certainly make life more difficult for poor people in Australia.
Much like the old joke about wetting yourself in a dark suit. Sometimes you get a warm feeling, but generally no-one notices. Except that those who can no longer afford to heat or cool their homes will notice the lack of interest in their plight by the woke wealthy.
Tar, feathers, some assembly required.
I think most observers are waking up to the inevitability of coal, gas or nuclear as being essential to a reliable electricity system.
The drawbacks of renewables are only too apparent: especially intermittency, low density (which means vast areas of land required for solar or wind) and system costs associated with extra transmission lines needed because capacity factors for wind in Australia are only around 30%. The capacity is needed when the wind is blowing and widespread, but then they sit idle when it is not (and especially at night when the sun doesn’t shine).
The real crunch comes with the ‘choke point’, which Rafe Champion has been writing about. What happens when the sun goes down, the wind is not blowing, and demand rises as people come home? There are also enormous problems with system stability, exacerbated by a large amount of rooftop solar on the system, which can produce substantial voltage instability. Our heat pump occasionally refuses to start, and when I run the diagnostics, it tells me voltage instability is the problem. It won’t start in order to protect itself.
And a system without the inertia of large synchronous generators leads to frequency variability. The real function of the Tesla battery in SA is to correct for this. The costs of battery back-up and pumped storage are substantial, yet they are needed as the proportion of renewables on the grid increases. Both are only around 80-85% efficient, so not only do they not produce energy, they consume it.
I did quite a bit of work subjecting engineers to critical scrutiny (See, for example, Transforming Power: The Politics of Electricity Planning, Cambridge University Press, 1996), and eventually concluding that there was not an issue of technocracy. They favoured their pet projects (a kind of ‘Edifice Complex’) because they were supported by their political masters, and change was possible.
The same situation applies now. The political process is driving this and the commanding heights appear to be occupied by lawyers and rent seekers who have little appreciation of the realties of electric power systems engineers.
JMO, it was Eunice Foote who primarily made this discovery in 1856, and Tyndall collaborated. What they didn’t seem to realise is that beyond a concentration of about 280 ppm (and we are at 410 now) the absorption contribution of CO2 is completely overshadowed by the water vapour.
The scam cleverly goads politicians into believing that “emissions” have any part to play in the issue at all. It was a clever ploy to ignore the work of Foote and Tyndall while yakking about Svante Arrhenius whose work was essentially disproved by Coleridge in 1925.
How effective this evil propaganda has been! Very few of the unwashed are aware that “reducing emissions” is sheer stuff and nonsense, at least where CO2 is concerned, and modern equipment with scrubbers emit very little else besides water vapour.
The CAGW scam is well and truly the biggest hoax in human history, and has affected more people even than the ridiculous “Daemonology” of King James.
Thanks Karabar, I thought someone else also discovered CO2 IR absorption properties (but did not get around to find out). JT experimented some years before he made that lecture “On Radiation”. Arrehenius can be considered to be the 1st climate catastrophist, to his credit he did eventually tone down his climate sensitivity ( temp rise per doubling of CO2 concentration) from 6 C to 4 C degrees. From what I heard he was not a particularly nice person to know, as are most climate alarmists. As you pointed out Coleridge debunked him, so we could consider him to be one of the early climate realist (or sceptic/ denier according to the climate catastrophists).
If you look at the IR absorption spectra of CO2 and H2O vapour, their respective ppm atmospheric concentration and compare with Earth IR radiating into space, you will come to the question “what is the problem?” Only CO2’s 15 micron 100% absorption line ( 1.9, 2.7, 4.3 microns are the others ) is relevant and 60 -70% (roughly 2/3) of that is absorbed by water vapour anyway, and H2O vapour is 10 to 20 times ( or more) higher atmospheric concentration than CO2. When you apply Wiens displacement law ( black body radiation) this equates to BB temperature of MINUS 80 C (ie 193 Kelvin), which provides a radiation pressure of 1.09 w/ sqm. But remember we are dealing with an absorption line IR emission not a broad one from a BB, so the energy intensity is a lot lower, in this case approx 1/5 if you look at the area under the absorption spectra curve on a logarithmic (to the base 2) X- axis scale. Just think of a 100 watt incandescent bulb ( broad range black body radiator) and a 18 -20 watt fluro bulb ( narrow range radiation wavelengths) same brightness but incandescent bulb will burn your hand whereas the fluro will feel warm. All this reduces CO2 warming effect by approx 1/5 × 1/3 ×1/15 (halfway between 1/10 and 1/20) =1 /250 th of 1.09 watts/sqm which equals 0.00436 watts/sqm. The Sun emits 1365 w/sqm at Earth’s distance. Gosh a lot of extra warming in that one!
There is a small extra CO2 warming effect however. Adding a carbon atom to O2 increases the molecular weight by 37 %, this slightly increases atmospheric pressure which increases temperature (PV =nRT).
As a former alarmist, I agree with you. Climate alarmism / catastrophism will go down as one the almighty scams of the late 20th/early 21st centuries.
It’s interesting how BP and other corporations with oil wells and coal mines profess belief in “the science”. There’s increasing calls from boardrooms to place company advertising with media outlets with environmental credentials before popular reach. Why they run with the hare and chase with the hounds is hard to fathom, but there must be an economic agenda somewhere
Good stuff Don. Yes it is more than overdue for all academies of science to speak out on the way the IPCC and the associated activist climate movement have become highly politicised. Sceptical scientists are being silenced awa F/F industries being made to agree with the climate waffle.
“National Academies of Science should speak out against climate alarmism, not support it. This is the major message in a recent letter from Professor Guus Berkhout, president of CLINTEL, to the new head of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The integrity of science is at stake.”
https://www.cfact.org/2020/06/28/climate-alarmism-versus-integrity-at-national-academies-of-science/
If you’re a Fellow, you don’t ruffle the feathers of your fellows.
That’s the trouble, Bryan. They should be more honest, like Shellenberger:
“On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.”
https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/06/29/prominent-climate-activist-shellenberger-officially-recants-on-behalf-of-environmentalists-i-apologize-for-the-climate-scare/
Hi John S
Not sure that Dr Hubble is correct.
Take for example the black shale shale beds in Pennsylvania in the USA. These types of beds, not limited to the US, have high organic content and have been chemically altered in an oxygen free environment for the last 150 million years. These shale beds are many thousands of feet below the deepest water supply aquifers so “fracking” these beds to release the oil and gas in a controlled way has not resulted in contamination of the groundwater no matter what alarmists might say.
Traditional oil recovery rates stand at about 50% and even if recovery rates for shale oil are a bit less, some have estimated that so far only about 10% of the worlds reserves (recoverable volumes) have been exhausted. Environmentalists don’t like to hear this stuff!
Via Jo Nova. EVs are not the answer if the idea is to improve the world.
“new report from UNCTAD, warns that the raw materials used in electric car batteries, are highly concentrated in a small number of countries, which raises a number of concerns.
…two-thirds of all cobalt production happens in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about 20 per cent of cobalt supplied from the DRC comes from artisanal mines, where human rights abuses have been reported, and up to 40,000 children work in extremely dangerous conditions in the mines for meagre income.
And in Chile, lithium mining uses nearly 65% of the water in the country’s Salar de Atamaca region, one of the driest desert areas in the world, to pump out brines from drilled wells. This has forced local quinoa farmers and llama herders to migrate and abandon ancestral settlements. It has also contributed to environment degradation, landscape damage and soil contamination, groundwater depletion and pollution.”
Andthey rely on fossil fuelled or nuclear power for recharging. Then there is the question of final disposal of batteries, something that also affects solar and wind generators.
Stu, if you are lurking out there, don’t forget to “tut tut”!
Like the International Energy Agency BP suffers from serious RE bias and this comes through in charts that plot the % increase in installed capacity of various energy sources. The RE sources are coming off a low base, practically zero at the turn of the millennium, and so it is easy to show impressive % gains compared with the conventional sources. But in real terms the small % gains on the large base of the conventionals means that the inroads of RE are trivial even at 2050.
Australia will be the last place in the developed world to make significant and sustainable progress towards green energy for some reasons that are very simple and obvious after you realise the key factors and and work out the implications https://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/06/27/re-in-australia-was-never-going-to-happen-the-reasons-why/
See also https://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/04/21/the-muddle-headed-wombat-does-energy-policy/ and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/04/30/australian-energy-security-on-the-brink/
Chris Kenny interviews Michael Shellenberger about his new book “Apocalypse Never” and it is definitely worth 10 minutes of your time.
I’m convinced this bloke is genuine and has wrestled with his conscious for a long time. Of course he’s understood the data/evidence for many years but refused to condemn the fraudulent Malthusian donkeys until now.
He now considers that so called Green energy is a disaster for the environment and for very poor people around the world.
Just look at the S&W idiocy in the poorest countries and the German + EU stupidity over the last few decades. Then look at soaring co2 emissions from China and developing countries over the same period. Unfortunately all pain for ZERO gain and Lomborg’s team now claims this is costing 1 to 2 trillion $ per year. Will these fools ever wake up?
Isn’t it amazing how something so fundamental to world energy can be ignored for so long:
“An important new paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that low-level nuclear radiation might be much less dangerous than previously thought.”
“According to authors, Professor Edward Calabrese and Dr Mikko Paunio, recent reviews of seminal research conducted in the decades after the Second World War has uncovered serious flaws in the “linear no-threshold” assumption – the idea that nuclear radiation is dangerous even at very low exposures.
According to Professor Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, these claims are now known to be based on scientific studies that were deceptive, flawed, or even fraudulent”:
https://www.thegwpf.org/dangers-of-nuclear-energy-much-less-than-previously-thought/
Don, thanks for a very sage and balanced article! And thanks Aynsley Kellow for edifying support, among others.
Michael Shellenberger in the last few days has made some welcome comments from a position of high credibility. He was one of the lead authors of the Ecomodernist Manifesto – http://www.ecomodernism.org – a very valuable statement. Note that he doesn’t dispute the basic science regarding climate change, only the modelling and assumptions based on that, and hence apologises for stoking alarm.
Regarding Spangled Drongo and low-level radiation, Calabrese is very credible and there is now good evidence that the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis is rubbish and documentary evidence that its basis is fraudulent. But go beyond GWPF for that! Also Google: Jerry Cuttler.
Ian H-L,
Following on, can WU WHO FLU be treated with low-dose radiation?
In a 2013 paper, Dr. Calabrese partnered with Dr. Guaray Dhawan to review the historical use of radiotherapy for fighting pneumonia and determine if low-dose radiation might still be a valuable pneumonia killer.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/07/05/can-covid-19-be-treated-with-low-dose-radiation/
Therapeutic radiation doses treat pneumonia symptoms rather than Covid per se I think. Yes, there is renewed interest in this and Calabrese and Jerry Cuttler seem to be the lead exponents.
Remember when the Krudd donkey warned us about CAGW and how this was the greatest moral challenge of our time?
He also told us dangerous SLR along our east coast would endanger thousands of homes etc and we must reduce co2 emissions ASAP.
But today he has purchased a beachfront mansion at Noosa for a lazy 17 mil $. So I guess he’ll also tell us soon that the CAGW scare is over and we can now relax and spend our money on reliable coal powered base-load energy?
And pigs might fly.
https://www.realestate.com.au/news/therese-rein-buys-rafters-17m-sunshine-coast-pad/?from=htc_rss
Commenter Rowjay at Jo Nova has looked at tge ACT claim to be fully renewable. A bit long., but good work.
“Have been looking at the basis for the ACT Gov. 100% Renewables claim.
They have contracted 639.9 MW nameplate capacity of wind/solar, and in this document confidently state:
With 640MW of renewable energy already contracted, 100% renewable
energy is now secure.
In any user grid, there are two issues to consider:
– can the contracted suppliers consistently provide the peak power needs of the customer
– can the contracted suppliers consistently provide the overall base load needs of the customer
The ACT’s June monthly electrical demand is about 290,000 MWh. The winter demand curve generally has a morning peak of about 470 MW and evening peak of 520 MW, with occasional demand spikes above 600 MW. Minimum base power demand is about 250 MW. The following is a summary of how the ACT’s contracted renewables energy suppliers that have registered with the AEMO (613 MW nameplate) performed for the month:
:
Total power generated: about 90,000 MWh – 31% of target
Morning peak covered: 1 in 30 days
Evening peak covered: none in 30 days
Dispatchable output < 250MW: 493 hours (20.5 days equivalent)
Dispatchable output < 50MW: 126 hours (5.3 days equivalent)
Dispatchable output < 10MW: 32 hours (1.33 days equivalent)
Dispatchable output < 1MW: 12 hours
:
In summary, the ACT renewables:
– only gererated 31% of required power for the month
– failed to cover 59 out of 60 peak consumption periods for the month
– could not maintain a consistent, stable minimum base load of 250 MW for the month
– sourced more than 90% backup power from the grid for 170 hours (7 days equivalent) for the month
So, how would the renewables perform if we tripled the ACT renewables portfolio in an effort to cover peak demand – that is 1,839 MW nameplate capacity using 400,000 solar panels and 558 wind turbines:
:
Total power generated: about 270,000 MWh – 93% of target
Morning peak covered: 19 in 30 days
Evening peak covered: 14 in 30 days
Dispatchable output < 250MW: 198 hours (8.25 days equivalent)
Dispatchable output < 50MW: 49 hours (2 days equivalent)
Dispatchable output < 10MW: 18 hours
Dispatchable output < 1MW: 11 hours
:
So even after tripling the ACT renewables portfolio to 1,840 MW, it still needs non-renewable backup for its entire power needs at unpredictable times.
Just for comparison, here are the performance figures for Unit 1 at Bayswater Power Station with nameplate 660 MW capacity.
:
Total power generated: about 388,825 MWh – 134% of target (82% capacity factor for the unit)
Morning peak covered: 30 in 30 days
Evening peak covered: 30 in 30 days
Dispatchable output < 250MW: nil
:
One of Bayswaters four 660 MW generating units comfortably covers all of the ACT's power needs for June 2020 with a good safety margin and cover for unexpected demand spikes up to 660 MW.
These figures are based on dispatchable outputs downloaded from the AEMO SCADA database, using 15 minute intervals. They are easily verified.
:
So a theoretical 400,000 solar panels and 558 wind turbines located across SE Australia still need up to 100% backup from other sources to maintain 24/7 peak usage and base power reliability. Why bother with more renewables with our changeable weather patterns and common wind stagnation periods – just transition to nuclear at an equivalent capacity to current fossil fuel sources at the earliest possible timeframe with pumped hydro as unexpected/peak backup utilising excess base load from the reliable generators to achieve zero emissions and be done with it."
Renewables can never cut the mustard!
Thanks BJ, but we must remember that a number of the extremists arguments are based on BS and fraud.
Who cares about data/evidence when you can just get all emotional and make up stuff to suit your latest yap of the day?
Jo Nova also covers this today and shows how some of these pranksters now resort to making jokes about it.
Another version of the BS conquers brains theme all over again. Full marks to Rowjay for the energy data above.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/07/why-its-time-to-get-emotional-about-climate-psychology/
Here’s another 10 min interview with Shellenberger via the Outsiders team from Sky news.
It covers some of his struggles with the dopes from the Guardian and I hope he gets some satisfaction for his efforts.
Remember that Michael is an expert on energy and works as an expert reviewer with the IPCC and has appeared before Congress as he ramps up the pressure against the more extremist groups.
Here is Shellenberger’s appearance before Congress a few months ago and he certainly shows his depth of knowledge about world energy. In fact he is a very impressive speaker indeed.
I hope Don and others have the time to watch the video and the Q&A is very rewarding and I’m more certain now that he is the genuine article.
So when will we wake up?
Boris is going for more woke and allowing the RED WALL Labour areas to head for broke.
The UK buys coal from Russia and even Australia etc and also buys steel from China etc because this somehow helps with their co2 emissions accounting.
But none of this reduces co2 emissions at all but allows the UK to claim lower emissions. In fact if the extra shipping + transportation is taken into account it really increases emissions.
I understand that Shellenberger has taken this into account for total world trade and finds this is another reason to doubt the accuracy of so called savings due to switching to S&W in wealthy western countries.
I think I’ll have to buy his book and try and get to the bottom of all their ongoing BS and fraud.
https://climatechangedispatch.com/why-does-boris-the-builder-have-a-problem-with-coal/
Shellenlberger’s book is really excellent and it adds value even after reading practically everything else on the climate realist shelf! It is big and dense with footnotes so it will be hard to toss, especially as he comes with impeccably green credentials and a lot of on the ground experience off the beaten track.
I suspect “peak oil” was predicted much earlier than thought here. I’ve kept a snippet from somewhere (can’t remember) describing the earliest predictions.
“15 years after Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in 1859, a Pennsylvania geologist was saying the United States would run out of oil by 1878. In 1908, the US Geological Survey said we’d exhaust our domestic oil reserves by 1927; in 1939, it moved petroleum doomsday to 1952.”
If the polls are correct, the US voters will elect a stupid fool in Nov and proceed to introduce the same energy policies as Germany.
Here’s some data and a glimpse of the mess these fools will get themselves into over the next few years. Let’s hope for their sake they wake up before Nov. Who knows?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/10/democrats-climate-policy-follows-germanys-failed-plan/
Thank you Don.
Drake’s discovery of oil in 1859 saw the beginning of the end of whaling, as it provided a cheaper, easier and less dangerous fuel, so will we need to go back to whaling if they ban fraccing, and shut in all the oil and gas wells?