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Green Energy and Net Zero Goals

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Renewable and Green Energy come with environmental costs. There are also issues of intermittency, lack of inertia, cost/benefit analysis, issues with battery storage and environmental foot prints that need to be understood when contemplating a fossil-fuel-free future.

Because most installations receive subsidies, there are also concerns about elevated costs and conflicts of interest with those who benefit at the cost of others.

Current Emissions and Energy Mix

Renewables Won't Be Enough. 100% Renewable Mandates and Costs. Green Energy and the Environment. Renewable System Costs. Renewable System Footprints. Grid Stability, Capacity and Reliability. Wind Power. Solar Power. Tidal Power. Biomass and Biofuels. Hydropower. Hydrogen Power.

Energy Storage

Electric Vehicles. Airships for Zero Carbon. Miscellaneous--Pollution and the Environment. Energy Conservation. Carbon Capture. Geothermal Energy. New Nuclear Energy. Planet of the Humans. Green Jobs. The truth behind renewable energy. Previously published in the October 2020, issue of International Cement Review Can renewable energy sources supply the world with a large share of the energy it requires?

The truth behind renewable energy

While some environmentalists advocate the total replacement of fossil fuels by solar, wind and battery power, Dr Lars Schernikau explains why this is impossible. by Dr. Lars Schernikau, HMS Bergbau Group, Germany & Singapore. The Case for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Guest “picking a fight with both sides” by David Middleton JUL 15, 2019EPA Drilling Regulations Remain Underrated Obstacle to Solving Global Warming William MurrayManager, Energy Meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming will be impossible unless the United States leads the way. […]What remains is CCS technology, which the oil and gas industry has used to enhance the recovery of oil for the past nearly 50 years.

The Case for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS)

Each year, this technology already traps more than 60 million tons of carbon dioxide permanently underground, preventing it from entering the atmosphere and contributing to global temperature increases. Congress has incentivized industrial companies to invest in this kind of CCS technology through tax breaks, but companies still are running into problems. Irony can be so ironic… EPA regulations designed to facilitate carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are actually inhibiting CCS projects. R Street? R Street is partly good… Outcry spreads over Green energy projects. As fast as developers seek approval for new renewable energy projects, people opposed to having their predominantly rural communities invaded by transmission lines, wind turbines, and solar arrays mount a counterattack.

Outcry spreads over Green energy projects

Resistance has spread from coast to coast, and the battles are fought in city halls, local boards of health, and – if all else fails – the courts. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia mandate that utilities purchase a certain percentage of the electricity they supply from renewable sources, usually taxpayer-subsidized wind and solar energy. Wind and solar power, along with hydropower, is produced in areas far removed from population centers, meaning it must be transmitted on powerlines that can stretch for hundreds of miles. Industrial wind turbines are often hundreds of feet tall and are so noisy that their health effects on local residents are coming under closer medical scrutiny.

Deceptive rhetoric at Davos could bring disaster. There is nothing ‘cohesive’ or ‘sustainable’ about ‘solutions’ demanded by WEF ‘stakeholders’ Paul Driessen The World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland is billed as the globe’s most prestigious annual gathering of movers and shakers.

Deceptive rhetoric at Davos could bring disaster

Its mission is to “improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” This year’s theme was “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” Unfortunately, the lofty rhetoric belies the misleading, potentially disastrous realities of agendas supported by many participants. The Fightback Begins. By Paul Homewood We are beginning to see signs of a fightback in the press against the Net Zero nonsense: First, Madeline Grant in the Telegraph (paywalled unfortunately):

The Fightback Begins

Renewable Energy's Inconvenient Truth. The energy needs of the world’s economy seem to be easy to model.

Renewable Energy's Inconvenient Truth

Energy consumption is measured in a variety of different ways including kilowatt-hours, barrels of oil equivalent, British thermal units, kilocalories and joules. Terence Corcoran: Why the global fossil-fuel phase-out is a fantasy akin to time travel. Judging from the headlines, Canada and the world are on track to ratchet up renewable energy and begin the rapid scale-down and ultimate phase-out of fossil fuels.

Terence Corcoran: Why the global fossil-fuel phase-out is a fantasy akin to time travel

Most energy analysts consider the fossil-fuel phase-out to be a scientific, economic and political fantasy, akin to levitation and time travel, but the movement keeps making news. Governments everywhere — from Canada to the United Kingdom to states in Australia — are declaring climate emergencies and committing to variations on zero emissions. The international organization promoting emergency declarations claims “a fast transition to zero emissions is possible.” Canada’s Green Party, said to be gaining ground, has a new platform plan, headlined “Mission: Possible,” to eliminate fossil fuels by 2050.

The Unromantic Green Energy Reading List. A counterbalance to mindless cheerleading. screenshot from the Associated Press website (click) Fossil fuels are reliable.

The Unromantic Green Energy Reading List

Reliable energy is necessary for the young, the sick, and the poor to thrive. Is the Long Renewables Honeymoon Over? In a fundamentally viable energy generation sector such stories could be regarded as minor perturbations, but in one that has been for decades all but completely insulated from risk by subsidy and other non-market support, it suggests deep-seated structuro-physical weakness.

Is the Long Renewables Honeymoon Over?

The German wind turbine manufacturer Senvion S.A., formerly trading under the name of RePower, is currently in financial difficulties. This Hamburg-based firm, which has installed over 1,000 wind turbines in the UK alone, applied to commence self-administered insolvency proceedings in mid-April this year, and is at present sustained by a EUR 100m loan agreement with its lenders and main bond holders. Clean Tech & Renewable Energy News. Energy, Environment and Policy. Renewables and Climate Policy Are On A Collision Course. For almost as long as there has been a climate policy, emissions reduction has been seen as dependent on the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.

Renewables and Climate Policy Are On A Collision Course

Policies supporting this outcome are ubiquitous in the developed and developing world; markets have been coerced globally, with varying degrees of severity it is true, but with extraordinary force in the OECD states, and particularly in the European Union. The net result of several decades of such measures has been negligible. Consider, for example the global total primary energy mix since 1971, as recorded in the International Energy Agency datasets, the most recent discussion of which has just been published in the World Energy Outlook (2018): Figure 1: Global Total Primary Energy Supply: 1971–2015.

Source: Redrawn by the author from International Energy Agency, Key World Energy Statistics 2017 and 2018. Figure 2: Global Emissions 1960 to 2018. But this is a misplaced question. This is what policy failure looks like. Going To Zero. Web App. Energy Science Archives - Fusion 4 Freedom. Renewable electricity promos are 'greenwashing' scams. Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) use greenwashing to hawk products they claim to be environmentally friendly to gain market advantages. Sales representatives typically work on commissions. Just respond to telephone solicitations, buy in to advertising promotions or sign up at their event tables and right away — for a bargain few extra bucks a month — you will be saving the planet from something terrible.

How does anyone know that the companies are coming clean on real sources of that “renewable energy” they signed up for? As reported in a City and State article by Ben Adler, the short answer is that most customers don’t, because investigating such claims tends to be impossibly confusing for average consumers. Quoting Russ Haven, general counsel at the New York Public Interest Research Institute, “What are you supposed to do, go look at their Securities and Exchange Commission filing? The Green Mountain ESCO in New York offers a Green-e certified program for commercial customers.

Energy Revolution Will Come From Foundational Scientific Discoveries—Not Renewables. Throughout history, some 60 percent to 90 percent of every nation’s economy has been consumed by food and fuel costs. Hydrocarbons changed the way that humans organize their productive capacity. The coal age, followed by the oil age, and now by the ascendant age of natural gas, has (at least for developed nations) driven the share of GDP devoted to acquiring food and fuel down to around 10 percent.

That transformation constitutes one of the great pivots for civilization. Many analysts claim that yet another such consequential energy revolution is upon us: “clean energy,” in the form of wind turbines, solar arrays, and batteries, they say, is about to become incredibly cheap, making it possible to create a “new energy economy.” Polls show that nearly 80 percent of voters believe that America is “capable of creating a new electricity system.”

Let’s put batteries on wind and solar farms. From Stanford University Stanford scientists calculate the energy required to store wind and solar power on the grid. The carbon footprint of alternate energy technology. From Stanford University Stanford scientists calculate the carbon footprint of grid-scale battery technologies Americans take electrical power for granted whenever they flip on a light switch. But the growing use of solar and wind power in the United States makes the on-demand delivery of electricity more challenging. A key problem is that the U.S. electrical grid has virtually no storage capacity, so grid operators can’t stockpile surplus clean energy and deliver it at night, or when the wind isn’t blowing. To provide more flexibility in managing the grid, researchers have begun developing new batteries and other large-scale storage devices.

“Clean” energy isn’t so clean. New IPCC error: renewables report conclusion was dictated by Greenpeace – Mark Lynas. STOP PRESS – See 17 June update: ‘Questions the IPCC must urgently answer‘… Video: why renewables equal death. On The Promise Of "Green Jobs" Environmental Impacts of Renewables through USAID (Part II of a post) - Master Resource. Study: it takes 10 units of alternative electricity sources to offset 1 unit of fossil fuel-generated power. The Nazi Origins of Renewable Energy (and Global Warming) Why study history, and such an ugly subject as the Nazi rise in the Weimar Republic? Because, quoting George Santayana, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

It seems we have forgotten a lot, because, as a civilization, we are repeating the mad Nazi schemes of renewable energy on a massive scale. Solar & Wind To Replace All Fossil Fuels Within Two Decades–According To Renewable Lobby. The Grenfell Disaster and The Problem Of Carbon Targets. Don't be fooled - Elon Musk's electric cars aren't about to save the planet. Myths and realities of renewable energy. By Planning Engineer. The Environmentalist Left's New Agenda. Following the Republican sweep in last year’s election, the Environmentalist Left is now experiencing a total meltdown. The hidden agendas of sustainability illusions. Absurd, impractical sustainability precepts are actually a prescription for government control Guest essay by Paul Driessen As President Trump downgrades the relevance of Obama era climate change and anti-fossil fuel policies, many environmentalists are directing attention to “sustainable development.”

Like “dangerous manmade climate change,” sustainability reflects poor understanding of basic energy, economic, resource extraction and manufacturing principles – and a tendency to emphasize tautologies and theoretical models as an alternative to readily observable evidence in the Real World. It also involves well-intended but ill-informed people being led by ill-intended but well-informed activists who use the concept to gain greater government control over people’s lives, livelihoods and living standards. Old Warmth In The Sea And New Cold In The Living Room - The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Why are “utility investors and renewable energy investors… like oil and water”? Guest post by David Middleton It was supposed to be an easy transition for NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG) from utility giant to renewable energy powerhouse. The company had billions in cash flow coming in from fossil fuel plants that could then be turned around and invested in wind, solar, electric charging stations, and energy storage. Simple enough, right? This collective act of make-believe is devastating our environment and our budgets. Gerald Butts still denies responsibility for a bigger scandal: Ontario’s ‘green energy’ catastrophe. In Gerald Butts’ much-discussed resignation letter last week, the former principal secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took responsibility — sort of — for the ever-growing crisis enveloping the federal Liberal government.

While denying he or his staff put any pressure on former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to drop corruption and fraud charges against SNC-Lavalin, Butts nonetheless acknowledged that the story had coalesced around him being central to the imbroglio. “The fact is that this accusation exists … my reputation is my responsibility and that is for me to defend.

“O Canada!” What An Energy Buffoon You Have “On Guard For Thee” In Ontario …Wynne’s Debacle. The End Of Germany’s Energiewende? Todays Disastrous Climate and Energy Policies – What Not to Do. Renewable Energy: the question of capacity - Principia Scientific International. Carbon Capture Coalition: Naked Cronyism - Master Resource.