Ethiopia announced earlier this year its plan to ban the import of all non-electric automobiles, becoming the first country to outlaw the entry of internal combustion engine vehicles.
Electrek noted that specifics were scant but that the resolution served as a win for the nation’s environmental impact and economy. “A decision has been made, that automobiles cannot enter Ethiopia unless they are electric ones,” Minister for Transport and Logistics Alemu Sime said.
As stated in its Ten Years Development Plan, officials want to reduce Ethiopia’s output of planet-warming pollution from the transportation sector from 41 million metric tons (about 45 million tons) to 27.8 million metric tons (about 30.6 million tons) of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030.
Additionally, the country’s Long-Term Low Emission And Climate Resilient Development Strategy report allocated $13.44 billion through 2050 toward charging stations, electric vehicles, and electric buses.
However, the most recent data from the World Bank shows that just over 54% of people in Ethiopia have access to electricity. Furthermore, there are potential financial barriers to purchasing EVs and the lack of charging infrastructure. As such, Sime noted that addressing the latter point remained a high priority.
Though it’s unclear what the exact details of Ethiopia’s ban on dirty-energy-based automobiles will be, it will mark a huge step for the country to meet its pollution-reduction goals.
Millions of households with smart meters face paying more for their electricity at the busiest times of day under regulator plans.
Ofgem is consulting on introducing a “dynamic” energy price cap to meet the demand of net zero, despite repeated assurances from the Government that smart meter technology would not result in more expensive energy bills for consumers.
The energy watchdog said it would look to “encourage consumer flexibility” by basing the energy price cap around the wholesale costs of electricity throughout the day.
The plans include allowing suppliers to charge more for electricity when the grid is at its busiest, as Britons move away from conventional gas boilers and adopt electric-powered heat pumps and electric vehicles.
Proposals would scrap the energy price cap – currently £1,690 a year – and effectively switch the entire country to a 1970s-style “time-of-use” tariff that charges different prices throughout the day.
This would either be introduced in weekly “time bands” that are divided into more expensive peak and cheaper off-peak periods, or linked directly to half-hourly wholesale market prices.
Ofgem admitted the latter proposal would risk “exposing customers to wholesale price variability” and that “many consumers may struggle to engage with constantly evolving pricing”.
The Energy Price Cap should never have been introduced. But now energy users with a smart meter may be faced with a fait accompli, finding it difficult to find any supplier prepared to offer a fixed price.
And one thing is absolutely certain – consumers will not be better off under any new system.
And as may experts are pointing out, many people need access to electricity all day. It is all very well for a household which is empty during the day, but what will happen to old people or mums with kids who need to heat their homes all day.
Indeed how many of these groups will even have access to the information needed to optimise pricing?
Worse still, this is not only about Time of Day pricing – wholesale prices can often peak at much higher levels for days on end when wind power is low in winter. There will be no escape from this peak pricing at times like this – everybody will end up paying.
If the government is intent on bringing in this policy, it must legislate for an opt out for anybody who wants to remain with a fixed price, and that should be set at an affordable level.
America is aggressively pursuing “green” electricity and actively phasing out crude oil to reduce emissions generated in America by deliberately increasing worldwide exploitations of humanity, environmental degradation, and increased emissions.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, President Joe Biden, and world leaders are not cognizant enough to know that wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity and cannot manufacture tires, cable insulation, asphalt, medicines, and the more than 6,000 productsnow made from the petrochemical derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
Without a replacement for the petrochemical derivatives manufactured from crude oil, phasing out oil would also phase out the medical, military, transportation, communications, and electrical power industries, none of which existed before the 1800s.
Climate change may impact millions, but without fossil fuels and the infrastructures and products we have today that did not exist before the 1800s, we may lose billions from diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths.
Eradicating the world of crude oil usage would ground the 20,000 commercial aircraft, and more than 50,000 military aircraft worldwide, leave the 50,000 merchant shipstied up at docks, and discontinue the military and space programs! Without a backup plan to replace crude oil, the 8 billion on this planet will face the greatest threat to humanity without jets, merchant ships, and space programs.
America’s climate policies being introduced are particularly harmful to developing countries. America is probably the most environmentally controlled country in the world, but by deliberately relying on poorer developing countries for our fuels and products, we are “leaking” to other countries:
Leakage of emissions to countries with minuscule environmental laws.
Leakage of the exploitations of people with yellow, brown, and black skin to counties with minuscule labor laws.r
Leakage of environmental degradation to landscapes in developing countries where there are minuscule environmental laws.
California is home to 9 International airports, 41 Military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping ports in America. California’s growing dependency on other nations is a serious national security risk for America!
It’s a no-brainer that an attack on the ports at San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Long Beach could paralyze the American economy, causing huge reductions in fuels for California’s in-state infrastructures and stagnating the supply chain of products for the entire country.
Meanwhile, California continues to constantly reduce its in-state refining capacity, which refines fuels and petrochemicals for society’s materialistic demands, and continues to grow its dependency on foreign oil.
A few notes about ELECTRICITY:
Everything that needs electricity, such as the basic light bulb, computers, iPhones and iPads, televisions, washing machines, and X-ray equipment, is made with oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
Every method of generating electricity, such as wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric, nuclear, coal, and natural gas power plants, exists only because the parts and components of the generation system are made with crude oil derivatives.
Renewables, like wind turbines and solar panels, only generate occasional electricity from inconsistent breezes and sunshine but manufacture no products for society.
Fossil fuels, on the other hand, manufacture everything for the 8 billion living on this planet, i.e., products and transportation fuels.
Most importantly, today, there is a lost reality that the primary usage of crude oil is NOT for generating electricity but to manufacture derivatives and fuels, which are the ingredients of everything needed by economies and lifestyles to exist and prosper. Energy realism requires that the legislators, policymakers, and media that demonstrate pervasive ignorance about crude oil usage understand the staggering scale of the decarbonization movement.
The ruling class and powerful elite have yet to identify the replacement for the oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 productsand all the fuels for the merchant ships, aircraft, military, and space programs that support the 8 billion living on this planet.
The American government provides incentives and tax deductions to transition society to EVs, but those incentives are financial incentives for the continuation of Child Labor and Ecological Destruction “Elsewhere.” Is it ethical and moral to provide financial support to developing countries that are mining for exotic minerals and metals to build EV batteries for Americans?
We’ve become a very materialistic society over the last 200 years, and the world has populated from 1 to 8 billion because of all the products and different fuels for planes, ships, trucks, cars, military, and the space program that did not exist before the 1800s. Until a crude oil replacement is identified, the world needs a backup plan that replaces crude oil that will support the manufacturing of the products of our materialistic society.
Today’s materialistic world cannot survive without crude oil!Conversations are needed to discuss the difference between just ELECTRICITY” from renewables and the “PRODUCTS” that are the basis of society’s materialistic world. Wind turbines and solar panels are themselves MADE from oil derivatives and only generate occasional electricity but manufacture NOTHING for society.
How dare the ruling class, powerful elite, and media avoid energy literacy conversations about the “Elephant in the Room”? The end of crude oil, which is manufactured into all the products and transportation fuels that built the world to eight billion people, would be the end of civilization, as “unreliable electricity” from breezes and sunshine cannot manufacture anything.
While electrical data centers and clean technology facilities have increased rapidly within the United States, it appears the country is still running short on time to find a solution to its decreasing power grid, according to a new report.
Multiple states across the U.S. have now set off alarms due to concerns as their industrial power struggles to keep up with demands, according to The Washington Post. In Georgia, the anticipated electricity usage over the next decade is expected to surge to 17 times its recent levels, reaching an all-time high demand. The largest utility in Arizona has also projected that by the end of the decade, its transmission capacity will be exceeded if major upgrades are not performed, the outlet reported.
“When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission Jason Shaw told the outlet. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.”
While clean energy appears to be at odds with the power grid, the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has implemented strict regulations that have significantly shaped the country’s power grid. The EPA previously attempted to propose a requirement that would have required existing coal-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2024. Additionally, new and existing natural gas power plants would be required to make cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions depending on their size and usage.
However, the EPA recently adjusted their proposal in order to decrease their scope, as several officials previously warned President Joe Biden that the aggressive regulations had serious practical and legal flaws. Concerns regarding the suggested plans questioned the regulations to natural gas power plants that would mandate expensive technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and blended hydrogen.
Many have issued warnings to the Biden Administration regarding its intense push to transition the electrical grid to complete clean energy. Last June, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie spoke to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about the consequences America’s power grid could face if the U.S. continued to phase out fossil fuel infrastructure
“I think we’re heading for potentially very dire consequences, potentially catastrophic consequences in the United States in terms of the reliability of our grid, and I think that the basic reason is that we’re facing a shortfall of power supply,” Christie stated.
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Brussels’ approach to cutting emissions is wrong, says Ineos founder.
Europe’s green taxes are driving away investment and risk destroying its €1 trillion (£860bn) chemicals industry, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has warned.
In an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen, Sir Jim, the chairman and founder of Ineos, said Europe was “sleepwalking towards offshoring its industry, jobs, investments, and emissions”.
Sir Jim said the four key global regions for chemical manufacture were the US, Middle East, China and Europe. But soaring energy prices and net zero policies aimed at cutting emissions meant the Continent was “struggling” while the others flourished. The Telegraph has the story.
In a separate speech at the European Industry Summit on Tuesday, Sir Jim said: “The cost of gas in Europe is five times more expensive than in America. And electricity is still four times the price in Europe as in America. We in the chemicals world have to pay for that.
“Carbon taxes, … are a burden that manufacturers in Europe have to carry, but they don’t apply to imports. If you look at Ineos today, we’re paying about €150m, but by 2030 that would rise to €2bn. That’s just not sustainable.”
Sir Jim also warned that it had become almost impossible to get planning permission for new chemical plants.
He said: “Modern chemical technology is much much cleaner … Europe is still very large in chemicals – but the whole footprint [plants] are 30-50 years old. It’s impossible to renew them because the permitting legislation in Europe is so difficult.”
Brussels launched the first phase of its carbon border tax in October in an effort to protect European industries from cheap foreign imports. It will mean imports of carbon intensive goods such as steel and cement will be subject to a levy from 2026.
Economists speaking in front of the Lords Economic Affairs Committee on Tuesday warned that the cost of net zero will be far greater than the public is made to believe.
Olivier Blanchard, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, said: “The public does not believe or has not been made to understand that is going to be costly for them. It is going to be costly and that message has to be sent out.”
Sir Dieter Helm, an economics professor at Oxford University and former adviser to Boris Johnson, said it was “delusory to think” that the net zero transition would pay for itself.
He added: “It’s much, much more expensive than people imagine.”
Sir Jim said that Europe’s approach to cutting emissions, by punishing companies with carbon taxes, was the wrong approach.
There are growing fears that one of India’s iconic large birds, the great Indian bustard, is about to go extinct due to the growth of electric transmission lines in its home area of the Thar desert. Prioritising wind and solar power has led to a growth of transmission lines with the effect that the numbers of birds could have dropped to 150.
This is just the latest evidence that industrialising large areas of wildlife habitat is causing worrying losses to the population of large raptors and birds, bats and whales. Last October, the Daily Scepticreported that wind farms in Tasmania have reduced the population of the endangered local wedge-tailed eagle to around 1,000 individuals. Large numbers of whales have beached along the U.S. east coast in recent years as offshore wind farm industrialisation has disrupted the migration, mating and feeding habits of some of the most endangered whale species in the world.
In 2021, a paper produced by the Wildlife Institute of India warned that the great Indian bustard was at “imminent risk of extinction due to power line mortality”. Mortality was said to be “positively related” to the number of wires. Many other large birds were said to be at risk, and the researchers found that around 50 birds die annually per kilometre of power lines in the Thar desert due to collision and electrocution.
According to the Wildlife Institute of India, over 100,000 birds of diverse species are killed each year as a result of electrocution from transmission lines connecting wind and solar to the grid. In 2022, two Spanish ecologists confirmed that electrocution on power pylons was a major cause of bird mortality worldwide, including for some severely endangered species. They noted that power lines were “not bio-diversity-friendly”. Prerna Singh Bindra, a wildlife conservationist and former member of the National Board for Wildlife, comments:
In recent years, the death blow to the great Indian bustard has come from unexpected quarters – the expanse of wind farms and power transmission lines that criss-cross its last remaining habitats… The question that needs to be asked is, how green is renewable energy when it leads to the extinction of a critically endangered species?
Of course that last question is the one question that will not be asked. Indeed on past evidence it will be studiously avoided and helpful messengers in the mainstream media will be easily persuaded that deaths are due to other factors such as ‘climate change’.
Bird and bat protection societies around the world are invariably in favour of green ‘sustainable’ wind and solar power, and they turn an almost blind eye to the mass slaughter by making mealy-mouthed safety suggestions. But of course the fact is that large raptors such as eagles and bustards rely on wind currents, as do gigantic wind turbines, and the two meet far too often. Worldwide, bustards are at particular risk from power cables due to the birds’ heavy weight, large wing span and limited manoeuvring ability.
The New York Timesrecently reported that electrocution isn’t the main thing killing birds along power lines. It was relaying the findings of a paper that said bullet fragments had been found in a number of dead birds lying under lines in four western states. Four hundred whales have been washed up on the eastern U.S. coastline since 2016, including nearly two dozen in the three months to February 2023.There is “no evidence” to support claims that industrial noise has impeded the whales ability to navigate and communicate, notes the New Scientist. The bulk of the strandings may have been caused by “changing ocean currents related to climate change”. Deafening rock-concert-grade sonar noise bouncing around hundreds of miles of ocean, constant pile-driving, massive ocean building works and heavy shipping movements have, of course, nothing to do with it – move along please, nothing to see here.
Nothing it seems must get in the way of the green industrial revolution. In California, the Democrat state Government recently relaxed controls on wildlife protections to allow permits to kill previously fully protected species for renewable energy and infrastructure projects.
Nothing is sacred and protected from the slaughter – even America’s national bird, the bald eagle. A typical green reaction came from the Audubon California Policy Director Mark Lynas who said we need renewable energy resources, and he did not want to see the eagle deaths “being used to push against clean energy”.
In addition to the large bird kill, wind turbines are estimated to chomp millions of bats around the world every year. Any concern for the depredation of wildlife, whether on or offshore has tended to focus on these huge blots on the land- and seascapes. But according to the International Energy Authority, achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity.
All these high voltage cables will be needed to benefit from the intermittent power produced by vast numbers of new wind turbines. To achieve Net Zero, the countryside will need to be blanketed with turbines and ubiquitous cables strung to bring the power to distant urban areas. Of course, as it becomes clearer by the day, Net Zero will not be achieved since the breezes and sunbeams are unreliable, so full stand-by gas turbines will have to be maintained.
It is possible that some other cheap and reliable back-up fuel will be discovered or invented in the next few years – and pigs might fly, although that would not be advisable across much of the future countryside.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
The Biden Administration’s proposed fiscal 2024 budget included a new proposal for the Digital Asset Mining Energy (DAME) excise tax with a goal of taking 30 percent of the cost of electricity used in cryptocurrency mining for the federal treasury. While the proposal failed to win support last year, it remains a goal of the Biden Administration.
But a new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute urges the White House to “Don’t Depower Crypto.” The report concludes that the DAME tax would do more harm than good, stifling innovation and consumer well-being. And, given the rapid pace of change in the fledgling industry, the tax would make almost no real-world sense.
A Biden press release had boasted that the tax would bring in $3.5 billion in revenues over a 10-year period. It would also punish the crypto industry for “the harms they impose on society” through environmental pollution, higher energy prices, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. To some in Washington, it seems, cryptocurrencies are the new fossil fuels.
The Biden blurb cites the Economic Report of the President to justify the tax on grounds that “the energy consumption tied to [crypto’s] computationally intensive production is very real and imposes very real costs.” [Crypto is evil, just like carbon, so tax it heavily.]
The announcement came just weeks after a New York Timeshit piece on the crypto industry’s heavy use of electricity, virtually blaming crypto miners for dozens of deaths from power outages during winter storm Uri while “row upon row of computers were using enough electricity to power about 6,500 homes as they raced to earn Bitcoin.”
Investigative reporter Gabriel J. X. Dance asserted that the computers were “hunting for an elusive combination of numbers that Bitcoin’s algorithm would accept,” using enough electricity to power a small city. Nationwide, said Dance, the amount of electricity used in crypto mining in the U.S. alone during 2022 was similar to the amount used to power all the nation’s home computers or residential lighting.
Neither Dance nor the White House mentioned, say, the amount of electricity used by the National Security Agency to spy on the American people. But Alphabet (Google) used 22.29 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2022, up from 12.7 TWh in 2019, and Meta (Facebook) used 11.5 TWh in 2022, up from 5.14 TWh in 2019. Overall, U.S. electricity consumption in 2022 was 4,085 TWh.
The White House further stated that (as they claim for fossil fuels) “crypto mining firms do not have to pay for the full cost they impose on others” and that the DAME tax would encourage firms to start taking better account of the harms they impose on society.
The blame game on crypto continued with the assertion, citing a 2019 American Chemical Society report, that “pollution from electricity generation falls disproportionately on low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.” [Just like fossil fuels!]
Worse, crypto’s “lust” for electric energy “can push up electricity prices for consumers and increase risks for local electrical grids” — straining equipment, causing service interruptions and safety hazards. That’s according to a report from a public utility district in Washington State.
[If this is true of electric power generation, then surely an all-electric vehicle fleet would be an even greater threat to “low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.” It would require the U.S. to generate 20 to 50 percent more electricity than the 4,085 TWh in 2022 – a staggering 800 to 2,000 TWh more, dwarfing the 50 TWh claimed for crypto mining today.]
The White House next makes the astounding claim that crypto mining does not generate local or national economic benefits “typically associated with businesses using similar amounts of electricity.” Or, rather, that the “broader social benefits” of digital assets, which might include jobs or economic opportunities, have yet to materialize.
[Apparently, the White House does not see crypto mining as a “job” or income derived from cryptocurrencies as an “opportunity.” Yet crypto is enabling low-level investors to participate in commercial real estate transactions, for just one example.]
The White House also says that “minor increases in local tax revenue” from crypto mining are more than offset by increased energy prices for firms and households. Imposing an onerous tax on crypto mining might, the White House admits, drive companies to countries with dirtier energy production, but so what? We would be rid of them.
With Senator Elizabeth Warren leading the assault, there is the possibility that crypto (like oil, gas, and coal) will be banned worldwide. Already, China banned crypto mining (in 2021) – a major reason for increased crypto mining in the U.S. Several other countries have also banned crypto mining and three Canadian provinces have announced or enacted crypto mining moratoriums.
Some states and localities are even charging crypto miners higher rates or restricting their activities. New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul gleefully signed a law banning bitcoin mining operations that use carbon-based power sources. The law also bars crypto miners from expanding or renewing their permits for the next two years unless they can demonstrate that they use 100 percent renewable energy; it also bars new entrants from coming online.
In short, the DAME tax is part of a coordinated strategy to eliminate crypto mining and token exchanges altogether, at least until the federal government finds a way to completely control the crypto marketplace and perhaps determine who may and may not participate in wealth creation using digital assets.
The CEI report calls the proposed DAME tax part of President Biden’s “whole-of-government” tax and regulatory agenda and part of a broader effort to force the wealthy and corporations to pay higher taxes. Under the scheme, agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fit their regulation of the crypto sector into their broader goal of fighting climate change.
According to the CEI report, a comparative analysis across industries reveals that crypto’s energy footprint is not disproportionately large in comparison to, say, gold or copper mining. Moreover, the energy use of aspects of the traditional payments system, including bank data centers and bank branches, exceeds that of Bitcoin by most reasonable measures.
CEI’s authors also disagree with the White House’s premise that crypto’s use of electricity is without a beneficial purpose. Instead, crypto mining is instrumental in maintaining the security and integrity of decentralized networks and in creating a new, potentially more secure financial ecosystem with increased financial inclusion and enhanced transaction privacy.
Perhaps the strongest argument against the DAME tax, CEI says, is that an electricity tax targeting only the crypto mining industry “sets a terrible precedent.” It is the government once again interfering with the market and picking winners and losers – and then taxing the chosen “losers” to force them out of business or under total federal control. [Just like EV mandates!]
Crypto is still in its infancy as an industry and is rapidly evolving and shedding unscrupulous players, especially from the new generation of secured-asset crypto firms. Imposing a tax scheme aimed at stifling the growth of the industry runs the risk of depriving the Treasury of huge new revenue streams from existing taxes and fees.
Given government’s incessant demand for a greater share of gross domestic product (already well above 30 percent, the highest since World War II), there should be little doubt that, should this unwelcome proposal ever become law, the government could readily find other industries upon which to impose specialized electricity use taxes.
The goal is obvious: More revenue and more control for the government and less and less for the people.
For the sake of Africans and the rest of the world, African leaders need to confidently reject the net-zero movement and embrace energy freedom—including fossil fuel freedom. Since 1980, India’s fossil fuel use has increased by >700% and China’s by >600%.
My message: For the sake of Africans and the rest of the world, African leaders need to confidently reject the net-zero movement and embrace energy freedom—including fossil fuel freedom.
Why African leaders need to confidently reject the net-zero movement
– Africa needs rapid growth in fossil fuel use, the opposite of net-zero, to develop and prosper. – The morally bankrupt and weak net-zero leadership cannot withstand a confident African challenge.
3 facts that prove Africans need fossil fuels to prosper
1. Every prosperous country has developed using fossil fuels 2. Even prosperous countries can’t replace fossil fuels with solar and wind 3. Fossil-fueled development isn’t causing a climate crisis, it’s making humanity much safer from climate
1. Every prosperous country has developed using fossil fuels.
No poor country has been able to develop to the point of prosperity without massive fossil fuel use.
The reason is that development requires energy, and fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective, including scalable, source of energy.
Africa is the world’s poorest region. Most Africans want rapid development and with it, prosperity.
This is absolutely achievable. But only by using the proven practices every once-poor place has used to develop and prosper.
One such practice is large-scale fossil fuel use.
In recent decades China and India have used large amounts of low-cost, reliable energy from fossil fuels to rapidly develop.
Since 1980, India’s fossil fuel use has increased by >700% and China’s by >600%.
India’s life expectancy increased by 17 years and China’s by 14!1
Fossil fuels are so uniquely good at providing low-cost, reliable energy for developing nations that even nations with little or no fossil fuel resources have used fossil fuels to develop and prosper. E.g. South Korea (83% fossil fuels), Japan (85% fossil fuels), Singapore (99% fossil fuels).2
The obvious path for African development and prosperity is to use fossil fuel whenever it is the most cost-effective option, which is most of the time, and certainly to responsibly produce the significant fossil fuel resources that exist in Africa.
It is deadly for Africa to forego fossil fuels.
2. Even prosperous countries can’t replace fossil fuels with solar and wind.
Africa is being told to develop without growing fossil fuel use and to use mostly solar and wind instead.
But given that even very prosperous places can’t use mostly solar and wind, this is a death sentence for African development.
Over the last two decades, the prosperous world has been trying to use more and more solar and wind energy.
Africans should take note of the ominous results of this experiment so far: higher prices and reliability declines even at relatively low levels of solar and wind use.
Despite claims that solar and wind are rapidly replacing fossil fuels, they provide less than 5% of world energy—only electricity, ⅕ of energy—and, crucially, even that small percentage depends on huge subsidies and reliable (mostly fossil-fueled) power plants.3
Solar and wind’s basic problem is unreliability, to the point they can go near zero at any time. Thus they don’t replace reliable power, they parasitize it. This is why they need huge subsidies and why no grid is near 50% solar and wind without parasitism on reliable neighbors.
The popular idea that we can use mostly or only solar and wind with sufficient battery backup is not being tried anywhere because it’s absurd. Batteries are so expensive that just 3 days of global backup using Elon Musk’s Megapacks would cost $570 trillion, about 6X global GDP!4
Consider that Germany, to get 37% of its electricity from unreliable solar and wind, has doubled its prices—now 3 times US prices. And Germany can only get away with 37% because it has neighbors to bail it out when solar and wind fall short. Impoverished Africa can’t prosper on this path.5
When net-zero advocates say Africa should “leapfrog” fossil fuels with solar and wind just as many have “leapfrogged” landlines with cell phones, they are making an absurd analogy.
Cell phones can actually replace landlines for most purposes. Solar and wind can’t replace fossil fuels.
Justified by net-zero goals, South African bank FirstRand has announced to stop funding coal mines and coal power plants. In a situation where South Africa’s power grid is struggling to keep the lights on. This is hurting the economy but it also makes the poorest South Africans suffer most of all.6
Given that every prosperous place on Earth has depended on and continues to depend on massive fossil fuel use, and that attempts to replace fossil fuels with solar and wind are failing, the push for Africa to adopt net-zero—aka fossil fuel elimination—is a death sentence for African development.
If net-zero is a death sentence for African development, why is it so popular around the world?
Because the world has a deadly moral obsession with eliminating human climate impact at all costs—including, disgustingly, the cost of destroying Africa’s chance to prosper.
The justification for pursuing net-zero at all costs is that we have a climate crisis that’s becoming a climate apocalypse that will hurt Africa most of all. So Africa must join others in going net-zero.
But others aren’t actually going net-zero and there’s not a climate crisis.
3. Fossil-fueled development isn’t causing a climate crisis, it’s making humanity much safer from climate
While fossil fuel use has a warming impact on climate, this impact is minor compared to the incredible ability fossil fuels give us to master all forms of climate danger.
Myth: We are more endangered than ever by climate because of fossil fuels’ CO2 emissions.
Truth: We have a 98% decline in climate disaster deaths due to our enormous fossil-fueled climate mastery abilities: Heating or cooling, infrastructure-building, irrigation, crop transport.7
Africans, like the rest of the world, are far safer than climate than they were 100 years ago. If they can use fossil fuels to develop and prosper, they’ll be safer still as the world slowly warms. And note that even in Africa cold-related deaths still exceed heat-related deaths.8
The obvious path forward for Africa is energy freedom: the freedom to produce and use all cost-effective sources of energy—including, essentially, fossil fuels—which means rejecting all net-zero targets.
Is this possible in the face of international opposition? Absolutely.
The morally bankrupt and weak net-zero leadership cannot withstand a confident African challenge
While the international net-zero movement may be economically and politically powerful, it is morally and psychologically weak.
It will crumble if Africans confidently reject it.
For years African leaders, instead of confidently rejecting net-zero like the plague (it’s actually far more dangerous than the plague) have cooperated with the net-zero agenda, signing onto net-zero commitments—above all the Paris Agreement.
This has been a huge mistake.
A major reason African leaders have cooperated with the net-zero movement is fear of repercussions from this powerful global movement that can punish African nations by cutting off aid, discouraging financing, and discouraging trade.
Such cooperation is deadly—and unnecessary.
Africans must understand a key psychological fact about leaders in the US and many other prosperous nations: They’re terrified of challenges from 2 types of people above all: the poor and the nonwhite, both of whom they falsely claim to support.
You can capitalize on this fear.
Imagine if African leaders stood up and said: we have an absolute right to use all forms of energy, including fossil fuels, to develop and prosper, and anyone who tries to deny us this right is anti-poor, anti-black, and anti-human.
Joe Biden et al would have nothing to say.
In recent years I have been very happy to see African leaders stand up a little to net-zero, usually in the form of advocating a “just transition.”
But this is still way too weak. Talking of a “just transition” still accepts the deadly idea of a rapid transition to net-zero.
The idea of a “just transition” to net-zero usually means some combo of: Africa gets to use a little fossil fuel, and the prosperous world pledges to rapidly reduce its emissions plus give Africans some handouts if Africa doesn’t challenge net-zero overall.
This is terrible.
For Africa to accept any limitation whatsoever on its fossil fuel production and use is immoral and deadly.
And it’s not in Africa’s interest for the prosperous world to rapidly go net-zero: that will absolutely destroy the global economy, including any meaningful aid to Africa.
Africans need to stop talking about a “just energy transition” and instead embrace the concepts of “energy expansion” and “energy evolution.” This means using more energy and finding ever-better ways of producing energy. But absolutely not ruining Africa by limiting fossil fuels.
An essential step to African leaders standing up against net-zero is to announce ASAP a withdrawal from the irredeemably immoral Paris Agreement, which commits African nations to rejecting the fossil fuels they need to develop and prosper.
This should happen at COP 28.
If African leaders find themselves threatened behind the scenes by wealthy and powerful net-zero leaders, there is an easy solution: Expose the threats publicly. Imagine what virtue-signaling weasels like Antonio Guterres will do if they are exposed for threatening Africans.
To be most effective at fighting the net-zero movement, you must recognize that this wealthy movement’s hostility toward African fossil fuel use is deeply racist. By saying “fossil fuels for me but not for thee” it’s implying that dark-skinned people don’t need a lot of energy.
Observe that net-zero advocates often fawn over the idea of Africans using solar to power some lights or a radio—as if that’s anywhere near enough energy. It’s because they believe that dark-skinned people don’t really want a modern life, so they don’t really need much energy.
I believe that the color of your skin has nothing to do with the content of your mind and with what you want out of life. I believe that most people, when given the choice, want more energy and more progress. I know Africa is full of ambitious people who want these things.
To summarize:
– The net-zero movement is destroying the fossil fuel freedom Africans need to develop and prosper. – The morally weak net-zero leadership can’t withstand a confident African challenge.
It’s time to challenge them, and that includes withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.
I will do everything I can to help African leaders successfully fight the net-zero movement. I will do it because it’s a matter of justice, and because I and everyone I care about will be much better off in a world where net-zero has been defeated.
Can the “injury in fact” element of standing, as to a consumer group challenging a federal agency action, be established by an evidentiary showing that the policies mandated by that agency action have resulted in large increases in consumer prices in the places where they have been implemented?
It’s the question that I know has been on the tips of the tongues of all Manhattan Contrarian readers: Will the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council, after getting booted ignominiously out of the D.C. Circuit on grounds of standing, now continue its fight to overturn EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding by petitioning the Supreme Court for Certiorari?
The answer is YES. Our Petition for a Writ of Certiorari was filed on Wednesday, October 18, and is now available on the Supreme Court’s website.
Not that other strategies did not occur to us. An obvious alternative would have been to let it go on this round, and then start over with a new Petition to reconsider the Endangerment Finding, addressed to EPA itself, only once there is a new Republican administration in Washington that might take such a Petition seriously.
But that approach would mean giving the Endangerment Finding a complete pass for the time being. No way were we going to do that. For those unfamiliar with the subject, the Endangerment Finding, adopted by EPA back in 2009, is the biggest piece of pseudoscientific absurdity ever perpetrated on the American people. It purports to determine that CO2 — a colorless, odorless, non-toxic trace gas constituting about 0.04% of the atmosphere — constitutes a “danger” to human health and welfare. The Endangerment Finding is then the entire basis for an unprecedented regulatory tsunami unleashed by the Biden administration on the American people and economy. The world needs to see that the serious people know how crazy this is, and that we are going to keep saying so, and that we are not going away.
Right now the Biden administration is moving aggressively to eliminate all use of fossil fuels to generate electricity, via a new Power Plant Rule proposed in May 2023. The entire basis for that Rule is the Endangerment Finding. The Biden administration is also moving aggressively to ban all internal combustion personal vehicles, via another Vehicle Rule also put forward in May 2023. That one also has the Endangerment Finding as its entire basis. The same goes for a multitude of other rules and regulatory initiatives covering things like blocking pipelines, restricting drilling, subsidizing intermittent electricity generation, requiring costly corporate disclosures, and many others. In the aggregate these regulatory initiatives look to impose hundreds of billions of dollars, or even trillions of dollars, of costs on the American people. All of this has no reason for existence other than the Endangerment Finding.
The Petition for Certiorari gave us an opportunity to shine a small spotlight on some of the absurdities of the law of standing as it currently exists in the Supreme Court and in the various Courts of Appeals. Readers of my previous updates on this litigation know that the D.C. Circuit threw out our case seeking to force the EPA to reconsider the Endangerment Finding on this ground of “standing,” which requires that the petitioning party show some kind of concrete injury from the regulation in question. We thought we had satisfied that requirement by making a presentation as to the tight correlation between regulatory efforts in various jurisdictions to suppress use of fossil fuels and sharply increasing electricity prices in the same jurisdictions. The D.C. Circuit found that this showing of concrete monetary harm was insufficient.
But, as we now show in our Petition for Certiorari, the same D.C. Circuit that thinks that increasing electricity costs are insufficient to establish consumer standing decided a case called Natural Resources Defense Council v. Wheeler in 2020. In that case the NRDC sought to compel additional regulation of hydrofluorocarbons on the ground that they (like CO2) are “greenhouse gases” that cause “climate change.” A member of NRDC asserted that he owned coastal property that was therefore “threatened” by rising sea levels. From our Petition:
There was no assertion that any of the harm had actually yet occurred, nor when it would occur, nor how it could be redressed by a court order that would have the same power over sea level as the commands of King Canute, but without the humility. In the real world, no scientifically valid evidence has ever established any link between greenhouse gas emissions and any supposed enhanced “threats” to coastal property, and all attempts to show that such emissions have led to accelerating sea level rise or increased hurricane activity have failed.
But the completely speculative claim was found sufficient to establish standing, because claims of threatened future environmental degradation, no matter how speculative or slight, are politically favored.
Among the examples of favored environmental allegations held sufficient to meet the “injury” element of standing, my favorites are the standing allegation of the plaintiffs in Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana v. United States:
Kelsey spends time along the Oregon coast in places like Yachats and Florence and enjoys playing on the beach, tidepooling, and observing unique marine animals. . . . The current and projected drought and lack of snow caused by Defendants are already harming all of the places Kelsey enjoys visiting, as well as her drinking water, and her food sources – including wild salmon. . . . Defendants have caused psychological and emotional harm to Kelsey as a result of her fear of a changing climate, her knowledge of the impacts that will occur in her lifetime, and her knowledge that Defendants are continuing to cause harms that threaten her life and wellbeing.
In 2020 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held these allegations sufficient to establish the injury element of standing. In the 2022-23 winter, the whole claim of “projected drought” got blown to bits by record snowfalls over the Western mountains; but no matter. The mere fear of such droughts is enough to establish standing if you are a favored environmental plaintiff.
It is likely that there is a good deal of sympathy for our position on today’s Supreme Court. But that does not mean that they will take this case. Perhaps more likely, they will wait until cases challenging the Power Plant Rule or the Vehicle Rule or other such rules get presented. But those will take several years to work their way up to the Court, during which time untold damage will have been done to the electric utility and automotive industries. In the end, the courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, can be an important part of the unraveling of the energy transformation sought by today’s climate cult. But likely the much more important factor in the unraveling will be the cost and unworkability of the net zero plans of the climate campaigners.
Do we really wanna live in a world without crude oil and 6000 products for living. Do we really wanna live for a green pipe dream in a world without transportation, electronics, hospitals or toilets?
Over the last 200 years, after the discovery of crude oil, the world populated from 1 to 8 billion. Today, all the electricity generation options available, such as wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear, hydro, coal, and natural gas, are all dependent on the products and components manufactured from crude oil to be able to generate electricity.
Looking back, the history of the petroleum industry illustrated that crude oil was virtually useless unless it could be manufactured (refineries) into oil derivatives that are now the basis of chemical products, such as plastics, solvents, and medications, that are essential for supporting modern lifestyles. The more than 6,000 products being used for humanity’s needs and the generation of electricity did not exist a few short centuries ago.
Today, we have more than 50,000 merchant ships, more than 20,000 commercial aircraft, and more than 50,000 military aircraft that use the fuels manufactured from crude oil. The fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of jets moving people and products and the merchant ships for global trade flows; the military and space programs, are also dependent on what can be manufactured from crude oil.
For the aircraft and ships, just like that for the various options for the generation of electricity, they all utilize parts and components made from the oil derivatives manufactured from raw crude oil.
Mankind in the pre-1800s set the stage for the fantastic growth after the mankind’s discovery of crude oil:
Life longevity was around forty years of age, and people seldom travelled more than one hundred miles from where they were born.
A world population of about one billion people.
No electricity, as all generation of electricity is only possible with the parts made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil for wind turbines, solar panels, and coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydropower plants.
The following infrastructures were not around a few short centuries ago, because they all need components and parts that were NOT available in the pre-1800s.
Transportation
Hospitals
Medical equipment
Appliances
Electronics
Telecommunications
Communications systems
Space programs
Heating and ventilating
Military
Today, a few centuries after the discovery of crude oil:
Everything that needs electricity and every infrastructure is made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, and all the parts of EVs, toilets, and spacecraft.
Weather-related fatalities have virtually disappeared with all the products and medications available today that were not available a few centuries ago.
Globally, as most of the world leaders in the few wealthy countries continue to focus on ceasing oil production and shuttering the refining of crude oil, the future does not bode well, as 20 percent of the almost 700 worldwide refineries are expected to close in the next 5 years, i.e., 140 closures. Further inflation and shortages in perpetuity are guaranteed, as those refineries are manufacturing the oil derivatives for all the products in society, and the fuels for the jets moving people and products, and the merchant ships for global trade flows and the military and space programs.
While the few wealthy countries are pursuing the elimination of crude oil, China has no intentions of abandoning its economic, military, or strategic ambitions – all of which rely on crude oil. Asia is the region with the greatest number of future petroleum refineries. As of 2021, there were 88 new facilities in planning or under construction in Asia.
Policymakers in the few wealthy countries are not cognizant enough to understand that there has yet to be identified a replacement for crude oil that now provides the products and fuels that have been manufactured from crude oil during the last few centuries, that are the basis on every infrastructure segment supporting the 8 billion on this planet!
The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society, as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.
Ridding the world of raw crude oil before we have a replacement to produce the oil derivatives currently manufactured from crude oil, we’re back to the 1800s.
The greatest threat to the world’s populations could be the future for billions to exist and prosper without those oil derivatives that are currently supporting more than 6,000 products for society.
Shockingly, very few parents, teachers, students, politicians, and those in the media have any clues or understanding about the basis of the products in our daily lives from crude oil! Energy Literacy at its best!!!
The proverb “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” tells us that:
You can’t rid the world of crude oil and
Continue to enjoy the products and fuels that are currently made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
Without a replacement for the crude oil that’s been providing the products supporting today’s humanity for the last couple of centuries, policymakers seem to be focused on jumping out of an airplane without a parachute!
Here are a few suggested subjects for those energy literacy discussions at the dinner table:
Everything that needs electricity is made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, and all the parts of EVs, toilets, and spacecraft.
All generation of electricity is only possible with the parts made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil for wind turbines, solar panels, and the coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydropower plants.
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
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Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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