In our recently released Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports will continue to lead growth in U.S. natural gas trade as three LNG export projects currently under construction start operations and ramp up to full production by the end of 2025. We also forecast increased natural gas exports by pipeline, mainly to Mexico. In our STEO forecast, net exports of U.S. natural gas (exports minus imports) grow 6% to 13.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2024 compared with 2023. In 2025, net exports increase another 20% to 16.4 Bcf/d.
We forecast that U.S. LNG exports increase 2% in 2024 to average 12.2 Bcf/d. In 2025, we forecast that LNG exports grow by an additional 18% (2.1 Bcf/d). We forecast U.S. natural gas exports by pipeline to grow by 3% (0.3 Bcf/d) in 2024 and by 4% in 2025. We expect pipeline imports to decline by 0.4 Bcf/d in 2024 and then increase slightly (0.1 Bcf/d) in 2025.
In 2024–25, we forecast that existing U.S. LNG export facilities will run at similar utilization rates as in 2023. Annual maintenance typically occurs in the spring and fall, when global LNG demand is lower and temperatures are mild. In April and May 2024, we expect LNG exports to decline while two of the three trains at the Freeport LNG export facility undergo annual maintenance. Later in 2024, we expect that Plaquemines LNG Phase I and Corpus Christi Stage 3 will begin LNG production and load first cargoes by the end of the year. In 2025, the developers of Golden Pass LNG plan to place in service the first two trains of this new three-train LNG export facility.
We forecast an increase in U.S. natural gas pipeline exports to Mexico as several pipelines in Mexico—Tula-Villa de Reyes, Tuxpan-Tula, and Cuxtal Phase II connecting to the Energía Mayakan pipeline on the Yucatán Peninsula—become fully operational in 2024–25. These pipelines started partial service in 2022–23 but have not been operating at full capacity. Also, flows via the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan underwater pipeline are likely to increase slightly in 2024 when it begins delivering natural gas from the United States to Mexico’s first LNG export project, Fast LNG Altamira.
U.S. natural gas pipeline imports from Canada remained relatively unchanged over the last two years (2022–23), averaging 8.1 Bcf/d. We expect pipeline imports from Canada to remain a key supply source, particularly for the U.S. Midwest region during winter months.
Biden’s imbecilic pause did not affect LNG facilities that are fully permitted and/or under construction. By the time the next president reverses this malfeasance next year, LNG exports will have climbed by about 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) as new facilities come online. Projects currently under construction will add enough capacity (~17 Bcf/d) to more than double the current export volume (~12 Bcf/d).
At worst, the moronic pause in Department of Energy (DOE) permitting will delay final investment decisions (FID) for about 13 Bcf/d of capacity additions. 7 Bcf/d of that total have already been approved by FERC.
FERC is the agency that approves the construction of LNG facilities. DOE approves permits to export LNG to nations that do not have free trade agreements (FTA) with the US.
An Amazingly “Futile and Stupid Gesture”
Sixteen states have sued the Biden administration over this unlawful pause in LNG export permitting:
March 21, 2024 | Press Release
Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues Biden to Stop Unlawful Ban on LNG Exports
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed suit to block the Biden Administration’s unlawful and indefinite ban on approving applications to export liquified natural gas (“LNG”) that the Department of Energy itself has already acknowledged has “no factual or legal basis.”
Texas, along with Louisiana and fourteen other states, has filed a lawsuit to void the unconstitutional LNG export ban, which ignores the Natural Gas Act’s presumption in favor of exports, decades of Department of Energy policy, and State and private reliance on exports. Texas is the nation’s leading producer of both crude oil and natural gas. The Biden Administration’s ban stands to harm the Texas economy and the millions who rely on Texas energy.
“Biden’s unilateral decree disregards statutory mandates, flouts the legal process, upends the oil and gas industry, disrupts the Texas economy, and subverts our constitutional structure,” said Attorney General Paxton. “The ban will drive billions of dollars in investment away from Texas, hinder our ability to maximize revenue for public schools, force Texas producers to flare excess natural gas instead of taking it to market, and annihilate critical jobs. I will not stand by while Biden attacks Texas.”
Reporting has also unveiled other possible motivations behind the unexplained LNG Export Ban. For example, White House officials have acknowledged that “one significant reason for the” LNG Export Ban “was to address concerns of young and climate-focused voters,” whom “the administration needs . . . in the fall.” R. Rapier, How An American LNG Export Pause Could Increase Global Carbon Emissions, Forbes (Jan. 29, 2024), https://perma.cc/3WQR-84HK. The “hope is that announcing this pause will energize them to vote for Biden in the November election.” Id.
Other reporting describes President Biden’s climate envoy, John Podesta, as an architect of the LNG Export Ban, and notes that Podesta’s brother is a lobbyist for foreign interests— including Russian LNG oligarchs—who stand to benefit significantly from the Ban. See A. Goodman, John Podesta Was Behind Biden’s Decision To Pause Natural Gas Exports. His Lobbyist Brother Stands To Benefit, Wash. Free Beacon (Feb. 15, 2024), https://perma.cc/P3JW-AZSA.
China’s BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, is scoping out Mexico, where labor costs are low, to locate a new EV plant as a backdoor manufacturing hub for their entrance into the U.S. market.
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Cars imported directly into the United States from China are assessed a 27.5 percent tariff, while those from Mexico are assessed at most a 2.5 percent tariff.
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American manufacturers are concerned because China can manufacture cars at a much lower cost as it dominates and controls the EV energy supply chain, including the processing of necessary minerals.
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BYD currently sells most of its vehicles domestically in China but is making inroads by offshoring manufacturing in obliging countries.
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The U.S. EV market is ripe due to Biden’s strident push for electric vehicles including subsidies and mandates designed to force people out of internal combustion vehicles.
BYD, China’s largest EV auto maker, which recently surpassed Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles, is reviewing potential locations for a plant in Mexico that would allow it to bring its low-cost electric vehicles into the United States. Mexico offers close proximity to U.S. markets, relatively low labor costs and the opportunity to take advantage of low or zero tariffs on made-in-Mexico vehicles. Some of the locations BYD is considering are near the U.S. border. At least a dozen Chinese electric-car component suppliers have also announced new factories or added to their existing investments in Mexico in recent years. They are responding to a U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal that encourages carmakers in North America to use locally sourced materials.
BYD is looking to expand globally as it has an excess domestic EV inventory. CEOs at rival automakers have warned about the potential threat from China, with some suggesting the need for more government action to avert such competition in the United States as Chinese automakers have a big cost advantage in the electric vehicle market with China’s dominance of the battery supply chain and processing of essential minerals. Through engineering, government subsidies and lower labor costs, BYD and other China-based EV makers have been able to entice customers with stylish and technologically advanced electric vehicles at attractive prices. If China can lock buyers into electric vehicles dependent upon its dominant supply chains, it would strengthen its position as the world’s leading car manufacturer.
BYD’s low-price electric vehicles have gained traction with buyers in places such as Europe and Southeast Asia. Europe, where Chinese EV imports are strong due to their lower price and Europe’s net zero carbon goals, is conducting an investigation into whether China provided subsidies to the industry unfairly, making it more difficult for European EV carmakers to compete. The investigation could result in new tariffs if EU officials find the Chinese companies are receiving unfair subsidies. The Biden administration is monitoring Chinese investment in Mexico amid concerns Chinese businesses could take advantage of North American free-trade agreement rules.
Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Chrysler-parent Stellantis, likened China’s potential entry in the United States to the arrival of the Japanese automakers in the 1970s and South Korean firms in the 1990s, calling their expansion as “very Powerful.” Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk also expressed similar concerns, saying the Chinese companies have already had significant success outside of China and are now the “most competitive” in the world.
Currently, Chinese-built electric vehicles are subject to a 27.5 percent tariff when imported into the United States that is composed of a 2.5 percent tariff that generally applies to imported cars plus an additional 25 percent tariff on Chinese-made cars that was introduced by the Trump administration in 2018. The Biden administration is debating whether to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles further, and the Inflation Reduction Act limits eligibility for a $7,500 consumer tax credit for cars built with batteries made by Chinese companies.
In comparison, cars made at a Chinese-owned factory in Mexico would only be faced with the 2.5 percent tariff upon entering the United States and could possibly pay no tariff if they met stringent standards for local content under the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement adopted in 2020.
Executives at Toyota estimated that Chinese companies had a 25 percent to 30 percent cost advantage over global competitors when manufacturing electric vehicles—more than enough to overcome the small 2.5-percent U.S. tariff. Pushing EV adoption too quickly would serve, however, as an invitation for Chinese EV companies including BYD, Geely and NIO to enter rigorously into the U.S. EV market. President Biden has a goal of electric vehicles making up 50 percent of new car sales by 2030, and his EPA and Department of Transportation have proposed rules that would effectively force electric vehicles to make up two-thirds of new car sales in 2032. The Biden Administration is pushing electric vehicles upon manufacturers and consumers and enticing them with subsidies for vehicles and charging stations.
BYD sees other potential uses for the plant in Mexico, including using it as an export hub for shipping cars to South America or sending batteries and other car parts to the United States. In China, BYD makes many EV parts in-house, including its EV batteries, to reduce costs—advantages it may or may not be able to replicate in Mexico. In North America, the company currently sells electric buses and trucks made at its location in Lancaster, California.
Conclusion
Chinese companies are looking into building EV car factories in Mexico to take advantage of the Mexico-U.S.-Canada trade agreement and avoid hefty tariffs on imports of electric vehicles coming directly from China. In particular, BYD, China’s largest EV automaker that recently surpassed Tesla in sales, is looking at locations in Mexico near the U.S. border. Chinese companies have a 25 to 30 percent cost advantage over U.S. competitors because of dominance in the EV battery supply chain and processing of critical minerals as well as low-cost labor and attractive energy prices. CEOs of U.S. automakers are worried that China could make a serious dent in the EV market as Japan and South Korea have done in the conventional auto market previously. With onerous proposed EV rules by Biden administration agencies on U.S. carmakers, the competition could be disastrous for legacy car makers, who are currently losing vast sums on meeting Biden’s EV goals.
The large and brilliantly-colored monarch butterfly is among the most easily recognizable of the butterfly species that call North America home. They have two sets of wings and a wingspan of three to four inches (7 to 10 centimeters). Their wings are a deep orange with black borders and veins, and white spots along the edges. The underside of the wings is pale orange.
It is time for the Great Journey South for the Monarch butterflies of North America. The super-generation of monarchs, who are the great-great-grandchildren of the monarchs that left overwintering sanctuaries along the coast of California in the United States and the Monarch Biosphere Reserve in central Mexico last spring, are on the move and have almost completed their incredible journey. The orange arrows on the continental map show the direction of travel in the fall of the year. The yellow areas are where monarchs are traveling from, an area extending all the way north into Canada. The majority of the monarch east of the Rocky Mountains travel south and west to arrive at the very geographically small area of the Monarch Biosphere Reserve in south-central Mexico. Yet there is some small population that stays in southern Florida and along the Gulf Coast, breeding and living as they do throughout the year.
West of the continental divide, some, but not all, of the monarchs gather in roosts along the coast of California, from San Luis Obispo north to Big Sur country. Some of the western population has been found traveling south to the Mexican Biosphere Reserve. And some of the western population doesn’t migrate anywhere at all, but just keeps in living in southern-most California.
For those curious as to what exactly happens to signal monarchs to start the migration, it is reported that when “the solar angle at solar noon (SASN) drops below 57 degrees, the date at each latitude” is “ when we can first expect to see directional flight indicative of the migration.” [ source ]
So, like many other things, it’s the Sun.
The Mexican agency that does the Monarch count in Mexico, in conjunction with the World Wildlife Federation, produces the data for this chart for monarch populations overwintering 2022-2023. There are so many butterflies, all bunched together, that an actual count is impossible, so they produce a figure that is in hectares of trees covered with monarchs, “estimates range from 10 to 50 million monarchs per hectare”.
And for the winter just past (2022-2023)? 2.21 hectares (5.5 acres) or between 22 million to 110 million monarch butterflies. Far better than the worst year on record (2013-2014) which had only 0.67 hectares (1.6 acres).
The Master of All Things Monarch, Chip Taylor, founder of Monarch Watch recently published two blog posts on the “whys and wherefores” of the monarch butterfly:
If you are interested in monarchs and their story, the two blog posts above are required reading.
This year’s southern migration is reporting good news, but it is truly too early to tell how many butterflies will make it to the monarch biosphere. The dependencies are weather and feeding opportunities: includes storms, local droughts (which reduce nectar sources), high adverse winds, heavy rains, etc. Texas reports seeing lots of monarchs:
The yellow circles show where the monarchs are bunching up….the Texas bunch really moves down through Mexico, but there are few reporting observers there. The Southern California group (including some of those in Southern Arizona) will either 1) move a little more north along the coast until they are above San Luis Obispo and roost for the winter, or 2) move a bit south of Los Angeles and spend the winter breeding as normal. We can also see the grouping in southern Florida, where monarchs can happily live all year long.
In the west, there was good news this past spring:
While totals were down, it is reported that this was the result of winter storms in California (which, you will recall, ended California’s long-term drought). You should ignore the dim grey line, it is the number of sites monitored and not a trend line of monarch population. Still, the count reveals that the stunning, unbelievable recovery from 2020-2021’s feared near-extinction event was not just a fluke but a strong resurgence in overall population. The Xerces Society, for reasons I cannot fathom, reports the above chart as bad news.
There will be some more up-to-date news about monarchs in the western population in the Thanksgiving count, which will run from 11/11/23 – 12/3/23, and the New Year’s count will run from 12/23/23 – 1/7/24. Readers living out west can participate: https://westernmonarchcount.org/
We usually only see information coming out of Mexico well after the New Year.
I am looking forward to good news.
# # #
Authors Comment:
I have been following this topic for years and you can read my other essays here.
I write about monarchs just because I like them and am fascinated by their migration behavior as a species – the reasons for which remain a mystery.
If you are interested, there are ways in which you can help maintain and improve monarch populations such as planting native milkweeds in your garden and urging states, counties and cities not to mow roadsides where milkweeds flourish.
The World Meteorological Organization clearly defines that single weather events are not the same as climate change. There has been no long-term trend in greater numbers of or more severe storms striking this area during the past few decades that would suggest climate change was causing an issue.
Image: The shoreline of El Bosque, showing houses destroyed by the eroding beach. Source: The Guardian/Gustavo Graf
In an October 24 Amnesty International News article, titled “We may be the first people displaced by climate change in Mexico, but we won’t be the last,” Guadalupe Cobos Pacheco claims that the tiny seaside fishing town he lives in, the El Bosque community in Tabasco, Mexico, is being overwhelmed by sea level rise driven by climate change. Data and historical imagery show this to be false. Other factors, such as choice of building location, prevailing ocean waves, and beach erosion are the cause.
Pacheco writes:
Before climate change, our daily routine was to go fishing and sell our produce. Like any community, we celebrated our customs and traditions. We celebrated important dates such as Christmas, New Year or the Day of the Dead. We heard about climate change on television, but we never thought it would destroy our community. We could sleep easy.
Since 2019, our lives have completely changed. Now our lives revolve around climate change. That year, a storm swept away the first row of homes, and rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and northerly winds have continued to destroy our community. Our only option now is to leave.
The most important point that Pacheco fails to recognize in his own writing is that one storm in 2019 is not the same as climate change. The World Meteorological Organization clearly defines that single weather events are not the same as climate change. There has been no long-term trend in greater numbers of or more severe storms striking this area during the past few decades that would suggest climate change was causing an issue.
Rather than climate change, Pacheco should blame simple beach mechanics for what is happening at the El Bosque community in Tabasco.
El Bosque is built on a peninsular sand bar, jutting into the ocean. Sandbars are formed from the combination of erosion and deposition processes, which are driven by wave action. That particular section of beach is steeply sloping into the sea, and it is well known that a steeply sloping shore will cause waves to break closer to shore, causing more erosion than on a gently sloping shore.
The storm in 2019 started the process of beach scouring, making the slope steeper, and accelerating the process.
But since 2019, residents of El Bosque say a series of severe weather fronts, bringing heavy rain and powerful winds, have been eroding the shoreline. As the ocean has encroached, more than 60 homes in the village have been destroyed by the waves.
With a steeper beach slope, additional storms have more impact than they have had in the past. Since 2019, the shoreline has eroded faster. This is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below.
Figure 1, from the study cited above, Coastlines for El Bosque beach, Tabasco. The triangle represents the position of the old sampling and the circle represents the recent sampling.
In Figure 1, note that on the south side of the peninsula, in the cove area, there is essentially no beach erosion, or significant growth through deposition, over time. This suggests that the prevailing wave action comes from the north, driven by weather systems.
Figure 2, from Google Earth, shows satellite imagery from February 2023 of the peninsular sand bar that El Bosque is built on. Note that in this image, strong waves are present coming from the northwest, this creates a wave scouring action that rips sand from the beach and deposits it elsewhere, in the direction of the waves. The beach to the far right, as illustrated in Figure 1, is actually growing, as indicated by the black line beach profile.
Figure 2. Google Earth image of the sandbar peninsula which the town of El Bosque is built on. Annotations by A. Watts.
This is not climate change, climate change does not reach out to affect a small section of beach, shrinking one part, and building up another less than one mile away. This is simple and well-known beach mechanics of sand bars. It is established by ocean science that sandbars shift regularly over time.
The article also claims, “Rising sea levels caused by climate change have swept away more than 200 meters of coastline here, destroying more than 50 homes.”
Examining the data for sea level rise in the region, one finds no supporting evidence for that claim. In fact, there is no data available for the last 30 years at all from the two closest tide gauges at Ciudad del Carmen or Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. This is shown in Figure 3 below:
Figure 3: Map showing the two closest tide gauge stations on either side of El Basque, Mexico and the data as plotted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Tides and Currents website, with annotations and compositing by A. Watts
Without such data, it is impossible to honestly claim that sea levels are rising, much less rising at an unusual, global warming accelerated rate.
Looking at the latest available data, however, one can, playing Devil’s advocate, assume that the trends indicated at those two stations has continued rising unchanged since the last readings were available around 1988. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Tides and Currents website has this to say about the data at each station:
Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico: The relative sea level trend is 3.6 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.94 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1956 to 1988 which is equivalent to a change of 1.18 feet in 100 years.
Coatzacoalcos, Mexico: The relative sea level trend is 2.86 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 1.06 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1952 to 1987 which is equivalent to a change of 0.94 feet in 100 years.
The 100 year sea level rise between the two stations averages out to 1.06 feet per century (1.18 + 0.94 /2 ). For the 35 years since the last data available in 1988, that would be 0.37 feet or 4.45 inches. This is near or well below the average sea level rise that the IPCC projects to occur over the 21st century, so unless the rates of rise have increased dramatically, climate change isn’t causing much sea level rise at El Bosque. In addition, the small estimated amount of rise certainly cannot account for the beach erosion and loss that has happened there. It is far below the average daily tidal variation, which can vary as much as 1.77 feet in a single day according to tide tables for Ciudad del Carmen.
Clearly, the claims of climate driven sea level rise are unsupportable. The likely cause of the recent sandbar erosion is the aforementioned wave driven beach erosion, triggered by the 2019 storm which increased the slope of the beach, making it even more susceptible to ocean storms and waves.
Tragically, the homes of El Bosque were built on the edge of the shifting sandbar. The residents were likely unaware of the dangers of building on sands which shift with such ease and passing storms. With the mainstream media blaming climate change for every natural event that can be portrayed as out of the ordinary, it unsurprising Pacheco has mistakenly blamed his village’s plight on climate change. There are several stories in the media recently making the same claim.
The incompetence of the media and NGOs, like Amnesty International News, in doing even the most basic investigation is disturbing and misleading.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
The first step out of grinding poverty starts with access to energy-rich hydrocarbons: ie coal, oil and gas.
Third World governments are continually berated by opportunistic globalists who claim to be saving the planet by forcing them to take up insanely expensive and thoroughly unreliable wind and solar.
Some are duped, sure enough. But it never takes the proletariat long to work out that wind and solar power provide no answer to their desperate energy needs; sitting in the dark, night after night, generally does the trick.
In the piece below, Vijay Jayaraj makes the case for hydrocarbons and their ability to convert permanent poverty into general wealth and prosperity.
Saying ‘no’ to green energy: Mexico and South America must tap fossil fuels to fight poverty American Thinker Vijay Jayaraj 7 June 2023
Despite intense news coverage of issues surrounding the U.S. southern border, it is rare to see headlines about the energy policy of Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
Nonetheless, much as in other regions, energy is a major concern inextricably tied to economic well-being.
Poverty remains pervasive in Mexico and various countries to its south.
Hunger, malnutrition, poor health, lack of education, and limited access to basic services are the symptoms of destitution challenging millions of lives.
Hence, it would be disastrous for these countries to adopt policies disruptive to their economy.
This is why many of them are being careful about falling into the trap of the global net zero agenda being promoted as a way to avert a fabricated climate emergency.
Regardless of pressures from international leaders to join the campaign to “decarbonize,” overcoming poverty with economic growth powered by fossil fuels is taking precedence in these countries.
Mexico, for instance, has made bold decisions about its position on decarbonization. Eighty-nine percent of all primary energy consumed in Mexico comes from fossil fuels. Mexico’s current administration understands the serious problems that intermittent wind and solar could pose to the growing economy of the country.
This is why it has approved a bill to reverse existing laws that require the prioritization of renewable energy. The bill would require the power grid to receive its primary electricity supply from state-owned plants that mostly run on fossil fuels.
The two main state energy companies, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), are viewed as critical to meeting Mexico’s economic ambitions.
“We need to strengthen Pemex and the CFE, we need to rescue them, because deliberate moves have been taken to destroy them, so that the energy market could be left in the hands of private, national and above all foreign companies,” Mexican president López Obrador said in February 2021.
The online news outlet Equal Times reported that the president had “launched a crusade against private companies in the renewables sector, which he accuses of making millions in profits, in cahoots with previous governments, at the expense of” Pemex and CFE.
Seventy-five percent of the country’s electricity already comes from fossil fuels, and Obrador’s approach almost certainly ensures that this percentage does not change drastically.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA) forecasts that Mexico’s oil production is set for a revival: “Recently, increasing private investment and rising condensate production helped reverse a downward trend in Mexico’s oil production that began in 2004. In 2022, Mexico’s oil production was nearly two million barrels per day (b/d), similar to levels since 2019. As of the March 2023 Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast that Mexico’s petroleum and other liquids production will average 1.93 million b/d in 2023 and 1.91 million b/d in 2024.”
“Mexico will almost certainly fail to meet its pledge to the world to reduce its carbon output,” according to analysts.
Brazil and Peru Need to Utilize Fossil Reserves to Move Forward
Like Mexico, countries in South America hope to utilize fossil fuels to propel their economies forward. Brazil is the largest by population on the continent and also the largest oil producer.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that Brazil will “become responsible for the production of about 50 percent of the world’s offshore oil in 2040, or about 5.2 million b/d.
Brazil’s western neighbor, Peru, is predicted to be among the three fastest-growing economies in South America in the next few years. In 2021, fossil fuels accounted for nearly 72 percent of the primary energy consumption in Peru.
But still the country is in the primitive stages of energy consumption, ranked at a dismal 116th position for per capita primary energy consumption. If the country is to meet the growing energy demand in the coming years, it needs to ramp up its energy production.
According to USEIA, the country is the “seventh-largest crude oil reserve holder in Central and South America, with 741 million barrels of estimated proved reserves, as of January 2015.” Earlier this year, in an effort to boost reserves, the state petroleum agency offered areas for oil and gas exploration through negotiations and 31 technical contracts.
There has been a similar pattern in Africa, too.
In the frenzied world of net zero and green energy obsessions, it is not easy for aspiring young economies to remain committed to their use of fossil fuels, which to this day remain the bedrock of economic progress. But they must. American Thinker
A recent Forbes article claims that the recent shortage of the popular hot sauce “Sriracha” is likely due to climate change. This is false. Natural weather patterns in the region of Mexico Sriracha’s chili peppers are grown are not due to the modest warming the earth has experienced over the past decades. Furthermore, a few years of poor production in one region is not evidence of a long-term impact.
The article, “Why Sriracha Prices Are Surging, And Why Climate Change Might Have Something To Do With It,” claims that a production shortage of the chili peppers used by the Hoy Fong company to make sriracha hot sauce is due to “an ongoing drought exacerbated by human-caused climate change,” as well as “back-to-back La Niña events that prolonged it in northern Mexico, where the chilis are grown.”
The recent drought in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico has been held up as proof of the impacts of climate change by many alarmists. The Forbes article repeats the claim that the drought, which has now abated according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, is part of the “the driest 22-year period in more than 1,200 years,” quoting a popularly cited study in Nature Climate Change.
In the first post, Watts explains that the study authors narrowly defined “megadrought” in order to compose the narrative that the recent 22-year dry spell was the worst in 1200 years.
Other studies that also use tree ring data, like the Nature Climate Change paper, show much longer and more intense dry periods in the southwest in the past, especially in the Middle Ages. (See figure below)
Since the recent drought is not outside of natural variability, what about the triple-dip La Niña events?
La Niña is also a natural event, not due to climate change. It is the cool-phase counterpart to the warming phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally-occurring sea surface temperature pattern in the Pacific. La Niña involves cooler-than-normal water temperatures, and usually causes unusually dry weather in the southwestern United States and Mexico, and unusually wet weather in Western Pacific areas like Australia. While the three La Niña events in a row is a rare situation, it’s not unprecedented. La Niña is not getting more intense due to climate change, as covered by Climate Realism, here, for example. (See figure below)
The Huy Fong sriracha sauce got its start on a small scale in the mid-1980s, meaning the company should have been around for previous extended La Niña events, but it is unclear the company was producing such a volume of hot sauce, or even getting peppers from the same region, during that period.
On the agricultural side of the claim, publicly available data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for chilies and other peppers grown in Mexico show indeed there has been a recent decline in production, since about 2019 through 2021, and presumably into 2022, which corresponds with the recent La Niña events. (See figure below)
Chili pepper production in Mexico hit an all-time production record high as recently as 2018, and in fact saw production records broken fifteen times between 1990 and 2020, a timeframe which has supposedly seen warming which alarmists claim is “catastrophic.”
Fortunately, with the forecasted return of the warmer El Niño this year, the issues hindering Huy Fong’s chili source in northern Mexico should decline, if indeed La Niña conditions were to blame instead of some unmentioned agricultural issues.
Regional weather patterns and agricultural shortages are not proof of impacts from climate change, nor can climate change be blamed for those shortages.
Data does not indicate that the regional weather in Northern Mexico since 2019 is more extreme because of the modest warming of global average surface temperature, nor are chili pepper crops in general in any danger. If they were, one would expect evidence to show up in agricultural production data over time.
In fact, crop production woes of a single hot sauce company are not indicative of any kind of widespread climate chaos, or weather issues. Even if Huy Fong sriracha sauce is not currently on shelves, other companies’ similar sriracha chili sauces that have the same ingredients are still widely available, and Forbes would have been wise to point that out, instead of doom-peddling over a particular brand.
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy.
While she was an intern with The Heartland Institute in 2018, she co-authored a Heartland Institute Policy Brief “Debunking Four Persistent Myths About Hydraulic Fracturing.”
Despite intense news coverage of issues surrounding the U.S. southern border, it is rare to see headlines about the energy policy of Mexico and the rest of Latin America. Nonetheless, much as in other regions, energy is a major concern inextricably tied to economic well-being.
Poverty remains pervasive in Mexico and various countries to its south. Hunger, malnutrition, poor health, lack of education and limited access to basic services are the symptoms of destitution challenging millions of lives.
Hence, it would be disastrous for these countries to adopt policies disruptive to their economy. This is why many of them are being careful about falling into the trap of the global net zero agenda being promoted as a way to avert a fabricated climate emergency.
Regardless of pressures from international leaders to join the campaign to “decarbonize,” overcoming poverty with economic growth powered by fossil fuels is taking precedence in these countries.
Mexico, for instance, has made bold decisions about the its position on decarbonization. Eight-nine percent of all primary energy consumed in Mexico comes from fossil fuels. Mexico’s current administration understands the serious problems that intermittent wind and solar could pose to the growing economy of the country.
This is why it has approved a bill to reverse existing laws that require the prioritization of renewable energy. The bill would require the power grid to receive its primary electricity supply from state-owned plants that mostly run on fossil fuels.
The two main state energy companies, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), are viewed as criticial to meeting Mexico’s economic ambitions.
“We need to strengthen Pemex and the CFE, we need to rescue them, because deliberate moves have been taken to destroy them, so that the energy market could be left in the hands of private, national and above all foreign companies,” Mexican President López Obrador said in February 2021.
The online news outlet Equal Times reported that the president had “launched a crusade against private companies in the renewables sector, which he accuses of making millions in profits, in cahoots with previous governments, at the expense of” Pemex and CFE.
Seventy-five percent of the country’s electricity already comes from fossil fuels, and Obrador’s approach almost certainly ensures that this percentage does not change drastically.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA) forecasts that Mexico’s oil production is set for a revival: “Recently, increasing private investment and rising condensate production helped reverse a downward trend in Mexico’s oil production that began in 2004. In 2022, Mexico’s oil production was nearly two million barrels per day (b/d), similar to levels since 2019. As of the March 2023 Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast that Mexico’s petroleum and other liquids production will average 1.93 million b/d in 2023 and 1.91 million b/d in 2024.”
“Mexico will almost certainly fail to meet its pledge to the world to reduce its carbon output,” according to analysts.
Brazil and Peru Need to Utilize Fossil Reserves to Move Forward
Like Mexico, countries in South America hope to utilize fossil fuels to propel their economies forward. Brazil is the largest by population on the continent and also the largest oil producer.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts Brazil will “become responsible for the production of about 50 percent of the world’s offshore oil in 2040, or about 5.2 million b/d.
Brazil’s western neighbor, Peru, is predicted to be among the three fastest-growing economies in South America in the next few years. In 2021, fossil fuels accounted for nearly 72 percent of the primary energy consumption in Peru.
But still the country is in the primitive stages of energy consumption, ranked at a dismal 116th position for per capita primary energy consumption. If the country were to meet the growing energy demand in the coming years, it needs to ramp up its energy production.
According to USEIA, the country is the “seventh-largest crude oil reserve holder in Central and South America, with 741 million barrels of estimated proved reserves, as of January 2015.” Earlier this year, in an effort to boost reserves, the state petroleum agency offered areas for oil and gas exploration through negotiations and 31 technical contracts.
In the frenzied world of net zero and green energy obsessions, it is not easy for aspiring young economies to remain committed to their use of fossil fuels, which to this day remain the bedrock of economic progress. But they must.
This commentary was first published at American Thinker, June 8, 2023, and can be accessed here.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK and resides in India.
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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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