5 Things I Truly Don't Understand About The "Inevitable Energy Transition"

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Please note: this article was pulled down offline from Forbes. I will let you draw your own conclusions as to why. Factually, there was no justification for it. 

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This list could be closer to 50 items, but let’s just stick to 5 of them.

I literally live in this business every day, and I’m just so confused. 

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1. In a world that is apparently getting both warmer and colder , how is it, we can increasingly rely on non-dispatchable, i.e., variable, weather-dependent electricity from wind and solar systems (never call them farms) to displace, not just supplement, always available coal, gas, and nuclear electricity?

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In other words, if our weather is becoming less predictable, how is it, our consuming economy should even try to rely on weather-dependent resources?

Been there, tried that, for many thousands of years prior to 1800

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ERCOT exemplifies this: the Texas grid operator has around 31,000 MW of wind capacity but goes into winter expecting only 6,000 MW (just 20%) of wind farms to be available to generate electricity.

Again, in the marketplace, the “alternatives” you keep hearing about are proving to be far more supplemental than alternative.

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Further, areas with good winds and sun are finite, so any new builds will be in areas that are less windy and less sunny.

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Wind and solar devour huge areas of desirable land and water, interrupting a whole host of things, and killing lots of fauna and flora, including whales, dolphins, lobsters, birds, American Eagles, bats, fisheries, etc.

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If wind, solar, and electric cars too are as effective, and as low-cost, as so many keep promising us, there would obviously be no need for $trillions of government subsidies for widespread adoption. 

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The huge amounts added to the national debt for wind, solar, battery systems, and EV follies, for what I call “the Holy-Climate-Panacea-Triad,” are vulnerable to changing politics and bound to become politically untenable at some point: “Ford Is Losing $66,446 On Every EV It Sells.”

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ANOTHER FOUR $TRILLION IN TWO YEARS, ADDED TO THE NATIONAL DEBT, HAS BEEN AGREED ON

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The costs of rapidly forcing, heavily subsidized build-outs of energy-related changes onto the U.S. economy are truly astronomical.

We are talking of at least $30 TRILLION by 2050, excluding the cost of financing at high interest rates, concurrent with high inflation, which could add 30% to the cost, just for:

1) Wind, solar, battery systems, EVs and electric heat pumps, and electric cooking stoves, plus

2) Expansion/augmentation/upgrading of the electric transmission and distribution grids, plus

3) Having a large capacity, MW, of quick-responding, gas-fired power plants to counteract the varying outputs of wind and solar, on a a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, year after year

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Governments forcing schools to invest in electric buses, instead of STEM? The $200 Billion Electric School Bus Bust.

How can any of this be justified, especially if almost all of this will be ADDED TO THE US NATIONAL DEBT

I’m so utterly confused. 

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2. Climate change is a global issue, so how is it, we can claim climate benefits for unilateral climate policy. 

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For example, U.S. gasoline cars constitute just 3% of global CO2 emissions, so how will getting rid of them impact climate change?

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However, California enviro-maniacs, a state responsible for just 1% of global CO2 emissions, are telling us, energy policy in the nine-county region of Northern California alone is “responsible for protecting air quality and the global climate in the nine-county Bay Area.”

UTTER LUNACY swallowed whole, by brain-washed Californians who have not yet left.

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No wonder, a Biden administration official was incoherent , when asked how $50 trillion in climate spending in the U.S. will lower any global temperature rise.

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Indeed, despite the Sierra Club in 2014, AS USUAL, WITHOUT FACTS, promising us, “China's Thirst for Coal Is Drying Up,”

The facts are:

In 2022, the Chinese Communist Party approved two 500 MW coal plants per week by 2030

That is addition to one 500 MW coal plant per week in India by 2030

Fast-growing economies need lots of low-cost, 5 c/kWh, electricity

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But, don’t worry guys, China promises to be net-zero by 2060.

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It should be obvious, to even the most imbecilic, no energy policy in northern California has any relevance in terms of changing the climate.

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That whole region could disappear and there would be no impact on climate change.

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Even our self-proclaimed climate czar, John Kerry, with a huge PERSONAL CO2 foot print, which he offsets by buying low-cost absolution certificates, aka "right-to-pollute" certificates, has been forced to admit , the U.S. could even go to zero emissions (disappear?) and it would make no material impact on climate change.

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Talking about all pain, no gain.

Kerry and his deluded minions want to make that universal to "save the world"

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So, where is the climate benefit for Americans when it comes to US climate policy? 

In fact, common sense and science itself tell us, unilateral climate policy can be really bad for climate change, because it encourages carbon leakage (e.g., US climate policy increases costs and pushes manufacturing firms, such as Tesla and Apple, to re-locate to coal-devouring China and India.

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3. Back to electric vehicles

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Even green-tinted, but surely practical Bloomberg admits , more than 85% of Americans can’t afford an EV, since they are almost double the price of gasoline cars.

How can a product bring racial justice for Black Americans, when the vast majority of them can’t afford it? .

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Huge subsidies for EVs are a "reverse Robin Hood," i.e., taking money from poorer taxpayers and give it to richer taxpayers, who buy an EV mostly for snobbish, I AM DOING MY PART purposes.

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Self-serving, naive enviros are forcing households to buy expensive electric heat pumps, and electric cooking stoves, and electric lawnmowers, over gas, propane and fuel oil?

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Sorry but “gas is four to six times cheaper than electricity.”

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Battery system costs likely will be much higher in 2023 and future years, than in 2021 and earlier years, due to: 1) increased inflation rates, 2) increased interest rates, 3) supply chain disruptions, which delay projects and increase costs, 4) increased energy prices, such as of oil, gas, coal, electricity, etc., 5) increased materials prices, such as of tungsten, cobalt, lithium, copper, manganese, etc., 6) increased labor rates.

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(Reality check, unlike what we keep hearing about “green energy,” no technology continues to decline in cost in perpetuity: “EV battery costs could spike 22% by 2026 as raw material shortages ....” 

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And this one I’m really confused on.

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President Biden's posse promotes their climate agenda as a way to create jobs.

Besides lacking in economic literacy (i.e., jobs are costs not benefits), the truth is that EVs, for instance, entail far less jobs because they, for one thing, have far less moving parts.

And there’s all kinds of evidence that EV life-cycle emissions is much greater than advertised, mostly because of the massive amounts of mining required to make them.

We all know about child labor and your EV, but even pro-EV outlets are being forced to report on the mounting problems from mining, the latest on how bauxite for the required aluminum is destroying the Amazon rainforest area.

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And about our President posse claim:  We’ll need oil for “another decade”?

What happens after that decade?

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The US Department of Energy, did not get the memo, because it just modeled , US oil demand will INCREASE, not decrease, to over 21.1 million b/d by 2050.

Reality check: planes, industry (petrochemicals), heavy trucking, and sheer Energy Inertia will have oil, coal and gas (now 80% of all world energy) dominating way longer than ANOTHER DECADE.

Where do people get such nonsense?

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4. How on Earth could anybody expect those in Africa, Middle and South America, and much of Asia to “get off fossil fuels” , when the rich countries haven’t come close to doing it?

Dysfunctional Eco-Germany and Eco-California, are still overwhelming fossil fuel-based and overwhelmingly dependent on imports.

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This comes despite decades of huge subsidies, scores of mandates, deploying the best engineering expertise, and having low population growth and thus low incremental energy needs, all giving them a huge advantage in “going green.”

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The energy stat to remember most?

No US state will not ever “try to go green” like California has, over the past 20 years, yet oil and gas still supply 70% of the state’s energy, even above the national average of 65%. 

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Germany and California have shown us what these climate policies bring:

Germany has the highest electricity prices in the world;

California’s are the highest in the continental U.S. and soaring out of control (Figure).

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How in hell can we push for “deep electrification to fight climate change", if we are going to follow policies that surge the price of electricity, while also lowering grid reliability?

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5. But, perhaps I’m most confused about the whole air quality thing

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The obsession over it gets attached to all energy policies.

But there’s clearly a straw man to the “we need cleaner air now” demand.

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First, the air quality conversation in the U.S. reminds me of Voltaire’s “the perfect is the enemy of good.” .

Americans seem completely unaware how drastically our air quality has improved.

Check data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),

Our criteria pollutants have been plummeting over the past many decades.

The risks seem exaggerated.

Let’s just take Los Angeles, which has the worst air quality in the country.

If air quality is such a problem and such a health concern for Americans, why is it that Angelinos have a life expectancy of 82 years, a hearty three years above the national average. That includes immigrants from poor, short life-expectancy countries.

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Just think of all the coal that China has devoured since 2000 (I figure around 70 billion metric ton), yet the country’s life expectancy, apparently shockingly to so many, is up a very impressive six years to nearly 78 since then.

Maybe it’s because Chinese GDP per capita per year has skyrocketed nearly 9-fold to over $18,500. 

US Asthma rate have decreased, because criteria pollutants have decreased, primarily due to better air cleaning systems and increased use of natural gas  

“Better air quality and environment” are not free, as attaining government standards cost businesses hundreds of billions of dollars per year. 

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These costs are ultimately paid by Americans in the form of higher prices, lower wages, and lower productivity.

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However, at some point, the cost of the regulation to achieve better air quality outweighs its benefit.

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We’ve won on water too: the water in your toilet is cleaner than what the vast majority of humans on Earth drink.

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But, that’s not its business, is it?