Musk, Schmidt, Simons and billionaire buddies build empire based on climate and energy alarmism
Guest essay by Paul Driessen and Tom Tamarkin
Elon Musk and his fellow barons of Climate Crisis, Inc. recently got a huge boost from Pope Francis. Musk et al. say fossil fuels are causing unprecedented warming and weather disasters. The Pope agrees and says Catholics must “ask God for a positive outcome” to negotiations over another UN climate treaty.
It matters not that the predicted calamities are not happening. There has been no warming in 19 years, no category 3-5 hurricanes making US landfall for a record 9-1/2 years, indeed none of the over-hyped climate disasters occurring in the real world outside the alarmists’ windows. In fact, poor nations support the treaty mostly because it promises some $100 billion per year in adaptation, mitigation and compensation money from FRCs: Formerly Rich Countries that have shackled their own job creation, economic growth and living standards in the name of stabilizing Earth’s perpetually fluctuating climate.
Any money that is transferred will end up in the pockets of governing elites. Poor families will get little or no cash – and will be told their dreams of better lives must be limited to jobs and living standards that can be supported by solar panels on their huts and a few wind turbines near their villages.
Simply put, the Musk-Obama-Pope-Climate Crisis schemes will save humanity from exaggerated and fabricated climate disasters decades from now – by impoverishing billions and killing millions tomorrow.
For the catechism of climate cataclysm coalition, the essential thing is that we believe the hysterical assertions and computer models – and support endless renewable energy mandates and subsidies.
Musk and his Tesla and SolarCity companies have already pocketed $4.9 billion in taxpayer-financed subsidies, and even long-elusive profitability has not ended the handouts. Now he claims a small “blue square” on a map represents the “very little” land required to “get rid of all fossil fuel electricity generation” in the USA and prevent a non-existent climate cataclysm. We just need rooftop solar panels linked to wall-mounted battery packs – a mere 160 million Tesla Powerwalls – to eliminate the need for all coal and natural gas electricity generation in the United States, he insists.
Hogwash (from pork barrel political pig farms). As this careful and extensive analysis demonstrates, even without considering the monumental electricity demand required to convert America’s vehicles to electric-battery versions, providing today’s baseload and peak demand electricity would require 29.3 billion one-square-meter solar panels. Assuming adequate yearlong daily sunlight, that’s 29,333 square kilometers of active solar panel surface area: 7.2 million acres – or nearly all of Maryland and Delaware!
The analysis is technical, beyond the ability of most voters, journalists, politicians and regulators to comprehend fully. Read it anyway, if only to understand the enormity of financing, raw materials, mining, manufacturing and electricity required to make and ship the panels (some 40 million per year), battery packs and inverters (to convert low-voltage solar electricity to 120 or 240 Volt alternating current).
We are clearly dealing with an unprecedented green mirage and con job. It will drive average retail electricity prices from the 8-9 cents per kilowatt-hour in coal and gas-reliant states, to the 15-17 cents per kWh in California, Connecticut and New York – or even the 36-40 cents in Germany and Denmark, where unsubsidized rates are 70-80 cents per kWh! The impact of such prices on people’s jobs, living standards, health and welfare would be devastating. But Musk and his “clean” energy friends ignore this.
Musk has a BS in physics – and obviously holds advanced BS degrees in lobbying and con-artistry about climate disasters and renewable energy solutions, mandated by government decrees and financed by endless billions in subsidies. He has made numerous personal visits to legislative offices in Sacramento and Washington, to promote more such schemes, and aligns his efforts with those of Eric Schmidt, Nat Simons, Tom Steyer, Al Gore and members of the Clean Tech Syndicate: eleven secretive families with total wealth of over $60 billion, who want to get even richer off taxpayers and consumers.
They assume (demand) that bogus climate cataclysms will continue to bring them billions in climate cash payouts from Washington and state capitals, along with more exemptions from endangered species and environmental cleanup laws and regulations that are applied with a vengeance to fossil fuel projects.
Google scientists finally admitted that existing and near-term renewable energy technologies simply do not work as advertised and cannot meet their political or climate promises. The technologies are all hat, no cattle. However, the Climate Crisis and Clean Tech industries are determined to push ahead – using our money, risking little of their own, and getting reimbursed by us when their investments turn sour.
Google and NRG now want a $539-million federal grant to bail them out of $1.6 billion in taxpayer loans for the bird-roasting Ivanpah concentrated solar power project in California, because it does not work and needs so much natural gas to keep its water hot that it doesn’t meet state renewable energy standards. Other Obama “greenbacks” energy “investments” have also drowned in red ink, leaving taxpayers to pay the tab: Solyndra, Abound Solar, Solar Trust, Ener1, Beacon Power, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Musk is nevertheless lobbying for SB-350, which would require that 50% of California’s electricity be produced via “renewable” sources, such as wind, solar, biofuels and politicians’ hot air. Meanwhile, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s family and corporate foundations give millions to alarmist climate scientists, the ultra-green Energy Foundation, and rabid anti-fracking groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC also gets millions from EPA, to promote the agency’s anti-fossil fuel agenda and place 33 of its employees on 21 EPA “advisory” committees.
Schmidt and Warren Buffett also support the secretive far-left Tides Foundation, which has given millions to groups opposed to coal and hydraulic fracturing, the Keystone XL and Sandpiper pipeline projects, and countless other job-creating hydrocarbon programs. Canadian researcher Cory Morningstar accurately describes Tides as a “magical, money-funneling machine of epic proportions.”
Billionaire Nat Simons and his Sea Change Foundation spend tens of millions annually promoting and lobbying for “renewable” energy policies, mandates and subsidies; investing in wind, solar and biofuel companies; supporting environmentalist pressure groups; and contributing to Democrat politicians who perpetuate the crony corporatist arrangements. Simons, his wife and various Vladimir Putin cronies (via Klein, Ltd. and the shadowy Bermuda Wakefield Quin law firm) are the only contributors to Sea Change.
We often rail against Third World corruption. Our American (and European) environmental corruption is simply more subtle and sophisticated. It is legalized deception and theft – a massive wealth transfer from poor and middle class consumers and taxpayers to billionaires who are raking in still more billions, thanks to brilliantly crafted alarmist campaigns. And let’s not forget Al Gore, Mike Mann, Tom Steyer, James Hansen and all the others who likewise profit immensely from these arrangements – and the constant vilification of scientists who question climate catastrophe mantras.
Pressure groups and governing elites used to argue that we are running out of oil and natural gas. That ploy no longer works. While fossil fuels may eventually prove finite, fracking has given us vast new supplies of petroleum – and huge coal, oil and gas deposits have been placed off limits by government decree. We have at least a century to develop alternative energy sources that actually work – that create real jobs, actual revenues, lower energy prices and true prosperity – without the mandates, subsidies, deception, fraud and corruption that are the hallmark of “green” energy schemes.
No wonder the “clean tech” crowd is financing anti-hydrocarbon and climate chaos campaigns. But despite the Pope’s belated rescue attempt, the pseudo-science of “dangerous manmade global warming” is slowly succumbing to climate reality. And any new UN climate treaty will founder once poor nations realize the promised hundreds of billions a year will not materialize.
Those still impoverished nations should not do what rich countries are doing now that they are rich. They should do what rich countries did to become rich.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
Tom Tamarkin is founder and CEO of USCL Corporation and of the fusion energy advocacy groups http://www.fusion4freedom.us and http://www.fuelRfuture.com. He is widely credited with inventing the utility industry smart meter and holds granted and pending patents in the field.
But…but…they feel. Isn’t that all that matters?
Dang! Another Typo.
“But…but…they feel. Isn’t that all that matters?”
Should be:
“But…but…they feel good. Isn’t that all that matters?”
(I don’t feel so good.)
It works fine either way.
Well I looked at the fusion advocacy group site. Didn’t see any outline for a design for a stable continuously operating net energy availability producing reactor.
I can see a stable continuously operating net energy availability producing reactor out of my window, but It’s too big to bring inside. Well it won’t even fit in the big blimp hangar over at Moffett Filed.
But now I know who to blame for the electric power meter that jacks up the electricity rate just at the times I need to use some of it.
g
Also one can find on the cover of the Jan 2008 SciAm magazine, an article about two serious proposals for commercial sized solar energy plants to be built on the waste desert lands of southern California, where the desert tortoises live.
The smaller plant uses Tonopah like mirrors and steam boilers to generate electricity cheaply. It requires only 16,000 square miles of are for those mirror arrays.
The larger plant is a PV solar panel system with 30,000 square miles of solar cells, so somewhat larger than the small one Elon Musk wants.
So 30,000 squ miles just happens to be 19.2 million acres which is the exact size of a park in Alaska, called the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve.
Oil companies want to drill on about 2,000 acres of that 19 million to recover the oil and gas there.
There are 12 different non-overlapping places in ANWR where you can place the Veep’s home State of Delaware, and 20 different places to put the State of Rhode Island.
So we could build this plant in California but it would probably require ejecting all of the Native Americans who currently own most of that land. You would have to fence it and protect it with armed guards, otherwise the Friday night red necks with their pickem up trucks would be out there at night taking pot shots at the solar panels.
Fred Singer’s comment was simply; ” Who’s going to clean 30,000 sqare miles of solar cells ??
g
Do they really care or even consider the full cycle of their manic ideas? As long as the grant money is safely where it cant be got at…
“You would have to fence it and protect it with armed guards, ” … “taking pot shots at the solar panels.”
====>>> and stealing the solar panels…. and copper wires…
Clean 30,000 sq miles? The squeege guys? The window washers’ union who clean tall building windows? Should have lots of bidders for these jobs.
Who’s going to clean 30,000 sqare miles of solar cells ??
That one’s easy. Federal employees. Full bennies, and full retirement at 50, including healthcare for life…just like TSA. It’s a natural progression…and will require federal grants to fund the federal grant funded solar panel installation.
See how that works?…think of it as the circle of life, only it’s “government” life.
Give a thought to how many people that requires. How much area do you think you could clean by hand in a day? Half a football field? Probably not. More like 20 yards worth, at best. With NFL regulation width of 160 feet, we’re talking… 0.00034 square miles.
Cleaning 30,000 square miles then takes… 87 million able bodied people. Of course, the number could be reduced if cleaning only has to be done every X number of days. But, keep in mind, there are only about 0.7 million construction workers of all types in the US right now.
By the way !
It seems that the pundits are enamored with Elon Musk.
Well I’m not one to knock people who know how to get rich, within the law, so more power to him. If he can separate rich fools from their money, good for him.
But swilling at the public trough, with a government run amok, and no longer in control of the citizens (or taxpayers), I take umbrage at that.
There are other very smart entrepeneurs besides Musk. And some of them are likely a whole lot smarter and ethical as well.
One I would mention is T. J Rogers. He came to prominence early in his career at AMI semi-conductor, when he invented VMOS. MOS transistors grown in Vee shaped etched grooves.
By a sheer stroke of happenstance, I actually sat at a table at breakfast, with T.J, Rogers, I think at an IEEE convention on Electron Devices, probably in NYC, but so long ago, I can’t remember. It was the morning of the day he presented his paper on VMOS. I remember thinking how smart this young fella was.
I guess VMOS eventually was found to be difficult to control the etched grooves, so its clear circuit advantages did not become industry dominant.
T.J, went on to found Cypress Semi-conductor, a very successful company; BUT he also was one of the inistal investors in … Sunpower Systems … the makers of the most honest Solar cells and panels in the market.
They are almost the only company who will tell you up front what their conversion efficiency is.
Theirs is 21.2 % on their sales brochure, but they get more like 24.2%
They use a backside illumination scheme, which is now common in digital camera CMOS sensor chips. So there is NO metal lines between the sun and the silicon. The wires are all on the backside where they can’t block the sun.
Well T. J Rogers is well known for telling folks that solar PV vendors do not need to be taxpayer subsidized to be profitable.
He has also said publicly that man made global warming is total BS. And he is a solid state physicist who has a background appropriate to be saying that.
So you can have your Tesla boss, who says we are all going to fry if we don’t drive electric cars, or you can listen to a more honest view from someone who knows it is all bunkum.
g
But you weren’t using Maryland and Delaware for anything, were you?
Here is another experimental fusion project: http://protonboron.com/portal/
TOU tarrifs for residential use are not new at all. Back around 1981 I looked into what PSEG called Time of Day Service billing since I was in an all-electric apartment in NJ. I carefully calculated the energy use breakpoints, and at that time something like 108 hours out of 168 per week were at the lower tariff. There was no penalty for switching back if I didn’t like it, so I took the plunge. Because of my usage pattern, I saved about 25% on my electric bill annually.
@Tomer
I wish I could help you out. I do recall that the meter had a red LED display and no obvious watt-hour display. I remember feeling a little nervous about having to trust PSEG (or it might have been JCP&L) to read the meter correctly.
This article popped up on my Facebook news feed last night. It claims base load power at cheaper than coal prices using PV solar during the day and stored energy from thermal solar at night, in South Africa and Chile. Anyone care to contest these claims?
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/mega-hybrid-solar-projects-ready-to-take-on-baseload-fossil-fuels-17409
Might work. Til dusk.
Never fear a backup Spanish (night) diesel generator will do the trick . Either way the public will pay through the nose!
“it claims”, “projected” “sometime in the future” are the first terms that come to mind.
Does the ‘cost’ include the cost of the land, or the cost of the transmission lines?
Either way, I say good for them. I love the experimentation.
Let’s see how it goes and then make a judgement.
Don’t know. But these are pretty strong claims. No subsidies. Base load power with no fossil fuel back up for nights or cloudy days. Cheaper than coal. I’m very skeptical, especially considering what we’ve heard on here about California, etc, but I would appreciate it if anyone who has access to the actual data can verify or refute the accuracy of the claims.
Sounds a lot like the claims that were made for that bird fricassee in the CA desert.
If it works then that is good. The problem is that so far it hasn’t worked.
The no subsidy thing is critical. Consider Amazon.
Amazon has had no subsidy. Amazon has barely made a profit ever. But Amazon can still get funding because it’s clearly doing something that may have a future.
Solar panels don’t seem to work that way.
I agree with the “I love the experimentation” statement…as long as it’s on someone else’s tax dime.
My rebuttal: https://youtu.be/zrzMhU_4m-g?t=165
“A witch!”
http://www.mining.com/chiles-550-million-coal-mine-ready-to-start-shipments-68284/
Take a look at the taxpayer-funded Spanish experiment:
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-03/solar-dreams-spanish-realities
The solar thermal plant near Gila Bend, AZ, can operate for 18 hours a day on a perfect summer day using heat stored in thermal salts. Unfortunately, it drops to 6 hours a day in our relatively mild winters in Southern Arizona. All of the above depends on having sunny days. The plant only produces about 38 percent of its rated output. This is considered great for solar energy. It uses 30 percent of generated power for internal operations. When operating they claim it can supply electricity for 70,000 homes. A drop in the bucket and when it doesn’t produce that energy it still has to use back up power from generators to maintain a stable load.
This plant cost $2 billion to build and your tax money is covering a federal-backed loan of $1.4 billion to build it. I can’t find figures for it, but I’m betting the operating costs takes any profit away.
Ugh. It just crossed my mind that if these con men can hold out against the truth long enough, they will then begin to be able to take credit for “saving the earth”.
These men are so successful at conning politicians, I believe I could dream up some source of energy based on a perpetual motion scam that could bring me millions. There appears to be no scientific-based clearing house for stopping such political cronyism.
This will be the next response to the PAUSE:
“See???? Our efforts are working!!!! The seas aren’t rising, temps have stabilized, and oh btw, we need even MORE of your money so we can make this even MORE successful.”
Paul & Tom
Thanks for speaking up for the desperate need for economic development.
Re: “While fossil fuels may eventually prove finite”
Illogical. Earth is finite and fossil fuels are a much smaller finite amount.
Fuel for transport is the critical factor in economic growth or decline.
Gail Tverberg documents how world oil discovery declined from 7.8%/year from 1965-1975 down to 0.4% per year since 2004-2011.
Just replacing 4%/year existing depletion rates with 2%/year global economic growth currently requires finding a Saudi Arabia’s worth of new oil production every two years.
We are dangerously close to global oil plateauing and then declining.
Fracking has provided a temporary reprieve in tight oil. The DOE’s EIA projects US tight oil production to flatten around 2020 and then decline. See Fig. 21.
We desperately need to develop alternative replacement fuels sufficient to sustain our economies. Recognizing the strategic importance of fuel, China is deploying methanol cars and has installed sufficient coal to methanol capacity to supply half its transportation (currently going into plastics.)
I strongly urge you to look at the 40 year picture for global oil, NOT a myopic 4 month or 4 year perspective.
If Alaska wasn’t declared a De Facto National Park by the US Government, we would have reserves well into the next century…
Philip
See James D. Hamilton, “Oil Prices, Exhaustible Resources, and Economic Growth,” in Handbook of Energy and Climate Change, pp. 29-57, edited by Roger Fouquet. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013. Working paper version here.
Hamilton shows how oil production has risen and fallen in each of the States except Dakotas/Montana. A similar curve would e expected for Alaska – the half height of which would likely be far shorter than a century.
Where do we find another Saudi Arabia every two years?
Add to that much of the Gulf of Mexico off limits to exploration and development.
Which “artist” is painting that 40 year picture? i suggest the one you are reading it is painted by BS artists…
You want me to look at a 40 year picture of oil production? Fine, I pick the last 40 years . And I’ve been hearing about how “We are dangerously close to global oil plateauing and then declining.”for all of it.
Here’s a tip for you. If you predict Peak Oil is almost here every year for several decades, you shouldn’t be surprised when people eventually just laugh at you when you bring it up.
cnxtim and schitzree
Why Ad homs instead of dealing with facts? 40 years is the standard generation.
Look at the evidence of Simmons in Twilight in the Desert.
Massive water use warns of the end days of giant fields.
Look at the data at PeakOilBarrel.com
Especially World Oil Exports
Rising internal consumption with constrained oil production will rapidly hit oil importing countries first. The DOE’S EIA projects rising oil imports after tight oil maxes out.
Which year is “peak” is irrelevant. Look at the 40 year perspective!
The strong decline in oil growth rate is a very major warning.
Especially when it typically takes 40 years for a major transition in the energy industry.
I remember hearing a “peak oil” talk in the 1970’s. There was no way we could be driving our gas powered cars after the year 2000.
David L. Hagen:
There is no foreseeable problem of ‘peak oil’; none, zilch, nada.
As schitzree pointed out to you, imminent peak oil is always about 40 years in the future. And the reason for this is simple. Crude oil producers have a planning horizon of ~40 years.
An oil producer pays to find more reserves when he has less than ~40 years of reserves.
An oil producer does not pay to find more reserves when he has ~40 years of reserves.
And if ‘peak oil’ were imminent then oil producers would be investing in conversion plants to make synthetic crude oil (i.e. syncrude) from coal and/or natural gas.
The assertion of ‘peak oil’ is a declaration of economic ignorance; e.g. reserves are a function of price.
Richard
And Richard Courtney still cannot explain how UK oil production can peak, and did peak, but somehow world production cannot because it is strangely ‘inexhaustable’.
Sorry, Rich, you live in a dream word of your own creation. It is strange world where fractured coal is easier to mine than pristine seams. An even stranger world where a surveyors report citing difficulties with seam fractures is irrelevant, because in Rich’s fantasy world seam fractures and actual production figures don’t count. All you need is faith. Praise the lord……
The UK hit peak oil many years ago.
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/uk/images/ukfieldbyfield.jpg
richardscourtney
What evidence for your ideological rant. Have you read ANYthing of what I linked to?
Why did the 500% INCREASE in the price of oil between 1998 to 2005? From an abundance of oil?
Or because of the decline in Oil growth rates from 7.8%/year from 1965-1975 to 0.4%/year since 2005?
Why is Shell trying to drill in the Arctic if there is an abundance of cheap oil below the arctic circle?
Why do more than half of new oil projects have a break even price > $70/bbl?
Each oil well, each oil field, each oil region, each US State (except Montana & No. Dakota) showed conventional oil peaking and declining.
Consequently countries show their oil production peaking.
Replacement oil comes from discovering new oil fields, or developing new types of hydrocarbons (e.g., bitumen in Canada), or creating new ways to recover different hydrocarbons – eg. fracking for tight oil.
This results in MultiCycle Hubbert Peak Analyses.
The foundational geological physics is still driven by finite resources and viscous flow with recovery limits.
Consequences
Have you studied why the cut off of subsidized fuel to North Korea on the collapse of the USSR caused a 70% drop in fertilizer production (no diesel to take coal to the factory), loss of tractor parts, and consequent famine with some 1 million dead?
See the ADB study The Political Ecology of Famine: The North Korean Catastrophe and Its Lessons
WHY?
Wake up.
We critically need to develop replacement fuels – of the order of a Saudi Arabia ever 2 years!
~ 6 million tons/day every year!
David,
Thank you for pointing this out. Unfortunately, many proponents of Peak Oil seem to want an end to the oil age for ideological reasons and are willing to grasp at any straw to discredit it, which means that they are also proponents of the Global Warming hoax. On the other hand, many people who quite correctly dismiss the Global Warming myth tend to have their hackles raised by any sort of “alarmism,” and they therefore paint Peak Oil with the same broad brush, dismissing it, too. The fact of the matter is that the two are not remotely the same.
Peak Oil is real. Global warming is not real. It’s just as simple as that.
The sad thing is that those who see this are likely to find very few friends in either camp.
While peak oil is real, there are enough conventional reserves of fossil fuels for 100 years or more of production. If needed, unconventional means of production will expand reserves. In the meantime, fission and fusion research will continue to broaden options.
R. Shearer
Robert L. Hirsch estimates that on a war time footing, it would take > 20 years to replace the depletion in conventional fuels after the peak.
See The Impending World Energy Mess
Fossil fuels are finite. The rate at which they are depleted beyond economically viable production is obviously a function of the rate of production based on demand. Double demand worldwide and the time to depletion is 1/2. I explain this in detail in my article “2060 Lights Out.” Please see: http://fuelrfuture.com/when-the-lights-go-out/
Tomer D. Tamarkin
You are deliberately ignoring, or deliberately ignorant of, or making that exaggerated claim despite knowing of Australia’s 400 year supply of coal, the US and Canada’s 300 year reserves, India’s, China’s, and Africa’s 200 – 600 UNEXPLORED coal reserves. Plus several hundred years of supplies in the Antarctic continent that are off limits by treaty, but still available. You are simply wrong.
RACookPE1978 above, please read the above referenced article because reaching any incorrect conclusions. Please read and reread section 2 of the article. Please respond with any errors in my calculations or omissions in data with verifiable facts and numbers, and please cite your references. Thank you. Regards, T. Tamarkin tt@usclcorp.com +1-916-482-2000 Ext. 142 Here is a link to the article once again: http://fuelrfuture.com/when-the-lights-go-out/
RACookPE1978
..
Irrespective of the amounts of coal reserves that you mention, the simple fact is that we are burning the coal faster than nature is creating new deposits (ditto for oil) . You did not address the claim that the resource is finite.
Joel D. Jackson
And the sun is also finite: It will burn us all out as it goes dimmer in 3-4 billion years. Simply by knowing the estimated reserves of coal worldwide, I PROVED that I recognize these energy resources are finite. By the way, seen any improvement in life since the Industrial Age in the billions of people now living? Why do YOU condemn billions more to 100 years of continued forced poverty, disease, and starvation by artificially restricting energy use worldwide just so YOU can feel better by THEIR suffering? After all, NO CO2 limits will change the world’s future global average temperature anomalies for the better!
Should YOU prove YOUR compassion and concern for the world’s future by sterilizing yourself and any living family members? Or by improving the energy supply to the world?
Malthusian like worldwide population reduction like that called for by the UN and its Agenda 21 and related “Sustainability Movement” aside…as supported by President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren in his own book…the moral thing to do is as RACookPE1978 above suggested. That is correctly solve energy over the next couple of decades. In the interim we can use new safer forms of nuclear fission such as Molten Salts Reactors and a Uranium-Thorium based fuel cycle. At the same time we need to aggressively invest in the science (yes there is still much experimental science to be done) and follow on R&D to demonstrate and commercialize atomic fusion (as opposed to fission) power. See my publication “Why Fusion Is The Only Realistic Solution” at: http://fuelrfuture.com/category/issues/fusion-solution/
RACookPE1978 says: “I recognize these energy resources are finite.”
…
Tomer D. Tamarkin says: “Fossil fuels are finite”
…
So, can you explain why you said to Mr Tamarkin: “You are simply wrong.??? ”
(Reply: “Joel D. Jackson” is an identity thief who stole the identity of Mr. Tamarkin in the past and has posted using his name. ~mod.)
what about nuclear?
Peak oil is just more irrational fear mongering. We have enough natural gas to last for the foreseeable future. The conversion has already begun. Human innovation will produce new sources long before we run out. Some potential game changers here- http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Congress:Top_100_Technologies_–_RD
I’ll bet Musk’s favorite saying is “there’s a sucker born every minute”.
I think he comes from a long tradition of US businessmen:
http://www.manitobacooperator.ca/files/2015/04/snake-oil-salesman_cmyk-e1427990738757.jpg
Thank you Paul, right on target!
I for one refuse to insult the memory of Nikola Tesla, my mentor and inspirational guide throughout my career as an electronics engineer.
I prefer to refer to these nonsensical SoCal buggies as MuskMobiles…
What a con, overweight, oversized batteries that have a useless range and are being recharged in part by mobile diesel generators.
Who is silly enough to buy this BS? Certainly no-one in my peer group!
“Any money that is transferred will end up in the pockets of governing elites. Poor families will get little or no cash …”
This is the way all governments work all the time. The state is a gang of thieves writ large. The whole concept of laissez faire free markets and little government interference into a person’s daily life is a long gone idea. The ideas and philosophy of the Classical Liberals (called libertarians in modern times) built the industrialized western world — then the thieves wanted to steal all they could and dominate everyone.
Such is the way of the state. Bank on that.
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
~ H.L.Mencken
“Democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses.”
― H.L. Mencken
I forget who first said this:
“He who promises to rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.”
“He who promises to rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.”
That would be George Bernard Shaw.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgebern128084.html
Mark,
I agree with your assessment. Getting rid of money and corruption in politics is nothing but a “shiny squirrel” diversion employed by those very institutions to give everyone a boogy man to hate.
Truth is, there has been corruption and money in politics since the days of the Roman Senate, and likely long before that.
Why?…it’s human nature…plain and simple. There are some people who will ALWAYS take advantage of slower, weaker, disillusioned people for their own gains. And?…there always will be. No amount of legislation will ever stop it. We the people have consistently asked the foxes to count the chickens, and to rat on any other fox who’s not being accurate.
jimmaine,
That was a great comment. Great insight. And, of course, I agree 100 percent.
The solution of the Rothbardian An-Caps is to eliminate the state entirely as it can not be controlled.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3156594/Is-mini-ICE-AGE-way-Scientists-warn-sun-sleep-2020-cause-temperatures-plummet.html
1..2..3…Leif.Looks like he might finally be proven wrong re solar climate connection LOL
Eliza,
Your link has nothing to do with the topic of this thread!
Up your game. Investigate the report you link to. File a report indicating problems with it.
Why sit on your derriere and expect Leif to do this for you?
It looks like Nasa is getting ready to jump off the global warming band wagon.
The relevant paper:
PREDICTION OF SOLAR ACTIVITY FROM SOLAR BACKGROUND MAGNETIC FIELD VARIATIONS IN CYCLES 21-23
Simon J. Shepherd
S. Zharkov
Valentina V. Zharkova
ABSTRACT
A comprehensive spectral analysis of both the solar background magnetic field (SBMF) in cycles 21–23 and the sunspot magnetic field in cycle 23 reported in our recent paper showed the presence of two principal components (PCs) of SBMF having opposite polarity, e.g., originating in the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. Over a duration of one solar cycle, both waves are found to travel with an increasing phase shift toward the northern hemisphere in odd cycles 21 and 23 and to the southern hemisphere in even cycle 22. These waves were linked to solar dynamo waves assumed to form in different layers of the solar interior. In this paper, for the first time, the PCs of SBMF in cycles 21–23 are analyzed with the symbolic regression technique using Hamiltonian principles, allowing us to uncover the underlying mathematical laws governing these complex waves in the SBMF presented by PCs and to extrapolate these PCs to cycles 24–26. The PCs predicted for cycle 24 very closely fit (with an accuracy better than 98%) the PCs derived from the SBMF observations in this cycle. This approach also predicts a strong reduction of the SBMF in cycles 25 and 26 and, thus, a reduction of the resulting solar activity. This decrease is accompanied by an increasing phase shift between the two predicted PCs (magnetic waves) in cycle 25 leading to their full separation into the opposite hemispheres in cycle 26. The variations of the modulus summary of the two PCs in SBMF reveals a remarkable resemblance to the average number of sunspots in cycles 21–24 and to predictions of reduced sunspot numbers compared to cycle 24: 80% in cycle 25 and 40% in cycle 26
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/266799418_PREDICTION_OF_SOLAR_ACTIVITY_FROM_SOLAR_BACKGROUND_MAGNETIC_FIELD_VARIATIONS_IN_CYCLES_21-23
Paper PDF download link
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valentina_Zharkova/publication/266799418_PREDICTION_OF_SOLAR_ACTIVITY_FROM_SOLAR_BACKGROUND_MAGNETIC_FIELD_VARIATIONS_IN_CYCLES_21-23/links/559fbc8c08ae3dbcbe86d891.pdf?disableCoverPage=true
I think Dr Indur Goklany’s post at WUWT last week proved beyond doubt that we owe our wealth and higher standard of living to our increased use of fossil fuels.
And death rates from extreme weather events have dropped 97% since 1920. What more proof do this numbskulls need?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/06/have-fossil-fuels-diminished-the-worlds-sustainability-and-resilience/
oh for God’s sake….enablers come in all colors these days
http://www.weaselzippers.us/228789-pope-francis-unfettered-capitalism-is-the-dung-of-the-devil/
“It matters not that the predicted calamities are not happening.”
Half of Canada is on fire, including the only rain forest on the continent.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/08/americas/canada-wildfires/
25 per cent of the contiguous US is in drought.
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/USDMNews.aspx
Extreme rainfall events have increased to unprecedented levels. http://www.techtimes.com/articles/67417/20150710/extreme-rainfall-linked-to-rise-in-global-temperatures-study.htm
Yep, move along folks, nothing to see here.
I think that half of Canada on fire is an exaggeration.
Most of the drought in the US in in desert areas. Guess what, deserts don’t get much rain
The middle of the US is getting excessive rainfall – farmers would rather have rain than drought…
Of course it’s an exaggeration, But the earliest and size of the fires is completely unprecedented.
Most of the drought is not in desert areas. That’s why it’s called drought. And farmers do not generally prefer flooding and washed out fields. Do at least SOME research.
Are Canada’s forest fires ‘completely unprecedented?’ Time will tell.
Year to date there have been 4,700 fires that have burned 2.6 million hectares.
In 1989 there were 11,000 fires that burned 8,000 hectares.
But the earliest and size of the fires is completely unprecedented……
May comes before July, right? Looks like Canada gets most of it’s fires in May and July…..
1870 May 964,000 acres (390,000 ha) [9] Saguenay Fire[10][11] Quebec
1911 July 500,000 acres (200,000 ha) Great Porcupine Fire Ontario Killed 73 people
1916 July 500,000 acres (200,000 ha) Great Matheson Fire Ontario Killed 228 (U.O. 400+) people and destroyed several towns, Cochrane burnt again after just five years
1922 Oct 415,000 acres (168,000 ha) Great Fire of 1922 Ontario Killed 43 people and burnt through 18 townships in the Timiskaming District
1948 Oct 645,000 acres (261,000 ha) Mississagi/Chapleau fire Ontario
1950 Sept 3,500,000 acres (1,400,000 ha) Chinchaga fire British Columbia and Alberta Largest North American fire on record.
1958 May 558,260 acres (225,920 ha) Kech Fire British Columbia Largest wildfire in BC history
……………… Do at least SOME research.
Correction:
Are Canada’s forest fires ‘completely unprecedented?’ Time will tell.
Year to date there have been 4,700 fires that have burned 2.6 million hectares.
In 1989 there were 11,000 fires that burned 8 million hectares
Harry,
Only your idiocy is unprecedented.
The edges of these washed out areas/fields are getting the right amount of rainfall. I think that overall the soybean harvest in the US this year will be average or above average – even though they are complaining now.
In northern Canada, the forests burn every 20 to 50 years. There are no large tree stands, just young thin trees in areas which burned 20 to 50 years ago.
Just zoom-in on Google maps or Google Earth and one can see the fire scars everywhere, some are newer than others which are lighter in color, some older, some areas that have darker green that haven’t burned for more than 25 years.
And speaking of drought, lets not talk about the government subsidizing farmers in Arizona to grow cotton, which is one of the thirstiest crops you can grow, IN THE DESERT.
It continues because the Arizona farmers “…are proud of what they do.”. Most expensive way to grow cotton EVAH, but we keep paying them to do it, which uses water that SHOULD be going to California.
Growing cotton in Arizona is not a result of climate change, btw. We CHOOSE to do that. Much the same way we CHOOSE to keep burning food for fuel, with no positive impact on the environment at all.
Firefighting strategies may be contributing to larger wildfires
Yep, move along folks, nothing to see here.
I am afraid the ‘expert’ quoted in your link blew her credibility when she said:
Prof. Daniels says the bigger, hotter fires that are currently sweeping across the West are largely due to climate change …
I didn’t do the math on Saskatchewan, but the area of BC that is on fire is less than 1/2 of 1%. Get a grip. We have forest fires here EVERY YEAR.
Maybe you’re not aware that there is nothing for deer, etc. to eat in a mature forest – fire clears out areas that then become meadows, which is where the deer feed. If there are deer, then there are also bears, and so forth.
Fire is a natural part of the life cycle of the forest – and the only time some coniferous trees spread their seeds is during the intense heat of a forest fire.
The only time a forest fire needs to be fought is if it threatens people or their property. Otherwise, the healthiest thing for the forest is to let it burn.
Monna, the largest fire in North American history was exactly that. There’s was nothing in the way, so they let it burn itself out…did not even try to fight it….
1950 Sept 3,500,000 acres (1,400,000 ha) Chinchaga fire British Columbia and Alberta Largest North American fire on record.
Clearly, Harry had never fought a wildfire or done any other sort of productive work in the loser’s entire, miserable, meaningless, worse than worthless existence, consuming planetary resources better allocated to maggots.
Monna the tree you speak of is the Lodgepole Pine.
Lodgepole Pine
Harry,
Sorry, but you are a total ignoramus. Only an imbecile relies on reports from CNN, the Communist Not News Network.
If you want to see a rain forest, go to the Hoh Peninsula of Washington State or almost any part of SE Alaska.
Do you enjoy embarrassing yourself publicly? It appears so.
Now I remember why I stopped coming here.
Sir Harry Flashman:
You wrote
But you are here, so either
(a) you stopped coming here and your memory is so poor that you did forget why you stopped coming here
or
(b) you are incapable of remembering where you have chosen to be.
In either case, it is no surprise that you embarrass yourself with your posts here.
Richard
With all due respect, are you like a hundred year old guy who lives in the house that all the kids are scared to walk by?
Sir Harry Flashman
July 11, 2015 at 9:46 am
Now I remember why I stopped coming here.
I was so pleased when you did. Why not try it again?
Paychecks ceased??
You forgot to mention the amazing turnaround in drought in the US over the last 14 months. Look at the current map. Then take a look at their map from a year ago or more….http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Change is afoot big time. Even here in California, note how Northern California has started to find relief from the depths of this 4 year drought. The index has dropped from exceptional to severe over the last 9 months. I can feel that, as I live there. This is the coolest summer of the last 4 years. I even forecast late last year that there would be a strong likelihood for late spring rain and some summer rain. My thoughts have been proven correct in that regard. That is due to the changes out in the Pacific over the last 9 months in particular as the Blob has started to shift and breakup.
Both my brother and myself have commented to each other several times in the last year that the current climate reminds each of us of what it was like growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in California. I remember the scent of that air. I can taste that same scent again.
Oh my goodness … a low rainfall desert area is in drought … who do we call!?
“Who do we call”?
Droughtbusters!
Yes, things are going to vacillate. Climate change isn’t a straight forward trajectory. Droughts and deluges will come and go, get worse and better, but it’s the trend we have to consider. And the trends in all those things are increasing. And if I’m wrong, that will be awesome.
Not increasing, and our pitiful little aliquot of fossil carbon is a boon, a benefit and a blessing. The mild warming is net beneficial and the great greening borders upon miraculous.
You’ll learn.
=======
Washington State has one of the largest temperate rainforests in the U.S. (12 to 14 feet of rain a year.) I don’t think there’s a forest fire there now.
Plus, there is rainforest all down the coast of Oregon, and halfway into California.
Yeah you guys got me. I should have said “in Canada” but I am evidently prone to hyperbole. Still the location of temperate rain forest wasn’t so much as the point as the fact that it rarely catches fire. Hence all the big trees.
True. In the US, the forest fires tend to be on the dry side of the Cascades and in the Rockies, not in wet western Oregon and Washington.
Four small fires. Three in eastern Washington and one in Olympic National Park. Two are out and two are close to control.
SHF, I have lived in Western Canada for over 40 years, and have been an observer of weather for most of those . Either as a farmer, a landscaper and landscape maintenance business my life literally depended on it.I have also been an observer and recorder for over 20 of those years and I see no connection at all between what I have seen and lived with comp[ared to your ” Half of Western Canada is on fire” and other of the statements you make. Sir (loosely spoken) you are nothing but a fear monger and a fraud.
Asybot – after 7 decades I can say the same. I was around for the fires in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s … and I saw the smoke that covered all of Canada/most of North America then – just a it is today as I look out my window hundreds of kilometres from the fires. When you fly across Canada and see smoke from coast to coast, you realize how small the planet is in some respects. Like the satellite photos that show sand in the atmosphere from Africa landing in North America and back to Europe. It’s all in your perspective.
Where do you live, brother?
SHF
I currently live 45 km from anywhere next to crown land with my horses somewhat south of a large fire in Jasper and north east of one in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta but I have lived and worked in BC (from border to border to border to border and islands), Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut. I have seen fires in all sorts of forests, peat bogs, coal seams, and prairie fires and in my youth I worked on slash and burns such as the clearing for the Arrow Dam (now called the Keenleyside Dam). I have a fish pond and a fire pump beside my house as I am very aware of the danger of fire as I have been around fire danger for all my life as I have spent a large part of it in rural areas where fire is a constant danger. Fire awareness was an issue in my youth and I was got training from family members, cubs and scouts, fish and wildlife associations, and the military.
I expect the ridiculously stable High sitting over the “warm blob” has something to do with our recent weather and it doesn’t look much different from cycles I have seen before. What is different, is we have a whole lot more technology and media that lets us see what is happening in real time and we can look at the whole thing happening from space. I don’t think we should be very surprised by the current weather in the west. Now look at how the east was getting soaked. Not a surprise either. Even Environment Canada had this summer as very dry and hot all through the west in their long term forecast, normal to wet in the east. Weather.
Sir,
You have failed to read about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinchaga_fire
During at least 100,000 of the past 120,000 years, fires in what is Canada were virtually non-existent. Of, course the land was under kilometers of ice, but still.
many reasons for more fires-
Similarly, European cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is dramatically changing the vegetation and fauna of many natural ecosystems. This annual grass has invaded and spread throughout the shrub-steppe habitat of the Great Basin in Idaho and Utah, predisposing the invaded habitat to fires (Kurdila 1995; Vitousek et al. 1996; Vitousek et al. 1997). Before the invasion of cheatgrass, fire burned once every 60 – 110 years, and shrubs had a chance to become well established. Now, fires occur about every 3 – 5 years; shrubs and other vegetation are diminished, and competitive monocultures of cheatgrass now exist on 5 million ha in Idaho and Utah (Whisenant 1990). The animals dependent on the shrubs and other original vegetation have been reduced or eliminated.
“Google scientists finally admitted that existing and near-term renewable energy technologies simply do not work as advertised and cannot meet their political or climate promises. The technologies are all hat, no cattle. However, the Climate Crisis and Clean Tech industries are determined to push ahead – using our money, risking little of their own, and getting reimbursed by us when their investments turn sour.”
They want everything while offering nothing in return but a pipe dream.
Some pipe dream. Denmark got 39 per cent of its electricity from wind alone in 2014. IN Scotland, wind power is providing enough electricity to run all of the homes in the country. Last year Germany – a large, industrial nation – was getting more than a quarter of its power from renewables, and solar reached grid parity. And new storage technologies are making 24/7 delivery a reality.
You ever get the feeling maybe it’s you folks that have been getting fooled?
Nope, you think drought and heavier rain are abnormal..got news for ya..they aren’t. Extremes happen every day somewhere on earth. But as a whole, there are no sig global longterm trends on drought or flood.
Sir Harry:Like others have said on here. How about some links to back up your claims?
Electricity costs in Denmark and Germany are two or three times what they are here. Denmark recently called a halt, or a major slowdown, to its renewables push, and Germany is having second thoughts about more green energy.
“You ever get the feeling maybe it’s you folks that have been getting fooled?”
No.
Harry,
Is there no Green gobbledygook for which you won’t bend over and spread your cheeks?
In 2009, the Institute for Energy Research commissioned the Danish think-tank CEPOS (Centre for Political Studies) to report on electricity exports from Denmark and the economic impact of the Danish wind industry. The report found that Danes pay the highest residential electricity rates in the European Union (mostly for government revenue, but partly to subsidize wind power), and that the cost of saving a ton of carbon dioxide between 2001 and 2008 has averaged 647 DKK (€87, US$124). It also estimated that 90% of wind industry jobs were transferred from other technology industries, and states that as a result Danish GDP is 1.8 billion DKK (US$270 million) lower than it would have been without wind industry subsidies of 1.7-2.6 billion DKK (roughly $320M – $480M) yearly in 2001-2005.
Denmark wind is backed up by Swedish and Norwegian hydro–the latter typically being one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation. Even with that weighing in their favor they have the highest electricity rates in Europe. Germany has the second highest. Tell me what you’re crowing about again?
Oh, and about that myth of German solar? Yeah, not so much.
Some pipe dream. Denmark got 39 per cent of its electricity from wind alone in 2014….
..and they pay ~300% more than we do..and their connection to the European Grid allows they to get power when the wind don’t blow
I supposed we could run an extension cord to Mexico or something………
Poland has a power grid arrangement with Germany but they are building a powerwall, for want of the right term, to prevent German renewable energy from ruining their industry through high prices and variable supply.
Sir Harry’s version of reality is like the dead parrot. The Pope has even nailed it to the Cross, just as the shopkeeper nailed the parrot to it’s perch.
And here I thought you found easier turf to plague elsewhere.
39% wind powered electricity at a price ten times our regular rates?
And this is before the jokers behind the windmills start gouging extra for ‘maintenance’ and ‘reconstruction’?
Don’t think that we didn’t notice Germany’s electric prices that are eight plus times our regular rates.
How many poor citizens do you plan to freeze to death this winter Harry?
The Germans have dropped solar like a hot potato. The Australian home market was floded with solar systems because they could not sell them anymore in Germany.
Dear God Flash Harry, your ignorance knows no bounds.
The US bozo president likes to claim also the ObamaCare is “working.” But no one disputes that it is operating and some 4 million formerly uninsured now have insurance.
He does not want the public policy debate though that questions whether it is an effective use of new taxes, and the costs to previously insured who now have higher premiums, copays, and deductibles.
No, the CBA and other effectiveness studies, the socialists never want those done when using other people’s money to buy their votes and hold on to power.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the wind farms only have the capacity to supply all the homes in Scotland, not the same as actually supplying is it!!
Also worth noting that the peak capicity of Denmark’s wind turbines is double the peak capacity of the country as a whole. So to get their 30% renewable average involves lots and lots of energy dumping to other countries when the wind blows too hard.
Also worthy of note is the CO2 emissions from Germany which have continued to grow at record pace as they installed more and more renewables. Probably because the energy each renewable gave back was only enough to build another renewable and not enough to replace the fossil fuels used to run the country.
Sir Harry, Reading what Alfred. E. Neuman writes in his magazine and quoting it does not make it true. If my memory serves me correctly his favourite saying was “you are an idiot” Regards
Flashman, you are shooting from the hip. The Danes use terms like “corresponds to” or “equivalent” when relating wind-power and electricity consumption. Much of the wind-power is not consumed in Denmark but exported to foreign reservoirs – sometimes given away.
The same applies to Germany.
Here is an interesting piece that shows how the mad green push to redo the world can affect individuals…http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/fire-chief-urges-hunter-residents-not-to-take-risks-as-temperatures-plummet/327270
Down under in Australia the southeast portion of the continent is currently being hit by a deep cold spell. In the above article from WeatherZone a fire chief issues a warning to residents to take care with the steps they take to stay warm and alive. He also has this to say from the article …””We know things are tough as far as electricity prices and that but please, please make sure you have a correct heater, if it’s an inside heater and please check your smoke alarms because working smoke alarms in most cases will save lives.””.
Evidently the high electricity prices are a hardship for a portion of Australians, and the sole reason for those high utility prices is the green regulations and controls implemented by the CAGW crowd.
No, the prices went up After deregulation. The economic assumptions underlying deregulation were rather wrong. Also the regulators have required distributors to improve the quality of supply, which came at a high price.
You made me look, thanks… http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/Data/Price-and-Demand/Average-Price-Tables
Are the higher utility rates in Australia partially due to the somewhat small population?
Biggest scam in world histoire.
Buffett opposes the Keystone XL pipeline because the Commie goon is heavily invested in railroads currently carrying petroleum from Canada to the US.
Political Context
Cory Morningstar, member of International Climate Justice Now and Chair. of Advisory Committee on the Environment, City of London, Ont.
http://www.politicalcontext.org/cory-morningstar
Is this the same Cory Morningstar mentioned in the above article?
Two things re Tesla’s Powerwall:
As I believe I mentioned on another topic here….I in no way want Lithium ion batteries, with their propensity to start on fire, hanging on my garage wall. If I were an insurance company risk manager, I’d triple the premium on any house with one installed.
Next…a Power wall is NOT a power source, its a storage device and nothing more. Hawking it as a power source is disingenuous at best.
agree 100%
The CAGW scheme reads just like the Emperors New Clothes; “Feel how fine the fabric is, how unrestrictive the cut is…
And how the conmen set out to profit from the stupidity of the person/persons in power.
Now to screw up in the trillions takes a government committee.
These enterprising citizens have gotten to be billionaires by exploiting the stupidity of our kleptocracy, sure they want more, it is almost a competition to see how much these fools will fork over.
And remember when a bureaucrat spends millions or trillion, as long as the forms are obeyed, it is not theft.Even if he then resigns govt to become CEO of the organization created by these tax dollars.
Whenever politicians talk about some new plan to redistribute wealth to the poor, you can bet it will do just the opposite. It’s a false front to fool the poor into voting for them, while they secretly scheme to divert wealth from the middle class into their own pockets and those of their rich cronies. The truly wealthy never get touched as long as they play ball with the Party in power. Observing how many giant corporations play ball with the government gives you an indication of how little free-market capitalism still exists and how wide-spread crony capitalism has become.
Allan watt; cutting through the matrix july 5, 2015.
Explains why everything above happens.
“The analysis is technical, beyond the ability of most voters, journalists, politicians and regulators to comprehend fully.”
No, it isn’t. What is missing is the faculty of critical thought conditioned out of the education system, creating mobs of zombie drones whose first thought of the day is “I’m not able to understand things like that because I’m not an expert”…thereby guaranteeing a steady supply of compliant useful idiots that don’t know the deck is stacked.
Their minds have been numbed, sedated, and atrophied by relentless hours of Jersey Shore, The View, and sports. They are the cattle the phony billionaire Greens want to lead to the slaughterhouse.
Too much critical theory and not enough critical thinking. And certain people have taken Eisenhower’s advice, “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.”, way, way too far.
Please stop knocking Elon Musk. It is true that he has made a pretty penny from the CAGW scam but he didn’t create it. I have been a fan of that great American philosopher disguised as a SF writer, Robert Heinlein, since my teens. Billionaire Elon, with his reusable rockets, plans to go to Mars, best car in the world starting from scratch, affordable (almost) energy storage, etc., is a hero right out the pages of Heinlein. It was Heinlein who wrote “if it’s raining soup, only a fool doesn’t grab a bucket.” Elon is no fool. All hail to him.
Nice, I like Elon too. See my post below. Perfect analogy “if it’s raining soup, only a fool doesn’t grab a bucket.”.
Toxic rain. Let him gather.
=======
In that analogy, apt as it is, the bucket prices start at $100 Million.
This Manna Soup is for The Elites.
Elon bought several.
( I think SpaceX is a brilliant company.)
Any fool would grab the bucket, but not every fool gets the chance. Those with the gold not only make the rules, but also choose which crackpots to promote. Almost anything can be made to appear to work, if enough money is thrown at it. But not every crackpot is around, when it’s raining money.
I hope that this was sarc. Elon has done nothing in the realm of Space X other than take technology developed by NASA and repackage it — all with government supplied funding. NASA should have been doing this work rather than spending billions on climate change and Arab outreach. Tesla Motors is 100% funded by CO2 credits and other government subsidies. A hero does not suck at the government teat.
Well where I think it is legitimate to knock any publicly famous person, is when they use that fame along with their gathered wealth, to buy legislation to continue the pattern that benefits them financially.
For Musk to promote California’s socialist policies on energy and related issues, at that point he is fair game.
I’m sure their are lower forms of life than that; but off hand, I can’t name any.
g
Musk is a true visionary; he envisions piles of dough coming his way, all enabled by the biggest, most damaging to mankind lie in history. Notice how much he laughs in that video? He literally is laughing all the way to the bank.
“Global warming is essentially a con. It’s nothing more than cynically extracting money from other people or gaining power and prestige at their expense using those same two types of story. Where it gets confusing at times is in identifying who is the mark and who is the con artist, with the added complication that sometimes they’re all con men busily screwing each other as well as us.”
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/the-great-global-warming-con/
Pointman
At the recent 10th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE, one of the speakers , Wolfgang Muller, reported on the German experience with wind turbines and solar panels . They have 72,000 MW of installed renewable energy. The combined performance is that 75% of the time the output is less than 20% of the nameplate capacity, 90 % of the time the wind turbine out put is below 30% of the name plate capacity. The output of the solar panels is just as poor , with 55% of the time the output is below 10% of capacity. Fortunately they have coal or nuclear backup and access to an international grid , otherwise blackouts and brown outs would be a frequent occurrence . Alarmists who propose to eliminate all fossil fuel usage and go entirely to renewables are misleading the public about what is practical or feasible even with batteries . If you cannot produce the power because of lack of wind or sun , batteries are of little help.
For those who asked, a useful link on trends in extreme weather:
http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/report-findings/extreme-weather
Reading garbage like that will rot your brain. Oops, too late.
Bah. See Pielke Fils.
==============
Not to mention Ryan Maue.
Pssst, your government is here to help you, Flash.
=================
Elon Musk showed up on my radar about 13 years ago when he started SpaceX. I have to admit I like electric cars and solar power too. However I’m a skeptical person and don’t believe CO2 is dangerous or causing global warming. I’d be dumb if I said man has no effect on the environment. I’m not ready to call Elon a con man or say his motivation is to get rich off from the tax payers. Tesla and SpaceX almost bankrupted him. He believes in the technologies he is invested in. As far as the monies he gets from the government I can think of worse places to spend it.
I suppose it’s better than government run lotteries, for example, but I’m actually better at spending and saving my money than the government. I would be most appreciative if they let me keep a larger fraction. But wait, it’s worse than that. For every tax payer dollar they spend, they borrow more.
If you had to be evacuated which vehicle would rather use? An EV or a fossil fueled vehicle with a couple of full extra fuel containers with you.
@Barbara: Fossil fuel for sure. 😉 Where are we evacuating too? and why? @R.Shearer: no doubt there is a war on the middle class right now. #nationaldebt #TPP #TPA #NAFTA and Man-Made global warming is a weapon being used on us.
Simply google Elon Musk rent seeker.
I just read the Bloomberg rent seeker article. I’m not on board with it. Tesla paid back their government loans. Yes, they still make money on emissions credits. I’m fine with that because its an incentive to a new technology that otherwise might never happen. Musk had skin in the game so he also had risk. Tesla is investing heavily in two more vehicles and a battery factory. When they come online than lets talk about cutting the government money. SpaceX is changing the launch business. A ULA (United Launch Alliance) has held a monopoly on government launches costing $200,000,000 to $400,000,000 per launch depending on who you ask. SpaceX is $100,000,000 per launch. SpaceX has also brought commercial launches back to the USA. Everyone is now looking at reuse. ULA is going to develop a new Vulcan rocket and Ariane Space (French) are developing Ariane 6 to compete. I’m sticking with ” visionary genius” for now but I’ll keep my eyes open. @earwig42 if I missed the point you were trying to make please address what part of the article you were referring too. Thanks Dave
Ah, so you think the ends justify the means. Interesting.
” Yes, they still make money on emissions credits. I’m fine with that because its an incentive to a new technology”
Could you please expand on the ‘new technology’ that musk has brought to market?
Ah, so you think the ends justify the means. Interesting.
Question is old. Answer is easy.
Yes and no. Depends entirely upon the means. And the ends.
The new solar minimum is real climate change and just what the CO2 alarmists need. With the mayhem of extreme weather and the near certainty of lack of food worldwide due to this new paradigm they will take full advantage.
Cold, ice and snow with copious amounts of rain are all things they claim to be caused by too much CO2.
We don’t know how much of a minimum yet. We will have to wait and see.
Great piece gentlemen and potentially libellous as hell. Except WUWT and the authors won’t receive a retraction demand, won’t be threatened with litigation and won’t be litigated against. That tells us all we need to know about the legitimacy of the claims made: they’re absolutely spot-on. A 10/10 piece and credit to Anthony for publishing it.
Launch platforms are off topic?, But for sure musk is free to compete along with the rest in the business. However,in my observation, too many faulty launches do not impress the prospects or underwriters.
It won’t let me reply to your comment above about which “new technology”. So I’ll do it here. Tesla released all (249) of their patents for open source for the advancement of electric vehicles. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you here’s the list http://stks.freshpatents.com/Tesla-Motors-Inc-nm1.php As far as the launch platforms being off topic I was addressing the comment about “rent seeker”.
Pick one you like and post it here.
Patents are generated from an oversupply of lawyers they do not depend on real innovation , just wording clever enough to slide past the US Patent Office.
But happy to take a close look at your favourite.
My comment on topic was to do with your patently obvious musk fanboi status.
by impoverishing billions and killing millions tomorrow.
Today.
The biggest con is the world bank’s plan to bilk wealthy nations out of $100 Billion/yr. They will then use our money to bribe 3rd world dictators into allowing them to exploit the resources of those counties without benefit to the people who live there.
Do we forget where the base energy comes from to manufacture the clean- green, renewable, save-the-planet, solar technologies? Just to make the silicon used to trap the sun’s rays on manufactured wafers requires the melting of silica rock at 3,000 Fahrenheit (1,649 Celsius). And the electricity of coal-fired plants or ultrapurified hydrogen obtained from fossil sources provide the heat to do that. It also takes a fantastic amount of oil to make concrete, glass and steel for solar modules.
I do not think greenies understand the first thing to go without fossil fuels are their iPhones and iPads.
I’d like to see signs at fossil fuel protests that say, “Stop the oil dependency , throw way your iPhone!”
“catechism of climate cataclysm coalition”
You turn my head, sir!
Just watched the movie “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”. The movie has some great performances but suffers from poorly mixing fairy tale and science fiction. Anyways (SPOILER AHEAD) the premise of the movie is that green house gases caused melting of the ice caps and flooding of major cities and other issues requiring a smaller population. This is an example of how deep climate alarmism stupidity runs. In this world they can make incredibly sophisticated robots with amazing processing powers and even reaching to the point of gaining human emotions and consciousness. These robots also seem to have enormous energy storage capacity. All this technology but they can’t figure out how to protect New York from rising waters that occurred over centuries or make use of the millions of acres of unused land even if coastal flooding occurred.
That movie was elegant but required an ENORMOUS suspension of disbelief.
SPOILER ALERT!
Did you realized that the alien-looking creatures at the end were actually robots and the descendants of the A.I. child?
I watched it because of the epic reputation of the author and director, but that was one of the most discombobulated movies ever made.
Why, every time I hear/read the phrase “Artificial Intelligence”, I think of politicians? Things that make me go hmmmm.
Thanks, Dr. Driessen. A very good article.
Yes, follow the money, the trail will lead to the crooks, on both ends of the trail.
“How much area do you think you could clean by hand in a day?”
And what would you use to clean it? Water that California doesn’t have?
You can’t get degrees in lobbying and con-artistry, they are best mastered by practicing daily.
One might wonder, though, if it’s part of the science post doctorate continuing ed program.
Very good article. Well said.
Sorry, now I remember the other reason I stopped coming. Too much wrong to respond to without making it a full time job. NIght, guys!
Here’s your hat, here’s your coat, there’s the door what’s your hurry? 🙂
Buffett opposes more pipelines because he wants his trains carrying the oil.
Don’t let his carefully crafted “grandfather” image fool you.
The global warming boogeyman was ALWAYS about money and power — the climate change cult is a secular religion that controls people by predicting a catastrophe unless people do what they are told without question.
Meanwhile, the smartest green con men skim off millions of dollars for themselves, with governments giving them permission (and tax credits), as they tell everyone they are trying to save the Earth.
Predicting a catastrophe in the future to control people is politics, not science.
The climate modelers are just props for politicians and crony green businessmen to help sell the climate fantasy.
Who’s going to believe Al Gore without a lot of scientists standing behind him?