Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Guardian, despite “unease among some unions” about destroyed jobs, Biden’s transformative first week will set the course for America’s future. But nobody has a coherent explanation for how Biden will make it all work.
Dizzying pace of Biden’s climate action sounds death knell for era of denialism
Oliver Milman @olliemilman
Sat 30 Jan 2021 18.30 AEDT…
The vision laid out in the actions signed by Biden on Wednesday, however, was transformative. A pathway for oil and gas drilling to be banned from public lands. A third of America’s land and ocean protected. The government ditching the combustion engine from its entire vehicle fleet, offering up a future where battery-powered trucks deliver America’s mail and electric tanks are operated by the US military.Biden signals radical shift from Trump era with executive orders on climate change
Biden may eschew the politically contentious framing of the Green New Deal but there was even an echo of the original New Deal with his plan for a civilian climate corps to restore public lands and waterways. “The whole approach is classic Biden; working-class values, putting people to work,” said Tim Profeta, an environmental policy expert at Duke University.
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“It truly is a new day for climate action,” said Carol Browner, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. “President Joe Biden is taking unprecedented actions and sending an unmistakable message to the world that the United States is back and serious about tackling the climate crisis.”
Biden is yanking every possible governmental lever, it seems, to lower emissions but is also cognizant of attacks from Republicans, and unease among some unions, that ditching projects such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline will kill jobs. Battle lines have already formed – Republicans are trying to prevent any halt to drilling, with Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, vowing to “protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington DC”.
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There will probably be bipartisan agreement in certain areas, such as tax breaks for wind and solar and upgrades to ageing infrastructure that is being increasingly battered by floods, storms and wildfires. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, is confident some climate spending can sneak into overall budget bills. Biden could do more unilaterally if he declared a state of emergency over climate, Schumer has suggested. “Trump used this emergency for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one,” the New York senator said last week.
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The Trump years may well have been the death rattle of influential denialism. The American public’s concern over the climate crisis is at record levels, with even a majority of Republican voters supporting government intervention in the wake of a year of unprecedented wildfires and hurricanes that cost hundreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars. The question is now whether the US is able to change quickly enough to avert further disaster, rather than if it will change at all.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/30/joe-biden-climate-change-action
So far Biden’s plan appears to be to kill the fossil fuel industry, which generates massive tax revenues without government help, and replace it with a renewable industry whose representatives always have their hands out for government cash.
What is the plan when Biden burns through the two trillion dollars stimulus, and renewable energy corporatists still want more money? Does anyone seriously believe two trillion will be enough to pump prime the renewable economy? After all, the Obama one trillion dollar green stimulus disappeared without trace, other than a scary increase in the USA’s national debt. Why would Biden’s two trillion dollar stimulus be any different?
One inescapable fact is green energy costs more than fossil fuel. Renewables will always be expensive – the materials input to build and maintain a renewable installation is orders of magnitude greater than an equivalent fossil fuel installation. Another way to look at it, if renewables didn’t cost more, proponents wouldn’t have to keep demanding government handouts.
Somehow that additional cost will have to be borne by ordinary Americans, either through higher taxes, higher costs, a weaker economy, or passing the debt on to the grandkids, through increased government borrowing.
When I say Biden has no plan to make it all work, its the money I’m talking about. Even the USA cannot borrow money indefinitely, to fund the Democrat’s bright green impossibilities – especially after they crash government revenues by wrecking tax paying fossil fuel industries.
One question that never seems to be asked: if all these ‘green’ policies are put in place, how and when will we know if they have been successful?
It depends on what you mean by “successful”.
Analyse the proposals, run some of the numbers and look at what scale of materials and money will be needed to implement them. Then come back and tell me if a single one of these pipe dreams is even possible let alone feasible. If we’re lucky these clowns will be voted out before they can get started – if we’re unlucky they will lose billions proving these ideas are unworkable.
If the economy collapses, then the green policies were successful.
So far Biden’s plan appears to be to kill the fossil fuel industry, which generates massive tax revenues without government help, and replace it with a renewable industry whose representatives always have their hands out for government cash.
But renewables are already too cheap to meter – far cheaper than any other source of energy! They now don’t need any subsidy. They’re also the most reliable of all. They will win out through pure market forces. That’s why we will continue to subsidise them forever, and will distort the market in their favour by government fiat. Because it’s not needed. That’s why we’ll do it.
Likewise fossil fuel burning and nuclear are becoming too expensive, unreliable, unsafe and uncompetitive. They will fall away by pure market forces. That’s why we will destroy that industry through government fiat, through executive and legal means. Because it’s not needed.
That’s why day is night. That’s why wet is dry. That’s why man is woman, and that’s why I’m a democrat.
I cant see any of this actually happening. It is all words, to appease the enviro freaks. Look at how few countries have put in a carbon tax. No leader will seriously wreck their economy.
No leader would. That does not preclude Joe Biden and the current Democrat party from doing so.
Why put in a carbon tax? Mandatory prison for anyone who uses fossil fuels
Guardian predictions are notoriously wrong, they haven’t a clue, it’s all clickbait for the twitterati socialists.
The Guardian 1974 “Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.”
The Guardian is often wrong regarding energy reporting, because its editors have blinders on, and talk only to people they agree with.
Biden this, Biden that.
Biden was 47 years in Washington, DC,
He hardly uttered a peep about the environment.
The New Dealers want to ELECTRIFY EVERYTHING
Let us look at just one aspect. “EVs everywhere”
GM announced no more gasoline vehicles, only EVs, by 2035.
I think that is utter nonsense, because the cost owning and operating a vehicle would greatly increase, and the CO2 reduction would be minimal, on a lifetime/A-to-Z basis.
This article explains it in detail.
POOR ECONOMICS AND MINIMAL CO2 REDUCTION OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES IN NEW ENGLAND
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/poor-economics-of-elec…
INTRODUCTION
This article describes the efficiency of electric vehicles, EVs, and their charging loss, when charging at home and on-the-road, and the economics, when compared with efficient gasoline vehicles.
EVs are designed to be aero-dynamic, and to have low rolling resistance, efficient drive trains, and efficient batteries. This will minimize vehicle weight and maximize range. Tesla is the industry leader regarding efficient EVs.
Any economic analysis must include the amortizing of the difference in capital cost of EVs and equivalent, efficient gasoline vehicles.
Any CO2 reduction analysis must be the difference of the CO2 emissions of an EV and an equivalent, efficient gasoline vehicle, on a lifetime, A-to-Z basis
It is important to assess the cost and operating impacts of large-scale use of EVs on electricity generation, grid capacity and energy storage capacity, on an A-to Z basis.
This article has six parts and an Appendix.
SUMMARY
Real-World Concerns About the Economics of EVs
This article describes in detail why it may not be such a good idea to have a proliferation of EVs, because of:
1) Their high initial capital costs; about 50% greater than equivalent gasoline vehicles.
2) The widespread high-speed charging facilities required for charging “on the road”.
3) The loss of valuable time when charging “on the road”.
4) The high cost of charging/kWh, plus exorbitant penalties, when charging “on-the-road”.
High-Mileage Hybrids a Much Better Alternative Than EVs
The Toyota Prius, and Toyota Prius plug-in, which get up to 54 mpg, EPA combined, would:
1) Have much less annual owning and operating costs than any EV, for at least the next 10 years
2) Have minimal wait-times, as almost all such plug-ins would be charging at home
3) Be less damaging to the environment, because their batteries would have very low capacity, kWh
4) Impose much less of an additional burden on the electric grids.
Hybrid vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius, save about the same amount of CO₂ as electric cars over their lifetime, plus:
1) They are cost competitive with gasoline vehicles, even without subsidies.
2) They have none of the EV downsides, such as:
– Not requiring EV chargers,
– Not inducing range anxiety
– Refilling in minutes, instead of hours.
3) Climate change does not care about where CO₂ comes from.
Gasoline cars are only about 7% of global CO2 emissions,
Replacing them with electric cars would only help a little. See table and Part Five
“Electrify Everything”, an easily uttered slogan
It would require:
– Additional electricity generation plants, such as nuclear, wind, solar, and hydro
– Additional grid augmentation/expansion to carry increased loads for future EVs and heat pumps
– Additional battery systems to store the midday solar electricity surges for later use, aka, DUCK-curve management.
– Major command/control-orchestrating of:
1) Charging times and duration of EVs, and
2) Operating times of major appliances, and
3) Control of electricity demands of commercial/industrial businesses, to avoid overloading distribution and high voltage electric grids.
New England Poor Wind and Solar Conditions: New England has the worst wind conditions, except for the US South, and the worst solar conditions, except for the rainy Seattle area.
“Electrify everything” would be a major challenge just to figure out (never mind the cost and environmental impact of implementing it), how all this would actually be working during:
1) Five to seven-day periods, when both wind and solar are minimal (such periods occur at random throughout the year), and
2) Multi-day periods of cold weather, 0 F or less, with snow and ice on solar panels, while electricity demands of heat pumps and EVs would be maximal.
Who is going to pay for this insanity?
The GameStoppers demonstrated how fragile the debt financial system really is.
T-Bills? Go from 100% of GDP to 200%? 400%? 1600%?
As they raise taxes and kill energy, GDP will drop, along with tax receipts.
Xidon’s America:
No jobs.
No heat.
No food.
No hope.
Slavery.
But it will be “green”
I tried my hand at Daytrading some years ago, and the first thing I noticed was you were required to have and maintain a minimum of $25,000.00 in your trading account, otherwise you could not Daytrade.
I always wondered why this rule was in effect. The only explanation I ever heard for implementing this was the powers-that-be were afraid if they didn’t set a limit, that anybody could come in and Daytrade and would end up losing all their money.
I guess they thought someone with $25,000.00 was smarter than someone with $5,000.00.
But I never did buy that excuse, and now with this Game Stop fiasco, it appears that the reason they set a $25,000.00 minimum is they just don’t like competing with the peons in the market, so they limit their numbers by requiring a huge cash requirement right up front, before they are allowed to play with the Big Guys.
I hear some young Republicans are raising cain about this issue and holding demonstrations. One thing they should demand is that this $25,000.00 penalty on Daytraders should be thrown out the window.
Anyone with any amount of money ought to be able to Daytrade. Some guy with $500.00 could become wealthy depending on his skill. But today, the powers-that-be won’t even give him a chance. And they can’t justfiy this rule.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/texas-news/watch-gov-abbott-discusses-texas-economy-oil-and-gas-industry-thursday/2536383/
The Red States are not going to take Biden’s Dictatorial Pronouncements laying down.
China Is Still Building an Insane Number of New Coal Plantshttps://www.wired.com/story/china-is-still-building-an-insane-number-of-new-coal-plants/
The bald faced disingenuousness of Schumer is astounding!
“Trump used this emergency for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one,”
Caravans of thousands of people were crossing our borders almost daily and children were being inducted into M13 or “trafficked”. That’s not an emergency, but if Mike Mann says we face disaster in 50 years (with no observational data), “Climate Change” is.
Earth to Chuck: Even John Kerry says going to net zero will have no impact. Unless you get China and India to slow down (and Biden and Obama gave them until 2030 to consider such a change) the situation can hardly be called an emergency.
China won’t slow down, and no one will stop them.
Guardian gaslighting. As usual.
Let’s all step back a bit. The reason “renewables” cost more to operate is that they take more energy to produce. Show me a solar PV or wind turbine production facility powered solely by PV and wind, or shut the f up. There aren’t any, because they are not net energy producers. Prove me wrong.
It has been demonstrated that you are right: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/30/guardian-the-trump-years-may-well-have-been-the-death-rattle-of-influential-climate-denialism/#comment-3173018
Renewables are also more expensive because you still have to pay for the rest of the energy infrastructure. You need to have something that is capable of supplying all of your customers energy needs for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. This means you need to pay for twice as much capacity as you need.
Biden destroys the economy and makes a good portion of weary, impoverished and desperate people seriously consider breaking way from the union that is the United States and I’ll tell you what – it’ll be the end of America. That’s what I see.
The first thing that is going to happen is that people are going to stop paying taxes to support the Democrat hell holes. They are already leaving NYC, LA, and Seattle.
At some point the stuff will hit the fan when all those government dependents find themselves abandoned. Again, its already happening in NYC, Baltimore, LA, Seattle, etc. It’s only going to get worse.
Don’t panic. There is a long way to go. Biden isn’t going to have everything his way.
The perception that political action can make CO2 responsible for climate change is lunacy. Observations demonstrate that CO2 does not drive climate change but follows it.
Went through entire string, no comment from mcswell. He recently took umbrage over an etank cartoon, fulminating that Biden had said “CARS” and we were clowns for laughing at the cartoon. Guess he’s busy posting at the Graun, “he said CARS!” Mr. Swell, you may post your regrets here-
“unease among some unions”
To describe tens of thousands of wrecked livelihoods as “unease” of “some” pretty much defines the state of the modern “left”. They are the new plutocrats. They are the Chamber of Commerce “as long as out biggest members can do business we are happy” type.
The Trump effects means that US politicians are forced to either go out of the closet as totally Chamber of Commerce or totally non-Chamber of Commerce.
Climate denialism will never disappear because a warming planet is more beneficial than detrimental to the vast majority of fauna and flora.
As time passes the world will come to believe climate change or global warming to be more of a religion than science.
Now that’s real engineering going on……. social engineering that is.
I see philo (i think it was) saying hybrids are efficient and greener (which is BS
as plants will argue that more CO2 is greener) than ICE. I thought when the costs of charging, and the costs of the massive batteries were included that they were not. Huh?
I keep getting “Subscription fault” when trying to subscribe, pretty much every page today. But I seem to be able to post without a problem. Is it just me? Is there something I’m doing wrong perhaps? (Same email as always)
Oddly, I seem to have been subscribed despite the error message.