Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The long predicted collapse of the EU renewable energy push has finally arrived. The EU has effectively just admitted renewable energy does not work, by moving to extend their definition of green energy to include reliable power sources like natural gas and nuclear energy.
Fury as EU moves ahead with plans to label gas and nuclear as ‘green’
Brussels faces backlash and charges of greenwashing after publishing draft proposals on New Year’s Eve
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
Mon 3 Jan 2022 23.18 AEDTThe European Commission is facing a furious backlash over plans to allow gas and nuclear to be labelled as “green” investments, as Germany’s economy minister led the charge against “greenwashing”.
The EU executive was accused of trying to bury the proposals by releasing long-delayed technical rules on its green investment guidebook to diplomats on New Year’s Eve, hours before a deadline expired.
The draft proposals seen by the Guardian would allow gas and nuclear to be included in the EU “taxonomy of environmentally sustainable economic activities”, subject to certain conditions.
The taxonomy is a classification system intended to direct billions to clean-energy projects to meet the EU goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
…
Austria’s government repeated its threat to sue the commission if the plans go ahead. Leonore Gewessler, the country’s climate action minister, said neither gas nor nuclear belonged in the taxonomy “because they are harmful to the climate and the environment and destroy the future of our children”.
She added: “We will examine the current draft carefully and have already commissioned a legal opinion on nuclear power in the taxonomy. If these plans are implemented in this way, we will sue.”
She also accused the commission of a “a night and fog operation” in the timing of the publication, a charge echoed by Luxembourg’s energy minister, Claude Turmes, who described the draft as a provocation.
However, opponents are not expected to secure the supermajority needed to block the plans.
…
Germany’s finance minister, Christian Lindner of the FDP, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Sunday that Germany needed gas-fired power plants as a transition technology because it was foregoing coal and nuclear power. “I am grateful that arguments were apparently taken up by the commission,” he said.
…
The plans have already attracted the ire of Greta Thunberg and other young climate activists, who say this “fake climate action” contradicts the EU’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/03/fury-eu-moves-ahead-plans-label-gas-nuclear-green
Greta Thunberg is throwing a tantrum – but nobody cares.
In the wake of Europe’s catastrophic September green energy crisis we all knew the EU’s commitment to renewables had to end, but I’m personally surprised the EU bureaucracy moved so quickly. The haste with which they made this decision is evidence of how worried EU leaders are about rocketing energy prices and blackouts.
We can only imagine how green groups are responding to this abrupt defeat, what frantic meetings and phone calls must be occurring. I mean, the EU was the most committed green energy champion on the planet, everything seemed to be moving their way, then suddenly with this one stroke of a pen, it is all over.
Gewessler, the country’s climate action minister, said neither gas nor nuclear belonged in the taxonomy “because they are harmful to the climate and the environment and destroy the future of our children”.
I would assume Gewessler is related to Simon, Griff, Ghalfrunt, Lloydo….
Or maybe she’s just the rarest kind of politician in existence… the kind that stays bought.
It’s not easy being Green so now it necessarily needs to include Green Enough
Or the most common, a blithering idiot.
Intellectually and theologically related, even if not biologically related.
“She also accused the commission of a “a night and fog operation…”
That’s pretty extreme, even for a greenie. She must really feel the pain.
But then, the last “Nacht und Nebel” operation was also by someone born in Austria.
She’s finally started to figure out how the EU form of government actually works.
This is why many UK people voted for Brexit. When you or your nation doesn’t really have serious representation in the decision-making process, while others do, then it begins to suck after a while.
What future for our children is contemplated? As far as I can see they are not likely to have one worth living for.
Cheer up, Barry, it’s not that bad. Humanity has hit a little bump in the road, but we’re going to oust these socialists soon. 🙂
Those damn kids. No matter what you plan for them, they all grow up and do what ever they want to anyway. All my lifetime savings for their medical degree wasted on poetry school.
Gewessler is one of the top green loonies in Europe. She was CEO of one of those climate fanatic NGOs (Global 2000) and never had to face reality outside her Green Bubble.
She is nothing more then a physically grown-up Greta.
The Energiewende should have disabused the True Believers in their trust in wind and solar. But, as True Believers, they will always double down on failure.
What will become apparent is just how many sincere fanatics there are in the EU, and how many politicians who were just sucking up to the green blob.
Who would have guessed, that France, under Liberal President Macron, has 56 operating nuclear power plants? Now the EU’s idea of future electricity needs is a connector to the France grid.
And Germany is shortly to have Russian gas. So suddenly Gas is also green.
Of course, nothing that the UK has could possibly be acceptable,,,
dodgy geezer,
Concerning of “Gas”,
“Of course, nothing that the UK has could possibly be acceptable,,,”
That is certainly true of PM Boris Johnson and his UK Government.
In the UK natural gas costs nearly ten times as much as it does in the USA.
This is because the Johnson government has banned fracking for gas from shale and has forbidden exploiting traditional gas fields.
Also, Brexit means the relaxation of EU Rules will not alter these policies.
Richard
“What will become apparent is just how many sincere fanatics there are in the EU,”
I’m wondering about that number. Is this just a small group of climate fanatics with too much influence, or is climate fanaticism widespread in the population?
How many people are expressing “fury”over this natural gas/nuclear decision?
good question
The number of “how many sincere fanatics there are in the EU” is not being given much discussion in the UK where it is certainly not being considered as a “good question”. For example, the BBC has not mentioned the change to EU ‘renewables’ policies but continues to proclaim the need for “Net Zero” as being a generally accepted reality.
Richard
Are they also counting on “sincere fanatics” in Canada, whose CPP investors, have invested heavily in European renewables?
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/cpp-investments-commits-eur245-million-to-renewable-power-capital-subsidiary-in-support-of-first-investment-in-european-renewables-807292605.html
USA is set to eclipse Australia as the largest net exporter of gas by the end of 2022. Maybe Biden is not as silly as he appears.
Australia got $48bn in export earnings from LNG in 2021 and USA is about to overtake that.
Good time to be an LNG exporter. LNG now firmly in the arsenal toward net zero and EU committed to net zero bodes well for LNG producers.
It’s too bad that they are anti-coal 😔
not for the rest of the world where it will be continued to be used for decades to come..
Biden had nothing to do with the development of natural gas in the US
And he has begun blocking exploration & leasing.
Biden is a huge emitter of natural gas. As Camilla can attest.
Camilla Parker Bowles keeps talking about Biden fart at COP26 (nypost.com)
It probably was not just a fart. Biden probably filled his pants
Japan and Australia have just announced a closer defence relationship agreement, the earlier two are between Japan, United States of America and Australia and India, Australia, Japan and USA.
From what I read today in The Australian newspaper part of this strengthened relationship includes energy supplies and in particular LNG and Coal. On the military side Japan has participated in major annual military exercises in Australia on a regular basis for many years alongside Australia’s other major allies, during 2022 Japanese forces will be stationed at ADF Bases alongside US forces and other allies will continue regular visits.
Australia also has substantial reserves of Uranium and Thorium for nuclear reactors and other purposes.
The new Agreement with Japan should be considered alongside the AUKUS – Australia, United Kingdom and United States Agreement signed during 2021 and the decades old ANZUS – Australia, New Zealand and United States.
Gosh! I hope all of these ‘foreign’ groups have been ‘jabbed’, and are prohibited from contact with those in the “concentration” camps. Wouldn’t want them weakened.
I’d say we’re about 2 federal terms away from massive investment in small civil nuclear electricity generation development. When that comes no one will listen to the naysayers, the country will be almost entirely in favour of it. We’ll get the benefit of 80 years of reactor technology developments, and end up with the best safe civil nuclear reactors anywhere.
I suspect that the Federal Government has already been talking to Rolls Royce UK, the UK Government has apparently ordered some of their modular nuclear power generators, and add the Free Trade Agreement now signed and the AUKUS Agreement and nuclear submarines for the RAN.
“Japan and Australia have just announced a closer defence relationship agreement”
Good news!
About 1990 the Japanese PM flew to Washington USA and signed a then new defence arrangement and then he flew to Canberra Australia and it was also signed by the Federal Government.
Even at that time Japan was concerned about the potential of attack from North Korea and China in the future, the defence relationships included Japanese citizens being granted asylum in Australia and the United States if Japan was under threat.
Maybe Biden is not as silly as he appears.
Maybe, but he manages to appear EXTREMELY silly, so maybe not much of an improvement in real terms.
Silly? Senile? Yesterday, for example, he stated that 2020 looks like it will be a good year. That’s probably because that’s the last year he remembers.
Not only is Biden silly, he’s dangerous. Ask the Afghans. Millions starving in Afghanistan, and this one is all Joe’s baby. This was his policy and he carried it out against the advice of what appears to be all his advisors.
Biden is not the person we want leading us. He should be in jail, instead.
*thunk*
Sorry, that bar was set too low….
Did you just stub your toe?
How did Biden help?
Like the increase in oil output under Obama, it all occurred despite the president, rather than because of him.
Based on the theory that judges have to actually consider real evidence and also that they are not irredeemably ideologically possessed, I look forward to such a lawsuit.
The best argument is that you can’t just consider the (mostly imaginary anyway) harms of fossil fuels but you also have to consider the benefits. The ratio of the two is probably measured in orders of magnitude. How can you sue for damages when you’ve had such a huge net benefit?
The defendants can also honestly argue that they tried their best to make wind and solar work but discovered (the hard way) that there’s no way that will ever happen.
Under EU law the Commission cannot be sued. It makes law but does not have to comply with it.
Quite. It’s a bit like suing a lottery for giving you hundreds of millions, because they ‘ruined your life’.
It was inevitable I suppose but my ‘dark triad’ is disappointed.
It was looking forward to a complete economic and social collapse if only as an example to the nutters elsewhere in the world.
I think its funny enough that they threw in the towel. Complete economic and social collapse would not be pleasant for the participants, and I have friends in EU countries who are already suffering the problems caused by the EU’s gross economic and political mismanagement.
My ‘light triad’ sympathizes Eric.
Germany has a national paranoia about radioactivity from nuclear and CO2 from burning lignite “coal”. Continuing to shut down those two sources leaves them with only natural gas (capacity factor for solar in <11% in Germany). Germany, facing this reality, has agreed to abstain when the EU Parliament, later this year, will vote to allow both nuclear and gas to be eligible for “sustainable’ financing. Germany, agreeing to abstain assures authorization.
Clean Energy Wire today, January 4,2022
…news agency Reuters reported the coalition partners agreed to abstain in a vote when EU leaders will have their final say at a summit later this year to avoid conflict at EU level. The German energy industry association BDEW welcomed the decision and said investments in hydrogen-ready gas power plants were “imperative” for the transition to a completely climate-neutral energy supply in the European Union.
Comment: stick a fork in Wind it’s “done”.
Comment: stick a fork in Wind it’s “done”.
I hope so. What a terrible waste.
It’s a done deal.
As for the gas, considered a “transition source”, the investments will be considered “sustainable” only for plants with emissions of less than 100 grams of CO2 per kWh, a threshold according to experts unattainable with current technologies. But for power plants with a building permit prior to December 31, 2030, the limit will be 270 grams of CO2 per kWh provided they replace much more polluting existing plants and meet a series of criteria, which will be verified by an independent third party.
“It’s a done deal.”
Yup. Per my comment up-thread, it’s an indication of how politics is done in the EU.
As the leading economy in Europe, and chief paymaster of the EU (even bigger chief when the UK reduces its exit charges), Germany does have the right to a bigger say than others.
But, that Germany needs only to pretend to abstain from voting in order to get what it wants, says everything about the poor democratic representation in the EU:
Germany usually gets what Germany wants, even without having to vote (and when I say “vote”, I don’t mean the people of Europe. I mean the Beaujolais-swilling people in Brussels who dine out on the tab of people who never got asked to vote for them.)
The most dispiriting thing, for me, is that German politicians seem, to be so beholden to swing-vote Green crazies who get ~15% of the vote but who can hold the more sensible people to ransom.
“What a terrible waste.”
Yes, think about all the money that has been wasted on windmills. Think of the birds. Think of the blight on the landscape. Think of the stupidity.
Australia has one nuclear facility producing radio isotopes for commercial and medical purposes since the 1950s, and is involved in research.
The CEO of ANSTO commented recently on a Sky News documentary on nuclear energy that Uranium and Thorium are the future nuclear fuels for centuries to come and in the not too distant future depleted fuel will be recycled and used again.
https://www.ansto.gov.au
Nice to hear. I blog on Quora. The Aussies there are all rabid solar and battery enthusiasts that hate my truth telling about the cost of storage.
Me too, I have had similar “debates”, and note that few understand costings, cost-benefit analysis etc.
There is a well coordinated rabble of activista on Quora pushing their dogma on many fronts including international relations, defence and trade. The same names keep on cropping up and espousing little real understanding of the issues other than undermining the LNP government.
Much like yourself, I enjoy needling them with facts.
Economics is not relevant to green dreams. Their experience is someone else always pays, so why bother with economics?
They do have a point … no matter how stupid and selfish.
A slight modification required:
Uranium and Thorium are the future
nuclearfuels for centuries to comeIt will soon have a few more in the form of nuclear submarines
15 years, minimum.
I understand that the AUKUS Agreement includes RAN personnel being trained on UK and US nuclear submarines, on those vessels using the RAN submarine base in WA and leasing the RAN nuclear submarines until new ones are built for the RAN.
That understanding is not fully correct, Dennis. The leasing option was directly ruled-out by Scott Morrison 2 days after AUKUS was announced.
The only plan that has been announced, is for up to eight SSNs to be built in Adelaide. And an up to 18 month study ion how to achieve that.
Some say that it will take decades. The current head of the US Indo-Pacific fleet said that much. The informed consensus in those terms, and those terms, alone, is a minimum of 15 years, and possibly 25 years.
Actually, you get a lot more radioactivity emitted from burning coal than you do from a nuclear power station…
totally agree, then the fly ash is used for making radioactive concrete structures such as AP runways.
try checking the background at Warsaw airport on the ground, it’s a real eye opener.
You take off, and the background levels drop until you reach at least 3000-5000m.
Night time runway lighting not required.
So Germany is going to abstain on the vote to call nuclear eligible for sustainable finance while itself in the midst of closing down that same industry in Germany, Insane!
France would never have agreed to shut down its nuclear power industry.
What is to stop Germany and Austria going it alone to the bitter end, the ‘Stalingrad spirit’ and all that.
Chris,
early in President Macron’s term in office that is exactly what he was proposing, shut down some nuclear and build more wind generation. That has now changed so at least some sense prevailed there.
In fact it was his “deep green” environment minister Nicolas Hulot that was leading the campaign against nuclear which is why there was an early “parting of the ways”.
Theoretically the plan is still to reduce nuclear to 50% of generation and wind is supposedly still expanding though not if the local communities have a say in the matter. There are more “Aeoliennes — non merci” signs around here than there are ever likely to be turbines!
You mean Nicolas Hulot who raped Mitterand’s daughter, then denied all knowledge of it?
I don’t see the relevance to this discussion.Do enlighten me.
Beginning in 2012 and passing in 2015 France was saddled with the “Energy Transition for Green Growth Act” which limits them to 63.2 GW.
That 63.2 GW limit on nuclear capacity meant that EDF is prevented from uprating their nuclear plants. That’s notable.
However, just recently, Macron has said France will build a couple more nuclear plants.
How can the incredibly stupid and incompetent U.K. and EU government energy policy makers have remained so totally clueless for so long. It seems highly unlikely that the Democrats in the U.S. and California (Biden & Newsom) have any intelligence that would allow them to wake-up from their idiotic energy and emissions stupor.
They make stupid decisions because there is no real democratic oversight to shake them out of their arrogant complacency. Problems only get attention when they are so severe they threaten the integrity of the EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_European_Union
“They make stupid decisions because there is no
real democratic oversight to shake them out of their arrogant complacencyrequirement for them to read this blog.”Fixed it!
If they are going to go the route of fostering a crisis American style (a mortgage loan for everyone breathing) or future crisis (a union-made EV in every garage no matter the price tag or safety), then they also need to adopt the political tactics of massive stimulus to buy votes and debase the currency. Thus, Germany must be shaken out of its high savings ways to make it all work.
“How can the incredibly stupid and incompetent U.K. and EU government energy policy makers have remained so totally clueless for so long.”
Because none of them were willing to break with the climate orthodoxy until now when it is obvious to anyone looking that there is a big problem on the horizon for the electrical grid, and this winter might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Some people are seeing the light and realize we cannot carry on the way we have done in the past because Grid Disaster is looming.
There is no sign that the incompetent U.K. government is correcting its energy policy.
And in the EU it is only Germany changing tack. France has been on nuclear for decades.
Of course Germany (without France opposing) is the EU, politically.
But there still needs to be a fig leaf of independence maintained. There will be lots of strong words and vigorous tutting before acquiescence is completed.
Because they were previously led by an alcoholic who couldn’t stand up then claimed he had a previously unknown “health condition”.
..then along came van der LAMER, who’s previous claim to fame was to screw up the entire German army restucturing to the point they became a non functional army.
Only the Versailles treaty could result in such a successful disarming of Germany, and we know where that ended……
Van de lamer then screwed up the Covid vax op, and then claimed it was the British to blame.
What a lovely girl she is….paid more to fail than even AOC!
Greta has become the new benchmark for testing to see if your environmental policies are actually rational and workable.
If she throws a wobbly? Your plan is sensible.
Also, Germany? if you are grumpy about those mean and nasty Brussels people in the EU pushing you around, you can always Deutschland austritt.
Like the song goes – Brüssel Brüssel über Deutshland…
I feel we need a Thursdays for Thunberg movement.
The World’s Youth can pledge to undertake an extra 6 hours of STEM study every Thursday so when they hang out with Greta on Friday they can explain what all the big words mean.
The arrogance of a government telling people what they should invest in is topped by the stupidity of the people that would listen to them.
It’s been posted many times that in 2015 UN Official Christiana Figureres admitted to an audience, the IPCC Paris Conference was held from late November into December 2015, that climate change is a cover for the real agenda being to change the capitalist system (free enterprise, free markets) as the world has known it, and for redistribution of the wealth of developed nations and the people.
None-the-less some can tell it like it is.
Isn’t government controlling which producers are allowed financial backing the very definition of fascism?
Problem is it’s our mandatory superannuation retirement investment funds that are being told to do this.
Just curious about the unicorn with the rainbow tail image. Can someone explain why this image was chosen for the article?
It’s international visual-shorthand for childish, foolish, ignorant people spewing nonsense ideas, usually from both ends, in the form of a magic rainbow stream of thoughts issuing from rear, and vomiting from mouth. Such people as don’t listen to why things don’t actually work that way so always waste everyone’s time, and ‘learn’ the hardest and most hideously expensive ways (repeatedly, or rather, don’t), decades later, the same basic things educated, experienced, smarter, sensible types already knew in great detail, 30 to 50 years prior.
It’s a symbol of disgust re the relentless optimistic ignorance of how the world really works. The rainbow aspect predates the hijacking of the rainbow symbol by the US political gay-rights lobby, so nothing to do with that.
It’s more a reference to the absurdly happy and optimistic child’s cartoon, “My Little Pony”, which has evolved into remarks about idiotic looking rainbow unicorns, that sh|t-out an infinite assortment of magic confectionary, for everyone to feast on, in pure bliss, at no cost to anyone.
Free, renewable, electricity.
In this use, it refers to Greenie-scammers, selling to the super-dumb the concept of subsidised renewable supply tech, that can never provide affordable base-load power, while telling giant lies about how well it’s all been going. And the reality of those monumental lies is finally showing up in politically undeniable ways.
Alternatively, the primary ideological idiot within the German upper leadership for the past 20 years just retired, thus making room for a modicum of sanity to be reasserted for a brief moment … of actual hope.
said neither gas nor nuclear belonged in the taxonomy “because they are harmful to the climate and the environment and destroy the future of our children”.
Well, is that presumptuous or what? As a member of the human race, she herself is harmful to the climate, and who does she think she is, having children? They’ll just increase and multiply and cut down trees for houses and cut down more trees for the paper which bears their Important Writings of diatribes against their neighbors’ motorized transport. She needs to learn from the lemmings.
A Greta tantrum plus $5 still won’t get you anything at Starbucks.
And yet, nuclear is greener (lower CO2) than solar and wind:
https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
Avoiding nuclear is willfully choosing LESS GREEN solutions.
When reality clashes with Climate Change dogma, reality wins…eventually.
Agreed …being saying this for a couple of years now…
“ the eco lunacy will stop once the policy makers hit the wall of thermodynamics and energy supply….”
Agree but these same lunatics champion the poor and underserved which their policies hurt the most. And these lunatics get re-elected 😞
Battered wife syndrome
But reality won’t win until the Climistas run out of Other People’s Money.
The EU gas is Russian
I reckon that Coal, in the not too distant future, will have a green hue as well.
Maybe starting off with “just Turquoise” working through to “Forest Green” in the next 5 years?
Gee I hope so because I had a bet with my Brother in Law that we would live to see this stuff dispatched to the annals of biggest scams in the history of the world + or – 10% to give it a “scientific” feel.
Fracking may also get a makeover
Fracking *should* get a makeover. That ought to be next on the list.
I guess they are upset because it makes too much sense: nuclear has half the carbon footprint of wind and one-tenth of solar, and you get to keep your forests green and natural, not covered with panels and turbines, access roads and power lines. The offshore turbines’ bases might be good artificial reefs however.
As well they were always going to need natural gas plants to fill in when the wind and sun don’t show up for work – there’s not enough resources in the world to battery backup even just Europe, and does anyone really want to turn the Alps into Venice to get enough pumped storage?
somehow I don’t think the Swiss would agree, quite apart from the fact the alps from FL10 appear quite frozen,- not great for doing anything with water apart from making more glaciers!
So at long last we have actually seen a real, live tipping point. And I thought they were just fantasies
It’s a tipping point in slow motion.
Here’s a thought watermelons. If the poor folks you create can’t afford gas because you’ve banned their coal and don’t like nukes howsabout they get a barrow load of Drax woodchips a week to keep them warm instead?
Gas price hike of more than 30% stokes home bills fears for Europe | Gas | The Guardian
‘draft proposals’.
they are still discussing… er, arguing… over this.
Gas is only included as a ‘bridge fuel’ you might note and the scale of nuclear plans within the EU is quite low.
The very fact that the EU is even discussing Nuclear represents a huge defeat for your ilk.
Mixing Green with Yellow Cake would make them Chartreuse
A huge defeat. The narrative has changed. The limitations of unreliable power production, such as what we get from windmills and solar, are becoming obvious. Even to the politicians.
Yes, gas is a “bridge fuel” – for when they decide gas is actually good (again).
It will help them bridge back to coal.
Hey Mr Nutcase from UK….they are even discussing sticking a small reactor down the road from me, close to the local harbour.
The ex-USSR wouldn’t really care, cos the environemental catastrophe has already happened and they had to get foreigners to cover up the zillions of tons of Uranium tailings at nearby Sillamae…..
oh and hey, thanks to the EUSSR, we are forbidden to use oil shale in future as an electricity generation fuel, so they have been using 15% of my electricity bill to install shitty solar panels (covered in snow in winter and with virtually no daylight) and wind farms sub’d by again my bills. (they don’t even attempt to hide that!)
so, in your stupid shallow life, how do you propose to heat my apartment in winter?
Gas (from Gazprom Russia) via communal heating?
Oil from oil shale….
Electricity from who knows where but still currently oil shale?
non existent solar and wind cos, it doesn’t even blow enough here on nice freezing -20C anticyclone days..
ANSWER GRIFF!!
Stop shitting with your crappy posts, and give me some nice cheap solutions, cos I don’t have any and I pay the bills you prat!
Griff will never reply, as you well know.
Finally…..some reality breaking out. Wonder what Boris Johnson and the other eco-converts will make of it…….
and on the other hand, this is ironic:
World’s largest coal port to be 100% powered by renewable energy | Fossil fuels | The Guardian
The world’s largest coal port has announced it will now be powered entirely by renewable energy.
My memories of loading coal in Newcastle are that the sun shines most of the time during the day, and often there is an onshore wind, but at night the wind sometimes dies and the sun never shines.
I wonder how they are going to run all the conveyer belts, bulldozers etc. at night to maintain the 24 hour working.
Oh, of course, silly me, they will be going back to shovels and wheelbarrows, and ships derricks which run on ships power, and the Pilot Cutter will be propelled by paddlers.
And what will the Green Zealots do when coal is no longer mined and none is available to manufacture the Structural Steel needed for Wind Turbines or to manufacture the Clean Silicon needed for Solar Panels
isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
It’s like …
Not exactly powered by wind . they’ll purchased windmill generation certificates- a familiar form of green scam
Bingo
Just sound business practice griff. Why burn your valuable export commodity for electricity when with a bit of form filling and box ticking you can go subsidy mining for cheaper power and other dumb schmucks can pay for that-
Large-scale generation certificates (cleanenergyregulator.gov.au)
It’s not for private corporate management and shareholders to go around insulting dumb schmucks that they shouldn’t be voting for such largesse as presumably the education system and all those learned perfessors are on top of all that. It’s just not woke mate.
No research as usual. Just one large stockpile machine takes 2 MW 24/7 and there are plenty of these machines in the largest coal port.
Unreliables just can’t do it even in your wildest dreams.
Give up, you are clutching at straws.
griff, you post that as if you actually thought it meant something.
The EU defending sanity but the member states against? Who would have thought it?
“the EU’s commitment to renewables had to end”
Let’s be honest here, it’s not ended any commitment to unreliable energy.
Good point. There are still plans ongoing to blight the landscape even more with windmills and solar.
Germany will soon become the middleman for Russian gas sales in the EU, which bodes ill for EU unity. Raising emission charges in this situation is senseless. Rather, modern technologies for coal-fired power plants should be taken care of. With such a policy, Western European countries are becoming completely dependent on Putin.
The USA in particular needs to wake up to the fact that countries like Germany – and possibly France as well – are moving steadily further away from the US and closer to Russia. The US need to take a good look at themselves and turn back from their current trajectory – their internal surrender of power to woke fascist-evangelists and especially their deeply racist and obnoxiously supremacist foreign policy, where countries like China and Russia are unconditional racial adversaries. And this is somehow OK? The world is getting sick of this, and if the US doesn’t change course it’s in for a very rude awakening.
No kidding, China CCP are @ssholes.
The woke fascist-evangelists are in direct opposition to China and Russia as adversaries.
The adversarial relationship with Russia and China have nothing to do with race, but their policies, especially their recent use of force to expand their territories.
The abandoning of the concept of American exceptionalism has been a clear foreign policy failure. Instead of other countries wanting to adapt the parts of American systems that will work for them, now they just want a slice of of US riches. And if America is just another country, why not drift to Russia.
The toxicity in relations with Russia and China is partly self-fulfilling and self-sustaining. The US and “west” in general missed a big opportunity with Russia at the fall of the Berlin wall. Why did Germany get a Marshall plan and Russia not? With China naive mistakes were made regarding e.g. technology IP but its no good crying over spilt milk. Politics must re-learn friendship with caution – the right kind of duplicity. A Statesman (of either gender) would try to try to snap out of the negative cycle, while mere politicians are happy to stay on the now-popular but dangerous downwardly spiralling waterslide.
(“Dune” should be essential reading for all politicians. Maybe too a training course with the Bene Gesserit.)
The US and ‘west’ in general controlled Germany at the end of WW2, they had no control over Russia at the fall of the Berlin wall, thus the Marshall Plan could be implemented for one and not the other.
“The world is getting sick of this”
You are speaking for the world, are you?
Somebody has to be the world’s policeman, otherwise the criminals/dictators run wild. Who would be your choice for world policeman?
It appears the intellectual prowess of i.p. German politicians has somewhat diminished over the years.
Priceless.
1/. So much money has been poured into Climate Change they cant back out now.
2/. Quick buck renewables simply aren’t working as energy generators.But as profitable virtue signallers they are superb.
3/. The dilemma is fixed by a lexical sleight of hand. After all solar power and wind power are driven by the Great Reactor in the sky, so a reactor on earth has to be just as green, heh?
4., In 20 years nuclear power will be all there is, the planet wont have fried and the Greens will take credit.
This is a good and smart move by the EU.
The one good thing to come out of the climate fiasco is a nuclear renaissance.
Needless to say the antinuclear IQ-same-as-shoe-size Luddite Neanderthals can be expected to be in full howl.
Let them howl. They’re just as much a useless waste of space as the anti-vaxxers.
If a person gets the MMR vaccine but doesn’t get the gene therapy shot are they an anti vaxxer 🤔
I’ve no idea what that means.
MMR does not cause autism.
Autism isn’t even a disease.
Its the next evolutionary development of humans.
Current human sociobiology/bottom-sniffing behaviour was adapted for palaeolithic hunter-gatherers and is not fit for purpose in modern technological society.
Best to just drop it.
Everything will work better with less conflict and more efficiency once most people are autistic within a few millenia.
Autism comes in an extremely wide range of effects, most of which result in significant limitations. At its core is a deficit in social communication. There is certainly no reduction in conflict or increase in efficiency in a class of autistic children.
You may be thinking of the top end of the spectrum formerly known as Asperger’s, where people are seen as socially awkward but are able to function independently. Even for them, it is about discovering a proper slot. Even the world’s most famous person with autism, Temple Grandin, has said “the part of other people that has emotional relationships is not part of me”. A society dominated by autistic people would not function well. Without an extremely powerful government and severe restrictions on civil liberties, it probably wouldn’t function at all.
A sphincter says what?
In the end, Greenies just can’t help themselves. They go full Godwin. It’s really all they have left.
Not sure an Austrian referring to Night and Fog is a good idea.
Nacht und Nebel (meaning Night and Fog), was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance “helpers” in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during the World War II, who were to be imprisoned, murdered, or made to disappear, while the family and the population remained uncertain as to the fate or whereabouts of the alleged offender against the Nazi German occupation power. Victims who disappeared in these clandestine actions were never heard from again. (Wikipedia)
EU Draft Proposal for Nuclear and Gas
EU bureaucrats are finally facing reality
With energy costs soaring and citizens complaining, the EU is finally shifting to a more pragmatic energy policy…
They declared, in a draft proposal: “Nuclear and gas are good enough for the EU, if certain conditions are met”
The German Government, and a few other EU governments, are upset about EU draft proposal
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/eu-seeks-classify-some-natural-gas-and-nuclear-green
Two Nuclear Green Requirements
– The project has a plan, funds and a site to safely dispose of radioactive waste.
– New nuclear plants must receive construction permits before 2045.
Four Natural Gas Green Requirements
– Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green, if they have emissions below 270 g of CO2e/kWh.
– Replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant
– Receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030
– Plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035
Point number 4 is interesting. To be classified as green, Owners have to “plan”, not to “do” something, i.e., switch to low-carbon gasses.
Low carbon gasses are defined as biogas, bio methane, or hydrogen produced via electrolysis by using renewable-generated electricity.
As methane is methane, a plan to switch to low-bio methane costs nothing (no plant retooling needed).
Doing is another matter. Maybe it will be more economical in 2035.
Previously, the EU proposed a 100 g of CO2e/kWh emissions limit, based on climate fear-mongering, and “steps needed to avoid disastrous climate change”.
That went out the window, after already over-stressed consumers complained about the very high cost of electricity and heating.
French president Macron did not want another “Yellow Vest Movement” protest about energy; he is facing a tough re-election in April, 2022.
France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear, due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
It has among the lowest household electricity prices in the EU, primarily due to low-cost nuclear.
France was aiming reduce nuclear to 50% by 2035, but that goal may be revised.
The EU draft proposal would provide a more practical and environmental approach, in contrast to the ridiculous path Angela Merkel took Germany.
Merkel gave in to the Greens. She agreed to phase out nuclear.
As a result, Germany became more dependent on coal; that makes no environmental sense.
Mothballing nuclear plants that have decades more useful life, makes no sense regarding energy cost and the environment.
Weather-dependent wind and solar are unreliable, as Spain found out, and its citizens are complaining the most.
A cold winter and soaring prices knocked some sense into the EU.
High inflation trumped green ideology.
US Energy Policy on Hold, due to the Controversial BBB bill
Biden’s extreme-leftist handlers have not yet learned from European Experience
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, et al., three well-known energy systems analysts, are still setting US energy policy.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/build-back-better-would-cost-3-95-trillion-overt-the-next-decade
From the article: “The long predicted collapse of the EU renewable energy push has finally arrived. The EU has effectively just admitted renewable energy does not work, by moving to extend their definition of green energy to include reliable power sources like natural gas and nuclear energy.”
You can’t fool Mother Nature!
Actually, this is a good sign. Some of our leaders are bowing to the inevitable.
I’m trying to understand how this will make any practical difference in the near term. It does not appear this will reverse Germany’s closure of three nuclear plants last December or plans to close the final three this December.
Austria has no operational nuclear plants and none under construction or planned.
Ditto Italy.
Spain has seven operational reactors. Work stopped on four uncompleted reactors in 1984. No others are under construction or planned.
Greece has one old reactor that will reach 60-year end of life in 2033 and none planned or under construction.
Belgium has 7 operational reactors — all slated for decommission by 2025. Total output is about 6GW at two sites, but both have capacity factors in the 65% range — quite low by nuclear standards.
France has a bunch of reactors, but only one under construction. Quite a few entered service in the 1980s. Some are slated for closure after less than 60 years operation but some others have been upgraded and scheduled for operation beyond 60 years. There will certainly be no significant increase in French nuclear generation in the next 10 years and there will likely be some reduction.
Poland has none operational but 7 planned. Earliest commission date is 2033, but this is dubious given that no construction has started.
Hungary has four operational and two more planned (all Russian designs).
Czech Republic has 6 operational and 3 planned. The oldest four entered service between 1985 and 1987, so they will likely all have to be decommissioned within 15 years.
Recent experience suggests that it will take at least 10 years to complete any nuclear plant starting construction this year.
As for natural gas unless domestic production increases all this will do is increase dependence on Russia. All of the EU produces slightly less natural gas than just Norway.
As I understand it, the EU proposal allows nuclear and natural gas to be counted towards “green” energy goals, but does not otherwise encourage their use. Unless Germany and Belgium reverse their nuclear closures (about 14.4 GW total), this lost capacity will have to be made up by either increasing dependence on Russia or increasing dependence on unreliable renewable sources. Even a crash nuclear program started today won’t produce any relief this decade.
Natural gas plants can be built much faster and cheaper, but the EU does not have the domestic gas production to support them.
This could represent an initial tentative step back towards embracing reality, but by itself I don’t see it as having much effect.
It is a step, everything is a series of steps back from the brink of stupidity. It only happened a few days ago, its not as though a bunch of plants would start to be built, but in 2021 we have seen many announcements of a shift to nuclear that will come, this announcement is just the EU showing they grasp reality even if a few members don’t.
Its the first thing i have seen that is based in reality for a long time, that has to count for something.
Natural gas is very clean-burning and nuclear is emissions-free. They should also include hydro-electric power generation as green as well.
Pushing the green agenda to get rid of coal and head for wind and solar is now over.I am happy with nuclear and gas. They don’t have to convince me of this so they can stop with the CO2 is bad now.
If PV solar panels, with their 10% toxic metal content and limited lifespan, can be called “green”, natural gas and nuclear should be called ultra-green.
The EU is so slow to catch on. Here in the good ole’ US of A, our brightest and finest minds have even told us that natural gas is not even a fossil fuel!
“I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.”
Nancy Pelosi, 2008
Maybe there is a middle way. Why not promote a system where the believers can individually choose to forgo the benefits of reliable inexpensive electricity and do whatever they wish while the sane people keep a system that works and buy their energy and energy-derived products from industries that work. Democracies are supposed to be about free choice – lets have that.
Ok, so now how to we get this in Britain?
First time I’ve seen something valuable come from the EU
The only renewable sources of energy are coal, oil, gas, hydro and nuclear. Wind and solar are crap that cannot even sustain their own operation, much less provide electricity for anyone, anywhere at any time. Total failure. And leftards are happy they are failing.
We still have no working def of renewable, and we won’t, it’s undefinable. Either all are or none are.
Too bad that the Netherlands got only half of the EU-memo. After years of no mention nuclear energy within the government, plans of the newly formed government now include building two nuclear power plants as “addition to solar, wind and geothermal energy”.
However, the Dutch are phasing out natural gas. New homes cannot be connected to the gas grid. All has to be electric. There is subsidy for households to get off the gas grid.
I always figured it would take several decades for nuclear power to be recognized for what it is — the only carbon-free, large-scale source of energy in existence. Remember that the alarmist movement has people who have spent their entire lives fighting AGAINST nuclear power. That’s a hard about-face to make mentally. And where would they find credibility, even with themselves? (“Listen to us because we’re all about The Science!”)
Recognition would have to wait for a new generation who doesn’t have that baggage.
“because they are harmful to the climate and the environment and destroy the future of our children”. The manufacturing and the eventual disposal of Solar, Wind equipment and Batteries is as bad if not worse than the effects of NG and Nuclear. Pull your head out of the sand. Do the research,