For a long time I have thought that the public in Western countries would wake up to the absurdity of fossil fuel suppression when the price of energy to the consumer rose high enough. And to a substantial degree that has begun to happen.
But the cost of fossil fuel suppression is not merely a modest degradation in our comfortable lifestyles and impoverishment of the poor. As the situation in Ukraine is now demonstrating, fossil fuel suppression in the U.S., Europe and other Western countries also entails significant empowerment of our most significant geopolitical adversaries, and poses major risks to world security, and even to our national security.
The coming of the Biden administration a year ago brought a full-on government war on the fossil fuel industries: cancellation of pipelines; ending of leasing of mineral rights on government lands and offshore; an order that all government agencies work by regulation to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity generation by 2035; threats by bank regulators against banks that lend to the fossil fuel industries; initiatives by the SEC to make it more difficult and costly for industries to use fossil fuels; dozens of initiatives in places like the Department of Energy and Interior Department to block projects using fossil fuels or make them more difficult or costly; and much, much more.
As should have surprised no one, prices of fossil fuels responded by rising dramatically. Prices of crude oil have gone from a range of about $40-60 per barrel during the Trump years to close to $100 per barrel today. U.S. natural gas prices that averaged about $3/MMBtu during the Trump years are now about $4.50 (having spiked over $6 in late 2021). In Europe, where almost all fracking has been suppressed by governments out of supposed concern for the environment, the most recent price for natural gas imports is close to $30/MMBtu
Certainly, a direct impact of these rising prices has been increased costs to the consumer: increased electricity bills, increased home heating bills, increased costs for gasoline for automobiles. For example the average price of regular gasoline at the pump in the U.S. has gone from about $2.25 in January 2021 to about $3.60 today.
But equally important is the degree to which these dramatic rises in energy prices benefit all the worst actors on the world state, starting with Russia. Russia is largely dependent on energy production and exports to the West for its government budget. A year ago, with energy prices in the toilet, Vladimir Putin was basically broke. Today, with energy prices having almost doubled, he is relatively flush. And suddenly we have an invasion of Ukraine, basically financed by Western countries that have suppressed their own production of oil and gas and thus must buy the stuff from Russia.
So why, you might ask, don’t the Western countries just cut off imports from Russia and leave Putin high and dry? The simple answer is that the Western countries have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in wind and solar energy that don’t work and don’t provide the energy needed; so if these countries want to keep their electrical grid running, they need to buy natural gas, which principally comes from Russia.
Consider Germany. Germany adopted its “Energiewende” back in 2010, and fancies itself leading the world to the great clean renewable energy future. Germany’s peak electricity usage is about 90 GW. To supply that, it has built some 65 GW of wind power capacity, and almost 60 GW of solar power capacity. So that’s a total of about 125 GW of generation capacity right there, against peak usage of about 90 GW. Sounds like they have plenty of power from the wind and sun alone to take care of all their needs.
But of course wind and solar don’t work that way. Here in the winter, we have the times of cloudy days, calm winds, and long nights. Here is a chart from Agora Energiewende of Germany’s electricity generation and consumption for the past few days:
It looks like just after the sun set today the wind and sun together were generating less than 5 GW out of that supposed “capacity” of 125 GW. Usage was about 50 GW at the time. Oh, and Germany is also phasing out its nuclear reactors. So aside from those tiny amounts of hydro and “biomass” at the bottom of the chart, that leaves coal, oil and natural gas; or alternatively, a blackout. From Time, today:
Th[e] glaring omission in Biden’s sanctions package could be the consequence of a promise to the countries of Europe, cowering in fear as their dependency on Russian gas renders them impotent to fight back against Russia’s invasion. This is not unreasonable. Germany especially will suffer if Russian gas imports are blocked; Europe imports 40% of its natural gas from Russia, but for Germany it is up to 50%, on top of 45% dependency on Russian coal and 34% on Russian oil. Meanwhile, Germany is continuing to phase out nuclear, making it more reliant on Russian energy imports.
And of course the U.S. can’t supply these European energy needs because the Biden Administration is intentionally suppressing natural gas production here.
Is it time for a little energy realism from the Biden people? Here are the remarks from Climate Envoy John Kerry a couple of days ago as Russia’s Ukraine invasion got underway:
“But it could have a profound negative impact on the climate obviously. You have a war and obviously you’re going to have massive emissions consequences to the war. But equally importantly, you’re going to lose people’s focus, you’re going to lose certainly big country attention because they will be diverted and I think it could have a damaging impact. . . .”
It’s almost impossible to fathom how idiotic and clueless this guy is. And I don’t necessarily mean just to pick on Kerry. It’s all of them, not the least Biden himself.
Read the complete article here.
Already read with interest at Francis Menton’s website, Manhattan Contrarian …. Francis always has keen insights on wide ranging topics. You reposted without any comments / thoughts. I recommend Wuwt readers sign up for Francis Menton’s web posts directly to avoid going over and over reposting here. ..wasting time.
From the article: “It’s almost impossible to fathom how idiotic and clueless this guy is. And I don’t necessarily mean just to pick on Kerry. It’s all of them, not the least Biden himself.”
That’s the bottom line. Our leaders are clueless, idiots.
And when it comes to climate change, leaders from all across the spectrum are clueless about what is, and what is not, real about CO2.
It doesn’t matter whether the science is good or not. They are just doing the right thing for the planet. Didn’t you get the memo?
Everyone is trying to understand the craziness, and a few have put a hammer to the nail :
Tom Luongo is usually a financial ‘guru’ let’s say, a former libertarian (hope I got that right) :
EU Sanctions on Russia Equal ‘Suicide by Cop’
https://tomluongo.me/2022/02/25/eu-sanctions-suicide-by-cop/https://tomluongo.me/2022/02/25/eu-sanctions-suicide-by-cop/
It sure does look suicidal. Only problem, they could suicide the entire planet!
Also “Putin Ushers in the New Geopolitical Game Board’
And there are more insightful people around….
Look at the traffic jams of people trying to get out Ukraine. Now imagine if they all were driving EVs.
Only the Maidan Junta could possible afford an EV – the economy is totally ruined, even before the birth of the Donbass Twins.
And they will head guess where?
Why to London and Dublin, both of which opened the gates. Talk about Chickes home to Roost!
Another outstanding article.
Now that we are in February there is the summer ahead. It’s the next winter when this hits. I think Europe is going to have to try and instigate a regime change in Russia to prevent this, god help us.
I wish them all the luck with that – the US has been trying for at least 10 years and no luck so far, perhaps the EU will manage it!
Just like that: Germany U-turns, and wants unfashionable energy like nuclear, coal, and gas
All it took was a War.
Policies based on fashion can be dead-set one day and gone the next. Until Saturday Germany was about to close its last nuclear power plants, gas production had been falling for 20 years and it planned to phase out coal plants by 203o
On Sunday all that changed:
Nuclear, coal, LNG: ‘no taboos’ in Germany’s energy about-face
That’s German LNG terminals for US gas at 4 times Russia’s price. Cost to be passed to voters.
The Multipolar World is in full swing, and that means Germany dealing with Russia, China. at long last. D.C. can fume, but times are-a-changin’.
In D.C. this is well recognized : Lawrence, very well known :
“Primacy or world order.”
https://thescrum.substack.com/p/primacy-or-world-order?utm_source=url
Portable anti-tank launchers are needed for Ukraine. The Ukrainians have been at war for eight years and can fight.
For the last 8 years the well trained Ukraine military has been fighting semi trained civilians and a handful of ‘advisors’ only partially successfully at that – they need a hell of a lot more than AT missiles to prevail against a far more modern army than theirs.
It appears that many nations are now sending weapons to Ukraine. Let’s hope they get there in time.
Urakanians are fighting for the freedom of the world. Dictators have to be shown that they cannot murder innocent people with impunity in today’s world.
We should support the Ukrainians because if we let them fall to this vicious dictator, then we will be next. So let’s stop him now. Threats of nuclear war should not deter us. A nuclear war will also kill Putin and Russia, so we should call his bluff and defend the Ukranians from this slaughter. If we can’t do that, then we can’t defend ourselves from the same tactics. At some point, Putin’s bluff will have to be called.
Hungary’s attitude should exclude the country from the EU.
Hungary and Poland are already being cripled by EU daily fines, and excluded from COVID funds. They are effectively already out, just don’t know it yet.
Ukraine should look again!
No, the Hungarian government are Putin’s friends who repeat Russian propaganda in the state media.
If Hungary and Poland leave, then they’ll take a couple more states with them and with the EU shut out of the cheap labour force of the east, is likely to implode.
I see that you know Putin’s plans.
I doubt that very much! I do, however, know how pissed off at the EU leadership the Visegrad group are. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia make up the Visegrad group within the EU – their common interests do not always align with Brussels. If one of the Visegrad group decides to leave, others will follow and likely make up a smaller, independent group of their own.
I hope some here noticed Putin put his nuclear deterrence on full alert, as Russia said statements from the UK Foreign Minister (Truss…) went beyond reason.
So who is fanning flames – why none other than Britain, again.
It should be clear who has cross-hairs on their back, because of a girl that knows less geography than Greta.
Yeah, right. I’m no fan of Liz Truss but you’ve got to be a special kind of stupid to believe that her comments somehow pushed Putin into putting missile troops on high alert status. He would have done it anyway and, this way, he might drive a wedge between UK and some of the other western countries.
Silly person and all, still represents NATOstan member UK. Now you are a nuclear target. I find that pretty dumb – this is not chess!
Putin’s “full alert” is a bluff.
U.S. intelligence says Russian nuclear forces have done nothing provocative.
The last time this bullshit happened we had Pershings on autobahns. It takes incredibly stupid, incompetent, and plainly deranged nuts to draw this upon us again.
But hey, the US-UK finance centers are deranged with $2 QUADRILLION debt that no way can be settled. And be sure Russia knows full well.
Bonbon – that will never happen. Nobody anywhere near Germany has any Pershings!
How is this for ‘realism’ – tons of fancy British/US/NATO weaponry in Ukraine are being encircled by Russia. Turns out these fancy toys use batteries, need charging, nobody told them.
EV Javelins?
Those toys have stymied Putin’s forces for days.
I want to see them work that 40-mile-long convoy over.
Here’s a hint from the Vietnam war: Catch the convoy on a narrow road, and blow up the lead vehicles and block the road, and then you can pick off those sitting behind in the traffic jam.
Too bad the Ukranians don’t have a few A-10 ground attack jets. They would make short work of that 40-mile-long Russian convoy.
Ukraine air is out. Took 90 minutes. Russia learned a lot from NATOstan in Iraq.
Denazification continues, the stated objective.
I hear that several NATO nations are going to give about 25 fighter jets to Ukrainian pilots that are currently in the NATO countries. The Ukrainian pilots will fly the aircraft into Ukraine.
So, in effect, we already have NATO calling Putin’s bluff by putting military equipment into Ukraine. If the Russians try to stop it, there will be trouble.
Putin has bitten off more than he can chew, and he is exaserbating the situation by murdering innocent Ukrainian civilians in front of the whole world.
A sane Russian general needs to fix this problem.
They’ve decided not to send any fighter planes to Ukraine now. And the convoy never was 40km long – that was a mistake; the convoy is about 17km long and when the company that caught the images stated they could see ‘more of the convoy’ some bright spark decided there must be more of the convoy to see!
“They’ve decided not to send any fighter planes to Ukraine now.”
I see that you are correct about that. It was reported on the news this morning.
Nobody seems to know the reasoning behind the delay, although I suppose we can probably guess.
The report I heard said if the 25 jets (Migs) were used, they would be flying from Poland and other nearby nations because most of the airfields in Ukraine have been cratered.
So, if that were to happen, then we would have NATO and Russia squaring off using Ukranian pilots as proxies.
That might be a reason to delay and think things over.
The slaughter of innocent civilians has to stop, one way or another. If NATO has to square off with Putin to put a stop to it, then that’s the way it will have to be.
Biden’s absolutely insane War on Oil and Gas policy of sticking rapidly increasing of wind/solar development and severely cutting fossil fuel production shows just how disconnected from reality the Biden administration is.
Oil prices have tripled since Biden’s election and will likely quintuple to $150/bbl this year due to Biden’s refusal to rapidly expand US oil and gas production, shutting down the Keystone pipeline, and at the same time allowing Russia to complete its Nord Stream 2 pipeline; insanity.
The “upside” to Russia’s unjustified and horrendous invasion of Ukraine is to show the world the economic devastation that will occur should Western counties continue their crazy CAGW goal of rapidly increasing wind/solar production and cutting fossil fuel production….
Moreover, US Leftists’ War on Oil and Gas which will lead to skyrocketing gas and energy prices, product shortages, food shortages, raw material and parts shortages, massive increase in transporting costs, factory closures, rising inflation, etc., will vastly increase the margin of Leftists’ defeat in the midterm and 2024 general elections.
Things only gets worse from here as Leftists’ utter incompetence and delusions play out.
“Biden’s absolutely insane War on Oil and Gas policy of sticking rapidly increasing of wind/solar development and severely cutting fossil fuel production shows just how disconnected from reality the Biden administration is.”
Exactly.
And unfortunately, the other leaders of Western Democracies are similarly disconnected from reality when it comes to CO2.
This CO2 crisis delusion is a serious threat to Western civilization. It causes our leaders to make really stupid decisions which are detrimental to all of us.
This contains statements from the UK minister responsible for energy…
It clearly states that more gas from N Sea or fracking will NOT reduce the price in the UK.
Yes, I know its the Guardian – hold your nose and read what the minister tweets.
Is the UK government finally seeing sense on renewables? | Energy | The Guardian
(The UK gets just 5% of its gas from Russia and with every new windfarm UK use of gas drops…)
Poor deluded Griffy. You really are in a world of your own aren’t you? Wind subsidy plants do not replace reliable energy generation – despite what the Guardian believes. Reliable energy is required no matter how many windmills are erected because the wind doesn’t blow 24/7, in fact – the more windmills you put up, the less overall energy you’ll get from them, right up to the point where you run smack into the ‘law of diminishing returns.’ You might need to go and look that one up, Griffy.
Stronger wet snowfall from over the Black Sea is now coming into Ukraine.
Huge queues on the border with Poland. Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly women and children, are fleeing. Humanitarian aid is needed on the Ukrainian side. Crossing the border may take even more than 20 days.
Even pregnant women who give birth in Polish hospitals escape.
The attack on Ukraine by Putin is a crime against humanity.
Putin must pay.
Who is Putin attacking? Kiev alone has 4 million inhabitants, Kharkiv 1.5 million.
It’s a war, all wars are crimes against humanity, but at least the Russians declared a state of war against Ukraine before starting the shooting.
No, it is the Russians who are waging war in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are on their soil and not attacking Russia.
What? How did you get that from what I wrote, Ireneusz? I know the Russians are the aggressors and Ukrainians are the defenders – how on earth could you have thought I said something different?
FWIW Russia is in the right here. If anyone knew anything about Ukraine you would NOT stand with them.
So it’s OK to invade countries and kill their civilians whenever you don’t like their politicians.