Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Rolling Stone, the best way to defeat Putin is renewable energy, which despite being cheaper than coal seems to be taking a long time to manifest.
Putin Is a Fossil-Fuel Gangster. Clean Energy Could Cut Him Off at the Knees
Putin’s war on Ukraine is financed by Russia’s vast oil-and-gas wealth, but the conflict may signal the endgame for the carbon mafia
For decades, world leaders and Big Oil CEOs were happy to turn a blind eye to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s autocratic impulses and fantasies of empire building. They were all fossil-fuel junkies, hooked on the easy money of oil and gas, and Putin had plenty of it. They helped finance pipelines and drilling rigs, and then bought as much oil and gas as he would sell them. For Putin, the cash from fossil fuels fired up his darkest ambitions. It not only helped him build the military force that he sent into Ukraine, it also gave him the means to stash billions in offshore banks that he believed would allow him to weather any economic fallout from the war.
…
Among other things, Putin miscalculated how fast the world is changing. Industrial nations are in the midst of what energy geeks like to call “a great transition” away from fossil fuels and toward clean-energy sources. It is driven by the simple and brutal understanding that if the rich, Western world continues to burn fossil fuels in the future the way it has in the past, we will literally cook the planet, making it uninhabitable for life as we know it today. If there is any good news to come out of the horrific carnage inflicted by this war, it’s this: Instead of slowing the transition to clean energy, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine may well have supercharged it. And however the war ends, Putin will pay the price. Russian oil and gas is now forever linked to autocracy, war crimes, and human carnage. “The war marks the end of Russia as an energy superpower,” says Tsafos.
…
Predictably, Republicans and their corrupt band of climate crooks and deniers immediately used the invasion of Ukraine as an excuse to deepen our dependence on fossil fuels, not free ourselves from it. They willfully ignored the simple truth that there are better, cheaper ways of powering our world with oil, gas, and coal. To them fossil fuels are the energy equivalent of testosterone. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted that Biden’s “war on American oil and gas” made Putin stronger. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem told Fox News that “from the very day [Biden] got into the White House, he gave Putin all the power.”
…
Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/putin-russia-ukraine-fossil-fuels-climate-change-1319417/
If renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel, where is it? How many trillions have been wasted on useless renewables in Europe? Yet that Russian gas still keeps flowing.
Putin gets the joke. So long as European rulers and their cheerleaders cling to the delusion that renewable energy has anything to offer in terms of independence from the Russian gas teat, Putin will have a stranglehold on Europe.
It really doesn’t have to be this way. If Europe ditched their delusional belief in renewables, and embraced energy solutions which actually work, like scaling up coal mining and fracking in the short term, and a French style nuclear programme for the medium to long term, they would not be in the pathetic position begging Putin to maintain the flow of gas, even as Russia’s armies destroy one of their fellow European nations.
Why is this happening? Why are European nations finding it so difficult to behave rationally about energy policy, and take obvious countermeasures in the face of Russia’s energy blackmail, and the very real chance the Ukraine is just the beginning of Putin’s territorial ambitions?
I don’t have a good answer to those questions. But history contains plenty of examples of nations which responded irrationally to problems, and didn’t take obvious measures to counter external threats. Such nations are described in painstaking detail, in books whose titles start with “The fall of…”.
Update (EW): Updated the video link, the old link just got censored by Youtube.
Rolling Stone is apparently believing it’s own bull.
If they were in Texas Valentines Day 2021, they might have a different opinion on wind and solar.
They are making the same mistake as Putin – believing their own propaganda.
Just like the BBC, CNN, the British government, the US government ………. !
Ah, but the Western liberal democracies are leaching of robust capitalist (i.e. retained earnings), minimally regulated market economies to sustain their delusions of grandeur.
Here’s to the Slavic Spring in the Spring series, cover-ups, collusion, coups without borders, and collateral damage with “benefits”. Bray it Forward!
Now there truly is nothing better than largely intermittent Wind and Solar………
…
I stand corrected, there is something better than intermittent Wind and solar…
My “Self Appendectomy” kit just arrived in the mail.
Yea…
/snark
Hopefully, the kit came with instructions in Braille so you can continue operating WHEN the lights go out.
Or believing Putin’s propaganda? How much funding to green NGOs get from Russia?
The answer seems to be hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars per year.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/596304-investigate-russias-covert-funding-of-us-anti-fossil-fuel-groups
Thomas, their predecessor country created the wokies beforehand, so they know how to lead them!
https://worldtalkfree.com/2021/04/current-events/the-amazing-interview-with-kgb-defector-yuri-bezmenov-a-must-watch/
Excellent interview Mr. Pearse. Thanks!
“Rolling Stone is apparently believing its own bull.”
Global warming propaganda is supported by two groups: Scoundrels and Imbeciles.
Scoundrels know they are lying – and have known for decades.
Imbeciles still believe them.
Take a look at this IMF publication.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/pdf/fd1219.pdf
Does the IMF pressure countries to invest in large scale renewables?
News just in Putin is really a good guy and is just clearing Ukraine to “build it back better” with a “green new deal”. See you just have to spin things right to a Greentard and they believe any garbage.
Mr Putin I am available to write your PR but payments are strictly in US dollars.
USD better than rubles, but go for the gold. (Also jewelry and gemstones)
Smoking their own supply.
To paraphrase Mark Twain:
“Suppose you were employed by Rolling Stone to write about “clean energy”, and next suppose you were a total ignoramus; but I repeat myself.”
Has any electric utility whether municipal or investor owned ever lowered its rates after switching to wind or solar?
Where is that graph showing higher electricity prices with increased renewable generation?
LOL every single country that has large renewable deployment the costs have risen … it’s the old cheaper energy source that doesn’t reduce cost :-).
Spetzer,
Here is one for Australia.
They are easy enough to make for any country that keeps the stats.
Too many concerned people seem to be lookers rather than doers. Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/cpi-electricity.jpg
I don’t have a graph, but I have electricity bills to pay.
don’t need a chart… just look at electricity prices in places where there are increased use of renewables..like Germany for instance, or South Australia where the grid boasts most use of renewables…AND the highest priced electricity at the retail level of any state in Australia.. Don’t stop there… check out a WUWT story some time back that compared electricity prices for states in the USA where renewables were mandated vs states where they are not… Renewable mandated states win the prize for most expensive electricity… now tell me again, just how cheap renewables are ?? oh, that’s right.. LCOE..and what a joke that is….
If what you say was true, given that solar and wind have both been around since the 1970s, we would have all switched to them long ago. Cheap energy just waiting for us to use it? Who would say no to that?
Imagine you have a fridge which keeps your food cold 100% of the time, but you don’t like the colour of it.
You buy a fridge which you do like the colour of, but it only works 25% if the time.
But you need to keep your food cold 100% of the time.
So you put a drape over the fridge whose colour so offends you, and you can move your food into this fridge when your favourite is not working.
Because you cannot let your food get warm, you have to operate this undesirable fridge 24/7. This is because you cannot really predict when it will be needed and it takes some time to get a fridge to cool to operating temperature when it has been switched off.
Start to understand why it is impossible for prices to go down when you rely on intermittent devices to provide services you need 24/7?
A very nice explanation. You’ve just doubled you expense for refrigeration AND the complexity of dealing with the unknowable times when the 25% refrigerator will not be working. You have to constantly monitor and have mechanisms in place to switch immediately.
Apparently they must all conform to the prevailing global rate of electricity.
In a competitive environment they would take advantage of rising gas prices, slash their own prices and capture a huge part of the market.
But they won’t do that because their future is guaranteed by government subsidies so they can gouge profits when the opportunity presents itself.
Nationalised business perform better than this, not by much though.
Might as well ask Mick Jagger. He might have a better answer and that takes into account that he might be stoned.
I suspect Keith Richards would be considered a political giant compared to slow Joe.
Jagger does have a degree from the London School of Economics
Remind me what qualifications Joe has……
Saw the Stones in concert last November. I could not have kept up with Jagger if I were twenty again. An amazing amount of energy. Don’t know how good his political decisions would be, but he would not be taking afternoon naps or searching for ice cream. And he would definitely remember his lines better.
Someone at Rolling Stone needs to poke their head out of the bubble for a breath of fresh air.
If any of this was the least bit true, the Energiewende would have been a raging success, and the Germans would be laughing at us instead of having to hope that Biden of all people can somehow procure them some affordable natural gas.
The German delegation were caught on camera laughing at Trump, at a conference, when he warned Germany they were about to be in deep doodoo because of their reliance on Russian gas and coal.
I really hope those delegates are reflecting on their rank stupidity.
This may be the US leader…holy Hanna is this woman dumb.
https://youtu.be/PWz0iKGnoVw
We either get that incoherence, or “Take a bus, ride a bike, or buy an EV”.
She may one day inherit the title of President, but she will never be the leader of the US.
And arrogance!
Emphasis on “rank.”
“Ye reap what ye sow!”
More like putting down the bong.
Why do the better, cheaper ways cost so much and why are they so unreliable?
The greens are trying to force the adoption of their favorite energy sources but the infrastructure isn’t there. Simultaneously they are trying to tear down the infrastructure of conventional energy.
This is completely backward. A rational person would first build the new thing before getting rid of the old thing. I think they don’t want people to have a choice. They are blind to the shortcomings of green energy.
A rational person wouldn’t build the “new thing” that THEY propose, because it’s pointless. Wind and solar are 100% dependent on the use of fossil fuels for their existence, and still require fossil fuel or nuclear backup no matter how much of it they build.
Wind and solar are nothing more than a less efficient way to use fossil fuels to produce energy.
I agree it doesn’t work. The greens just don’t care. It’s as if they have polarized glasses that filter out everything that doesn’t match what they believe.
religious dogma …
What they believe is that there is a better cleaner world to be had without the pollution caused by fossil fuels, and anyone who has lived in close proximity to a major highway or watched a 747 take off will at least understand their point of view.
Except that it is a fallacy. Fossil fuel emissions can be controlled and more punitive measures to eliminate NOx from traffic fumes is long overdue. The “west” is in general cleaner than it was in the 1950s thanks to Clean Air Acts, scrubbers in power stations, lead-free petrol, catalytic converters. Even the campaigns against smoking. Air pollution is now a problem mainly confined to South-east Asia and parts of Africa.
But to the eco-activist, “emissions’ mean CO2 because they have been brain-washed into believing that this essential trace gas has the capability to influence atmospheric temperatures to the point where the earth would become uninhabitable by mankind. Why reputable scientists who ought to know better subscribe (or pretend to subscribe) to this hypothesis is a mystery.
It is, as The Dark Lord says, “religious dogma” and it is virtually impossible, as we know,to reason a man out of something he wasn’t reasoned into. All we can do is publicise the facts and trust that truth will win out eventually.
Newminster wrote “The “west” is in general cleaner than it was in the 1950s thanks to Clean Air Acts”.
That is not the case. In countries like mine (Australia) private enterprise was well into actual cleanups before the EPA bullies appeared with their Clean Air Acts. So, do not give credit where no credit is due, huh?
Its is just like climate change, where harm is attributed to the Hand of Man while changes due to natural processes are downplayed. That is because climate bullies can try to control people more easily than they can natural processes.
It was natural processes at work that caused industries to become ‘cleaner’. Their work forces were mostly ordinary family folk with no desire to harm their surroundings, so they used Research and Development teams (most big companies had them early in the piece) to deliver ways to clean up. The cleanup took money and skill which take time to accumulate, so there was no chance of an overnight magic shift from dirty to clean.
EPA type regulators were always a costly, redundant layer whose prime aim was to take cash from companies. We took them to Court occasionally and usually won.
Why do I know this? Because I was there, doing it. Geoff S
Using renewables can decrease the use of fossil fuels. On the California grid, renewable electricity grew by a factor of 2.5 from 2009 to 2019, and fossil fuel energy fell by 20%. But renewable energy now supplies one hundred percent of the daytime power, and almost zero percent of the nighttime power. Without storage adding more renewables will not further reduce fossil fuel use
I forgot to mention, over that same time period electricity costs went up about 30%. So the 20% decrease in fossil fuel use for electricity generation was expensive. The cost of another 20% reduction in fossil fuel use will be much higher, because storage is very expensive.
You have been badly mislead if you believe this.
The actual data is readily available:
http://content.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/20210120_DailyRenewablesWatch.txt
This is the peak output of “renewables” with other sources for 20Jan 21 at 1500:
This is the minimum:
Most days “renewable” peak is less than half the demand.
Aren’t the windmill troughers worried that we may run out of fossil fuels putting an end to their racket?
Nuclear is a good base, but for the time being, a poor backup. Absent storage, e.g. natural gas, wind and solar are useless as base or backup.
If they are better and cheaper, why do they have to be both mandated and subsidized?
And why aren’t renewable factories self sustaining – install a renewable at the factory to power the manufacture of the next.
It should go exponential.
Perpetual motion……..
Our local press informed readers that Australia was well on the way to a “renewable” energy future because households now had 17GW of solar panels installed. The average demand is only 23GW so anyone can see how easy it is to have renewable anergy.
So the journalist has no understanding of capacity factors or even that the sun varies. Maybe the people who write the press releases that the journalists pick up on need to realise they are writing for innumerate dolts.
I have no doubt that the output of all those 17GW of solar panels was zero for almost 10 hours yesterday. And I can forecast that there will be a similar 10 hours today when all those solar panels produce ZERO. No one needs to be all that smart to make these predictions.
With a bit of data, I can confirm that those 17GW of solar panels peaked at 7.3GW at 1300 hours yesterday. There was ZERO output before 0530 or after 1930 yesterday:
https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=3d&interval=30m
In most of Australia, there is no way of knowing what electricity solar panels produce behind the meter. The large gap between the installed 17GW and metered peak of 7.3GW is due to a combination of factors – sun past its peak for Australia – down about 30% already in Melbourne, plenty of cloud over residential areas; diversity due to geographic spread east-west; contamination and deterioration of panels and systems (earliest rooftop about 15years old): some homes have batteries so can store daylight energy.
Point is – clearly 17GW installed and 23GW required means Australia is just about there in the journalists mind.
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s just journalists who haven’t grasped the con of installed capacity in regard to renewables. We have developers out here in the Central West of NSW talking up their product as though it’s a like for like ‘replacement’ of traditional forms of energy. One developer in The Riverina even stated that his commercial solar installation would last 50 years! Even after he was called out on this in a hearing before the planning panel, along with a long list of negatives, the project was still approved.
These projects are rubber stamped by bureaucrats. The ministers don’t even set eyes on the submissions and wouldn’t have a clue about installed capacity or capacity factors, or that there is even a difference. What’s happening here in Australia is criminal. The so called Independent Bodies that advise the government are run by greenies, Flim Flam Flannery is in charge of them.
Ah, yes, Rolling Stone, that vast font of wisdom…
Rolling Stone needs to stick to things that they know something about, IF there’s anything that they know something about. I stopped reading Rolling Stone 30 years ago when I could no longer trust their reviews – an album that they reviewed well was quite often complete garbage.
“Rolling Stone”? Really? As a leading authority on what the world needs in terms of…just about anything? I’m always amazed at the sources which consider themselves to be credible for anything.
Might I suggest that they be cut off from using any products which are in any way connected with the object of their hatred, which would be just the total of everything in this modern world. Start with the pencils and papers, if they still use them, and work up from there. Then we can see how serious they are about their wanting to outlaw the use of “fossil fuels” for their livelihood and everyday living.
Yep, I’m really tired of all this crap re: the climate nonsense. The foolish children are currently in charge of things and badly screwing up. Time to call them out on their actions and make them pay for it. In real time.
I’m sorry, that’s ridiculous. They should start with slate and chalk.
Renewable energy is cheap in the sense that the wind blows and the sun shines at zero cost. We don’t have to make that happen. We also didn’t have to put the fossil fuel energy in place. It happened a long time ago and we didn’t have to lift a finger. The cost of energy is all about the cost of extraction, transportation, storage, and conversion. When all those costs are taken fully into account. renewable energy is not cheap. People just imagine that must be because the wind blows and the sun shines for nothing, right?
It’s like talking to and explaining things to H. G.’s Eloy. They are so naive.
the EQUIPMENT to extract the energy is not renewable its ALL replaceable about every 10 – 20 years and is not recyclable …
But fossil fuels are reliable.
Yes, and it is the storability aspect that makes it reliable. If there were an inexpensive way to store the renewables, then you’d have something.
This chart tells the story.
You would need to store energy for a long time along with practically covering the earth with panels and windmills. Nuclear is our only option but we will still need fossil fuels.
Even if you did you won’t ever have enough capacity to even store energy. We can’t litter the entire earth with these stupid panels and windmills.
You can’t generate enough power.
I suppose the real argument (excuse) is that the fuel is free. And also unlimited to the extent that there will always be wind and sunshine. What the activists choose to ignore or never really understand is that the cost of energy includes all the costs associated with acquiring and processing the fuel and the raw materials and construction of the equipment which creates and distributes that energy to the consumer.
Until we factor in every cost — including wages and salaries, infrastructure, depreciation, pollution control — and disabuse ourselves of the more bizarre claims about what energy generation does (in reality, doesn’t do!) to the climate we are going to be locked in this endlessly futile argument to our eternal disadvantage!
Actually, it isn’t. To use it, there are intangible co-costs such as degradation of scenery, loss of birds and bats, exclusion of the land from other uses such as growing lumber or recreation, and damage to the environment to supply things like the rare earth elements that are essential. Then, the blades and panels have to have to be replaced periodically, again resulting in environmental degradation and land use tradeoffs.
Jeff Goodell – BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia University.
I guess that second qualification came in handy.
He is proud of the fact that he invented the term “Doomsday Glacier” to terrify the world back in 2017: https://cliscep.com/2022/01/05/the-doomsday-glacier/
Another know-nothing wordsmith.
Throw another million Ukrainians on the barbie why don’t you. It makes you wonder what nonsense was being written just before the Pearl Harbor attack.
Being that about 500 civilians have died in Ukraine, the alleged targeting of civilians isn’t going too well.
The tragedy is that during the week the 40-mile convoy was parked, a handful of A-10 Warthogs at tree-top level, with some T-35 fighter cover, would have turned the convoy into the world’s largest steel re-cycling supply center.
Or is it a 40 mile long decoy filled with conscripts from the unemployment queue ?
Sure and the lucky survivors should not be complaining because its not hard to cook, heat and live in a rubble pile. Not sure a more stupid statement has ever been posted.
The United Nations has confirmed 1,424 civilian casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war — a figure that does not include those injured or killed Wednesday in the shelling of a maternity hospital in the strategic port city of Mariupol. At least 37 children have been killed. It is estimated that the true civilian toll is much greater, according to the U.N.’s human rights office.
The World Health Organization said Wednesday that it had documented 18 attacks on health facilities, workers and ambulances since the war broke out Feb. 24.
An estimated 2,155,271 refugees have fled Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, with the bulk escaping through Poland, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported.
Russia is a failed civilization. It’s people seem unable to maintain any type of government other than a despot. Freedom and democracy is beyond their capability.
Why, suddenly, do the UN and WHO become reliable sources of information after putting the world through two years of unnecessary lockdowns, masking, social distancing, and vaccinations with a drug with no long term safety data, then utterly ignoring adverse reactions.
The WHO’s published pandemic response stated specifically not to lock countries down, but when China began welding people into their homes, it became a good idea.
Whilst tragic, with 1,424 dead civilians after more than two weeks of fighting, clearly, if Russians are targeting civilians they are not very good at their job.
What word in, “ It is estimated that the true civilian toll is much greater, according to the U.N.’s human rights office,” do you not understand?
I don’t like the sources, either, but if you have more RELIABLE sources, please share them.
There have been few Ukrainian soldiers killed, as well. Is their anything the Russian Army is good at other than destroying maternity hospitals and getting their own equipment blown up?
Sub ‘there’ for ‘their’
It was “estimate” that 500,000 people were to die from covid in the UK alone.
We are as subject to our own side’s propaganda as we are to Russia’s.
If you haven’t figured out yet that we are simply lied to every day by our government’s you haven’t learned much over the last 30 years, and more……
May well be the the great former soviet now fascist military has been hugely overrated. However they do have an improved record against civilians.
So some megalomaniac invades the “Bonny” land, destroying towns and cities.The resulting 500 deaths are a cause for back slapping.
I despair!
You don’t do reasoning, do you?
If you imagine Putin acted alone in this you haven’t a clue how the real world works.
And my point was that, were Putin targeting civilians he would only have to bomb a few refugee columns to get his score up to tens of thousands. Carpet bombing a city centre would likely account for tens, if not hundreds of thousands more.
Then there’s western and Ukrainian propaganda. Of course they’re going to whip up sympathy by citing civilian deaths.
That’s what the greens do whenever they want to change the course of politics and the human race, they lie about deaths caused by climate change.
Our governments have become so entranced with the possibilities presented by changing society using climate change they engage in the lie.
Do you imagine they are above this during a war?
I’m not especially au-fait with ‘mafia’ but ain’t the warmists guilty of that..
They have deamt up ‘a threat‘ (crap dangerous climate) while simultaneously offering ‘protection‘ (no fossils & windmills etc etc) from same – in return for truckloads of $$$$ via myriad new rules/regulations, taxes, levies & price rises and new kitchens for their mistresses
Or is that what Prohibition Gangsters did?
or Boris Johnson is doing…
or Gojo Brandum is…
or Angie Merkel did….
or…
or….
…and if you don’t pay up, they’ll send The Boys (and Girls) from The Rellious Extincters round and block up your passageway.
🙁
groan..
“no fossils and windmills instead”
Seems fair.
In the voice of Marlon Brando:
“Yo! Nice lifestyle you got there.
Be a real shame if something happened to it.”
So pay up or get out.”
Could commenters at this site find another term than “Green Energy” or at least put it in quotes. The term accepts the assumption that windmills and Solar are environmentally positive. Between the killing of birds, noise pollution, desertification under solar farms, mining pollution, environmental damage due to disposal at end of useful life and one can list more, the assertion that wind farms and solar are green is certainly arguable if not laughable.
Most of the people here recognize the difference between a green and an environmentalist.
An environmentalist is someone who cares about the environment.
A green on the other hand, says they care about the environment, but in reality are only interested in imposing socialism/communism, using any cover or excuse.
We all know words have different meanings according to how they are used. The word “green” is interesting because we can say a person is green meaning immature and inexperienced. This is the case with “green energy” which means that the technology has not been used over time and given the time to mature and become more efficient and lest costly. I am all for many small pilot projects until such time as we have reliable and cost effective products to replace what we currently use.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed. So all energy is either green or its not and its been that way for a very long time.
I quite like the term green energy, nuances of “green” as in inexperienced and stupid.
More “global warming”…
Little children, their houses buried in snow, just won’t know what snow is anymore…
Told you so, 20 years ago
HISTORIC SNOW HITS ISTANBUL; -48.5F LOGGED AT PETER SINKS, UTAH; + HALO CME TO STRIKE EARTH
March 11, 2022 Cap Allon
38 Turkish provinces are being impacted by the snowstorm, which is expected to be the country’s worst in at least 25 years…
-48.5F LOGGED AT PETER SINKS, UTAH
Exceptional cold is engulfing the United States, cold more accustomed to the depths of winter than mid-March. Hundreds of low temperature records have already been toppled
It’s The Rolling Stone. Magical thinking has always been part of it’s makeup.
Puff, the Magic Dragon!
But, but, but … the headline is correct. Read carefully. Look for the word you think is there but isn’t. 🙂
He he :-).
Out of order!
Typical leftwingnut diatribe.
The only reason Putin has leverage in Europe is because Europe buys his oil and gas, instead of producing their own, and/or because they refuse to build nuclear plants (other than France).
France was going to shutter their nukes too … but reversed course recently …
No – France was never going to shutter their plants, they are the world’s biggest fans of nuclear, generating more than 80% of the electricity with nukes. Before the Ukraine invasion the French already had on order another 14 more nukes.
You’re confusing France with Germany, who has under the previous administration elected to close down their half a handful of nukes …. but under the new admin, are reversing that stance and no doubt looking at building many more.
No, France too was making noises a few years ago about exiting nuclear but that all stopped a year or two ago
No noises except from the Greens who always make noises. The French government and laws never contemplated reducing nuclear energy production. Heck, France has made a lot of money exporting their nuclear plants around the world.
Duane – around 20 years ago, France generated around 82% of its electricity by nuclear. Last bill I got it was down to 70% or so, and several older plants were planned to be shut as we boldly went forward installing more wind and solar power to replace them. It was only a few months ago that those nuclear plants were given a reprieve because of the shock of the sudden rise in gas prices and the dawning realisation that installing gas-fired power stations (when there’s very little native gas in France, and it needs to be imported) wasn’t actually such a good idea.
It wasn’t the Ukraine invasion that prompted this re-think, but the shortage of gas on the international market and thus the cost of gas. Yep, those old nukes are near end-of-life and need replacing, but the decision to build new ones was driven by the price shock of gas prices.
Meantime, locally there’s a shortage of bottled gas and the price has risen by around a third, and Diesel fuel today is at 2.18 euros a litre. The price of electricity is state-controlled, and has only risen by around 4% (but then, the nuclear share of electricity is pretty-well long-term fixed in cost, and it’s only the gas-fired part to back up the solar and wind power that’s multiplied in cost by around 5 times).
Hydraulic despotism is a thing, even when it is applied to energy rather than water supplies.
This is yet another example of the writers and editors of a publication not knowing the difference between what is essentially a cult-like dogma or religion on one hand and the science and engineering of energy generation on the other. They believe the green renewable dogma because it provides confirmation bias for their existing belief systems. For some reason, leftist types seem to be especially susceptible to this mode of thinking although it probably happens on the right as well.
Quasi-religious beliefs are more important than facts, data, logic and reasoning when you allow your emotions and virtue signalling to overrule your intellect. That no one in the MSM, activist movements or politics seem to ask why solar panels are still far from being a dominant energy source some 68 years after they were invented (1954 according to my research) demonstrates my fear that the use of the human intellect is slowly dying out.
All we need to do is listen to Orwellian Big Brother and believe. When you are in a cult, the last thing you need to do is actually think.
Everybody wants to be an activist. it doesn’t matter what type of magazine the Rolling Stone is, the reporters must speak out.
What was that sports website with all the reporters who wanted to write about social justice and progressive causes instead of sports? Didn’t it get shut down?
Anybody know? Anybody? Andbody? Bueller? Ferris Bueller?
religious dogma … belief in “renewables” (they aren’t even renewable they are “replaceable”, about every 10-20 years and not recyclable) is a religion now …
I don’t have the answer for Europe’s mindless behavior. Europeans are exceedingly smart, maybe too smart for their own good. I do have an answer for Rolling Stone. We need to give them what they lust after. They need to be cut off from the grid, today. If they have a better way now is the time to show us.
“there are better, cheaper ways of powering our world – with oil, gas, and coal”.
Yes, they are correct.
Just how dumb do they think their subscribers are?
Having a subscription to their rag indicates how dumb they are.
“According to Rolling Stone, the best way to defeat Putin is renewable energy, which despite being cheaper than coal seems to be taking a long time to manifest.”
That really dumb. Best way to defeat Putin is help Ukraine.
Best way to help Russia is to help Ukraine. So Ukraine ends war, and then does well at recovering from bad effect of war {which may involve making huge amount of fossil fuels]
still great for Russia and bad for Putin.
Putin would want more money wasted on renewable energy by other countries.
It seems to me that the Western politicians run their Home and Foreign policies off Twitter….
The author at Rolling Stone is a Climate Crisis hack — pumping out junk news for some time.
A new brain drain from Russia is needed now, mainly to backfill what has been lost in the West from climate change indoctrination methods. Add 10 more trains a day to Helsinki and some cruise ships to exit.
As usual, the faithful deliver a lot of unsupported assertions.
The dominance of renewables is inevitable.
https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/renewables-are-87-of-new-u-s-generating-capacity-so-far-this-year/?fbclid=IwAR2X0cLvmPjA2Gc1p4e-sVy5GlhjAtbdphPm7zvw5VFsvwu5UFa-wGZsfcA
And…
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2020/0204/Solar-and-wind-energy-trounced-the-forecasts.-Can-they-do-it-again
And…
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/11/renewables-grew-at-fastest-rate-in-two-decades-last-year-iea-says-in-new-report.html?utm_content=Main&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1-ZPLmtagdWO4_vl9aFs7S9CIFGlSmCHvWRHVyXTPsHesXUsOh33JZFCA#Echobox=1620742983
And…
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/02/20/texas-to-add-35-gigawatts-of-wind-solar-in-next-3-years-boosting-grid-resilience/
And…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26355-z
This is why the fossil fuel shills like Worrall are running in a full panic.
ROFL you greentards are winning so much our emissions are really getting smashed down in leaps and bounds … what was our CO2 emissions again last year?
What is funny is watching you guys dredge up opinion pieces from dropkicks who try to ignore basic data. Try stop reading what others say and look at basic data and what is happening is obvious.
CO2 emissions are going up so much that we should reach Net Zero by around 2035 and the trick is to print enough Carbon Credits by then. The only decreases are accounting tricks and by 2035 the farce will have got so large it will become a hip joke about how many carbon credits do you own?
If fossil fuel shills exist they are kicking your butt, I believe the score was 38Gt to 0Gt last year.
Barry comes on here from time to time to exhibit his total absence of basic numeracy.
numeracy
noun
skill with numbers and mathematics
the skill with numbers analogous to literacy, the skill of reading
the quality of being numerate
numerical skill
skill with numbers and mathematics
Barry, I feel with you, but I can’t help you.
Barry if renewables were any good your fellow travellers wouldn’t have to keep begging for handouts. Renewables are a joke, and no amount of delusional claims otherwise will make any difference to that basic reality.
You are such a clown I have to assume you are secretly Justin Trudeau.
Handy reference guide as to the destructive nature of wind turbines.
https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
The dominance of the Soviet Union is inevitable.
-Leonid Brezhnev, 1965.
When has Rolling Stone been correct about anything? I’ve been hearing this renewable nonsense for more than 30 years and things are little changed since then.
“Who run Barter town” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgq4w4dqKsU&t=5s
Putin!
Yep – excellent example, one of my favourite films. Very applicable.
sad but true, i have seen Mad Max 2 over 70 times.
CO2 is not a “pollutant,” despite what the EPA declared.
What business, military, etc. puts a prototype into production before it is tested? AND scraps what did work before the prototype is finished?
None.
But the Greens will and have.
Brandon and AOC are the perfect stooges.
Rolling Stone: “there are better, cheaper ways of powering our world with oil, gas, and coal” and it is called Nuclear Power. Anything else is a SCAM.
Even if you accept their description of Putin and oil money, who gets the money for solar and battery storage? China, which is Purim’s biggest competitor in autocratic empire building.
Clowns everywhere
Germany has twice as much generation compared to load as we do here in Alberta, 60% renewable and can’t keep the lights on affordably.
For Barry Anthony
They have twice the amount of generation with less reliability
Explain
Great transition…. pfffttt.
Not even being able to keep up with energy use growth is transition?
My electricity account was given to Shell when my supplier went bust last year. They boast of supplying me with 100% renewable energy and yet my unit cost has gone up 36%!! Yes, I know they are lying about the source of supply as it a scam using bits of paper. BUT…the standing charge has gone up a whopping 73%!!!! Yep, no amount of using candles or washing clothes/dishes by hand can reduce that charge. out of interest I have asked them to explain it but the answer will lie in the fact that keeping our grid from collapsing due to unreliable wind and solar was £2.6bn last year with a one day peak of over £60m. Before the reliability of the grid was undermined it cost £200m a year.
Frank Zappa on Rolling Stone:
“…people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.”
Punctuation is missing.
there are better, cheaper ways of powering our world:
with oil, gas, and coal
Words missing
Not renewables.
We are here because Angela and Obama put us here.
You can say anything. If they’re going to make a claim like that, then show us the plans of how it will work. And we will expect to see the math.
Rolling Stone appears to have adopted the newspeak of the new Russian Czar Putin the Plunderer. How many innocent lives are they willing to see extinguished while they try to sell their big lie? What’s in it for them that they would turn their back on the truth so completely?
Rolling Stone should stick to writing about entertainment news.