By Allen Brooks — May 6, 2022
“By issuing a ‘death sentence’ for natural gas and its required infrastructure investments, John Kerry is hobbling the industry’s growth. In turn, it will hurt those who have limited or no access to power. It will make the efforts of European countries to get out from under the dominance of Russian fossil fuels, a goal of the Biden administration, even more difficult.”
John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, is the latest government official to deliver conflicting messages about energy.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, in January, Kerry told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that he could fathom keeping natural gas in a cleaner energy mix as a “bridge fuel” from traditional fossil fuels to a renewables-heavy future. He made some other points that have come back to bite him. He told the meeting, “If you can capture 100% [of emissions] and it makes it affordable, that’s wonderful. But we’re not doing that.”
In his mind, carbon capture is the technology the natural gas industry needs to be investing in, which it is, but we guess maybe Kerry does not know, or it is not fast enough for him. Kerry’s message to the Chamber of Commerce members was:
Let me be factual, above all, but let me also be blunt and hopefully motivating. We’re in trouble, I hope everybody understands that. Not trouble we can’t get out of, but we’re not on a good track.
What he really wants is more renewable energy investments. He bemoaned the lack of investment, saying: “Many countries — most countries — have the ability to deploy very significant additional amounts of renewables, and they’re not doing it.”
Do economics or energy security have anything to do with the slow pace of renewable energy? The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects renewables accounting for 90% of new power capacity additions globally from 2022 onward. Thus, when Kerry threatened a “death sentence” for natural gas, it raised questions about what he really wants. According to Kerry, in comments to Bloomberg TV:
We have to put the industry on notice: You’ve got six years, eight years, no more than 10 years or so, within which you’ve got to come up with a means by which you’re going to capture [emissions], and if you’re not capturing, then we have to deploy alternative sources of energy.
Kerry went on to state: “No one should make it easy for the gas interest to be building out 30- to 40-year infrastructure, which we’re then stuck with, and you know the fight will be ‘well we can’t close these because of the employment, because of the investors, et cetera.’”
So, should we only be building natural gas infrastructure with a life of 10-years or less? Lots of luck convincing people there is a financial case for such investments.
The industry and academic research are advancing carbon capture technology. However, most of the new efforts are exploratory, as the technology needs to be economically and technically feasible before corporations will invest billions of dollars. Proving the technology will likely not be on a pace or scale Kerry says is necessary, but what does Kerry know about technological trends?
Meanwhile, the administration that employs him is actively working to limit the growth opportunities for traditional fossil fuels. By issuing a ‘death sentence’ for natural gas and its required infrastructure investments, John Kerry is hobbling the industry’s growth. In turn, it will hurt those who have limited or no access to power. It will make the efforts of European countries to get out from under the dominance of Russian fossil fuels, a goal of the Biden administration, even more difficult.
Here is some advice: Think before you speak. The Biden administration seems to have a serious shortcoming in mastering this admonition.
Postscript
This week, John Kerry backtracked the climate goal set by the Paris Climate Accord. Instead of 1.5C by 2050, the new goal is 1.8C by 2100. As reported by E&E News:
For much of last year, climate envoy John Kerry had one number on his mind: 1.5 degrees Celsius. That’s the amount of warming scientists say the world must not surpass if it hopes to prevent dangerous and irreversible climate impacts. But as new realities set in and hoped-for ambition fails to materialize in the U.S. and abroad, Kerry is scaling back.
The new talk?
“We want to stay on that accessible target of 1.8 degrees, and the only way to do it is to fully implement the promises that have been made,” Kerry said during a speech at an electric industry forum. His comments signaled a departure from U.S. messaging under President Joe Biden and raised concern among some foreign officials and climate advocates that the White House is injecting uncertainty into international deliberations on climate change.
Do not expect this to be the last word regarding the means and the ends of U.S. and global climate policy.
“We’re in trouble …”
I agree and the reason is people like Kerry promoting a cause that’s precluded by the laws of physics.
I have no problem with people calling Kerry an @sshole. He is a bad human.
Kerry’s son in law, who has been a very frequent White House visitor, was a close business partner of Hunter Biden. They both sold access to the father/father in law. Kerry and his family makes millions every year from dubious green ventures that he pushes in his official capacity. Lurch is as corrupt as Brandon.
Kerry is a very bad human. He has no redeeming qualities. Just like Biden.
Lurch should be mocked tirelessly…
Every mention of Kerry should include his nickname (The Traitor), going back to his support of the NVC, thru Paris Climate, and the Iran Nuclear disaster. This is just the latest chapter.
Yes, we are in trouble because delusional people like Kerry are running the show.
We see what happens to our economy when the Biden administration raises the price of gasoline and diesel. The economy goes into the tank. Cutting off natural gas would just make things worse. Fools like Kerry and Biden are going to destroy this nation if they continue down this path.
November 2022: Radical Democrats are destoyed at the voting polls.
January 2023: The nation starts taking a new direction opposite to the Biden/Kerry delusional direction.
How are people like Kerry “running the show”? Isn’t he really just a tax-payer supported flack for the renewable energy subsidy parasites? He can’t, at this time, shut off my gas or confiscate the keys to my Cadillac or personally replace the 100 watt filament bulbs scattered through the house. He’s just a symptom of the insanity pandemic that’s gripping the west.
I think you do have to admit we would be far better off he weren’t speaking to any groups. He may be helping to spread the insanity.
“How are people like Kerry “running the show”? Isn’t he really just a tax-payer supported flack for the renewable energy subsidy parasites?”
In the sense that Kerry is out haranguing the public and demonizing CO2.
Expecting Lurch to actually know technology, or even basic economics, is violating all experience with Kerry’s career. He has been a more lubrigious AOC, a radical airhead since the 1960’s.
He’s been a liar since the 1960’s. He called his fellow Vietnam veterans baby killers at a congressional hearing. Kerry and his kind are poison to our nation. His attempts to destroy us continue.
No domestic or foreign leader should pay the slightest attention to John Kerry on ANY topic, let alone energy or “climate,” since he has neither education nor experience in ANYTHING except promoting himself.
TEWS: “No domestic or foreign leader should pay the slightest attention to John Kerry on ANY topic, […]”
Oh, I dunno ’bout that. He does know his pickles and ketchup.
Even that he inherited from his second wife…the one he married after he divorced his first not-as-rich wife. He only has first hand knowledge of how to steal valor.
You mean how to put the pickle in the ketchup? I assume the amount of stirring is important and how it agitates the ketchup. Done right, vast amounts of money and political power will emerge from the mixture.
Don’t worry the intelligent ones aren’t listening-
Clouds gather in Singapore over Cannon-Brookes, Twiggy-backed $30b Sun Cable project (msn.com)
A commendable vision cookie boys but we have plenty of gas capability and alternative options.
excellent link Thanks!
see only 1 comment was pro it too;-)
both men are fools
“… fully implement the promises that have been made …” What promises by whom? Who will enforce the “promises?”
I promise to get in shape during 2022. Does that count? Will somebody shoot me if I don’t do it?
Below is a copy of a post I made for another story.
The mid-terms are coming. The population is becoming increasingly upset about the supply of energy and the price of energy.
Previous post starts here:
My favorite ongoing Gallup poll asks the following:
It’s open ended. The poll takers don’t supply a list of answers but they do have the problem of categorizing what people tell them. So, it’s as honest a poll as I can think of.
“High cost of living/Inflation” is 17% now, up from 6% in December.
“Fuel/Oil prices” is 4%, up from 1% in December.
“Energy/Lack of energy sources” is 3% and was less than 1% before now.
“Environment/Pollution/Climate change” is 2%, unchanged.
So, all of a sudden, people are feeling the pinch, particularly about energy.
Because it’s lumped in with Environment and Pollution, we don’t know how many people listed Climate Change as the most important problem. In any event, at least three times as many people are concerned about fuel issues as are concerned about climate change. It could be closer to six times.
I recall filling up my car with gasoline for under $25, not that long ago. It was nearly $60 the other day.
what WAS a 100tankfull in Aus is now 200. so a trip for a cardio op would cost me 400 round trip govt fuel subsidy for pensioners requiring assistance to travel for medical needs.. is still? 21c a km. 200 is a fortnights mortgage guess I wont be going anytime soon
I recall getting $2 worth, about 10 gallon, to transport me and my 3 buddies in my old Chevy 4-dr back and forth to college for a whole week; all of us lived at home.
I remember paying 25 cents per gallon when I was a kid.
Yes, and that extra $35 dollars you spent on gasoline won’t be spent at a local business buying something useful, so that small business you usually buy things from suffers from the increased price of gasoline, too, because that increased price prevents them from getting your $35 dollars worth of business.
So higher gasoline prices hurt *everyone* in the economy.
These high gasoline and energy prices will lead to a recession in the near future.
The way to prevent a recession is for Joe Biden to announce that the U.S. is going to pump as much oil as possible. This would lower the price of gasoline and diesel and reduce the inflation we are suffering from.
Of course, Joe Biden will do just the opposite and will continue his war on affordable energy. Biden is locked into this stupidity because of his position on climate change, so we have to impeach and remove Biden from office as soon as possible in order to save our nation from his insanity.
precisely tom, i have always said, our country lives or dies based on the price of gas at the pump.
We are all looking forward to:
Increased inflation rates,
Increased interest rates,
Increased energy prices,
Increased food prices,
Increased shipping costs,
Increased materials prices, such as lithium, cobalt, titanium, aluminum, copper, fertilizers.
Increased supply chain disruptions
Most of this is due to the US, the largest economy in the world, being grossly mismanaged by woke amateurs, who deliberately did not repair the roof while the sun was shining, because they were so busy imposing THEIR disastrous, wacky, wokeness onto others
The prices of wind, solar and battery systems are about 25% higher in 2022 than in 2020, which means electricity used by heat pumps and electric vehicles will be much more expensive.
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
US gas prices have surged to the highest level in real terms since the financial crisis in 2008, as strong demand for LNG from buyers in Europe and Asia puts pressure on inventories.
Futures for gas delivered to Henry Hub in Louisiana are trading at almost $9/million Btu, up from just over $3 at the same point last year, and less than $3 in 2019.
This is due to Biden’s handlers shipping our LNG gas (and oil) to Europe to make the BIG bucks.
All of us are paying for the US/UK pushing for “NATO barking at the gates of Russia”, as mentioned by the Pope, during a recent interview. Just googgle.
In Europe prices are $30/million Btu, the same as Asia. See URL
?itok=Wv6zZ6Db
Vacuous, dyed-in-wool Kerry just does not get it, because he was brought up with a silver spoon, and palled around with the Kennedy’s, same schools, same secret societies, same clubs
Countries are not busy building out renewables to meet the unattainable, unnecessary, unaffordable UN-world-saving climate goals, because they are too busy 1) building private yachts, and 2) private planes, and 3) huge estates in the most exclusive areas of the world, and 4) managing galas, and 5) organizing COP love feasts, and 6) building armaments to fight a US/Russia proxy war, and 7) paying outrageous prices for energy, materials and mortgage loans, because of a regimen of rash, ill-considered sanctions to “weaken” Russia.
The Pope said: “Putin likely invaded, because NATO was barking at the gates of Russia”
yup ONLY time popes been right
and where the hell does uSSa get off on theft of boats and homes etc paid for BY private citizens of another nation?
IN overseas ports
With Boeing moving to DC the relatives of Mr Kerry will have some more job opportunities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/05/06/boeing-headquarters-arlington-chicago/.
The Pope is a really stupid guy. I think Leftist philosophy affects people that way.
Poor Putin, he just *had* to invade Ukraine. What choice did he have other than to deliberately murder tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children?
Is that the way the Pope looks at it?
The current Pope is a curious combination of a religiously conservative Catholic and a committed Socialist.
The Pope really should keep his nose out of politics and science.
Being the figurehead and leader of an independent State, he has to participate in politics and to some extent science.
His problem is simply that he is wrong most of the time.
Here’s a typical politician who believes they can leave their mark on history despite their lackluster career by becoming an activist for a social cause.
skidmark is all that he leaves
A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, “The usual Mr. Kerry?”
The horse walked in backwards.
My horse resents that implication. She is a lot smarter than Kerry.
And better looking. 😁
That is true and she says thank you.
John Kerry is a major producer of a superheated natural gas.
Shocki
un-natural gas
If we were properly focused on energy security, greenhouse gas emissions would be a moot point. #AntiFragileEnergy #GreenNUCLEARDeal #HighlyFlexibleNaturalGas #IncineratePlasticPollution #WasteToEnergy
The Northern Hemisphere climate was much more extreme in previous centuries. The past 150 years have been unusually kind. We are not prepared for reversion to the mean. #AntiFragileEnergy #GreenNuclearDeal #HighlyFlexibleNaturalGas #IncineratePlasticPollution #WasteToEnergy
John Kerry is a blithering idiot. Anyone who doesn’t know that just isn’t paying attention. He’s like Joe Biden, both are useful idiots controlled by puppeteers.
Useful ??????
Birds of a feather, flock together.
The United States currently has probably the worst leadership in our history. Every official position is filled by an idiot. The Chief Idiot is Joe Biden.
Yeah, I think Obama must be the person behind the curtain. He never liked the U.S much. as constituted, anyway. He did, along with Joe Biden, involve himself in using the power of the federal government to try to kill Trump’s election to the presidency. An illegal act. And it appears that the Democrats are still trying to use the power of the federal govenment to install themselves in power in perpetuity.
They are trying, but their efforts have appalled the voting public, and the reckoning is coming for the radical/corrupt/criminal Democrats.
It’s not just the US administration that is the worse ever. The whole of the western world, and much of the rest, is in the same leaky boat. We are all living in crazy town.
Replace the V with an I in the title. And that is a very accurate description of John Kerry.
If politicians the world over could deal with real practical issues their constituents are facing, with the same dedication and zeal as they do when advancing Climate Alarmism, the world would be a much better place.
Kerry, AOC and too many others all paid out of the tax payer’s pocket, are spending our money and their time, chasing shadows, chasing imaginary issues.
Why do they choose to do that?
It is because there is no way to measure their achievement no tangible measure to judge their performance if they are advancing intangible causes.
Kamala Harris is a classic example. There is a political figure asked to focus on a practical tangible issue. She was tasked with sorting out southern border control in the USA. That is an issue the public can look at and measure her performance. The result is zero achieved, despite being the VP.
She can champion Climate Activism though, safe in the knowledge no one can measure her impact on climate. But give a politician a real job to do and the results are all too often pathetic.
If we spent as much time and money as we do today funding useless politicians, on something practical, such as clean water supply to all, we would have got the job done fifty years back.
Kerry is doing what he does best. He is doing nothing. Unfortunately he is being paid highly for doing that big fat, zero.
Kerry is scaring children unnecessarily. Kerry claims there is a climate change emergency when there is no such thing. Quit scaring the children with your science fiction, John Kerry. You have grabbed on to another wrong-headed cause and have no idea what you are talking about. I guess that’s to be expected from an idiot like Kerry.
Put idiots in charge and chaos ensues.
“He is doing nothing”
If only that were true. Rather he has been doing as much harm to the US as he possibly can for over 50 years now. This is only the latest chapter, and truth to tell, it’s much less harmful that his utterly egregious “Winter Soldier” falsehood.
No good will come from anything John Kerry is involved in. The man is poison to our society just like Joe Biden. All these radical leftists are poison to our society. They are doing everything in their power to destroy our society right now and turn it into a socialist nightmare.
I think we might have them outnumbered this time, though. November is six months away.
a POINT three increase now?
roflmao!!!!
might I remind the jackass that all the munitions handed to ukies and used elsewhere should be added to his co2 tally?
mans truly worthy of Jackass award
The largest amount of fossil fuels is used by Kerry regularly flying around the world. He can prove he is serious by no longer flying but using video conferencing instead. The same applies to all those calling for a total ban on fossil fuels. No more flying for a start. Then no more fossil fuels for either the manufacture of electric cars or their charging. Then on to all those other things we take so for granted that require fossil fuels in their production and operation. The final solution is quite easy: we go back to the stone age.
As Bugs Bunny would say, “What a dope!”
Stuck with infrastructure that actually functions? Oh, mercy what a predicament. The renewables won’t be recycled to any significant degree at their end of life. The economics don’t favor it. That’s what your stuck with.
There is so much circular logic in the thinking of this crew.
I recall Bug’s line was “What an ultra maroon!”
Try this, gas industry: For every bit of infrastructure you build out from this moment forward, tell local utility commissions that rates must be raised so that amortization can take place over 10 years instead of 50 or more. See how that goes. Tell them that John Kerry, Climate Czar said so.
So the economic suicide pact is still on, just at a slower pace. It is still utterly stupid, devoid of scientific basis and a useless solution to a nonexistent problem, but we will just do it a bit slower. If that is the sum total of Kerry’s ability to learn, I am shocked he can even dress himself.
Is the methane being absorbed by the quarter to half inch of CO2, all of which is at the top of the atmosphere?
Remarks on Climate Change (state.gov)
Today’s liberals can articulate strong beliefs in utter nonsense.
You can’t fix stupid, but the electorate can reduce its power base.
It is called political reform.
Restriction and even elimination of natural gas in urban areas will “disproportionately” harm lower income People of Color.
Merrick Garland needs to direct his brand new “Office of Environmental Justice” to John Kerry’s doorstep.
What a horrible person.
Techno feudalism is already here
Jane Fonda’s traitor in arms message to the industry
“you’ve got 6 years, 8 years, no more than 10 years or so” .. is that or so 11 12 15 20 years ?
I mean, shit, give us a figure, not a ballpark estimate. Tell us straight up, we’re adults,we can
handle it. Maybe along with that the scumbag can tell us how that capture is going to amount to a hill of beans when 3/4 of the rest of the world ain’t doing squat about CO2.
Kerry & FJB are two of the biggest bald-faced liars I have ever seen.
Boiling ketchup, mustard and pickle relish to transport all over the world must stop. Nobody really likes ketchup, mustard and pickle relish except at ball games, and attendance is way down.
As we have seen in Canada, the price was just too good not to ramp up supply and export and shift the climate change political rhetoric into the realm of nonsense. (obviously begs the questions about motive and leverage of climate change messaging). Some where in WUWT community there is some one smart enough to build a predictive model that would indicate at what price, supply increases or decreases with it’s correlation to political untracking and backtracking on climate change messaging. Money talks and BS walks.
John Kerry may actually be dumb enough to believe the hype and BS- but the fact remains and has been stated several times openly that this is about wealth redistribution NOT climate or energy. Energy is THE tool by which these power greedy vermin intend to obtain control of people – they don’t give a rats behind about the climate- be clear on that.