Economist Jeff Currie of Goldman Sachs (Global Head of Commodities Research in the Global Investment Research Division): “Here’s a stat for you, as of January of this year. At the end of last year, overall, fossil fuels represented 81 percent of overall energy consumption. Ten years ago, they were at 82. So though, all of that investment in renewables, you’re talking about 3.8 trillion, let me repeat that $3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuel consumption from 82 to 81 percent, of the overall energy consumption. But you know, given the recent events and what’s happened with the loss of gas and replacing it with coal, that number is likely above 82.” … The net of it is clearly we haven’t made any progress.”
#
By: Marc Morano – Climate Depot
Transcript:
CNBC’s JOE KERNEN: “OPEC’s back in charge because we haven’t invested in alternatives. That’s all Europe did, was invest in new age alternatives.”
JEFF CURRIE (an economist and Global Head of Commodities Research in the Global Investment Research Division at Goldman Sachs.): “No, because we didn’t —“
KERNEN: “Are you saying natural gas and nuclear and coal are alternatives, or do you mean pie in the sky, wind —“ [crosstalk]
CURRIE: “Alternative to OPEC production —“
KERNEN: “Fossil fuel alternatives to —“ [crosstalk]
CURRIE: “— whether it’s gas, oil, solar, wind, you name it. But in fact —“
KERNEN: “Nuclear, coal, all — and of the above. It just sounded like you were saying — sounded like you were saying we haven’t transitioned quick enough to the green stuff, and that’s not what — what you were saying —“ [crosstalk]
CURRIE: “But — but — but let’s — but let’s look at how much did the greens investment give us? Here’s a stat for you, as of January of this year. At the end of last year, overall, fossil fuels represented 81 percent of overall energy consumption. Ten years ago, they were at 82. So though, all of that investment in renewables, you’re talking about 3.8 trillion, let me repeat that $3.8 trillion of investment in renewables moved fossil fuel consumption from 82 to 81 percent, of the overall energy consumption. But you know, given the recent events and what’s happened with the loss of gas and replacing it with coal, that number is likely above 82. So when we think about what those renewables have added — because remember, you’re adding capacity, but the capacity utilization factor is quite low on them. And then you have Europe making the investment in there, but China making further investments. The net of it is clearly we haven’t made any progress. And I think the key point that I was saying is that why OPEC is in the driver’s seat, you know, at an unprecedented level is because, you know, we inclusively of everybody outside of OPEC have not adequately invested in overall energy production, infrastructure and the ability to supply and deliver it. And I don’t care — and by the way, the countries like Brazil, you know, was [indecipherable] about who’s going to be exposed to this because they raise interest rates really early in the cycle. They’re actually less exposed to what’s happening right now than let’s say Japan or Europe.”
#
I want the T-shirt that says “I spent 3.8 Trillion dollars on Green Energy and all I got was this T-shirt made in China with slave labor using coal power”
Broadband company CEO’s blindly push renewables
but are heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
They are not getting the message from their huge energy bills.
Bye bye internet if we follow climate skyscreamers.
Invest in HAM radios for communication?
Beats investing in Green pork.
Maybe that’s why so many all-in-one printers still have a FAX option?
“Green” Google is building a “data center” near me. It is next door to a 18 GW natural gas fired electrical generation station.
Wow – 18GW is an impressive gas plant. I hope it is doing other things beside running the data centre.
Surely Google’s new data centre will be powered only by 100% ruinables?
Otherwise Google will be being hypocritical
Nice play – ruinables!
No way it’s 18 GW. 18 MW, yes. 18 GW has to be a typo.
And Amazon, in Ireland: –
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/aws_irish_datacenter_diesel/
That link begins : –
“Amazon has applied to have 105 diesel generators installed at a new datacenter site in Dublin … “
Further down –
“Earlier this year, it was reported that the percentage of metered electricity consumed by datacenters in Ireland reached 14 percent during 2021, a greater proportion than that used by all the rural homes in the country.”
Auto
You mean MW, right?
The Internet was designed from the beginning to survive network reliability challenges. Specifically it’s designed to survive a nuclear war. Broadband lets you have audio and video on a frequent basis. The old store and forward Internet doesn’t need broadband companies and is still chugging along, durable as ever.
I see a money making opportunity for you. Please post when shirts are available.
I want that t-shirt – and a matching sweater for freezing cold indoor temperatures…
…and on the back it says, “We told you so 20 years ago.“
Linear extrapolation to Net zero = another 81% at $3.8T/% = $308T to get to net zero
Haha … as if that will happen
World annual GDP = ~ $85T
Say 30 years to implement (~2050) = ~$10T/yr or 12% of world GDP per year for the next 30 years …… Hahaha again … not going to happen.
That is another beautiful feature of renewables – they need to be renewed every couple of years. Probably that’s why they are called “renewables” in the first place. Wind farm – 20 years, solar panels – 15-20 years, batteries – 10 years. So after spending the GDP multiple times on them, you can start all over.
My friends with solar panels complain about the reliability of the inverters modules needed for solar panels, most needing replacement every 5 years or so. One family I know is on their fourth inverter in ten years. Great little money spinner as the inverters don’t carry the longer guarantee of the panels.
and don’t forget the NON-recyclable part of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines – where are the protestors throwing tomato soup, mashed potatoes and gluing themselves to those green polluting machines???
Jeff L – And anyway it isn’t linear. The best wind and solar sites are used first, so new sites provide progressively more expensive power. Also, there’s little replacement cost in the early years, so that adds in in later years too.
Best wind sites are offshore and they haven’t been used much, if any at all.
And there are quite a few reasons for that Greg.
Do I really need to start listing them?
(I’m sure someone here already has one they prepared earlier . . . )
If they were actually the best economically, they would have been used first.
The wind may be a tiny bit stronger and more reliable offshore, but the increase in cost still means that power from offshore turbines is still way more expensive.
Corrosive environment, difficult location to do maintenance, very expensive support base construction, long and expensive transmission lines …
== Not economically viable.
Add shortage of the suitable vessels to lay the foundations, install the turbines and lay the cables to connect the turbines to the mainland. Each is carried out by a specialised vessel.
Wind Europe says there is a worldwide shortage of these vessels and the problem is exacerbated by the fact the turbines are getting bigger at a faster rate than the ships
Depends on your definition of “best”.
Best as in most MWs per MW of installed capacity?
or
Best as in least cost per MW taking into account construction, maintenance, effective life, transmission costs, …. .
Off-shore certainly doesn’t meet the seconod defintion.
Only if you’re talking about ‘best’ as best wind, not best economics/practicality.
It’s a bit like claiming (as some have in all seriousness) that “the wind is free, the sun is free”.
That’s also the low hanging fruit. As you push more and more into unreliable power sources, the cost of additional conversion away from fossil fuels or nuclear increases.
This only relates to the USA. A good part of the $3.8tr spend went to China. They are burning a lot of coal to make the stuff the $3.8tr paid for.
The USA has no problem creating $308tr but there are three factors that make Nut Zero impossible for the USA:
(1) China simply cannot find enough coal to make the stuff needed.
(2) The 1% for $3.8tr is the low hanging fruit. The cost of the last 1% is astronomical in comparison.
(3) China is making moves to stop acquiring USD denominated debt as payment for real stuff they manufacture. So USA’s ability to create USDs at no cost is losing its significance.
Just have to burn up all of the fossil fuels to make renewables.
The spending relates to US but the 80% fossil fuel figure is pretty well standard for the world as a whole.
Net zero has bugger all to do with ruinables and all to do with paying tithes to people like The Gorecal to atone for the sin of surviving cold weather.
Probably this thread already has thousands of silent gobsmacked responses. The renewable quest has simply awakened oil, gas and coal demand (proxy for reality).
Given that it’s on WUWT I doubt there are too many surprised by this news. The only surprise is that fossil fuels may be as low as 81% – most people here would probably put it higher, say 90%.
81% only describes nameplate capacity.
Actually they said energy CONSUMPTION, so it appears to be a meaningful comparison.
Given, of course, the caveat that wind and solar contribute that little when foisted on the market by the government and given PREFERENCE to reliable sources.
Which illustrates the sheer futility of it.
Much of the rest are things like hydro, geothermal and bio-thermal (Drax).
and nuclear, can’t believe I forgot nuclear.
Also dependent upon giving “Favored Generation Status” to Nuclear. Otherwise only around 10% renewable 90% reliable
Take out 7% for hyrdoelectric. No way the renewable crowd should get to claim that since if they could remove the dams they would. So 81 + 7 gets you to 88.
Yep. Hydro was here way before the ruinables, and is a legit way of producing energy. For greenies to try to take credit for it and boost their statistics is just one more way they have of lying about energy.
100% agreed. If you isolate Wind and Solar as impact to the global energy consumption it makes the $3.8T 10X worse an investment.
They can’t be factored in but should probably get factored out since technically Hydro and Nuclear are neither FF nor renewable wind/solar/biofuel
The present policy of reducing fossil fuel production before we have sufficient alternatives is like a person jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and thinking it’s OK because he ordered one to be delivered by Amazon.
Thanks, Richard, that made me smile.
Sadly, as history has shown, the person in question wouldn’t accept their mistake before…SPLAT!
Regards,
Bob Tisdale
Actually he jumps out thinking to himself someday they will invent parachutes or something like it.
he pushes you out of the plane, telling you that the parachute will be invented.
he is the kind of guy that should not be allowed on planes.
Even worse, the pusher gets to go home with no consequences and lives out their life in comfort, never needing a parachute
THERE you go!
And while he pushes you, he tells you that it is the best thing you can do for the good of the planet
And as he hurtles towards the ground he keeps muttering “so far so good”.
Indeed. It’s only the last few microsecond of the journey that is actually dangerous.
The best position to take up just prior to landing is to cross your left leg over your right and extend both elbows – that way you can be unscrewed from the ground much like a corkscrew.
Yeah, its not the fall that hurts you (unless you have a heart attack from the fear) its that sudden stop.
“The net of it is clearly we haven’t made any progress.”
____________________________________________
Who’s we, and what definition of progress is in play here?
Progress to achieve:
Net Zero?
The collapse of industrial civilization?
The Great Reset?
These questions need to be answered.
$3.8T more than THEY stole before!
Scum of the Earth.
HEY!
That’s a bit harsh of the scum of the earth
All of the above.
That was my first thought – he has no idea what “progress” means. Unless he thinks progress is returning to looking for bugs under rocks for sustenance, a population in the millions instead of billions
Just ask Russell Upsomegrub
Well, as Gallagher said, “The opposite of progress is Congress.”
I actually think Congress is working best when it makes little “progress.” The more they get to push their agendas, the worse off everyone but them and their cronies is.
Maybe worth it if it made a sad little Swedish girl smile, but it didn’t even do that.
All one has to do is look at fossil fuel consumption increasing every year to know that we aren’t keeping up with the energy void imposed by renewables. China’s increase in fossil fuel use alone negates any CO2 reduction by the rest of the world. When is the world going to stand up to the CO2 alarmists and tell them the King is naked?
When is the world going to stand up to the CO2 alarmists . . . . ?
_________________________________________________
That should have happened 30 years ago.
I understand Putin pledged to expose the elites running the Great Reset and climate scams.
Irrespective of what any of us think of what’s going on in Ukraine, he’s certainly been successful in pulling the covers back on many scams.
Do you have a source re. Putin’s pledge to expose WEF / climate alarmism? I may be misinformed, but I recall reading on numerous occasions that the USSR / Russia were / are active contributors to Team Green over the years.
Yes, Team Green outside of Russia.
JOSH nailed it.
No, I don’t have a source to hand. You could always look for it yourself.
Considering Russia has been funding many of climate warriors, I’d be surprised if Putin actually does that.
Why not. Its in his interest to encourage the green scam to implode so he can sell more gas to the west.
I’m pretty sure that Russia makes more money from the reluctance to develop one’s own oil and gas, not less.
It is a good thing that AGW isn’t a real problem. Because if it were, these facts show there would be no solution compatible with modern society. And without modern society (AG, transport, electricity) the cities would be uninhabitable. And that would be a true disaster.
A moderate disaster is already ahead of us in a few decades. This slow-motion train wreck will no doubt require all those shiny toy solar panels and whirly things to be cleaned off the landscape at great cost. Not to mention all the megatons of batteries!
That wasted investment went into someones pockets. And they are still pushing this disaster.
Yes, if they were redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor, that would not be justified, but at least it would have some logical framework. What they are actually doing is redistributing wealth from the poor to the well-connected billionaire crony capitalists. Turning everybody but the elite of the elite into serfs.
You are so right Rich.
Expensive energy hurts people on low incomes and pensioners far more than wealthy people.
The greatest harm with expensive energy is that everything manufactured costs so much more than cheaper imports manufactured with cheap energy overseas.
Which then drives the businesses using expensive energy to give up.
As I have said before IF fossil fuel electricity is such a bad thing for the world why don’t countries invest in Nuclear power plants ?
Governments in charge around the world don”t want to know about cheap energy as they believe that we should all live simpler lives and of course that does not include them the ruling class.
If you go back in history this was how the ruling class controlled the masses .
They kept them poor.
“why don’t countries invest in Nuclear power plants? ”
Because Nuclear power plants are the most efficient, reliable and long lasting source of energy on the planet and they produce power 24/7. They work! They require fewer of the planet’s resources and utilise a fraction of the land.
But, Renewables are the world’s biggest money spinner for the billionaires right now via the taxes of the ‘common people’. You trying to spoil it for them?
And pumping money into venal politicians & their get-rich-quick families, do-nothing academics & university administrative leaches, faceless government bureaucrats & bloated bureaucracies, screeching activists & power-mad NGOs, intersectional profiteers & militant SJW brigades and etc. None of them will give up the gravy train without a huge fight. Gear up for a long, brutal struggle.
We’re about to see whether the Demonrats have made elections “Safe for Democracy” or alternatively, if the legal votes outnumber the deceased demographic this time.
Notice how tame that is compared to :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/11/03/climate-glasgow-bloomberg-carney/
Financial firms announce $130 trillion in commitments for climate transition, but practical questions loom.
They flopped at COP26, dropped from $130 trillion to mere change, $3.8 trillion.
Give ’em time, they will have the hat out on a Wall Street corner.
To the flop-house for Goldman-Sachs and Marc Carney, I say!
Those numbers can’t be right or the people pushing the catastrophic climate narrative would have to be crooks or idiots…
Oh hang on…
“And lo, a great light (bulb) did dawn…”
Jeff Currie: “The net of it is clearly we haven’t made any progress.”
Somebody needs to get this guy to clarify his definition of progress (with respect to the fossil fuel consumption stats). If he did that the rest of his babbling would be shown to be inconsistent and lies.
You genuinely believe that reducing fossil fuel consumption from 82% to 81% of total energy usage at a cost of 3.8 trillion dollars is “progress”? Really ?
AOC’s $50T “Green Nude Eel”- who knew living like a peasant
could be so expensive!
I’d plus that again but I already have
++++++++++++++++++
Note too that the later 81% is of a much greater energy amount than the earlier 82%, thanks to China, Ondia, etc. So the amount of energy from fossil fuels has increased significantly even though the percentage dropped a digit.
Ondia? That’s not the country near Pookistan and Oofghanistan by any chance? Sorry, couldn’t resist!
500 billion euros is probably a gross underestimate more likely in the trillions, whatever the cost (including opportunity costs) there has been little net change in the total EU GHG emissions since 2013:
https://images0.persgroep.net/rcs/7A7ZmH7ozlVEfuz2pAgm4eH85LI/diocontent/220120404/_fill/899/473/?appId=21791a8992982cd8da851550a453bd7f&quality=0.9
That doesn’t look like a good ROI to me.
The assertion made by this article neglects the fact that GDP was 23 Trillion in 2021, and the GDP in 2010 was 15 Trillion. 82% of fossil fuel consumption in a 15 Trillion year is significantly different than 81% in a 23 Trillion year. An excellent example of how to lie with statistics.
It also cherry picks the interval to report on. For example….
“The share of U.S. total energy production from fossil fuels peaked in 1966 at 93%. Total fossil fuel production has continued to rise, but production has also risen for non-fossil fuel sources such as nuclear power and renewables. As a result, fossil fuels have accounted for about 80% of U.S. energy production in the past decade. ”
Source: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=45096
you can start there and still get to his conclusion. 1. Nuclear Power added to the production and consumption . 2. massive Hydro projects doing the same There is no cherry picking , just facts, and Wind and Solar are not ever going to do what true believers want us all to swallow.
Nobody, but nobody surpasses Michael E. Mann for lying with statistics.
(Fortunately for the world, honest statistics experts such as Stephen McIntyre & Ross Kitrick applied their expertise to expose Mann’s hokey schtick perfidy.)
Many subsequent studies have confirmed Mann’s hockey stick http://environmentalforest.blogspot.com/2013/10/enough-hockey-sticks-for-team.html
Acolytes of Mann, using the same data and the same disproven methods, get the same disproven results.
At least you are easy to impress.
Wrong, for example Mann used tree rings, Marcott used ocean sediments.
Marcott committed scientific and academic fraud to get his results. In addition to other misconduct, he moved some data series forward and some series backwards in time to create his hockey stick.
Read about it and other CliSciFi frauds in Rus Istvan’s free ebook “Blowing Smoke.” Its “Let’s Play Hockey Again” chapter outlines the games the paleoclimatology “Team” plays. His “High Stick Foul” chapter outlines the whole sad saga of Marcott’s fraud in detail.
If you don’t get the free ebook “Blowing Smoke” and at least read those two chapters and comment here at WUWT about what you found and how you interpret the information you will have proven that are a cowardly blowhard ideologue, Greg. Prove me wrong.
Which does seem to support the findings of critics that Mann’s system will create a hockey stick, no matter what data is fed in.
Or the better explanation is that the hockey stick reflects reality.
Really? Someone fed in telephone numbers from a local telephone book and created a hockey stick. Does that sound like it reflects reality to you?
Mann’s Hokey Schtick is contradicted by every single historical record and environmental proxy. Which should I trust?
Speaking of lying in statistics, the point of the article is that despite spending $3.8 trillion, so little progress has been made.
I just love how trolls try to distract with irrelevancies when they know they have nothing to say on the subject at hand.
That’s a good point, if it’s true that during the 10 year period under discussion, the US GDP has risen by $8 trillion. AS GDP rises one would expect energy consuption to rise in rough proportion. A rise from $15 trillion to $23 trillion is 8 trillion, which is a 53% increase. Of that increase, 47% (of 53%) is a result of the increase in Renewables ($3.8 trillion), which suggests that both the use of fossil fuels and renewables have increased during that 10 year period.
However, this calculation might not take into consideration inflation and the rising costs of energy during this 10 year period. Without further information, I can’t be sure.
You can be sure that the $3.8 trillion bought us alot of trouble and expense in our energy systems, Vincent.
We can also be certain the 3.8 trillion significantly increased the cost of all fossil fuel energy as well.
Good on Joe Kernen for asking straight questions instead of trying to sugar-coat this $3.8 TRILLION debacle. I have to wonder, what if this money was invested in, say, providing safe and plentiful drinking water to everyone in need? Food, shelter and education to those in need? Or maybe, just maybe, leave that money in the hands of those who earned it?
Instead of adding it onto the National Debt for no gain.
It is far more than 3.8 trillion, as these policies stunted investment in fossil fuel energy, thus the current price of fossil fuels is much higher than it would be. Also all the grid policies greatly increased the price of fossil fuel power production via giving complete priority to unreliable wind and solar. This has been well documented on WUWT articles. The true cost is likely at least double the 3.8 trillion.
The bottom half of the class needs to eat too.
They were tired of watching their tax $$ flushed down the tube of societal advancement they could not keep up with. It’s a bout time we flushed some $$ down the bad idea tubes too!
Enormous wealth in the wrong hands buys disaster for the rest of the world’s people.
‘$3.8 Trillion of Investment in Renewables Moved Fossil Fuels from 82% to 81% of Overall Energy Consumption’ in 10 Years
Doesn’t that factoid prove how futile & bankrupt “Green Mania” really is?
This is also something you can bring up in conversation with an AGW proponent.
The truth is that most proponents don’t know much because in their circles, “the science is settled”, so they don’t discuss science… just their desire to do something…
Presumably ,the 1% drop was achieved by going after the low hanging fruit. Each additional percent gets more expensive.
…and raises the cost of fossil fuel as well.
This pretty much says it all. 3.8 trillion pissed away on wind and solar, we are still using within one percent the same percentage of fossil fuels we were using ten years ago, the price of energy is higher, we have a shortage of energy and threats of blackouts and people freezing this winter. Yea for us, this is so stupid!
The key statistic here is the “$3.8Trillion”; just think of all the money made by banks, investment fund managers, various equipment manufacturers, miners, etc etc, out of that ‘investment’. No wonder these people don’t ever talk in discouraging terms about this monumental scam; they’re making a killing!
Yep. The Green Gravy Train – why do you think Mann et al. were so keen to protect their little corner – everyone involved has been raking it in hand over fist. The only losers are the plebs – it’s our taxes they’ve been grabbing and we’ve got spiralling energy and food costs as a result.
Federal Labor Party of Australia has the same plan …
https://renewablesnow.com/news/australias-labor-party-has-82-renewables-goal-for-2030-764434/
There are not enough available minerals in the world to make EV batteries for even the next 10 years.
“$3.8 Trillion of Investment in Renewables Moved Fossil Fuels from 82% to 81% of Overall Energy Consumption’ in 10 Years”
It shows how powerful fear mongering propaganda is in creating false economies by virtue of political self righteous action. False economies damage economies and people pay for it in the long run. It also shows you how much people leverage false economy gravy trains and keep the propaganda flowing.
I wonder to what degree the long term impact of $3.8 investment with little economic impact will have or has had on inflation, (higher gas taxes in PA)? Make work keeps people employed and economies running but the outcome is lower productivity which is a major contributor to inflation. $3.8 trill and little productivity has to be inflationary.
The real disaster in the long run, is the clear total failure of renewables as an economically viable energy solution. The problem is not the energy inputs themselves, it’s that the highly politicized renewable markets put the cart before the horse…the horse being cheap energy storage. A knee jerk negative response to renewable energy inputs will inhibit the development of energy tech (cheap energy storage solutions) that could eventually make energy much less expensive for the consumer than it is now, via decentralized use of renewables in the long run.
Energy inputs should not be politicized either left or right. Either they make economic sense or they don’t. I would use solar, (with a great cheap battery) if it was cheaper than natural gas, gasoline and oil, who wouldn’t.
The very long term good news is there is plenty of cheap natural gas, coal and oil.
The bad news is the long term negative impact of 8-10 years of a massive climate change propaganda campaign on the thought process of the West and the destabilization of our political system.