Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart; According to French President Macron, talk of winter blackouts are “scenarios of fear” which have to stop.
“STOP ALL THAT”: MACRON’S REFRAMING IN THE FACE OF “SCENARIOS OF FEAR” OF POWER CUTS
Paul-Louisthe
06/12/2022 at 11:26The Head of State denounced the authorities and public companies which are beginning “to scare people with absurd scenarios”.
“Stop all that”. While RTE warned of possible power cuts this winter, Emmanuel Macron reframed this Tuesday “the authorities and public companies” whose role “is not to transfer fear or to govern by fear”.
“The role of government, ministers, operators, is to do their job to provide energy, that’s all. And then to call everyone to responsibility so that there is sobriety. It’s not to start scaring people with absurd scenarios and things like the ones I’ve heard in recent hours”, the head of state said on his arrival in Tirana (Albania). for a European summit.
“Fear scenarios, not for me!”
“We are a great country, we have a great energy model,” continued Emmanuel Macron, assuring that “we will hold out this winter despite the war. So I ask everyone to do their job”.
…
Read more (translated by Google Translate): https://www.bfmtv.com/economie/entreprises/energie/coupures-d-electricite-macron-recadre-les-entreprises-publiques-et-les-ministres-qui-transferent-la-peur-avec-des-scenarios-absurdes_AN-202212060290.html
When future historians write about the destruction of Western energy security, President Macron of France will have a starring role as Europe’s green energy clown.
Macron over the years has performed bizarre green publicity stunts, such as offering US climate scientists €1.5 million to defect to France, or staging a mock state visit with US actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to discuss global climate policy. In his first term of office he spoke of wanting to govern like a Roman God.
But if the lights go out this winter in Europe, nobody will be laughing at the French funny man.
“….we will hold out this winter…” , said Hitler regarding the Wehrmacht outside of Stalingrad.
Of course, he meant General Paulus will hold out….
Paulus couldn’t surrender since no field marshal had ever done so…. until Paulus.
Probably didn’t save the lives of any of his troops, though.
Saved very few. About 95,000 surrendered. About 5,000 survived. Hitler was furious that Paulus did not commit suicide.
Don’t you just admire the Junkers mentality
Then spent the rest of the war in a relatively comfortable prison with a number of high ranking officers while his men went to a gulag . Very few survived to be returned home in the 50’s.
Exactly. The way Macron means the citizens will ‘hold out’. No ‘holding out’ for Macron et al.
When a plan comes together.
France’s strategic plan was to make up shortfall from its out of action nuke fleet by importing electricity from Germany (and its 30 000 windmills) and UK (10 000 windmills) via the European interconnecter.
Alas Germany’s & UK’s strategic plan – in the absence if wind and gas – was to import electricity from France’s plentiful (or not) nuclear power stations.
I blame Vlad. Oh! those Russians!
Oh, so Macron will cut the interties to the UK and Germany when they have a shortage? The EU is mostly one grid, so a crash in any one part can spread to the whole grid.
There were gaslighting claims that the Texas 2021 blackouts were due to most of Texas being its own grid, but as most of the south-central US had a similar power demand spike, and a predictable loss of wind and solar, it would have just spread, as there was no surplus power.
I really doubt France has enough surplus power to prevent the UK or Germany from blackouts.
I was without power for four days in Austin, Texas with 10 inches of snow in my yard and lows of 7 deg/F. Luckily, I had natural gas for my stove and hot water; so, I was able to heat my house to a tolerable level and could bathe with hot water.
The ERCOT Fuel Mix Report for Feb 2021 shows precisely that both wind and natural gas output dropped significantly as the storm blew through Texas. In the aftermath, however, natural gas out put increased by over 400% and single-handedly staved off a complete blackout. Wind output did NOT recover for several days for one simple reason: no wind.
But you won’t read this reality in any mainstream periodical.
I was in Cottonwood Shores, west northwest of Austin. And in an all electric house, with no water either, as the city system was shut down. I never expected to get snowed in in Texas.
Mike’s Nature trick is trumped by nature.
In fact the actual supply of gas held up well, relying on gas in storage rather than production – at least until the power cuts chopped off key gas compressors, stopping feed to power stations and homes alike. Had the compressors been running on gas there would have been no problem for gas supply.
The power outages would have been recovered sooner too, although it is unlikely the initial major outage would have been avoided unless ERCOT had been much more sensible and imposed an element of rotating power cut earlier to maintain some reserve against station trips. As it was, at 1:52 a.m. they ended up with a cascade of trips because there was no reserve, and it was only halted when the automated load disconnection kicked in at 59.3Hz. Being automated, they had little control, and no knowledge that it was going to kick off gas compressors and lead to ongoing problems.
Texas is used to coping with gas production outages – they happen every time a hurricane threatens offshore, and the storage is there to help ride through.
The February 2021 cold period in Texas resulted in by far the most expensive natural disaster in the history of the State of Texas ($195 BILLION). We did not suffer a total grid failure. Had that ocurred, the cost in money and lives, would have been much higher.
And remember, this is all being done because of a one one-hundreth of one percent (.0001) increase in airborne plant food.
TheEU is sort of one grid, but it can be separated into parts under overload conditions
Its synchronised at 50hz as one grid.
Supply the UK, that’s a laugh!
The UK has been supplying France nearly all year, at up to more than 2 gigawatts an hour.
At this exact moment we are supplying a gigawatt an hour to them.
Windmills do not work with no wind. Perhaps renewable energy enthusiasts can get together and blow?
Why not? They are full of wind!
Unreliable energy enthusiasts can get together and frack off
Tom,
it’s not as binary as that, wind generator output is based on the cube of wind speed so a small variation in wind speed makes a large variation in output.
During a heat wave earlier this year, wind went to 3% of rated output. Close enough.
Watts per hour isn’t a thing.
At the moment they won’t be cutting the interconnectors. They have been relying on them to get supply. They need to be able to import.
If the French get their nuclear reactors back online, they probably have adequate power. The question would be if they had enough of a surplus to keep Germany and the UK from crashing in still air.
The outlook is not great at the moment.
https://watt-logic.com/2022/11/10/french-nuclear-stress-corrosion-update/
The latest news is probably even worse.
The French have been so lame at times in the past it leads to underestimating their actual capacity.
The horse might sing.
UK draws power from France in summer and sends it to France in Winter….. so as mentioned above, France are drawing not supplying power at the moment and not going to change much even when Frances nuclear gets back to speed.
The French dont use gas as much for homes and industry so they are per capita higher consumers than UK
Until one has weird ass weather, like we did in Texas in Feb 2021. Windmills do not like freezing rain and still air.
France knock out 90% of their electricity capacity with nuclear hydro and fossil.. they’ll likely be OK..
They are not though. they are short of a few reactors this year.
almost half of their reactors are offline for maintenance …
Plus they usually import UK electricity in winter – when theres spare !!
The arrogance of Macron is extraordinary. Just like his good mate Turnbull.
Just a desperate knee jerk reaction when the wheels are falling off the EU cart.
And the phrase “whistling past the cemetery” comes to mind.
TBH, I hope this winter is harsh and power cuts widespread – it’s the only way nature can educate politicians on the folly of renewables and the net zero con
There will be excess cold deaths this winter due to the combined cost of living and energy crises, all sacrifices on the green blob altar that the eco terrorists will not care about, they will be seen as collateral damage in their climate war
Those of us who see through the whole AGW/ACC sham must double down to continually expose the hypocrisies and falsehoods of the alarmists – we must continue to lobby our politicians with science & Engineering truths and call out those individuals and institutions that continually peddle climate fear, through their ignorance of fact, or self serving agendas
Energywise (?huh?), you happy for the harsh winter and widespread power cuts to kill those who cannot afford to heat their homes, struggle to ensure they get adequate food maybe – and so the unending stats that cold kills millions more people than heat – have some humanity if you know where to find it. Seeing through the AGW/CC bollux is one thing, and I do what you suggest but I hope you are on parade for those in your community who are going to surely suffer if you get “your way”
Think of it this way – it’s not about “getting our way;” it’s about stopping these idiots from getting THEIR way, which WILL UNNECESSARILY KILL AND IMPOVERISH A LOT MORE PEOPLE than the FIRST hard winter, because THEIR WAY will turn EVERY WINTER into suffering and death on a mass scale.
It’s a bit like war. No decent person wants to see soldiers die, but when the enemy intends to k!ll us, it’s k!ll or die.
The unfortunate thing is that slippery slimy critters like Manu Micron will probably fool a lot of people into accepting the excuse that it’s Putin’s fault and the solution is just more of the same, faster. So the deaths will have been in vain.
For clarity, I’m not ‘happy’ about any cold related death caused by high energy prices and useless renewable energy sources – my point is that indoctrinated, incompetent politicians won’t see the error of their green policies until those deaths are firmly on their watch – those cold related deaths will happen and they need it shoving down their throats at every opportunity until the weight of shame and outcry pushes their policies 180 degrees
I fully agree that only dire impacts have a chance to force a change in policy, Energywise.
From a messaging or public relations point of view, though, we can’t afford to let these psychopaths spin the story that we’re hoping for poor old people to die even though the real problem is the unreliable supply of fossil fuels due to Putin.
Even if we avoid handing them that soundbite where they attribute our supposed callous desires to being funded by malicious big oil interests, they are still going to try to get away with the absurdity that the solution is much more ruinables faster. They are trying to sell the idea that fossil fuel supply is the real unreliable energy, we must be energy independent with wind and solar. These demonic liars will co-opt as many common sense themes as they can, putting their insane twist on it.
They are professional liars. We do need to highlight every cold-related death and extended period where wind and solar combined provided negligible power during a deadly cold period. But don’t be too surprised when you see them get away with blaming it all on Putin and using the situation to their advantage.
Don’t not get why anyone would downvote this. Look, these energy policies will eventually kill people. It’s inevitable. Don’t wish for it though.
Where do you get this “happy” nonsense. That was nowhere in Energywise’s comment.
“TBH, I hope this winter is harsh and power cuts widespread”- but it’ll all be blamed on climate change- the new Satin upon which all problems can be blamed.
No, the excess cold deaths will be blamed (falsely) on Covid.
M. Macron, if there were no United Nations, there would be no climate crisis. Let’s get rid of the UN first. With the UN gone, also gone would be the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (aka, the IPCC) the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Conferences of Parties (COP) and all the climate assessments, so full of fearmongering and propaganda. Think of the money all the governments of the world would save. Think of the school children going to school without a constant flow of fear mongering materials being forced down their throats.
The climate crisis is the most successful product of the UN – ever.
“The role of government, ministers, operators, is to do their job to provide energy, that’s all.”
THEN STOP WITH THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY NONSENSE!! /rant
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
HL Mencken – American Philosopher & Political Commentator.
Man Made Global Warming is such a hobgoblin.
The looming grid catastrophe created by weather dependent energy is unfortunately a very much more likely scenario and could indeed happen – man made climate change won’t !
Government does not like it’s role as “scare monger in chief” being usurped by people who actually know what they are talking about.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” ― Groucho Marx
Another philosopher who has it spot on.
“talk of winter blackouts are “scenarios of fear” which have to stop”.
Let’s forget that ~50% of French nuclear is offline for maintenance and repair….
Plan for three-hour blackouts revealed in gov documents – The Sun
BBC prepares secret scripts for possible use in winter blackouts – The Grauniad
UK is preparing for several days of blackouts this winter – The Mirror
ad nauseam.
No fracking! No, we’re now buying fracked gas from Biden. Look! See! Clean hands… sort of.
“Let’s forget that ~50% of French nuclear is offline for maintenance and repair….”
I can only wonder how long it takes to that work? I should think they’d be working 24/7.
It isn’t a just job!
“the authorities and public companies” whose role “is not to transfer fear or to govern by fear”
You mean just like he did with Covid? Oh, that’s right. The diminutive GILF aficionado is a massive hypocrite.
I think Jupiter’s hypocrisy is eclipsed by that of the man who treated Canadian truckers as terrorists, freezing their bank accounts and fundraisers and more. Even their children were threatened by the state
Trudeau, with a total lack of self-awareness, backed, er, Chinese anti-lockdown protesters:
“Security forces have detained an unknown number of people and stepped up surveillance, arresting a BBC journalist. Trudeau said it’s crucial that protesters be allowed to speak up.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/2022/11/29/trudeau-expresses-support-for-chinese-protesters-as-show-of-dissent-roils-beijing.html?rf
But not in liberal Canada…
Nothing to see here, move along….
Okayyy…….
UK’s approval of new coal mine criticized as ‘deeply damaging mistake’ (cnbc.com)
The only “deeply damaging mistake” is embracing wind and solar and battery powered cars as non-solutions to an imaginary ‘crisis.’
I see at that site: West Cumbria Mining says the Woodhouse Colliery, in the county of Cumbria, will supply “the critical steel industry with a high-quality metallurgical coal product.”
So the critics would prefer to see the end of the steel industry- or import steel from China? Or just go back to the stone age?
Industry has to go….
“Have no doubt: opening a coalmine in Cumbria is a climate crime against humanity
Caroline Lucas”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/07/opening-coalmine-cumbria-climate-crime-against-humanity
climate crime against humanity
They string words together lingo bingo fashion: “What we need is a [Col 1,5] responsive, [Col 2,3] reciprocal, [Col 3,7] projection, or maybe an optional, transitional, contingency etc.
Desperate stuff from desperate people.
The crime that is being perpetrated against humanity is the demonizing of fossil fuel use .
8 billion people on this planet rely on fossil fuel for food ,warmth in winter, clothing and housing just starting the list .
We cannot all live in caves and cook over a wood fire .
There are still a few people in Britain with brains that have not been turned to mush.
The iron and steel industry is essential to modern society .
Just try making a wind mill out of wood or building a skyscraper without steel reinforcing.
Is it OK to import manufactured goods from other countries but the greens don’t want coal mining or fracking in the UK.
Just like our prime Nut here in New Zealand Jacinda had a nuclear moment and banned all further off shore oil and gas exploration and development on becoming Prime Minister .
We are not going to stop using oil and gas so why take such a stupid action that actually creates more emissions as a lot of goods that could be manufactured here have to be shipped from the other side of the world . ie urea from natural gas .
Pot, meet kettle.
How about this – STOP ‘SCAREMONGERING’ ABOUT THE ‘CLIMATE,’ since the “risks” you’ve been spreading twaddle about with respect to ‘climate change’ for over three decades are nothing but HYPOTHETICAL BULLSHIT.
The “green electricity blackouts,” by contrast, ARE REALITY. People are already unnecessarily dying due to degradation of ‘western’ electric grids that used to be nearly perfect by force-feeding those grids worse-than-useless wind and solar “power.”
One of the worlds leading climate alarmists denouncing scaremongering. Irony is apparently lost on this guy.
My impression of what Macron says is quite different:
Power in France comes for 70% from nuclear plants, part giving the base load (about half the peak demand) and the rest of a type that is more flexible to provide part of the variable load.
The problem is that about half the nuclear plants were out of order due to lack of regular maintenance during the Covid pandemic and a few with real problems.
Meanwhile several are back on line and more will get on line in coming months.
The scaremongering is from the “greens” which point to the current troubles to show how unreliable nuclear power is, but “forget” to tell the audience how far more unreliable wind and solar are… That is what Macron is reacting on.
If a large part of one country’s production base is out of order once in 30 years, other countries can help you. If about whole Europe is without wind and sun, nobody can help you…
Have a look at the difference between wind champion Germany, which had to use all fossil plants they still couldn’t close: brown coal, hard coal and gas due to lack of wind and sun:
https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&source=public&week=48
and nuclear champion France over last week, where nuclear still delivers 66% of demand:
https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=FR&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&source=public&week=48
For further comparison:
Germany installed 130 GW wind and solar generators (about 50/50).
Last week and begin this week, they delivered just less than 10 GW together in the middle of the days…
Over whole Europe only Portugal had much wind en Ireland 50%, all other countries were very low in both wind and sun.
Some “greens” still think that a European grid will solve that problem…
Germany installed…
9 Brand new stadia in Qatar for 2022 – Courtesy of Albert Speer & Partner
https://www.e-architect.com/architects/albert-speer-partner
Speer Junior, that is. Not many people know that
The “greens” think the solution to low productivity of wind/solar is MORE wind/solar.
Indeed they do. And it turns out that they justify that by assuming that new wind and solar will magically operate at much higher load factors than existing plant, and not suffer from any significant periods of Dunkelflaute. That combination allows them to assume away the need for adequate storage or backup.
Germany now has 2 grids worth of renewables, but it still only provided 40% of electricity and 5% of their total energy last year. at what point will they figure out its not working?
In fact French nuclear has not been operated with any significant short term variation. There has been a seasonal pattern of shutting down stations over the summer for maintenance and refuelling, but plant trips aside, they aim to keep running at a fairly steady level across the whole fleet from hour to hour and one day to the next – no dip for the weekend. Look at the traces (green lines, left bank of charts) for nuclear output in France here:
https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
The flex comes from hydro, gas and interconnectors.
The alleged climate crisis is all about fear, innit? Sounds like Macron is just trying to get the proles back into the fold.
They say people on life support can get cut too.
Then they say don’t panic.
Clown world.
It is the government’s job to spread fear, not anyone else’s.
So to be clear the idiots destroying the energy systems of western democracies don’t want anyone talking about it. It’s meant to be a surprise, like presents on Christmas Day or a bad venereal disease. They are unaccountable and want to stay that way as they play their fiddles and energy security burns.
I notice the UK was, this morning, exporting flat out to France. If there is no crisis we should stop
Perhaps we can send the rubber boats and passengers back at the same time?
Ten years ago, the french nuclear power plants supplied about 85% of France’s electrical power grid. France’s energy supply system was given in example as the best model for decades throughout the world. In a few years, the leftist govts, mainly socialists and greenies succeeded in destroying it with currently tens of nuclear units stopped, undergoing usual maintenance or repairs (mainly due to welding cracks observed in the primary cooling circuits, unnoticed until now) for several months, thus placing the whole country under serious risks of power shortages and outages during the harshest winter months, mainly january and february 2023. The thousands windmills and photovoltaïc plants built in France during the last 20 years will not help improving the situation since their gas power backup plants are undergoing strong restrictions due to the actual war in Ukraine.
It is a disaster !!!
The French have been very busy importing LNG into Dunkerque, Montoir and Fos. Quite a lot of it has come from Russia, perhaps explaining Macron’s more emollient attitudes to Putin. French supply has never depended on Russian pipelines. The Belgians and Spanish have also been big importers of Russian LNG, with some going to Portugal, the Netherlands and even Greece as well.
Emmanuel Macron says:
“The role of government, ministers, operators, is to do their job to provide energy, that’s all. And then to call everyone to responsibility so that there is sobriety. It’s not to start scaring people with absurd scenarios and things like the ones I’ve heard in recent hours..
Of course not. That’s HIS job…
“It’s not to start scaring people with absurd scenarios”
Like the absurd scenario where CO2 is dangerous to human beings? Quit scaring people with the absurd CO2 scenario, President Emmanuel Macron! You are unnecessarily scaring people.
Macron confuses irrational with rational fear. That the EU is likely headed toward blackouts is rational. Not enough natgas, and several French nucs down to repair corrosion in the face of a La Niña induced extra cold winter. It does not matter if he dislikes his people talking about objective reality.
Surely one part of the job (RTE) is to warn customers of even low probability blackouts.
“RTE prévoit 1 à 6 jours de coupures d’électricité cet hiver”
They say, using past experience of severity of winter and availability of surplus electricity from neighboring countries, what to expect. If the winter (hiver) is severe like that of 2020-21 or 2010-11, presumably neighbors will not be able to help and we can expect 6 blackouts. It seems there will be 1 blackout even if winter is mild. This probably speaks to the condition of all Europe’s grids.
France is in better shape than their neighbors with its nuclear baseload power. I take this to mean multiple blackouts are expected for all other EU countries except perhaps for Norway (hydro and Nat Gas). Germany is expecting insurrection and has deployed 40 tanks (!) to defend from what they call ultra right agitators!! I guess lefties just peacefully drop over and freeze for Deutchland.
Germany – I read that about the tanks.
I understood that it was ‘tanks of fuel’ to keep the Polizei mobile [and warm].
Auto
Tho’, I suppose it could be proper armoured tanks, with 155 mm guns – as they refused to send any to Poland, so Poland could sent theirs to Ukraine – IIRC.
120mm smoothbore, most likely. Though I haven’t kept up with German armor. They still using Leopard IIs?
He’s correct. But he knows he can rely on nuclear generation, which other nations have abandoned due to Green scare tactics.
Another useful idiot speaks.
yeah the only folks that are allowed to scaremonger are Marcon and his global warming pals …
Words fail, they really do – its almost a “Let them eat cake” moment
But, timing is everything, look what the GWPF have just put out..
Headline“London, 8 December – A new paper from Net Zero Watch argues that climate alarmists are waging psychological warfare on the public.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/content/uploads/2022/12/McMurray-MindWar.pdf
Maybe Macron could read it while waiting for his appointment with Mme La Guillotine……
Time for an update on 1789
The irony is mind blowing. Create a death cult movement by ramping up fear, implement self-destructive policies because of this fear, and then tell people to stop instilling fear when those policies actually threaten real harm.
Isn’t this the same guy who’s government is telling us that we are going to die if we don’t stop emitting CO2?
Yes, that’s the same scaremonger.
A scaremonger complaining that others are scaremongering.
Intermittent/unreliable/renewable Green blight.
If he had made the same comments in relation to the promotion of climate porn we might be getting somewhere.
For one thing, stopping the climate scare stories would allow a proper focus on how to provide cheap and resilient energy supply. The prospect of that would be enough to lower prices, and reduce the risks of blackouts too. It would mean things like running coal as baseload across Europe (thus saving gas for when it’s needed most).
france probably isnt too bad due to its huge nuclear percentage. except for the shockingly illegal build quiality of the pressure components of course.
“It’s not to start scaring people with absurd scenarios”
Like all the climate catastrophe scenarios?
Also, will he absolve them of responsibility if they fail to warn (per his request) and what they’re saying actually happens? (Unlike those scientists who were prosecuted for failing to warn about an earthquake)
Is this the same French Government recently urging citoyens to conserve electricity because half the nuclear fleet (which normally provide 80% of load) are under repair through delayed/neglected maintenance and things are so bad that in order to guarantee supply the Government will renationalise EDF, the owner of the nukes and so skint it can’t afford to replace the aging fleet with new installations?
And the same Government constantly spewing out propaganda about climate change and coming doom?
“The Head of State denounced the authorities and public companies which are beginning “to scare people with absurd scenarios”.”
Right, because it is the job of governments, the UN, NGO’s and all the relevant members of the Kmer Vert “to scare people with absurd scenarios”.
Absolutely amazing, this level of lack of self awareness in Macron is approaching Trudeau type levels.