Today, the only supply chain for the parts and components for wind turbines and solar panels are made with fossil fuels!
Published June 1, 2023 at CFACT https://www.cfact.org/2023/06/01/ny-taking-legislative-action-to-stop-the-transition-until-a-fossil-fuel-replacement-is-identified/
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”
In May 2023, New York Senator George Borrello Introduced Legislation to Prohibit Use of Fossil Fuels in Manufacturing of Renewable Energy Equipment. Obviously, the Senator is cognizant of the reality that all the parts and components for wind turbines and solar panels are made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil! Thus, ridding the world of oil will eliminate wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries!
- Senator Borrello stated, “In order to produce and install renewable energy sources at the scale that will be required to power our entire state, the environmental toll from coal-fired power, diesel fuel and the mining of rare earth metals will be extensive and exists at cross-purposes with the stated goals of those advancing the climate agenda,” said Sen. Borrello. “If they truly believe that fossil fuels must be eliminated, then the state (New York) should not be financing the proliferation of structures whose manufacture, transport and installation produces significant emissions.”
- “Those who blindly call for New York to rapidly transition to renewable energy are perpetrating a shell game for political purposes, at great cost to our environment. This legislation would halt further damage as we wait for renewable technologies that can be produced sustainably, ethically and in cooperation with the goal of truly protecting our environment,” he concluded.
N.Y. Senator Borrello’s legislation summarizes the reality that world leaders are not cognizant enough to know that renewables only generate electricity. Currently, New York has no plans for the replacement of what is now manufactured from fossil fuels, which are supporting the eight billion on this planet!
It is time to conclude that wind and solar represent an investment sink hole just for the generation of occasional unreliable electricity. Such investments are not sustainable and are unable to support a modern economy, as electricity alone is not a replacement for the more than 6,000 products that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil that did not exist 200 years ago and were responsible for the world population from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years.
In the bill, Borrello cites the “inherent environmental and ethical conflict” that results from using an emission-producing energy sources to manufacture “green” energy sources such as wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars. “Currently, the products cited as the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions are manufactured, distributed, and installed using fossil fuels. Coal is burned to forge steel for the foundations, towers, and blades of wind turbines. Diesel-powered heavy equipment transports components, clears sites, digs foundations, and assembles the structures,” he said. “Solar panels require the extraction of rare earth minerals and depend on coal as the primary energy source for the manufacturing process.”
Today, world leaders have NO planned replacement for the supply chain of products that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil that did not exist two hundred years ago. Those same products were responsible for the world population from 1 to 8 billion in less than two hundred years and continue to be demanded by today’s humanity.
A 1-minute video produced by Epoch Times is short, educational, and entertaining as it discusses the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. The video is about renewables that only generate electricity, but manufacture nothing for society. The video has already been viewed by more than 800,000 people on social media! https://www.youtube.com/shorts/stf2YrznkZU.
After world leaders have viewed the video, they will have a better understanding of Senator Borrello’s legislation. Environmentalists wish to rid the world of emissions from fossil fuels but have no plans to identify the replacement for the oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products and all the fuels for the 50,000 merchant ships, 50,000 aircraft, militaries, and space programs that support the eight billion on this planet!
Please enjoy the educational, and entertaining 1-minute video and kindly share with others, along with the legislative actions by New York Senator Borrello.
It’s time to focus on identifying the fossil fuel replacement that can support the supply chain of products and fuels to keep the 8 billion on this planet alive and healthy, and end further subsidies, tax credits, and investments in wind turbine and solar panel technologies just for the transition to unreliable generation of intermittent electricity.
Ronald Stein, P.E.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure
Ronald Stein (energy consultant) Wikipedia page
New York Senator George Borrello will be character assassinated by the press in short order.
But they will have to say what he is proposing to do so.
The Misleadia will probably just manufacture another Stormy in a Double-D cup and get rid of him that way
But they will have to say what he is proposing to do so.
No, they don’t. They will either totally mischaracterize (or flat-out lie) about what he’s proposing, or they will find another way to attack him without even mentioning it.
Calling out their hypocrisy is important, but I believe greens are beyond embarrassment. They will insist bird choppers can be made from tofu, organically grown at that.
Good luck with that
Purified Silicon still requires Coking Coal to strip O2 from Silica
Strong Steel requires Coking Coal to strip O2 from Ferrous Oxide
And lightweight Wind Turbine Blades require Petrochemicals from Oil and Gas extraction
I have my doubts about the comparative strength of (Green) Steel produced from Hydrogen
Actually knowing any science and/or engineering gets in the way. One must have faith, or one is a Denier.
Cuz its a “religion” not a fact based science. As most should know by now, ideology is void of anything remotely resembling factual repeatable scientific procedures. Thus, a cult of the most destructive kind.
Meet a green on the road, the choices of how to deal with them is rather narrow. Proceed.
Just like they claim “Scientists” do not believe in God or Claim there is no GOD. Climate “Scientists” Believe and Claim that NET ZERO is possible globally in less than twenty years and electricity will then cost one half as much as it does now. Further, if you do not believe this you are a “Denier” and deserve eradication – like a cockroach.
“Today, world leaders have NO planned replacement for the supply chain of products that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil that did not exist two hundred years ago.”
The transition is to diminish the amount of CO2 emissions, which are produced by burning fossil fuels. There is no difficulty about using them as feedstock. NO need to replace.
The flawed assertion that CO2 emissions need to be diminished is an extraordinary claim that as yet remains unsupported by actual evidence.
CO2 is a net beneficial trace gas, and more is better for plant growth. Less is dangerous for all life on this planet.
No need to replace them for electricity generation either.
It is great that you finally realise that the whole anti-CO2 scam is just that, a SCAM and a scientific FARCE.
Yet you still support that scam… Why is that ?
because he can’t think out of the propaganda box
John Kerry is negotiating with other countries to destroy farming.
Democrats are full believers that CO₂ must be eliminated from the atmosphere.
I believe that Greta is of a similar mind as is the Netherlands and UK.
Maybe you should start writing articles about just diminishing CO₂ emissions.
Though that won’t get much traction logically, since global CO₂ was unaffected by COVID lockdowns.
Billions of years to reach a climate that supports vegetation and life. The last billion years demonstrates how much atmospheric CO₂ has been captured as carbonate rock until finally reaching the point where plants are starving for CO₂.
Activists, insisting on action rather than science still haven’t produced any proof for the arming they are screaming about.
“There is no difficulty about using them as feedstock. NO need to replace” WTF does this mean?
It means that if you make something out of FF – plastic or whatever, that carbon is not going as CO2 into the air.
But as microplastics into the ocean? 😉
What about Silicon and Steel???
What about where the RUBBER meets the ASPHALT???
What about the Ocean Transport from China (where EV batteries and Cheap Solar Panels are made) to the remainder of the world???
What, pray tell, is wrong with adding CO2 to the atmosphere?
Come on Mr Stokes, put your shoulder to the non FF powered grindstone and state for the record – and so that anyone accessing this blog understands – exactly why CO2 has to be reduced? How does CO2 act as a reflector of heat from earth? What proportion of the spectrum of radiated heat is reflected – all, some, presumably none is not in your mind – does any heat escape – if so where does it “go”? If CO2 is so egregiously impacting to the planet, how are you going to eradicate it so the planet can be saved?
To what level, as ppm, do you have an acceptable level with which you are happy – is there an impending threshold that must not be breached? ( viz. the 1.5% degree figure beloved of IPCC acolytes ) – is so, why? What happens to life on this planet if you succeed in eradicating all human produced CO2? How do you bring all non human sources of CO2 production into line with your net zero dream – given that you consider CO2 a danger to the planet and all life?
Don’t suppose you will respond to me as a non scientist and you will doubtless scoff at the amateurish nature of my questions – but hey, go ahead and make my day.
or my favorite – since the vast majority of CO2 in the atmosphere is naturally occurring, how is it that removing the tiny amount that is not recurring – say something like 1 one hundredth of 1% of the atmosphere will have any effect on the climate – violates all common sense to believe that a miniscule amount of anything controls the climate
Are you really that dense? All of the materials require enrgy to transform them in to your products.
It means that fracking bans, drilling bans, pipeline bans and international shipping bans are premature, reactionary and not well thought out.
Fossil Fuels burning is used in every step of the process of getting solar panels created from dirt, which is generally far underneath the surface dirt, then transporting and installing them, along with all the auxiliary parts that are similarly created with extensive use of fossil fuel burning. Eventually there will be the removal and disposal of the dead panels using more fossil fuel burning and, at least currently, no useful plan about what to actually do at that time. The same applies just as strongly to wind turbines.
After many complaints that wind turbine production, transportation, installation, etc. produces more CO2 that the use of said turbines can eliminate over their lifetimes, some advocate published a rebuttal, claiming that the required use period was only five years to break even. This, however, was based on nameplate capacity. Since the capacity factor in many places is around 20%, that means at least 25 years of operation is generally required to break even – assuming no extensive repair and maintenance during that period, and assuming the claim was in any way based on factual data rather than propaganda.
Various studies have concluded that battery EVs need 100,000 miles of travel to start to have a smaller “carbon footprint” than a similar capacity ICE vehicle. Volvo recently announced that their latest model brought that usage down to 90,000 miles. What is the equivalent use time for solar panels? I’ve seen no similar information that was backed up by anything factual.
We all know that the claims of lesser cost of electricity from wind and solar is based on ignoring the many costs required to actually make them usable and which would generally not be required if they were not in the system al all. That certainly seems to also apply to the ratio of energy produced to energy used: is it, overall, greater than 1? We also all know that the nutter cases that seems to be driving much of the political process behind wind and solar are also pushing for “leave it in the ground”, which would likely eliminate wind and solar generation right along with everything else gained in the last couple hundred years.
Tom Nelson’s latest interview with Soeren Hansen illustrates why net zero can never happen:
Tom’s podcast is greatly under appreciated. It doesn’t have a large subscription base- actually, most climate skeptic YouTube channels don’t- but, I like it because he doesn’t waste our time with long introductions and fancy graphics and other bull- he gives the name of the guest and that’s it- the guest jumps right in, introduces themselves and gives their talk- Tom asks some good questions but lets the guest do most of the talking- I like that- not like Jordan Peterson- I like Jordon’s podcast too, but dam, he tends to dominate the discussion with every guest and does 75% of the talking.
“Various studies have concluded that battery EVs need 100,000 miles of travel to start to have a smaller “carbon footprint” than a similar capacity ICE vehicle. “
I recall one study showing the figure to be ~400K miles.
“After many complaints that wind turbine production, transportation, installation, etc. produces more CO2 that the use of said turbines can eliminate over their lifetimes, some advocate published a rebuttal, claiming that the required use period was only five years to break even. This, however, was based on nameplate capacity. Since the capacity factor in many places is around 20%, that means at least 25 years of operation is generally required to break even – assuming no extensive repair and maintenance during that period, and assuming the claim was in any way based on factual data rather than propaganda.”
*************
If fossil fuel power plants are to go away someday, one needs to be sure to include the CO2 emitted from mining the raw materials, manufacturing and installing (and eventual removal of) the batteries that will eventually be needed to deal with the intermittency of wind turbines and solar panels as well. My understanding is that the cost will be in the trillions of dollars.
Once the cost and CO2 emissions of batteries are added in, I am inclined to believe that any net CO2 savings from wind turbines and solar panels seems is more of a fantasy than reality.
And don’t forget the cement needed for the base of wind turbines and for the floor of battery packs.
Please advise how you create steel, cement for concrete, purify silicone for solar panels etc. without burning fossil fuels.
You can. But Stein’s specific issue was with replacing FF as feedstock for materials.
Do you advocate the return to burning Wood for the creation of steel – as was the case before widespread use of coal?
Nickpicking again
Sorry Martin. I’m sure it was just a slip of the finger, but silicone is not the same as silicon.
Tell that to your “Just Stop Oil” idiots, Nick.
Did you know that New England is using LNG in place of coal or piped natural gas, and LNG has a much larger carbon footprint than both coal and NG? Getting rid of coal and refusing to pipe in NG is increasing, not decreasing, CO2 from burning fossil fuels.
I await your reply.
“I await your reply.”
I’ll reply when you produce some backing for your claims.
“Some backing ” or Some backing I agree with”?
LNG is processed many times and shipped across oceans. That has to increase its carbon footprint.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63457377
It says a lot that you are not aware of this.
https://www.upstreamonline.com/lng/carbon-footprint-of-lng-to-become-key-differentiator/2-1-914629
Here is a key phrase:
“LNG ranks among the most emission-intensive resources across the oil and gas sector”
Note, it is very hard to get exact numbers on this, which reflects the deep corruption in Western countries in the media and in science and in government. They just don’t want us to know.
Nick. If you are an honest person, reflect. If not, well, that’s OK, too.
“…and LNG has a much larger carbon footprint than both coal and NG?”
I read both of your linked articles twice and missed any such comparison. Would you please point me to it?
“For piped gas from Norway, we see around 7kg of CO2 per barrel, but for LNG imports into Europe, we estimate the average is over 70, so around 10 times lower for piped gas versus LNG,” said Patrick King from Rystad.” This is from the BBC article.
I actually understand why you missed it. This long article just notes that in passing. And, I have tried hard to find other references to this issue, but, they are rare or non-existent. The only explanation is that there is heavy censorship which prevents this issue from being discussed openly.
If we take the 10x increase in CO2 emissions at face value, and if we agree that coal is 2x as bad for CO2 emissions as piped NG, then LNG is 5x as bad in terms of CO2 emissions as coal.
This means that there should be a ban on LNG if coal generated electricity is available. But, the Greens have closed most coal plants in some countries, including the UK and in New England. The Greens are committing environmental fraud.
This is worse for the CO2 problem than closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with NG plants. Imagine the increase in CO2 if they use LNG to fuel those NG plants.
Doesn’t this just apply to the “production and transport” parts of the various production to combustion use cycles? If so, then I have a hard time with this demonstrating that “…and LNG has a much larger carbon footprint than both coal and NG?”. At least for coal….
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dcv2j7
Here is a direct quote from this link:
Rystad Energy, an independent organisation advising governments on energy policy, has found that LNG generates ten times more carbon emissions than gas delivered through a pipeline.
It can not be stated any clearer than that. It is undeniable that Green Energy advocates are promoting LNG as a substitute for coal. Since coal emits 1/5th of the CO2 of LNG, this advocacy is inconsistent with the their claim that CO2 is causing a climate crisis.
How do you explain this inconsistency?
Most of added LNG pollution is from the 10-15% required to liquify, transport, and gasify it. This is why those processes add “ten times more” to the carbon emissions from those processes. I have no problem agreeing that that makes LNG, in toto, more carbon emitting than pipelined natural gas. But since all of your references ignore final use combustion, I find it hard to believe that LNG has a total carbon footprint higher than that of coal.
But feel free to provide the total carbon footprint values for each fuel source.
BTW, using 2021 figures and doing the arithmetic, Europe emitted ~340MM metric tons of carbon from the natural gas it burned in 2021. Your link shows an extra ~15MM metric tons from importing LNG, which makes sense. But not not 91) 10 times more, nor (2) an environmental deal breaker nor (3) an indicator of comparable coal emissions.
Tell that to the Enviroterrorists chanting “Leave it in the ground”…”Just Stop Oil”…etc.
Nick, one must burn fossil fuels to manufacture, construct, operate and back-up ruinables. Even if Man’s production of CO2 was a problem, current technology of wind and solar production and backup is about a CO2 wash. Get your hand out of my pocket.
“There is no difficulty about using them as feedstock.”
Can’t get to NET ZERO nirvana that way.
I’d love to see a steel mill powered entirely by effete and pathetic Solar or Wind. How about the enormous amounts of energy needed to make calcium oxide from limestone? How many thousands of windmills or acres of solar panels would be needed?
Unfortunately Solar would be out without massive over building and enormous batteries to store power. Solar only produces at near maximum potential from 10am until 2pm local time. Tell the steel workers they only get paid to work 4 hours a day. Realistically less as it takes time for those massive crucibles to heat up
Nick, time for you to take on China.
In August 2022 coal powered generation in China was over 500TWh. This monthly level of generation was higher than the total annual power generation of any other country, except India and the US (IEA ‘Coal 2023 Analysis and forecast to 2025’, Dec 2022)
Missed the edit time.
Should read IEA ‘Coal 2022 Analysis and forecast to 2025’, Dec 2022
Don’t you worry about all that Nick – XR and Just Stop Oil will try to end all hydrocarbon use but Russia will be there to keep you in the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed!
It’s good to hear that a politician has the determination and practicality to stand up to the climate alarmists and demand answers regarding reliable fossil fuel replacements; i.e, currently there are none. And until someone can find proper substitutes, taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be wasted on hit-or-miss solutions that will neither provide the necessary energy nor reduce emissions.
Story tip
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/us-military-ai-drone-simulation-kills-operator-told-bad-takes-out-control-tower
In a simulation, a drone controlled by an AI, takes out the communication tower so that it’s operator cannot give it a no go command.
“Oh brave new world…”
Spread the Green blight over land and sea. The environment comes second to renewable profit, third to political climate, and fourth to weather.
We can replace some of the items made from fossil fuel. But more costly, and not all.
well, if weather is becoming more unpredictable due to climate change, why are we increasing our dependence on weather-dependent power sources?
ask a proponent of this nonsense and watch their brain try to process….
Yup, how do we get over the bit where the unpredictable weather enables no means of producing energy requiring back up……..which will be powered by…..
Just like the eternal staircase…..that goes nowhere
That YouTube link is a bit suspicious- I held my mouse over it to see what the URL is and it isn’t what you see in the essay. It’s so long it goes off the page. If a link is put into an essay and it looks like an URL, then it should be what it looks like. It may go to the correct place but it may add a tracker to your computer. Or worse.
… the cognitive dissonance will completely erase it from their memories.
NB : The assumption that the various “flappers” for those world leaders will allow them to watch such videos without “supervision” (/ at all) in the first place is flawed.
[ Set “world-weary cynicism” mode to “Off”… I said “OFF” ! … I said … Oh, never mind … ]
Good to see at least one elected offal has the guts to push against the stupidity of “climate change” drivel. Wish more would do so. Largely.
Then, I see the village (fill in the blank) who goes by the handle of Nick, spouts the leftist garbage without verifiable facts. As usual. Oh well.