Energy, Properly Used

 

On this day:
1972
Watergate scandal: An 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex
2009
During the Iranian election protests, the death of Neda Agha-Soltan is captured on video and spreads virally on the Internet, making it “probably the most widely witnessed death in human history”.

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Are the speeches about the Iran threat new, or do they use the old Iraq WMD speeches to save paper?

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28% of people surveyed recently feel that the Biden White House was open and honest about Biden's decline.

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Energy, Properly Used

Kevin O’Leary commented that the recent meetings at the G7 showed that "the country that has the energy, has the AI, has the economy, has the productivity, and eventually is superior in warfare."

“This is all going to go to drones and robotics one day, and the country with the best AI,” he added.

O'Leary recently warned investors not to conflate AI enthusiasm with real capacity. "You can't just pull that from the local grid without sending electricity bills soaring. Cities won't allow it, and communities push back hard," he said last month, calling power availability the new prime metric for tech valuations.

So AI is the gatekeeper for future security and economic development, despite requiring a tremendous energy supply, a supply that has to be either developed or sacrificed elsewhere and diverted. 

How is this different from the internal combustion engine debate of old? We were told then we simply had to sacrifice energy production and move on to more responsible energy use--i.e. electric car engines--despite the inconvenience and cost, for a greater good. Now we're told we must ramp up our energy production, regardless of its source, with its recently cursed side effects, inconvenience, and cost, for the greater good. The tech race is on, and anyone can win. But anyone without great energy production will fail. AI has got to be fed. 

And what about bitcoin mining? I've seen energy farms for bitcoin mining as big as Section 8 housing projects. Certainly, bitcoin wealth enriches society and is for the greater good.

It should be clear that unexpected sacrifices must be made in our complex, modern world. The only certainty is who has to make those sacrifices.

Fossil Fuel and Shakespeare

I am now, officially, worried about Trump.

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15% of Canadians use pronouns in their email signatures.

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Our findings indicate that the shale gas boom reduced average U.S. annual greenhouse gas emissions per capita by 7.5%.--Lindequist

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The former Pittsburgh anesthesiologist who was arrested for trying to kill his wife in Hawaii had previously been married to sex worker Jessica Patella; The two married when they were both just 20 and stayed married for over 15 years, sharing two children.
One of their children, a trans man who goes by Kieren, shared details from his difficult childhood in an essay published online and written in the second person.

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Fossil Fuel and Shakespeare

A recent article by Mills argues that energy sources are rarely replaced; they are augmented.

Michael Cembalest, J. P. Morgan’s chairman of market and investment strategy, notes, “After $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar, electric vehicles, energy storage, electrified heat and power grids, the renewable transition is still a linear one; the renewable share of final energy consumption is slowly advancing at 0.3%–0.6% per year.” Cembalest’s bottom line: “Growth in fossil fuel consumption is slowing but no clear sign of a peak on a global basis.” That is to say, no “energy transition” is in sight.

So, what's the story? Are we not trying hard enough? Not spending enough? Not distorting our economies enough?

Humanity has used the same six primary energy sources for millennia:  grains, animal fats, wood, water, wind, and fossil fuels. The world today uses more of all of these categories than ever before. But “energy transition” means more than a different emphasis, it means replacement and elimination. Is that happening?

Civilization hasn’t even transitioned away from slavery, at least not in the case of African mining, as documented in the book Cobalt Red. If the Global Slavery Index is correct, more humans are mired in forced labor now than at any time in history. Read that again. More humans are mired in forced labor now than at any time in history. Likewise, the world today uses more “working animals” than ever—some 200 million, fueled by grain, even in the U.S. with its weird grain-to-ethanol cult.

Mill's recent City Journal article pointed out a single example of replacement of an energy source: whaling. Today, global biofuel production (biodiesel) is about 1,000 times greater than two centuries ago. While that production is now dominated by plant oils (especially soybean and Jatropha), roughly 100 times more animal fats are used today for fuel than during the peak whale-harvesting era. Abandoning whale oil is history’s one clear exception to the no-energy-transitions rule.

Whales were not saved by esthetics but by advances in chemical science and the invention, circa 1840, of coal-to-kerosene synthesis; one ton of coal could yield as much oil as harvesting three tons of whales. The value of harvesting whales simply collapsed.

Wood? Overall, burning wood supplies the world with twice as much energy as all the world’s solar and wind machines combined. Even in the U.S., the use of wood for fuel is greater now than a century ago. 

The use of watermills for the industrial grinding of grains dates back to ancient Greece. It soared during the Middle Ages when an estimated 500,000 watermills operated in Europe. But that was hardly peak waterpower. Global hydro dams today produce roughly 500 times more energy. Global wind turbines harvest at least fifty-fold more wind energy than ever in history.

And, presumably, nuclear power will eventually overcome prejudice and become a factor.

No energy source is thrown away unless, like whale oil, it becomes economically impractical. Of course, no energy has been vilified and placed on the Index before, but religious suppression, however strange and fanciful, never works for long. It becomes something we learn to live with, like shingles. Even Shakespeare suppression is having an ignoble--if laughable-- revival.

But once we get past the pitchforks-in-the-street phase, things will work out. Why they're even burning electric cars!

Keystone

Private equity funds—which pool money from a few exclusive investors to purchase privately held companies with “little to no public reporting”—may not be a good fit for the relative safety that workers expect from 401(k) plans that typically invest in public companies whose performance is routinely reported and measured.--Hopkins study

OR

“We are seeing institutions worldwide blend public and private markets, and in many cases, it’s been a great investment,” said Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock at a summit on retirement that the company sponsored last week. More than half of the $11.6 trillion in assets under management at BlackRock are in retirement products.

Fink and other proponents say a key reason for including private assets in the $12.5 trillion workplace retirement plan market is the need for greater portfolio diversification.

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A stabbing rampage has occurred in Amsterdam, leaving five victims wounded at the famed Dam Square, including two Americans.

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Musk and some of his outriders were interviewed by Baier yesterday and said some remarkable things about the government. It is a mistake not to have him explain what they are doing. One little nugget: when HHS gives research grant money, only 65% goes to the scientist. The rest goes to the university.

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Keystone

Keystone XL is a 2,000-mile tar sands pipeline that would stretch from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

The pipeline is designed for one thing—to send oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf coast, and from there to overseas markets.

Its owner is TransCanada, a Canadian oil company.

The original petition for permit was denied on January 18, 2012 due to environmental concerns. Specifically, the original pipeline route would have passed through an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska known as the Sand Hills region. This area has highly porous soil and shallow groundwater. The Ogallala aquifer is also in this region and the pipeline would have posed a potential threat to the drinking water. A revised permit was resubmitted in May 2012 which contained an alternate route. It was denied.

The Keystone Pipeline already exists. In fact, the Keystone Mainline is 1,353 miles of 30" pipe which extends from Hardisty, Alberta to refineries in Wood River and Peoria, Illinois. This segment has been in service since June 2010. The Cushing Extension is 298 miles of 36" pipe which runs from Steele City, Nebraska to crude oil terminals and tank farms in Cushing, Oklahoma. This portion has been flowing since February 2011.

The Keystone XL Pipeline consists of two parts. The first is the Gulf Coast Project. This portion would transport oil over 435 miles through 36" pipe running from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas. The second segment, called the Keystone XL, would run 1,179 miles from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska.

Although the argument against the pipeline centers on environmental concerns, the real reason may have to do with the disdain for fossil fuels felt by environmental groups and others. Keystone XL is a relatively small issue compared to the entirety of the existing U.S. pipeline system. Hence, opponents of this project have taken a well-anticipated route, claiming that it will harm the environment. The question is, if the thousands of miles of existing pipeline has been in use and the environment seems to be unaffected, why should Keystone XL suddenly be the project that ruins the planet?

The project’s corporate backer—the Canadian energy infrastructure company TC Energy—officially abandoned the project in June 2021 following President Joe Biden’s denial of a key permit on his first day in office.

The latest twist is President Donald Trump’s 2025 rescission of Biden’s executive order that revoked the pipeline’s permit—despite a lack of interest from the would-be developer.

And another question. Since this is a Canadian project in which the U.S. contributes only access and convenience, and since it is a sizable project with some military implications to an embattled Europe, and since it is obviously arbitrary--why weren't the Canadians filled with wild-eyed indignation as they have been with the equally obnoxious tariffs?

A Titanic Problem

Software used by British submariners was subcontracted to developers in Belarus.

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Pope Francis has branded Donald Trump's plans to impose mass deportation of immigrants as 'a disgrace' and urged the incoming president to lead a society with 'no room for hatred'.

Francis, who nearly a decade ago called Trump 'not Christian' for wanting to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, was asked about Trump's deportation pledges during a Sunday appearance on the popular Italian talk show, Che Tempo Che Fa.

'If true, this will be a disgrace, because it makes the poor wretches who have nothing pay the bill' for the problem, the Pope said. 'This won't do! This is not the way to solve things. That's not how things are resolved.'

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A Titanic Problem

Britain now has the highest industrial energy prices in the world, has fallen out of the world’s top ten manufacturers, faces power rationing, and is spending over £3bn a year to import electricity.

Last month, the country’s last big coal-fired power station closed and nuclear generation remains in consistent decline. The bill for these imports runs at £250m a month and regularly represents 20 percent of the total electricity supply. Forecasts show imports could soon supply up to a third of British needs by 2030 and beyond.

Ministers boast of Britain’s falling emissions from the energy sector; they won’t tell you about the overseas emissions connected with the electricity we now import but don’t appear on UK statistics; they claim they cannot measure it, so they ignore it. Britain is offshoring its emissions, hiding them, and hoping people won’t notice.

The consequences are stark, ranging from the loss of British competitiveness, rising fuel poverty, chronic economic underperformance, and becoming dangerously vulnerable to future energy crises.

Between 2004 and 2020, before the war in Ukraine, the industrial price of energy in Britain tripled in nominal terms (153%) or doubled relative to consumer prices. Electricity prices have doubled since 2019. This has led to a huge slice of Britain’s manufacturing base already choosing to relocate overseas in search of lower costs. Since 2010 over 200,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost; as a share of GDP, manufacturing has been cut in half since the 1990s.

Per capita electricity generation in the UK is now just two-thirds of what it is in France and barely over a third of the US. Britain now mirrors developing countries like South Africa (which endures rolling blackouts) more than key competitors like Germany. British businesses pay almost four times as much as American firms for each unit of power and households pay three times as much.

Sixty years ago Britain had 21 nuclear reactors, compared to 19 combined in the rest of the world. France picked up global leadership in this sector, which now generates 70 percent of its power from its nuclear stations and decarbonizes while retaining competitive power prices. France built no less than 40 nuclear plants between 1965 and 1985 and is now refurbishing and replacing older ones. Today, British firms pay on average sixty percent more for electricity than French ones.

All this is a microcosm of decline.

Self-inflicted Wounds of the Righteous

... among corruptible human beings, the power to weaponize a vision of justice and impose it on a world of alternative visions is toxic.--Schmidtz

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Roger Federer said, “In the 1526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now, I have a question for you. What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%.”

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Blue Origin is preparing to step into a new chapter of rocketry, by debuting its first orbital class rocket, New Glenn, Bezos' entry into the spaace race. It will also attempt to recover the first stage booster on landing platform the Atlantic Ocean. Its launch was planned for today but cancelled early this morning.

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A gymnist pauses for a glass of wine:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DD-crSMSNoz/?igsh=MTM1b2JiOGc3eWVjeg%3D%3D

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Self-inflicted Wounds of the Righteous

Global warming beliefs have created dangerous waters.

The Germans have a word for periods of simultaneous low wind and sun. Literally. It's Dunkelflaute, meaning "flat, dark calm." The word elsewhere is "winter."

Dependence on unreliable energy sources (wind, solar), combined with the hasty phase-out of nuclear power, has made Germany's electricity the most expensive in Europe and compromises the country's -- and ultimately the continent's -- energy autonomy.
On December 12 of this year, for example, German electricity production from wind and solar power was thirty times lower than the demand for it.

To make up for energy shortfalls they have increased reliance on coal and lignite. This raises their carbon footprint. More importantly, they have to compete for energy on the open market.

Germany's high electricity prices are leading to the relocation of its industry, as companies look for sites where energy costs are more affordable. In Germany, industry pays up to three times more for electricity than itscompetitors.

Whole swathes of Germany's proud industry are collapsing. Not just the big names -- VW, BASF, Mercedes-Benz -- but every big company that disappears or downsizes takes with it a myriad of small and medium-sized affiliated enterprises that end up collapsing along with it.

None of this is accidental. None is the result of weather whimsy. This is administrative, the consequence of government decisions from faith-based "conceptual frameworks." Most importantly, these decisions, made by a small group of idealogues, summate to swamp the average working guy in changes that may not be shared by the law-making elite.

That is Germany's, and Europe's, true rising tide.

Worshipping False Gods

Sarah Halimi was thrown out of her apartment window in Paris. French prosecutors decided to drop murder charges against her killer, who had shouted “Allahu Akbar” and who had told them: “When I saw the Torah and a chandelier in her home, I felt oppressed,” because, those prosecutors said, he had smoked weed.

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Socialism for capitalists is no better than other forms of socialism, and few reforms could be more important than once again making capitalism a system of profit and loss. The market-liberal logic is merciless: either a business is competitive and so does not need support, or it is not competitive and so doesn’t deserve support.--Norberg

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Worshipping False Gods

Devotion to concepts and notions is not its own reward. There are many religions and all can not be right. Being wrong has consequences. One does not want to offer one's daughter to the volcano without having some confidence in the value of her sacrifice.

This does not seem to be of much concern in faith-based environmentalism. A teaching case is Africa.

An essential element of commerce of any type is availability. Scarcity. Ignoring this basic quality makes any action whimsical and its aim a forgone failure. It's a common problem for adolescents and governments.

Hydropower is the world’s most widely used form of renewable energy, propelling development in South America, parts of China and India, and much of sub-Saharan Africa. But over the past two years, extreme droughts have made this critical energy supply less reliable. Growing populations have exaggerated the problem, leading to desperation and potential political instability.

Hydropower — which makes up about half of the world’s clean energy supply — saw a record decline last year. As a consequence, Beijing fired up more coal plants. India increased coal imports. The International Energy Agency says that global emissions from electricity generation would have fallen last year, instead of rising to another record high, had it not been for unexpected, drought-related hydropower failures on multiple continents — and the policy decisions that followed. In other words, everything was going fine, until it wasn't.

This year, the extreme shortages have shifted to other parts of the world. Amid a historic South American drought, Ecuador is contending with daily blackouts, and its government leased a Turkish barge-mounted power plant as an emergency measure.

Hydropower plays a major role in almost any scenario where the planet meets its climate goals. But one 2022 study, led by researchers at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), found that 26 percent of existing dams are located where there’s a medium to very high risk of water scarcity. By 2050, the study projects, climate change will push that figure up to 32 percent.

The International Energy Agency has singled out Africa’s vulnerability, noting its high dependence on hydropower and the “increased risk of water stress due to changing and erratic precipitation patterns” as the planet warms.

“Of all the different climate solutions — wind, solar — it’s definitely the one that is the most vulnerable to the climate itself,” said Jeff Opperman, the global freshwater lead scientist at the WWF.

Right now, Zambia’s Kariba hydro plant — the country’s single biggest source of power — is operating at one-tenth of its capacity.

Zambia has moved quickly to double the capacity of an existing coal-fired power plant that, when the expansion is completed in two years, will give the country a modest energy boost. It has also rush-ordered diesel generators, distributing them in markets across the capital of Lusaka. But in the meantime, there’s an even dirtier fuel that is booming in demand: charcoal, a carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents.

The coal plant would stave off an even worse scenario that’s unfolding now. As Zambians seek out charcoal, they are cutting down forests that absorb carbon dioxide if they are left standing.

Charcoal production is decimating Zambia’s forests so coal would be a superior alternative.

Zambia doesn’t have oil or gas, but it sits on large reserves of coal. It operated a 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant before the hydropower shortfall; its capacity will rise to 600 megawatts. Because many international lenders had sworn off funding coal, Zambia tapped its national pension fund to help finance the work.

Sometimes the rain dance doesn't fall on the right ears. So we dance faster, harder, and louder.
 

China Energy

 

The New York Times yesterday revealed the simultaneously astonishing and unsurprising news that one of America’s most prominent gender-transition providers, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, has intentionally not published the results of her “multimillion-dollar federal project” on puberty blockers in minors — because she found that “[p]uberty blockers did not lead to mental health improvements.” According to the Times, Olson-Kennedy “was concerned the study’s results could be used in court to argue that ‘we shouldn’t use blockers’” in minors.

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100 Labour Party operatives had been dispatched from Britain to support Kamala Harris' campaign.

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China Energy

Coal still accounts for about 60% of China’s power generation, despite a surge in hydropower earlier this year after abundant rainfall, which reduced the share of coal in the country’s energy mix during the summer.

But hydropower saw a sharp decline in September, which boosted the use of thermal coal for power generation amid surging power demand in the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s thermal power generation, which is overwhelmingly coal-fired, jumped by 8.9% last month, per official data cited by Reuters’s columnist Clyde Russell.

Total power generation rose by 6% in September from a year earlier as electricity demand has started to outpace China’s economic growth in recent years.

Power demand jumped by 8.5% in September from the same month last year, while year to date, Chinese power consumption also rose by a similar percentage, 7.9% year-over-year, per the data quoted by Reuters’s Russell.

Power consumption in data centers, big data, and cloud computing jumped by 33% between January and June compared to the same period in 2023.

Fossil Fuels

For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, Eberstadt writes in Foreign Affairs, Earth’s population is going to decline. A lot.

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The vast majority of Prussia, the founding father of modern Germany, is no longer part of Germany

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Fossil Fuels

The West continues to distort its economies with EVs and alternative energy programs. Yet global electricity demand is surging, driven by electrification efforts such as electric vehicles, AI, and heat pumps.


However, renewable energy isn’t growing fast enough to meet this rising demand, leading to increased reliance on...coal. Despite advances in clean energy, coal consumption is at record levels and is projected to remain high, especially in China and India. Record levels!


This may highlight the uneven progress of the energy transition, with fossil fuels still persisting and dominant in certain power sectors. But if the objective is to eliminate fossil fuels within a certain time period, a partial result is not progress, it is failure. And that is the responsibility of the plan's creators.

AI vs Climate

There's a new book out about Jack The Ripper. In a series of astonishing luck, coincidence, and hard work, DNA evidence has pointed to a Jewish Russian immigrant as the killer.

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Damoclean: adjective: Involving imminent danger.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Damocles of Greek legend. Earliest documented use: 1888.
Damocles was a courtier in the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. Damocles, eager to flatter his king, lavished him with excessive praise. Annoyed by the flattery, the king decided to teach Damocles a memorable lesson.
He held a sumptuous banquet in honor of Damocles. Above Damocles’ seat, he placed a gleaming sword suspended by a single horsehair. When Damocles saw the sword hanging over his head, he lost all taste for the lavish feast. Damocles understood that even those in positions of privilege live under constant threat. Interestingly, the word imminent literally means 'hanging over.'

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Retail sales jobs hovered at around 7.5 percent of employment from 2003 to 2013 but have since fallen to only 5.7 percent of employment, a decline of about 25 percent in just a decade. Put another way – the U.S. economy added 19 million total jobs between 2013 and 2023 but lost 850 thousand retail sales jobs. The decline started well before the pandemic.

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AI vs Climate

Former Google chief Eric Schmidt favors dropping climate goals to ensure that AI companies will have enough power to drive their AI ambitions. Incidentally, this is happening now at Google, as its greenhouse gas emissions have jumped by 48% since 2019, primarily driven by its data center energy demands. While Schmidt recognizes the climate problem he believes that we shouldn’t let targets shackle AI development as we could use it to solve that problem. Besides, he says that we will not be able to meet the targets we’ve set anyway.

Schmidt said, “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it — and the way to do it is with the ways that we’re talking about now — and yes, the needs in this area will be a problem. But I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it and having the problem, if you see my plan.”

Florida Grid

Hurricane Milton has been downgraded to a Category 4.

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Don't know much about this but it looks bad.
Some big-name celebrities are quietly paying off victims to avoid being publicly named in lawsuits related to the Diddy sex assault case, according to a lawyer.
Attorney Tony Buzbee — who is representing more than 120 of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ alleged victims — told TMZ that huge stars are about to be sued by his firm and he’s giving them a chance to settle up before the claims hit public court.
Some celebrities have opted to settle, he said.

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The picture of man as a being who, thanks to his reason, can rise above the values of his civilization, in order to judge it from the outside, or from a higher point of view, is an illusion. All we can ever do is to confront one part with the other parts.--Hayek

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Florida Grid

Here is an interesting observation by Loyola.

Florida relies on natural gas for 75% of its electricity, more than any other large state. That’s remarkable because of the five largest states, the other four—California, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas—all have significant natural-gas reserves, while Florida has none. Yet compared with Florida, residential electricity is 27% more expensive in Pennsylvania, 60% more expensive in New York and 137% more expensive in California. Even pro-energy, GOP-controlled Texas has more expensive electricity than Florida, partly because of its large renewable energy sector, which makes its grid costly and difficult to operate.

Because it has avoided the misguided climate policies of other states, Florida is better positioned to weather the historic energy-scarcity crisis now bearing down on America’s electricity grid. Just as electricity demand is soaring across the country, driven by electric vehicles and artificial-intelligence data centers, a train wreck of federal policy failures is constraining the grid’s ability to meet the new demand.

Emissions Reduction

 

This is an informative Opinion Piece by Jenkins from the WSJ.

Emissions Reduction

'Even Democrats don’t want to hear about climate change. The words were barely mentioned at the convention, and every transcript I examined omitted the once obligatory Biden modifier “existential."

The reason isn’t a mystery. Joe Biden’s policies are having not the slightest effect on climate change and yet somebody will still have to pay Ford’s $130,000 in losses per electric vehicle in the first quarter. This sum, a calculation shows, is equal to $64.80 per gallon of gasoline saved over four years of average driving. And yes, this amounts to a ludicrously costly subsidy to somebody else to use the gasoline that EV drivers are paid to forgo.

Voilà, the flaw in the Biden strategy from the get-go, which completely defeats the goal of reducing emissions.

Regular readers may feel vindicated by a new study this week in the prestigious journal Science. It examines 1,500 “climate” policies adopted around the world and finds only 63—or 4%—produced any emissions reductions. Even so, press accounts strained to muddy the study’s simple lesson so let’s spell it out: Taxing carbon reduces emissions. Subsidizing “green energy” doesn’t.

In fact, this should be old hat. One of the most cited papers in climate economics is 2012’s “Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels?” by the University of Oregon’s Richard York. His answer: not “when net effects are considered.”

Mr. York and a colleague returned with a 2019 empirical paper showing that while “renewable energy sources compose a larger share of overall energy production, they are not replacing fossil fuels but are rather expanding the overall amount of energy that is produced.”'

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*Ford’s $130,000 in losses per electric vehicle. Equal to $64.80 per gallon of gasoline saved over four years of average driving.

*Of 1,500 “climate” policies adopted around the world only 63—or 4%—produced any emissions reductions.

This is a gigantic shift in investment, a huge misappropriation of the economy's wealth. And not only are these so-called leaders wrong-headed, they seem to be unteachable.

Coal

In the US, 5% of women are blonde. Among female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 48% are blonde.

Female senators: 35% blonde 

Blonde privilege.

Just 2.2% of male F500 CEOs are blonde

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In the US, 14.5% of men are 6ft or taller.
Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 58% are 6ft or taller (4x increase) 3.9% of men are 6’2’’ or taller, among F500 CEOs, 30% are 6’2’’ or taller (7.6x increase)

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Coal

So, how's the carbon war going?

Demand for coal is set to grow 1.2% and top 8 billion metric tons for the first time ever this year, the IEA said in the latest edition of its annual coal report. This record comes only a year after countries agreed to phase down their use of coal at the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow.

The growth is mostly due to a rapid rise in the prices of natural gas and other fuels, which has forced some countries and regions to turn to coal as a cheaper alternative.

China, which accounts for more than half of global coal consumption, also ramped up its use of coal earlier this year, when the worst heatwave and drought in six decades hit its hydroelectricity production.

Earlier this year, the IEA said CO2 emissions from coal power generation were forecast to grow by more than 200 million tons, or 2%, this year. It said that investment into new fossil fuels infrastructure must stop immediately if the world wants any chance of achieving net zero by 2050.

This means coal will continue to be the global energy system’s largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions by far.

The largest increase in coal demand is expected to be in India at 7%, followed by the European Union at 6% and China at 0.4%.

Feeding AI

Hamas doesn’t want a deal, except one where Israel just gives up.
And if Blinken doesn’t know that, then he’s not getting the basic info he should, not from US intelligence nor even from whoever’s in charge of getting him essential press clippings.--NY Post

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The Philippines is a treaty-status nation, like NATO, that has an ongoing conflict with China, which absurdly has made claims for the entire China Sea--about half the size of the continental U.S. So we are involved and must have policies for those potential interactions.

And, while we are on the topic, what would we do if Vietnam applied for a similar status? Indonesia?

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Feeding AI


Swimming against the stream is specialized work, particularly when the stream is progress.

AI is more than the next interesting computer step, it is the next step in the vital technological and economic dominance the U.S. has developed and maintained over the last generation. And with this research and economic success comes the inevitable camp-follower, military success. No culture can allow that to happen, even one as leadership-dim as America's,

So everything will go into AI. Entrepreneurs. Financiers. Government. Military. Everyone will pull out all the stops to advance the technology. And, as so often is the case, this will entail significant unanticipated ripples.

AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT require billions, and sometimes trillions, of information to train these models, which are housed in massive data centers that use electricity for cooling and processing power. But new predictions and forecasts suggest increasing demand for ever-more-powerful AI models could stretch current energy supplies further than was once thought. In the US alone, according to a new report released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) data centers tasked with powering advanced AI models could account for up to 9.1% of the country’s overall energy demand by the end of the decade. 9.1% of the total. Much of that new demand may be met by non-renewable natural gas, which could complicate global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

By 2030, the report notes, data center energy requirements could account for anywhere between 4.6% and 9.1% of total US electricity generated by 2030. That’s compared to 4% today. The newfound demand isn’t limited to the US either. By 2026, The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates data center energy demand globally could double by 2026.

That's a lot of paper straws.

Power-hungry data centers threaten to place real strains on energy grids in coming years. As of 2024, according to the Goldman Sachs forecast, data centers account for between 1-2% of global power demand. That figure is expected to increase to 3-4% by the end of the decade. In the US, which maintains roughly half of the world’s data centers, these facilities are expected to account for 8% of the nation’s overall energy drain by 2030. Energy providers are already rushing to bring new power plants online to ensure those brewing energy demands are met. The Goldman Sachs forestate estimates more than half (60%) of energy used to meet those demands will come from nonrenewable resources. That forecast reinforces previous reports which suggest renewable resources alone might be insufficient to meet data centers’ energy needs.

AI must be seen for what it is, essential for the next step in a crucial technology. It cannot--and will not--be cut back or muted. Our world--and its erroneous estimates--will have to adapt. And that process will not include decreasing energy sources.

Energy Costs

Energy Costs

This chart shows the average change in electricity prices over the last decade. Electric rates remained relatively flat in the seven years before President Biden took office, rising 5% thanks to cheap natural gas. Yet since January 2021 electricity prices have soared 29.4%—about 50% more than overall inflation. Big numbers.

Electricity prices have increased 13 times faster under Biden than across the previous seven years. 13 times. Big numbers. 

Most of it is a result of the left’s climate agenda, and the price increases will get worse. And what if Israel attacks Iran?

  The world would be so much safer if the leaders simply prioritized          protecting their citizens. And smarter. It would be nice if they were          smarter.

     

Snakes

Snakes

ESG stands for environment, social, and governance. ESG investors are said to invest with these endpoints --rather than simple economic considerations.

But Bork writes the ESG movement is increasingly perceived not merely as a social movement but as a cartel. 

A cartel. 

In a 2022 letter to BlackRock’s Larry Fink, 19 state attorneys general questioned the effect on fiduciary responsibility when big asset managers work in tandem with nongovernmental organizations and proxy advisers to restrict oil and gas production. The attorneys general asserted that ESG investors violate the Sherman Act, the nation’s foundational antitrust law, by engaging in a “restraint of trade.” This has manifested in the environmental arena, when asset managers have made huge investments in oil and gas while seeking to restrict the supply of oil and gas.

So the ESG movement is only masquerading as a socially responsible group trying to decrease fossil fuel production; they are actually interested in decreasing only the oil production of their oil-producing competitors. And scarcity increases value.

So, is the creation of scarcity of a crucial energy source for your own benefit socially responsible?

Gas Makes You Lightheaded

Brazil’s productivity — the output per hour worked, crucial to raising a nation’s prosperity — grew by just 0.5 percent annually in the four decades to 2022, according to the Getúlio Vargas Institute.

***

From Spycatcher, by Peter Wright, a Senior British Intelligence Officer. The former assistant director of MI5 who retired to Tasmania, revealed that the security agency had bugged embassies, that a small group of agents had plotted against the prime minister Harold Wilson, and that Sir Roger Hollis, the director general of MI5 from 1956-65, had been a Soviet mole.

***

Only 11 adults were responsible for 60% of all book ban requests from school libraries during the 2021-2022 school year.

***



Gas Makes You Lightheaded

According to the EPA’s own methodology, which is more prone to overstate climate effects than other approaches, canceling all U.S. LNG exports forever would reduce global temperatures by 0.013°C by 2100. LNG exports simply aren’t contributing to climate change in any significant way.

LNG is going to be produced. It is going to be sold on the global market. It is going to be used. Those things will happen whether new export terminals are built or not. The question is whether the U.S. wants to make exports easier or harder.

Making it harder doesn’t help the climate. But it does hurt us.

Countries that aren’t able to substitute LNG from elsewhere are likely to use coal instead. Coal burns dirtier than LNG. The largest single reason for the decline in U.S. carbon emissions in the past several years is the switch from coal to natural gas for electricity generation. Making LNG exports more difficult hinders the ability of other countries to make that switch.

The U.S. did not export any natural gas until 2016. Now, the U.S. is the world’s top exporter. American LNG dominance is primarily a function of the fracking revolution. It is not only a manifestation of American innovation. It also presents a new tool for the U.S. in geopolitics. Providing an alternative to Russian natural gas should be a primary objective of U.S. policy in Europe.

Fortunately, this at least unreasonable and perhaps suicidal policy is softened by this comic news.

The New York Times reported that this moratorium came after Biden advisers met with a 25-year-old TikTok influencer known for climate activism. It said activists used the same strategy they deployed against the Keystone XL pipeline during the Obama administration. The White House statement on the LNG decision said the administration would “heed the calls of young people” on climate issues.
 (much from NR)

Energy Warriors

"To the BELOVED REPUBLIC under whose equal laws I am made the peer of any man, although denied political equality by my native land, I dedicate this book with an intensity of gratitude and admiration which the native-born citizen can neither feel nor understand."--Dedication to Andrew Carnegie's Triumphant Democracy (Scribner's, 1886)

***

The NHL suspended Ottawa Senators forward Shane Pinto for 41 games on Thursday, making the 22-year-old American the first modern-day hockey player banned for sports gambling.
The league said the half-season ban was for “activities relating to sports wagering” and that its investigation found no evidence Pinto bet on NHL games.

Pinto's team helmet has a gambling ad on it.

***


Energy Warriors

US oil production surged to a record high of 13.2 million barrels a day last week.

The new record high also comes as oil prices have also jumped in recent months, with Brent crude up 24% since June. That's as top OPEC+ producers Saudi Arabia and Russia have curbed supplies.

The US oil rig count remains well below the 2014 peak of more than 1,600 rigs. There were just 502 active oil rigs in the US last week, representing a 69% decline from the 2014 peak.

The White House explains this rise proves their energy policy is not hostile to American oil production.

Market Insider reports, "That shows just how efficient America's energy industry has become after a period of depressed oil prices from 2014 through 2021."

But there are other explanations. Higher prices make inefficient oil production profitable and gives value to oil of lesser quality.

More CO2. Higher prices. Lower quality. That's what we all want, right?

 

The Private Nuclear Market

“Robots can’t replace senior clerics, but they can be a trusted assistant that can help them issue a fatwa in five hours instead of 50 days,” said Mohammad Ghotbi, who heads a state-linked organization in Qom that encourages the growth of technology businesses.

***

"No region of the United States fared worse over the postwar period than the Rust Belt. This paper analyzes how much of its decline can be accounted for by the persistent labor market conflict that characterized Rust Belt union-management relations. We develop a multi-sector, multi-region, dynamic general equilibrium model in which labor market conflict leads to strikes, wage premia, lower investment, and lower productivity growth. These lead to shrinking Rust Belt industries and to workers moving out of the Rust Belt. Labor conflict accounts for half of the decline in the region’s share of manufacturing employment. Foreign competition plays a smaller role, and its effects are concentrated after most of the region’s decline had already occurred."--U of Chicago Journal

***


The Private Nuclear Market

Microsoft is plunging ahead on nuclear energy. They want a fleet of reactors powering new data centers. And now they're hiring people from the traditional nuclear industry to get it done.

Lack of stable long-term power, whether clean or dirty, is constraining Microsoft's growth. They need to build big data centers that consume electricity all the time and the old assumption that somebody else's reliable plants will always be around to firm up your wind and solar is falling apart.

Microsoft, like many companies, was held back by what we might consider "Enron-ism" infecting its energy thinking: renewable energy credits plus markets plus cute little lies to the public about how electricity works. Greenwashed fossil/hydro/nuclear with the ESG stamp of approval. The problem? Eventually, you run out of other people's cheap firm power. So Microsoft has recently become a leader in openly asserting that nuclear energy counts as clean energy, as opposed to the ongoing cowardice we see from the other big tech companies who lie to the public about being "100% renewable powered."

A world is coming where only the tech companies willing to become nuclear power developers may get to keep expanding their cloud businesses, and only countries open to new reactors get to host this expansion. A world where tech companies with 50% margins become the only survival hope for traditional industrial concerns with 5% margins who need someone else to bootstrap a proper electricity supply. Where diesel backup generators are replaced with microreactors reliable enough to be trusted to keep a cluster of facilities secure in the case of public grid failure.--Nelson

Energy: What the Government Says

 

Energy: What the Government Says

One of the significant changes in American politics is that some of our leaders have an apocalyptic vision of the world that requires them to put the world's interest paramount in their thinking. This hierarchy subordinates U.S. safety and independence as well.

Biden's opinion of oil producers and refiners is pretty public and available.

"Putin is causing the rise in the price of gas in America by invading Ukraine." This is a tough sell because the argument against cutting out Russian oil imports was that we imported so little. And the price of oil was up 48% since Biden's election before the Russians went into Ukraine.

This is like blaming the shutdown of the economy on Covid.

The only thing worse than a stupid lie by a politician is when he believes it. Then you have the worst of both worlds, the stupid and the mendacious.

Some numbers from somewhere:

The U.S. imports only 3% of its petroleum supply and less than 1% of coal from Russia.

There are 9,000 available unused drilling permits, Biden claimed, and only 10% of onshore oil production takes place on federal land. Talk about a misdirection play.

First, companies have to obtain additional permits for rights of way to access leases and build pipelines to transport fuel. This has become harder under the Biden Administration. Second, companies must build up a sufficient inventory of permits before they can contract rigs because of the regulatory difficulties of operating on federal land.

It takes 140 days or so for the feds to approve a drilling permit versus two for the state of Texas. The Administration has halted onshore lease sales. Producers are developing leases more slowly since they don’t know when more will be available. Offshore leases were snapped up at a November auction because companies expect it might be the last one.

Interior’s five-year leasing program for the Gulf of Mexico expires in June. Yet the Administration hasn’t promulgated a new plan. Nor did it appeal a liberal judge’s order in January revoking the November leases. But the Administration has appealed another judge’s order requiring that it hold lease sales.

Then there’s the not-small problem of financing. Companies can’t explore and drill, or build pipelines, without capital. Biden financial regulators allied with progressive investors are working to cut it off. The Labor Department has proposed a rule that would require 401(k) managers to consider the climate impact of their investment holdings.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to issue a rule requiring companies and their financiers to disclose greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Biden has nominated Sarah Bloom Raskin, of all people, to be the Federal Reserve’s top bank supervisor. Her top priority is using bank regulation to redirect capital from fossil fuels to green energy.

Large energy producers are buying back stock and redirecting capital to renewables because they see the Administration’s writing on the wall. Small independent producers are eager to take advantage of higher prices but can’t get loans. Many relied on private equity during the last shale boom, but now these firms are cutting them off.

Progressive outfit Global Energy Monitor gleefully proclaimed Tuesday that $244 billion in U.S. liquefied natural gas projects are stalled because they “are struggling to find financiers and buyers” amid “pressure from cheap renewables"—i.e., rich green energy subsidies that Democrats want to make richer—and “tightening climate commitments.”

***

It’s almost a miracle that any oil and gas production is occurring in America amid this political hostility. The Ukraine crisis ought to be an inflection point that causes the Biden Administration to do an energy reset. Instead, the President says it “should motivate us to accelerate the transition to clean energy” and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Replacing Russia’s five million barrels of global crude exports with U.S. and Canadian oil and building pipelines to transport it would take time. But the transition to a fossil-free world will take decades and technological breakthroughs—and will leave the U.S. dependent on China, Russia and other countries for minerals like lithium and nickel.

Mr. Biden bemoans today’s skyrocketing gas prices, yet he remains hostage to the green-energy donors whose policies guarantee higher prices. The President is enabling Vladimir Putin’s energy leverage even as he claims the opposite.

Energy Prophets

 President Biden announced plans today to forgive $10,000 in student loan debt for anyone making less than $125k per year. In completely unrelated news, the nation's colleges and universities announced plans to immediately raise tuition by $10,000.--Babylon Bee

Astonishing: on a per capita basis the average bottom quintile household received 14% more income than the average second-quintile household and 3.3% more than the average middle-income household.

                                           Energy Prophets

Energy manipulation is just another phrase for 'industrial policy,' politic's application of fiction's 'magical realism.' This entails the ability of the government to predict the future with, and without, intervention. One of the elements that plague legitimate discussion about global warming is the notion that energy demands are, and will be, static. This is from an article interested in future energy demand and alternative hardware's costs.

In a new report due out next week from the Manhattan Institute, Mark Mills takes on the “dangerous delusion” of a global energy transition that eliminates the use of fossil fuels. Surveying energy markets and public policy around the world, Mr. Mills asks readers to “consider that years of hypertrophied rhetoric and trillions of dollars of spending and subsidies on a transition have not significantly changed the energy landscape.” He notes:

Civilization still depends on hydrocarbons for 84% of all energy, a mere two percentage points lower than two decades ago. Solar and wind technologies today supply barely 5% of global energy. Electric vehicles still offset less than 0.5% of world oil demand.

Mr. Mills then explains why the global appetite for energy is not heading south:

One can begin with a reality that cannot be blinked away: energy is needed for everything that is fabricated, grown, operated, or moved... digital devices and hardware—the most complex products ever produced at scale—require, on average, about 1,000 times more energy to fabricate, pound for pound, than the products that dominated the 20th century... it takes nearly as much energy to make one smartphone as it does one refrigerator, even though the latter weighs 1,000 times more. The world produces nearly 10 times more smartphones a year than refrigerators. Thus, the global fabrication of smartphones now uses 15% as much energy as does the entire automotive industry, even though a car weighs 10,000 times more than a smartphone. The global Cloud, society’s newest and biggest infrastructure, uses twice as much electricity as the entire nation of Japan. And then, of course, there are all the other common, vital needs for energy, from heating and cooling homes to producing food and delivering freight.

Advocates of a carbon-free world underestimate not only how much energy the world already uses, but how much more energy the world will yet demand... In America, there are nearly as many vehicles as people, while in most of the world, fewer than 1 in 20 people have a car. More than 80% of the world population has yet to take a single flight.

He then proceeds to take on the argument that wind and solar power are now becoming competitive with fossil fuels:

Claims that wind, solar, and [electrical vehicles] have reached cost parity with traditional energy sources or modes of transportation are not based on evidence. Even before the latest period of rising energy prices, Germany and Britain—both further down the grid transition path than the U.S.— have seen average electricity rates rise 60%–110% over the past two decades. The same pattern is visible in Australia and Canada. It’s also apparent in U.S. states and regions where mandates have resulted in grids with a higher share of wind/solar energy. In general, overall U.S. residential electricity costs rose over the past 20 years. But those rates should have declined because of the collapse in the cost of natural gas and coal—the two energy sources that, together, supplied nearly 70% of electricity in that period. Instead, rates have been pushed higher thanks to elevated spending on the otherwise unneeded infrastructure required to transmit wind/solar-generated electricity, as well as the increased costs to keep lights on during “droughts” of wind and sun that come from also keeping conventional power plants available (like having an extra, fully fueled car parked and ready to go) in effect by spending on two grids.

None of the above accounts for the costs hidden as taxpayer-funded subsidies that were intended to make alternative energy cheaper. Added up over the past two decades, the cumulative subsidies across the world for biofuels, wind, and solar approach about $5 trillion, all of that to supply roughly 5% of global energy.

Whether it’s to cool a home, heat steel, or power a data center, the eternal engineering challenge has always been to find the lowest-cost way to make energy available when it’s needed to meet inherently variable demands, especially in the face of inevitable challenges from nature’s attacks as well as supply chain and machine failures. Oil, natural gas, coal, and even wood and water are easy to store in very large volumes at very low cost, but not so electricity. Hence, grid-scale electric availability has been made possible by using electricity-producing machines (turbines) that can be turned on when needed, fueled by large quantities of primary energy sources (such as natural gas, coal, and flowing water) that are easily and inexpensively stored. Such metrics characterize, for now, more than 80% of U.S. electricity production and more than 90% of transportation. The U.S., on average, has about one to two months’ worth of national demand in storage for each kind of hydrocarbon. Such enormous quantities are possible because it costs less than $1 a barrel per month to store oil or the energy equivalent of natural gas. Storing coal is even cheaper. Thus, over the past century, engineers achieved the feat of building a nation-spanning group of electricity grids that powers nearly everything, anytime, while still consuming less than 3% of the GDP.

Storing electricity itself—the output from solar/wind machines—remains extremely expensive despite the vaunted battery revolution. Lithium batteries, a Nobel-winning invention, are some 400% better than lead-acid batteries in terms of energy stored per unit of weight (which is critical for vehicles). And the costs for lithium batteries have declined more than 10-fold in the past two decades. Even so, it costs at least $30 to store the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil using lithium batteries. That alone explains why, regardless of mandates and subsidies, batteries aren’t a solution at grid scales for days, never mind weeks, of storage.