put together an article about every relevant topic I have discovered. This is a summary of articles that I think would be of interest to my readers.
I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed and most of the articles described below are related to the net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
New York City Panel Discussion on Net-Zero Economy
Francis Menton invites folks to a panel discussion on the costs and consequences of pursuing a “net zero” economy. Experts Benny Peiser and Francis Menton will share their outlook for Europe’s present and America’s future.
Event Details:
Wednesday, June 12
3 West Club
3 West 51st Street
6:00 PM: Reception
7:00 PM: Program
Videos
- Tornadoes 1 – Wind Turbines 0 – Video of a tornado going through a wind farm shows the expected results.
- Practical Engineering takes on the concept of reactive power.
- Podcast – Sunblocked: Resistance to Solar in Farm Country Shepherd’s Run in Copake, NY
Vaclav Smil
Net-zero by 2050 is simply not happening. Paul Homewood writes:
professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a best-selling author of 47 books. Whenever Smil publishes something new, people in the energy space pay attention. That’s certainly the case with his latest publication, a 48-page report titled “Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050: Net Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome.” In the report, Smil details efforts to date by global governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and finds them wholly inadequate to achieve the goal of net-zero by 2050.
Energy Storage Issue
The LS Power Gateway Energy Storage project is located in San Diego County California. As far as I can tell it has a 250 MW capacity and can provide 250 MWh oF energy. The fact that it caught fire and kept re-igniting was a news story that did not get much coverage. There have been evacuation orders because of “harmful” gases. Here is another story.
Inverter-Based Resources
Meredith Angwin gives a great overview of wind and solar inverter-based resources and why it matters. Spoiler – it is another complication that has already led to blackouts. She quotes the scary bit in the NERC Odessa report that addresses an incident in Texas:
“In many cases, industry is not proactively identifying abnormal performance of inverter-based resources…the recommendations outlined in NERC reliability guidelines are not being adequately adopted….Plants stated that no mitigating actions are being done (or planned) to improve the performance of the resources involved in the event.”
Continent Sized Wind Lull
Australia example of the extent of a wind lull. “Australia has built 11.5 GW of theoretical total wind power capacity on the National Energy Market (NEM) spread across 80 locations on the Eastern Seaboard, and at one point today only 4.1% of it was working. Another gigawatt of generation on the Western side is only generating at 3 – 5% capacity.”
Solar Panel Trash
Harvard Business Review notes that solar panels are going into landfills. Of course they don’t suggest that “this should raise serious doubts about the future or necessity of renewables”. They claim “Compared with all we stand to gain or lose, the four decades or so it will likely take for the economics of solar to stabilize to the point that consumers won’t feel compelled to cut short the life cycle of their panels seems decidedly small.” Yet another example of build as much as you can as fast as you can and hope that it all works out.
Environmental Issues are Not Simple
Lucy Biggers describes her epiphany at the Free Press – Finally, I’m admitting it out loud. “In my heart of hearts, I always knew environmental issues were more complicated than the way I sold them to my true-believer followers.”
It really wasn’t until 2021, by which time I was 31 and had left NowThis, that I was finally willing to confront the complications I’d avoided during all those years as a sustainability influencer. I began reading books and news sources that strayed from the progressive party line, titles like Unsettled by Steve Koonin, Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger, and Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. I realized that the environmental causes I had so breathlessly championed were much more complicated than good versus evil.
Do fossil fuels cause our planet to warm? Yes. They also make modern life possible, freeing women from hours of labor and empowering us in a million different ways. They’re singularly cost-effective and versatile as an energy source. This is something that the “keep it in the ground” climate activists never acknowledge. Nor do they admit that the promised panacea of renewable energy, like solar and wind, are nowhere near close to replacing fossil fuels and in fact, have their own dark environmental footprint.
Bjorn Lomborg
His Newsletter cites a new op-ed for The Wall Street Journal (also accessible here) that the West should make economic growth a priority again and stop hemorrhaging their resources on climate policies that mostly enrich China.
Another editorial by Lomborg in the New York Post makes a convincing argument that Green activists don’t care how many people will die from zero fossil fuel use. There is a discussion about it at Climate Realism.
Leisure Class Environmentalism is an Elitist Status Symbol
Thomas Shepstone describes an article from 2021 written by an Irishman named Thade Andy and published in Gript. Titled “Climate Hysterics Are An Elitist Status Symbol” :
Climate hysteria is, at its most basic level, a luxury belief that can be afforded by neurotic, well-to-do westerners. For many of those who are loudest about the green agenda, these beliefs are actually a status symbol.
Solar Energy
- Solar energy is depleting farmlands of their rich soils in the U.S. Midwest.
- Robert Bradley points out that solar has had 15 subsidy exemptions. “But nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” (Milton and Rose Friedman, Tyranny of the Status Quo, 1983, p. 115)
Off-shore Wind
- Inflation and supply chain issues are impacting Northeastern US offshore wind
- Atlantic whale slaughter gets government approval
- David Wojick notes that the environmentalists have abandoned the whales in favor of the green nirvana.
Climate Act Progress
Marie French is a correspondent for Politico New York and notes that at the close of the New York legislative session: “Lawmakers departed Albany – 5 years after CLCPA – without any significant action this year to reduce emissions or support achievement of the state’s climate law”.
Congestion Pricing
New York City’s congestion pricing program was supposed to take effect at the end of June. Energy Mix quoted Governor Hochul: “After careful consideration I have come to the difficult decision that implementing the planned congestion pricing system risks too many unintended consequences,” Hochul said June 5. “I have directed the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] to indefinitely pause the program.” It is all part of the political calculus and Hochul backed off due to the costs. “I can’t do anything right at this time that would also suck the vitality out of this city when we’re still fighting for our comeback,” she told reporters at a news conference.
This raises a question. The congestion pricing plan was expected to generate $1 billion a year. At the Energy Access and Equity Research webinar sponsored by the NYU Institute for Policy Integrity on May 13, 2024 Jonathan Binder stated that the New York Cap and Invest Program would generate proceeds of “between $6 and $12 billion per year” by 2030. At what level will the cap and invest program suck the vitality out of New York State?
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 