If You Like Blackouts, You’ll Love Joe Biden’s Green Energy Plans

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California imports oil, gas and electricity, no wonder they have some of the highly energy prices in North America.
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If the definition of insanity is doing the same over and over again and expecting a different result then both the state of California and, most especially, its governor Gavin Newsom, are certifiably bonkers.

See if you can spot the insanity contained in this report on Newsom’s response to the blackouts:


Though the state would continue its “transition” to 100% renewable energy, Newsom said, “we cannot sacrifice reliability as we move forward in this transition.”

Wait, what?

Just moments earlier, Newsom had fessed up to the fact that California’s over-reliance on renewables – wind and solar – was directly responsible for its power shortages.

So by what contortion of logic can it possibly make sense for California to commit itself to do more of the very thing that caused its current crisis?

That’s what ‘transition’ means, by the way. It’s the green movement’s code word for ‘abandoning cheap, effective energy like coal, gas, oil and nuclear and replacing it with expensive, intermittent energy like wind and solar.’

No successful economy has ever done this. Those that have tried – such as the state of South Australia – have had the same result as California: rocketing electricity prices; blackouts and brownouts; an exodus of businesses; misery and disruption for everyone unfortunate enough to still live there.

The reason for this is that renewables – aka unreliables – are completely unsuited to providing baseload power for a First-World economy. (Or even a Third-World economy, come to that).

If the wind isn’t blowing (as is quite often the case when electricity is most needed: in the heat of the day or in the still depths of winter) or the sun isn’t shining (which it doesn’t at night, for example), then you need back up power from fossil fuels or nuclear.

But if you’ve started scrapping your nuclear and fossil fuel power plants for ideological reasons, like California has, then pretty soon you’ll find yourself back in the pre-industrial idyll so many greenies yearn for: the Stone Age.

Not only do renewables fail to provide the reliable cheap energy that a functioning economy needs, but they also fail on environmental grounds. I call wind turbines bat-chomping bird-slicing eco-crucifixes because of the millions of bats and birds they slaughter every year.

They are made partly with poisonous rare earth minerals dug up in hideously polluted regions of China. They despoil the landscape, ruin views, and disturb residents with their low-frequency noise and shadow flicker.

Why would anyone with a moral conscience champion these expensive, environmentally destructive monstrosities?

The answer is that no one with a moral conscience does.

It’s why, for example, there is now a bitter division on the left between those watermelon ideologues (green on the outside, red on the inside) who see renewables as a vital tool in destroying Western industrial civilization and those such as activist filmmaker Michael Moore who recognize their true evil.

That was why left-wing activists tried to cancel Planet of the Humans, the anti-renewables documentary that Michael Moore executive produced.

Planet of the Humans was never meant to be an anti-renewables documentary. It just ended up that way when its director/presenter Jeff Gibbs – himself a green activist – did his research and saw the light.

As I reported earlier this year:

Gibbs follows the money trail and discovers — quelle surprise! — that the people and organizations most assiduously stoking the war on fossil fuels and most aggressively promoting “renewables” as an alternative are invariably the ones who stand to benefit most financially.

Among the Hall of Shame: Canadian activist Bill McKibben; Al Gore; Van Jones; Robert F Kennedy Jr; Jeremy Grantham; Michael Bloomberg; Richard Branson.

These are revealed to have an unhealthily cozy relationship with green NGOs like the Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy, which mouth the usual environmental pieties while yet quietly promoting energy which is every bit as environmentally destructive as fossil fuels.

The worst of these, the documentary suggests, are biofuels and biomass. We visit one biomass plant on the shores of Lake Superior — awarded a $11.5 million government grant because it qualifies as “renewable” energy — which encourages its green wood chips to burn with the help of tire fragments and creosote (causing the snow to turn black).

Another left-leaning green activist turned renewables dissenter is Mike Shellenberger, author of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.

As a Californian – and aspirant California governor – Shellenberger is well-versed in exactly how California got itself into this mess.

It is, he has reminded us in a series of tweets, an entirely unforced error – borne of green ideology entirely divorced from any cost-benefit analysis or even a basic understanding of energy economics.

https://climatechangedispatch.com/if...-energy-plans/

[AProudLefty]

So if you like the GND, you like the blackouts?

I guess we gotta tell those liberals who live on social media like Facebook and Twitter.

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So if you like the GND, you like the blackouts?

I guess we gotta tell those liberals who live on social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Man, you're supposed to be intelligent. Surely you can see that blackouts are an inevitability. You only have to look to the failed Energiewende in Germany to see that.

http://energyskeptic.com/2019/german...nsive-failure/

[AProudLefty]

Man, you're supposed to be intelligent. Surely you can see that that blackouts are an inevitability. You only have to look to the failed Energiewende in Germany to see that.

http://energyskeptic.com/2019/german...nsive-failure/

So if there were blackouts, you're telling me that nobody complained about it?

Are you sure you want to sell that one to me?

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So if there were blackouts, you're telling me that nobody complained about it?

Are you sure you want to sell that one to me?

Yes many have complained about it, but the Left in California is impervious to reason and logic. Hopefully Michael Shellenberger will become governor and stop the rot.

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Just turn your thermometer up you greedy California pricks

Save the planet

Meanwhile I have mine on 67. I like it cold

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Natural Gas is essential for energy storage

Preface. In a 100% renewable energy storage system mainly dependent on wind and solar, there needs to be a tremendous amount of energy storage for up to six weeks when there is little wind or sunshine. The only storage now is Pumped Hydro Storage which can store at best 2% of the energy generated a day in the 10 states that have hydropower, Compressed Air Energy Storage at just one place only in Alabama, and almost non-existent battery storage that can’t scale up to what’s needed due to lack of lithium and other minerals. This is why natural gas is THE energy storage today. Gas steps in when wind or sun stop, and steps out when they blow or shine so the grid doesn’t become unbalanced and black out. Gas is essential for the few days with peak demand when weather is very hot or cold, as well as the baseload power around the clock. The U.S. electric grid uses 35% of natural gas, and this percentage is expected to grow as coal and nuclear power plants continue to shut down.

But the electric grid is competing with other essential uses of finite natural gas. About half of us alive today, four billion people, are here because of fertilizer (ammonia) made from natural gas and with natural gas as the energy source to create the tremendous heat and pressure needed to produce it to grow up to 5 times more food than before fossil fertilizer. Natural gas also heats homes and businesses and for cooking. Natural gas is a component of half a million products and again, often the energy source of production.

In the news: 2020 California grid operator warned of power shortages as state transitioned to clean energy. Growing shortfall as solar power goes offline in early evenings California is having black outs because there isn’t enough natural gas to balance solar and wind. The article says that “We have a much more risky supply of energy now because the sun doesn’t always shine when we want and the wind doesn’t always blow when we want, now that 33% of the state’s electricity comes from renewable sources.

With large solar farms making up an increasing percentage of California’s power generation, crunch time happens in the late afternoon, particularly on hot days. People turn on air conditioning and other devices around 5 p.m. as the heat peaks and they come home from work. Electricity demand surges, just as the sun is setting and solar power is drying up.

Wolak, of Stanford, said the state should make efforts to keep gas-power plants around until battery storage technology for solar plants can be ramped up. “Some folks in the environmental community want to shut down all the gas plants. That would be a disaster,” said Jan Smutny Jones, CEO of the Independent Energy Producers Association, a trade association representing solar, wind, geothemal and gas power plants. “Last night 60% of the power in the ISO was being produced by those gas plants. They are your insurance policy to get through heat waves.”

Many of the state’s gas plants have become less competitive because they are more expensive to run than solar, he said. In fact, some have been shutting down on their own because utilities are buying more power from solar and wind.

http://energyskeptic.com/2020/natura...nergy-storage/

[canceled.2021.3]

So if you like the GND, you like the blackouts?

I guess we gotta tell those liberals who live on social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Why is Commiefornia having blackouts? Weren’t wind and solar supposed to provide all their electrical needs? They should be selling the rest of us electricity from all of their excess

And leftist morons on social media are uneducable

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Natural Gas is essential for energy storage

Preface. In a 100% renewable energy storage system mainly dependent on wind and solar, there needs to be a tremendous amount of energy storage for up to six weeks when there is little wind or sunshine. The only storage now is Pumped Hydro Storage which can store at best 2% of the energy generated a day in the 10 states that have hydropower, Compressed Air Energy Storage at just one place only in Alabama, and almost non-existent battery storage that can’t scale up to what’s needed due to lack of lithium and other minerals. This is why natural gas is THE energy storage today. Gas steps in when wind or sun stop, and steps out when they blow or shine so the grid doesn’t become unbalanced and black out. Gas is essential for the few days with peak demand when weather is very hot or cold, as well as the baseload power around the clock. The U.S. electric grid uses 35% of natural gas, and this percentage is expected to grow as coal and nuclear power plants continue to shut down.

But the electric grid is competing with other essential uses of finite natural gas. About half of us alive today, four billion people, are here because of fertilizer (ammonia) made from natural gas and with natural gas as the energy source to create the tremendous heat and pressure needed to produce it to grow up to 5 times more food than before fossil fertilizer. Natural gas also heats homes and businesses and for cooking. Natural gas is a component of half a million products and again, often the energy source of production.

In the news: 2020 California grid operator warned of power shortages as state transitioned to clean energy. Growing shortfall as solar power goes offline in early evenings California is having black outs because there isn’t enough natural gas to balance solar and wind. The article says that “We have a much more risky supply of energy now because the sun doesn’t always shine when we want and the wind doesn’t always blow when we want, now that 33% of the state’s electricity comes from renewable sources.

With large solar farms making up an increasing percentage of California’s power generation, crunch time happens in the late afternoon, particularly on hot days. People turn on air conditioning and other devices around 5 p.m. as the heat peaks and they come home from work. Electricity demand surges, just as the sun is setting and solar power is drying up.

Wolak, of Stanford, said the state should make efforts to keep gas-power plants around until battery storage technology for solar plants can be ramped up. “Some folks in the environmental community want to shut down all the gas plants. That would be a disaster,” said Jan Smutny Jones, CEO of the Independent Energy Producers Association, a trade association representing solar, wind, geothemal and gas power plants. “Last night 60% of the power in the ISO was being produced by those gas plants. They are your insurance policy to get through heat waves.”

Many of the state’s gas plants have become less competitive because they are more expensive to run than solar, he said. In fact, some have been shutting down on their own because utilities are buying more power from solar and wind.

http://energyskeptic.com/2020/natura...nergy-storage/

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Both Ivanpah and Crescent Dunes have turned into incredibly expensive white elephants, yet the fools want to build even more.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...er-went-online

https://americanelephant.wordpress.c...ar-power-ever/

[Matt Dillon]

So if you like the GND, you like the blackouts?

I guess we gotta tell those liberals who live on social media like Facebook and Twitter.

That stuff doesn't run without electricity.

[Matt Dillon]

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Both Ivanpah and Crescent Dunes have turned to incredibly expensive white elephants, yet the fools want to build even more.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...er-went-online

https://americanelephant.wordpress.c...ar-power-ever/

It's the new train to nowhere! If they can build a train to nowhere, they can do this!

[AProudLefty]

That stuff doesn't run without electricity.

My opinion? The cows and pigs' farts run the electricity better.

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Russia is running out of easily exploited oil and its infrastructure is piss poor to say the least. Gazprom is one of least efficient companies in the world and incredibly corrupt to boot.

The Golden Age of Russian Oil Nears an End

Preface. One huge factor in Russia’s future oil decline not mentioned below is how incredibly corrupt and inefficient Russia’s oil and gas companies are, as Rachel Maddow describes in her book “Blowout”. A few quotes:

The Russian oil and gas industry Putin controlled was known for its “tumbledown” machinery and technological deficiencies, coasting on the assets inherited from the Soviet Union. Virtually all of Russian oil comes from fields that were already known in Soviet times. There have been very few new discoveries that are producing today. The drama of this situation is that the inheritance is now starting to run down. What’s left is offshore arctic and tight shale, both difficult and expensive to get.

Russia isn’t capable of doing offshore drilling operations in the frozen north, with little in the way of useful drilling rigs or equipment of any kind–not even basics like subsea wellheads. In 2012, having made Russia’s economy and its power in the world almost entirely dependent on oil and gas, Putin faced a serious conundrum: his ability to maintain Russia’s place as an “energy superpower” depended almost entirely on availing himself of the expertise and technology of major Western oil companies, because Russian oil companies were gangster economy creations, and not one of them was technically or even financially competent.

Gazprom wasn’t able to keep up with all the new European demand, because its production capabilities sucked. The company hadn’t invested in new technologies, because as a state-sanctioned monopoly propped up by the Russian government and therefore free from competition, it really hadn’t needed to. Dig deep enough in the company accounting ledgers and you’d find that Gazprom lost about $40 billion a year to corruption and waste. That’s a loss nearly equal to its annual profits.

Gazprom lost money in other ways, buying a TV station for example. Why? Well, why not? Gazprom was better understood not as an energy company but as a big battering ram President Putin used to get stuff he wanted. So inefficient, money-bleeding, crappy Gazprom owned a television station and a bunch of other media properties, but only because Putin had arranged it in order to silence one of the few remaining critical voices in the Russian press. Vladimir used his security forces to arrest and to intimidate the critic who owned the media company, and then he used Gazprom as the piggy bank to buy the company at a steep jailhouse discount. Independent television journalism in Russia was thus dealt another blow, and Putin would instead have another reliable mouthpiece for the Kremlin’s party line.

Nord Stream was a pipeline project that was built from both sides at once—from Russia and from Germany. Same pipeline, same materials, same building standards. But the Russian side of the construction project (led by the Rotenberg brothers of St. Petersburg, and remember them) cost three times as much, per mile of pipeline, as the German side did. That money was not going into the pension and health fund of the Russian pipe fitters’ union; it went into the pockets of Putin and his pals. The founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, James Grant, sized up Gazprom and rated it, simply, “the worst managed company on the planet.”

Putin had been gangstering up the Russian oil industry for years. Eschewing competition that might encourage innovation and meritocratic success, Putin instead just smashed and grabbed any homegrown enterprises that proved resourceful or entrepreneurial or attractive to legitimate investors-goodbye, Yukos. He harassed foreign interlopers, too.

http://energyskeptic.com/2020/the-go...-nears-an-end/

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Thanks to Climate-Driven Green Energy Mandates, California’s Electric Grid Is Near Collapse

https://climaterealism.com/2020/08/t...near-collapse/