Fossil Fuels are a Hell of a Lot More Sustainable Than Wind and Solar

[Bricktop]

WTF has that got to do with America??



And how can they stop a project outside their sovereign borders?







And people wonder why I revile that moronic country....

[Anonymous]

Biden Administration Kills Israel-To-Europe Gas Pipeline



Biden's decision — reportedly coordinated with Turkey but reached without consulting Israel, Greece or Cyprus, the main countries involved in the project — undercuts three of the strongest American allies in the Mediterranean region.



EastMed's cancellation — variously described as a "disastrous decision," a "strategic mistake" and an act of "appeasement" of Erdoğan — represents a major geopolitical victory for the Turkish strongman.



The EastMed pipeline has been in the works for more than a decade. The Israel-Greece-Cyprus project — joined by Bulgaria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia — has long been seen as a way to diversify natural gas supplies to Europe.



The Turkish government has always insisted that Israeli gas can only be sold to Europe through Turkey.



"The Americans do not want the pipeline because Ankara might 'get angry.'" — Theofrastos Andreopoulos, defense analyst, defensenet.gr.



----------------------------------------



YAWN .. Caves to tyrants while abandoning many allies yet again

Iran can produce and sell oil though. Fuck Jim Crow Joe is the worst president the US has ever had.

[Anonymous]

Wind and solar aint ever going to cut it. Not investing in new oil and gas has raised the price of heat and hydro across the G20.



Stampede Of The Green Lemmings

https://climatechangedispatch.com/stampede-of-the-green-lemmings



Solar energy has a huge problem. Even on sunny days, almost nothing is generated to meet the demand peaks around breakfast time and dinner time – the solar energy union only works a six-hour day, goes on strike with little warning, and takes quite a few sickies.



So, for at least 18 hours of every day, electricity must come from somewhere else. Then around noon, millions of solar panels pour out far more electricity than is needed, causing electrical and financial chaos in the electrical grid.



Naturally, our green 'engineers' see wind power as filling the solar energy gaps. But wind power has a union too and they take lots of sickies when there is no wind over large areas of the continent.



And they down tools in storms, gales, or cyclones in case their whirling toys are damaged.



So the green planners claim that batteries can solve these intermittent problems of the green-energy twins.



They will need to be humungous batteries.



Batteries are just a crutch for a crippled generation system. And with fierce lithium battery fires reported regularly, who wants a humungous fire-prone battery over the back fence or in the basement?



A battery is not a generator of electricity – every battery (including Snowy 2.0) is a net consumer of electricity.



Batteries are very expensive, most lose capacity as they age, and every conversion between DC storage and AC transmission triggers energy losses.



To collect, back up, and redistribute green electricity will require a continent-spanning spider-web of transmission lines with all the costs and energy losses that the network entails.



Still nights and calm cloudy days are what really expose the problems of wind-solar-plus-batteries.



Suppose electricity consumers require 100 units of electricity every day. Well-designed coal, nuclear, or gas-fired power stations can do that, 24/7, day after day, whatever the weather.



But to ensure a wind or solar system against, say, seven days of calm or cloudy weather would require a battery capable of storing 700 units of electricity.



To recharge this huge battery while still supplying consumers will require much larger wind or solar generating capacity.



However, if several weeks of windy or sunny weather then occur, this big battery will sit idle, connected to a bloated expensive generation system that is capable of delivering far more power than is needed.



Germany once produced abundant reliable electricity from coal and nuclear power – the backbone for German industry. Then green ants started nibbling at this backbone, replacing it with wind-solar toys.



Now, Germany has expensive electricity – a grid in danger of collapse and must rely on imported gas from Russia, nuclear power from France, or hydro-power from Scandinavia.



The UK is also following similar foolish energy policies, even banning exploration of their own oil and gas resources.

[Anonymous]

The pandemic and now the Russian-Ukrainian war have shown us the madness of going any further with delusion of wind and solar.



No Energy Realism In Bidenland

As per my previous post, the situation in Ukraine should be a wake-up call to every sentient person to ditch the fantasies about wind and solar energy ASAP, and make sure that we have real energy that works.  The wind/solar delusion, combined with active suppression of fossil fuels and even of nuclear, are basically financing Vladimir Putin's war via increased oil and gas exports and higher prices.  Meanwhile, the brave Ukrainian armed forces are certainly not running on the wind and sun; nor are the Russians who are attacking them.



In 2021, after finally achieving energy independence under President Trump, the U.S. immediately gave that up as the Biden Administration brought fresh rounds of fossil fuel suppression. 



Sea level is rising at the rate of maybe 6 - 8 inches per century, as it has for the last 10,000 or so years since the last ice age.



Meanwhile, back over in Europe, perhaps being much closer to the advancing Russian tanks has a way of focusing the mind.  Germany, with its "Energiewende," has long fancied itself the vanguard of the movement to get rid of fossil fuels.  But after 12 years of this they have essentially no storage, battery or otherwise, to back up the wind and sun, and thus remain completely dependent on fossil fuels on calm nights and cloudy winter days.  Oh, and they have also banned fracking for natural gas in their own territory.  So it's natural gas from Russia or nothing, just as Russia decides to advance its military westward. 



The headline of the Bloomberg story today is "Germany may extend coal use to replace Russian gas."  But wait, you say — didn't Germany just elect a new government consisting of the Social Democrats and the Greens?  Surely, those people would not tolerate such a thing!  Think again:



Economy Minister Robert Habeck, the former co-leader of the Green party, said coal plants could run for longer and even said he wasn't "ideologically opposed" to extending the use of nuclear energy.  Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Sunday plans to build two new liquefied natural gas terminals to expand Germany's energy choices and reduce its reliance on Russia.  The government wants to reach a point where it can "pick and choose which countries we want to build energy partnerships with," Habeck said in an interview late on Sunday on ARD television. "Being able to choose also means, in case of doubt, that you can become independent from Russian gas, coal or oil."

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-2-28-no-energy-realism-in-bidenland

[Anonymous]

One hundred and ten buck a barrel oil, highest inflation in decades. sky high energy bills due to not exporting our own resource riches to our allies.



Let's end magical thinking on energy

Fossil fuels will continue to be crucial to our energy needs and now also to our national security interests and those of our allies

https://financialpost.com/opinion/mark-milke-lets-end-magical-thinking-on-energy

Now, tragically, energy security is a 100-point headline, given Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the folly of Europe's dependence on Russia for too much of its energy use — dependence that increased steadily over the past two decades as Europeans shut down nuclear and coal electrical generation plants and discouraged new oil and gas exploration on their continent.



The result of such policy follies is that Russian president — president for life — Vladimir Putin has dangerously increased his leverage over Europe, which is highly dependent on foreign natural gas and oil, much of it coming from tyrannies and autocracies.



For example, between 2005 and 2019, the EU imported over €838 billion in natural gas from foreign sources, or an average of nearly €56 billion per year. About one-third of that came from tyrannies and autocracies (mainly Russia, Algeria and Libya) — "not-free" countries in the terminology of Washington-based think tank, Freedom House — with the rest from "free" countries (liberal democracies) and "partly free" countries. By 2019, however, the proportion of Europe's imported natural gas from not-free countries had risen to 41 per cent — although that is likely an underestimate, as Germany does not release all its data on fossil fuel imports from Russia.



As for oil, the EU is even more dependent on autocracies and tyrannies for imports. Between 2005 and 2019, it imported €4.6 trillion in foreign oil, with 68 per cent or €3.1 trillion worth coming from countries not considered democratic or free. In 2019, the share was down only slightly, to 67 per cent. (These data are from the Canadian Energy Centre, where I co-authored several reports on the oil and natural gas exports of regressive regimes worldwide.) Russia accounts for 58 per cent of the natural gas and 42 per cent of the oil that the EU bought from tyrannies and autocracies between 2005 and 2019.



It is time for Canadians to end their magical thinking about energy. That includes dropping the fantasy that we can realistically reduce carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. As University of Manitoba professor emeritus Vaclav Smil has long argued (he being the leading world expert in energy transitions) the physical capacities of oil, natural gas and coal cannot be replaced by the low-punch energy density of renewables. Responsible analysts, politicians, insurers and investors need to recognize that fossil fuels will continue to be crucial to our energy needs and now also to our national security interests and those of our allies, be they in Europe, the United States or Asia.



There is little reason why Germany or Japan, for example, should continue to rely so heavily on natural gas from not-free countries when liquified natural gas could be extracted from Alberta and Northern British Columbia but also from Atlantic Canada and Quebec, as all have the potential for significant extraction and exports.



Yes, this would require a sea change in attitude among Canadian politicians, but it would be a mature recognition of the actual world we live in, strategic interests included.



In the last century, Canadian families sent their sons to fight and to die in multiple wars to defend Europe and Asia from tyrannies. The least that responsible modern-day Canadians can do is tighten our links with allies. That includes looking at energy as part of a worldwide security pact with other democracies and making it as easy as possible for Canadian energy to get to them.

[Anonymous]

I hope this slaps some sense into Ottawa. Energy costs are exploding while our oil and gas stays in the ground and worse, we import oil from countries with leaders who make Putin look respectable by comparison.

What Canadian policymakers can learn from Europe's energy woes

It should be obvious: the world needs more, not less, of Canada's abundant and ethically produced energy



Proponents of such moves argued that "renewable" forms of energy such as wind and solar could easily make up the gap. Furthermore, Russia was willingly delivering meaningful amounts of natural gas into Europe, accounting for between 25 to 100 per cent of European countries' natural gas needs. Despite already being a critical and now irreplaceable energy provider, Russia had intended to further increase its supplies into Europe via its Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. What could go wrong?



Let's fast forward to late 2021 and the events of the present day. In the United Kingdom last winter, the wind stopped blowing by 90 per cent, the lowest wind production since 1961, which nullified much of its offshore wind energy capacity. Without adequate redundancies in place, coal plants were fired up and liquefied natural gas demand surged, resulting in the price of coal and natural gas rising by 175 per cent and 590 per cent, respectively, both making all-time or near all-time highs.



Canada, like Russia, is blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We have the world's third-largest oil reserves and we'll have the ability to ship natural gas from our west coast to global markets in the next few years.



In April, the Canadian government will announce its spring budget and several items relating to the oil and gas sector are expected. Some of these items may follow the path that Europe has chosen, placing restrictions on the growth potential of our energy sector. In a world in which energy is becoming weaponized, and demand is set to grow for at least another decade, is this prudent?



Canadian oilsands producers, responsible for 0.1 per cent of global CO2 emissions, have already pledged to reach net-zero status by 2050, and operate under one of the most stringent environmental regimes of any oil-producing jurisdiction in the world.



For example, according to Joule Bergerson of the University of Calgary, if the rest of the world's oil production were held to Canadian standards for flaring, total greenhouse gas emissions from every barrel produced would drop by 23 per cent — the equivalent of taking 100 million cars off the road.



Canada, meanwhile, exports 99 per cent of its oil to a single customer. Diversification is a necessity, and even with recent cost overages on the taxpayer-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project almost doubling to $21 billion, it is still of national imperative that the project proceed post haste.

https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/eric-nuttall-what-canadian-policymakers-can-learn-from-europes-energy-woes

[Thiel]

Saudi Arabia & UAE today rejected Biden's attempt to get them to ramp up production for him so he's running out of options. He should reinstate Keystone.

[Bricktop]

If that is the case, the US should reject Saudi's attempt to ramp up US military arms sales.

[Anonymous]

If that is the case, the US should reject Saudi's attempt to ramp up US military arms sales.

Or president Biden could reverse his decision to cancel Keystone XL..



Most of it is built and it would transport 840,000 additional barrels of oil a day to the USA..



That would more than make up for the loss of 600,000 Russian barrels of oil.

[Bricktop]

If your PM had any spine, he'd be kicking down Biden's door carrying an order book.

[Anonymous]

If your PM had any spine, he'd be kicking down Biden's door carrying an order book.

It's not a matter of Justine having no balls. He does not want Canadian oil and gas developed. He would prefer countries like Iran and Venezuela pick up the slack from whatever Russia doesn't produce.

[Anonymous]

If your PM had any spine, he'd be kicking down Biden's door carrying an order book.

It's not a matter of Justine having no balls. He does not want Canadian oil and gas developed. He would prefer countries like Iran and Venezuela pick up the slack from whatever Russia doesn't produce.

I believe foreign energy is exempt from his carbon tax.

[Anonymous]

If that is the case, the US should reject Saudi's attempt to ramp up US military arms sales.

The US should ramp up it's own domestic energy production. They were energy independent under Trump with low fuel, electricity and home heating costs. Biden put an end to that nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Australia is Japan's largest source of LNG. They get zero from Canada because the prog dickheads running this country won't approve an LNG export facility.



Why Japan's power sector depends so much on LNG

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/why-japans-power-sector-depends-so-much-lng-2022-03-10/



TOKYO (Reuters) -Resource-poor Japan depends overwhelmingly on fossil-fuel imports to meet its energy needs, complicating calls for the nation to boycott Russia's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.



Japan gets most of its primary energy needs from crude oil, more than 90% of which comes from the Middle East, based on government data. LNG comprises about 24% of the total energy mix.



But LNG takes up a bigger piece of the pie when it comes to electricity production, at 36%. That dependence has increased since 2011, when most of Japan's nuclear facilities were idled after the massive earthquake and tsunami that triggered meltdowns at a plant in Fukushima, northern Japan.



HOW DOES JAPAN USE LNG AND WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?



Until it was overtaken by China last year, Japan was the world's largest importer of LNG, accounting for about 22% of the total market, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The LNG supply is primarily used in electricity production, but it is also used for heating and cooking in most residential households.



Australia was the biggest single supplier of LNG at 36% of Japan's imports as of last year, followed by Malaysia with 14%. Russia accounts for 9%, the same as the United States.

[Anonymous]

If the Liberals hadn'et killed Energy East pipeline we could be sending 1.5 million barrels to the East Coast and a lot of that could reach Europe.



OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is studying ways to increase pipeline utilization to boost crude exports to the United States, with the aim of helping European countries that phase out imports of Russian oil, the natural resources minister said on Thursday.



"We are looking at whether our pipeline network is fully utilized, such that we might be able to send incremental crude to the United States ... which would then essentially go to Europe to help with the challenges that Europe faces," Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a telephone interview.



Canadian oil companies exported a record amount of crude out of the U.S. Gulf Coast at the end of 2021, most of which went to big importers India, China and South Korea.