EV's, Reliable Power, et al

[Herman]

A long article on wind power. It can be summed up by saying it's expensive and doesn't keep the lights on.



https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2023/03/Allison-Wind-energy.pdf?mc_cid=5c197dfa62&mc_eid=c926002e71&fbclid=IwAR0Wd5KAoPyHCxS-zEJEwkBk6ygfOfpscNvoqDKb3ccEoQGF4yN0QRtGdqQ">https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads ... yN0QRtGdqQ">https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2023/03/Allison-Wind-energy.pdf?mc_cid=5c197dfa62&mc_eid=c926002e71&fbclid=IwAR0Wd5KAoPyHCxS-zEJEwkBk6ygfOfpscNvoqDKb3ccEoQGF4yN0QRtGdqQ

[Herman]

Wind power has been historically and scientifically unreliable, claims an Oxford University mathematician and physicist, with his calculations revealing the government to be pursuing a "bluster of windfarm politics" while discarding numerical evidence.



After the decision to cut down on fossil fuels was made at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, the "instinctive reaction" around the world was to embrace renewables, Professor Emeritus Wade Allison, who is also a researcher at CERN, said in a 2023 paper (pdf).



Allison noted that because solar power is "extremely weak," it was inadequate to "sustain even a small global population with an acceptable standard of living" before the Industrial Revolution.



"Today, modern technology is deployed to harvest these weak sources of energy. Vast 'farms' that monopolise the natural environment are built, to the detriment of other creatures. Developments are made regardless of the damage wrought. Hydro-electric schemes, enormous turbines and square miles of solar panels are constructed, despite being unreliable and ineffective; even unnecessary," Allison said in the report, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation.



"In particular, the generation of electricity by wind tells a disappointing story. The political enthusiasm and the investor hype are not supported by the evidence, even for offshore wind, which can be deployed out of sight of the infamous My Back Yard," he wrote. "What does such evidence actually say?"



The Evidence

Allison explained that wind energy is measured based on the amount of moving air and the speed of the air as it reaches the area swept by the turbine blades.



The scientist calculated that, at 100 percent efficiency, if the wind blows at 10 meters per second (about 22 mph), the power is 600 watts per square meter. Hence, to deliver 3,200 million watts, the same output as Hinkley Point C—a planned zero-carbon nuclear power station in England—there would need to be 5.5 million square meters of turbine swept area.



"That should be quite unacceptable to those who care about birds and to other environmentalists," Allison wrote.



The actual performance of the technology is much worse than the calculations made based on 100 percent efficiency, he said.



"Because the power carried by the wind depends on the third power of the wind speed, if the wind drops to half speed, the power available drops by a factor of 8," he said. "Almost worse, if the wind speed doubles, the power delivered goes up 8 times, and as a result the turbine has to be turned off for its own protection."



Allison noted that fluctuations are considerable as he pointed to a WindEurope Report that showed the installed nominal generating capacity across the European Union and United Kingdom on a daily basis was 236 gigawatts (GW). However, the highest output in 2021 registered at 103 GW on March 26 of that year.



The unreliability extends to offshore windfarms as well. Batteries used to store power are also severely restricted by current technology. In spite of such evidence, the government keeps ignoring the numbers, said Allison.



"With general energy shortages, the war in Europe, high prices and the likelihood of failures in electricity supply, many popular scientific presumptions underlying energy policy should be questioned. Wind power fails on every count," he concluded.



Failing Turbines, Carbon Dioxide Demonization

Wind turbines across the United States have been failing more frequently in recent times, triggering concerns about additional costs resulting from such failures as well as their impact on power projects. Offshore windfarms, deployed in the name of environmentalism, are now seen as disastrous for ocean life.



Malfunctions in wind turbines range from small issues, like some key components becoming faulty, to full-blown collapses.



According to a 2022 paper published by Wallace Manheimer in the Journal of Sustainable Development, even as modern society depends on reliable sources of energy, the "climate industrial complex"—a powerful lobby of politicians, scientists, and media—pushes climate-related falsehoods into the popular perspective.



"It has somehow managed to convince many that CO2 in the atmosphere, a gas necessary for life on earth, one which we exhale with every breath, is an environmental poison. Multiple scientific theories and measurements show that there is no climate crisis," said Manheimer, a retired U.S. Naval Research Laboratory scientist.



"Over the period of human civilization, the temperature has oscillated between quite a few warm and cold periods, with many of the warm periods being warmer than today," he wrote. "During geological times, it and the carbon dioxide level have been all over the place with no correlation between them."

[Herman]

Consider the growing list of things about carbon taxes and greenhouse gas emissions that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and/or his environment ministers have said since coming to power in 2015 that have turned out to be inaccurate.



They said they would meet their 2020 target of reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to 17% below 2005 levels.



They missed it by a mile — a 9.3% reduction achieved primarily because of the global economic recession caused by the first year of the pandemic.



They said a carbon tax was the most efficient, market-driven way to lower emissions.



But the U.S. — with the same target as Canada of lowering emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 — reduced them 20%, surpassing the target, without a carbon tax.



They said they would freeze the federal carbon tax at $50 per tonne of emissions as of 2022.



On April 1, they raised the carbon tax to $65 per tonne of emissions in 2023 — a 30% increase — on its way to $170 per tonne in 2030.



They said 80% of families living in the seven provinces paying or soon to pay the federal carbon tax end up better off financially because of climate action incentive payments.



But last week, the parliamentary budget officer, Yves Giroux, said when the negative economic impact of the carbon tax is included in the calculation, 60% of families living in those provinces already pay more or will pay more in carbon taxes than they get in rebates.



By 2030, the PBO estimated, 80% will pay more in five of those provinces.

[DKG]

A  recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) by noted economists Timothy Fitzgerald and Casey Mulligan found that green recovery plans in the United States will not improve economic growth but rather impose significant costs on Americans. Canadians should take note, since our green plans are actually more extensive, which means Canadians may suffer even larger costs than our southern neighbours.



The study looks at several aspects of the U.S. green recovery plan including changes in fuel efficiency standards for all new vehicles, replacing fossil fuel-produced electricity with clean energy sources, and the creation of new electricity generation capacity (using wind and solar) to accommodate mandated increases in electric vehicles (EVs).



It's important to recognize how ambitious — some might say unrealistic — some of these initiatives are, particularly in terms of timing. Consider, for instance, that the Biden administration is requiring that 50% of all new vehicle sales by 2030 (only seven years away) be electric, hydrogen or plug-in hybrids. And that the U.S. establish an emissions-free power system — that is, the complete elimination of fossil fuels — by 2035.



Here at home, Ottawa has mandated the phase-out of conventional coal-fired electricity generation and wants renewable energy sources to achieve 90% of non-emitting electricity generation by 2030. The Trudeau government has also set a sales target requiring all passenger cars, SUVs and trucks sold in Canada in 2035 to be electric. In 2021, fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles comprised just 5.2% of new car registrations.



The NBER study evaluates the economic costs of Biden's green plan (described above) and concludes it "will require more inputs to produce the same outputs, resulting in recurring costs of up to $483 billion per year." In other words, the U.S. economy will spend $483 billion more than it does now annually to produce the same level of output, which means it will be more expensive to produce the same amount of goods and services.



Those extra costs mean the U.S. economy will be less effective at producing goods and services people demand, and those goods and services will be available only at higher costs, resulting in lower living standards. According to the study, the green recovery plans in the U.S. will reduce the country's Gross Domestic Product (inflation-adjusted) by 2% to 3%.



This is just one study on top of many published over the last few years showing the enormous costs green energy plans in the U.S. and Canada will impose on citizens, and yet politicians and advocates on both sides of the border continue to argue that these plans will improve the economy.



That's not to say governments can't respond to climate change, particularly with programs encouraging adaptation and risk mitigation. However, any action by government should be rooted in an empirical evaluation of the likely costs and benefits, and then transparently shared with the public.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-green-recovery-plans-will-impose-substantial-costs-on-economy">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... on-economy">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-green-recovery-plans-will-impose-substantial-costs-on-economy



The new green economy is not an opportunity. It handicaps the economies of Canada and the US with high costs which are passed on to us.

[caskur]

We should all go back to horse and buggy...or just a horse if you're solo....DD can ride a kangaroo...

We have a million wild camels and 1 million  wild dear plus wild horses called brumbies...

[DKG]

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently suggested in his annual letter to shareholders that the federal government and large corporations may have to seize private property from U.S. citizens to advance climate initiatives, which he claimed are not being implemented fast enough to avoid potential climate-related crises.

[Oerdin]

https://www.aier.org/article/an-all-electric-vehicle-industry-really/amp/">https://www.aier.org/article/an-all-ele ... eally/amp/">https://www.aier.org/article/an-all-electric-vehicle-industry-really/amp/

[Lokmar]

look, if you dont have an AR-15 and THOUSANDS of rounds of ammo, you're fucked.

[Oerdin]

In short, the climate alarmists are fucking fools and it isn't going to happen in 50 years much less the 10 they claim.  They truly are fucking stupid.



https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-ev-transition-explained-2659623150-2659623150">https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-ev-tr ... 2659623150">https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-ev-transition-explained-2659623150-2659623150

[Shen Li]

In short, the climate alarmists are fucking fools and it isn't going to happen in 50 years much less the 10 they claim.  They truly are fucking stupid.



https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-ev-transition-explained-2659623150-2659623150">https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-ev-tr ... 2659623150">https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/the-ev-transition-explained-2659623150-2659623150

In a little over a decade True Dope has committed to no new ICE vehicle sales.

[DKG]

Two young people died in an "explosion of fire" in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens Monday in a blaze caused by an e-bike's lithium-ion battery, according to FDNY officials and local news outlets.



"The way these fires occur, it's like an explosion of fire. The occupants have very little chance of escaping," said FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens from the scene of fatal two-alarm fire in Queens.

[Oerdin]

It is actually bad for the environment.

[DKG]

It is actually bad for the environment.

Very bad for the environment and unsustainable too.

[Lokmar]

Everyone in the hood got their yearly dose of lithium!

[DKG]

Everyone in the hood got their yearly dose of lithium!

Those type of batteries tend to be found in affluent neighbourhoods.