Best Energy Picks - October 26, 2024
Readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy.
This week’s best energy picks:
Ford CEO Shows Us What Globalist Elites Care Most About — To Keep Prices Low, California Will Raise Prices — Wind and Solar Are Energy Stealers! — Big Wind Gets A Bye on Worst Greenhouse Gas — and much more.
Ford CEO Shows Us What Globalist Elites Care Most About
This story illustrates the No. 1 priority of globalist elites, which seems to be appearing politically correct among their fellow elites:
The Daily Caller News Foundation broke the news that Ford COE, Jim Farley, admitted on a recent podcast to be driving a Chinese EV that he had flown in from Shanghai months ago.
Farley’s recent admission that he drives a Chinese-made electric vehicle is a slap in the face to the thousands of hardworking employees at Ford Motor Company. At a time when Ford is receiving billions of dollars in subsidies from American taxpayers to support domestic EV production, it is deeply troubling that the company’s chief executive would choose a Chinese product over the American vehicles his own company manufactures.
This decision not only undermines the efforts of Ford’s workforce but also raises serious questions about leadership commitment to the brand and the quality of Ford’s electric vehicle lineup. If the CEO of Ford doesn’t believe in the products his own company builds, how can he inspire consumer confidence or justify the billions of public dollars supporting Ford’s EV initiatives?
Farley is also a board member at Harley-Davidson which explains a lot.
Hat Tip: J.I.
To Keep Prices Low, California Will Raise Prices
Only in California, where political insanity rules the day:
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill this week that could force local refineries to stockpile fuel, a move he believes will smooth long-term gasoline prices.
“Price spikes have cost Californians billions of dollars over the years, and we’re not waiting around for the industry to do the right thing,” Newsom said. “We’re taking action to prevent these price spikes and save consumers money at the pump.”
Once the California Energy Commission outlines the new set of rules, refineries could be fined as much as $1 million per day for non-compliance. That massive figure doesn’t alarm Newsom, who says it’s time justice is done.
“They’re screwing you; they’ve been screwing you for years,” he said of oil companies.
But, as critics have been quick to point out, forcing suppliers to hold inventory could dramatically raise operating costs. Even if the new legislation does prevent price spikes—an outcome that’s far from certain, given the unpredictability of economic shocks—consumers will pay for future lower prices with higher prices now. That’s if producers don’t simply pack up and leave.
This kind of irrational thinking prevails on the left, of course. It is why the Golden State already suffers from out-of-sight gas prices.
Hat Tip: D.S.
Wind and Solar Are Energy Stealers!
Wind and solar make no economic sense whatsoever:
Don’t be deceived by the Levelized Cost of Energy LCOE.
Look at the energy return on investment eROI
Get the story from Lars Schernikau and William Smith:
eROI measures the efficiency of energy systems. Large numbers indicate high efficiency and nuclear power scores around 70 compared with coal near 30 while most wind and solar systems score below 5. That is approximately the crucial cut-off figure between systems that are sustainable and systems that are not efficient enough to survive independently.
If the index falls short, the state or country is at risk of energy starvation and it will have to draw on more efficient sources of power, at home or abroad.
The state of South Australia is the wind leader in Australia but almost every night they import coal power from Victoria. Similarly, Australia imports coal power from China in the form of the energy-intensive components of our imported wind turbines and solar panels!
The truth about wind and solar is slowly seeping out as Big Tech, which pushed them relentlessly, has, in the face of AI demand decided it has to go to natural gas or nuclear.
Hat Tip: R.C.
Big Wind Gets A Bye on Worst Greenhouse Gas!
If there was ever a need for proof our Federal government is corrupted at every level, this is it:
If there’s anything Big Wind doesn’t like to talk about it’s sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
It is universally agreed that SF6 is the most potent and devastating greenhouse gas yet known. This manmade fluorinated compound does not exist in nature. Used as an insulator in high- and medium-voltage switchgear in the electrical industry, once released, this long-lasting compound lives on in the atmosphere for a very long time -- having a half-life of 3,200 years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
As pointed out by ecos, an environmental organization based in Brussels, in its report, “Worst in class,” SF6 will remain 25,200 times more effective at trapping infrared radiation than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide for over a century. However, “its growth and use continue virtually unabated.”
Used in the switchgear (a collection of voltage-regulating tools) of both wind turbines and offshore and onshore substations, SF6 will be utilized in all the wind-energy projects in various stages of development that will effectively fence in the East Coast from Maine to North Carolina.
Even the EPA doesn’t have a handle on what’s going on with Big Wind and SF6. In 2023 the agency contracted with a company to provide an “assessment” to help the agency in “seeking a better understanding…” of SF6 use in offshore wind.
As for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the lead federal agency for all the proposed turbine lease areas, it, too, would rather not have to answer to the public over the use of SF6. So much so that in the draft Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS (which was open to public comment) for the Atlantic Shores South project, the agency stated that “BOEM would require Atlantic Shores to use switchgear that does not contain SF6 but uses alternative insulating materials and technologies to eliminate leakage of SF6 as a source of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.”
…Regardless of how many federal agencies write memos and fact sheets about this compound, which is rated as having the highest global warming potential of all greenhouse gasses, it’s unlikely that the public will ever learn about leaks or accidents releasing SF6 from these wind energy projects.
And no matter how “green” they try to paint offshore wind, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s an environmental disaster that will only succeed in making certain companies (mostly foreign) a whole lot of green paper.
That's a fact.
Hat Tip: R.N.
And, Briefly:
Green Blunder: UK’s Net Zero Dreams Turned to Economic Nightmare, from S.H.
Why Hedge Funds Are Betting Against the Green Economy, from R.N.
Climate Journalisn Done Right, from R.P.
Federal Funding Fuels Pipeline Modernization in Philadelphia, from R.S.
U.S. Supremes to Consider Moving EPA Cases Away from D.C. Circuit, from S.H.
Inconvenient Truth: 32 Climate Predictions Proven False, from J.C.
EU President Likens Free Speech to Infectious Disease, from J.L.
#Energy #NaturalGas #BestPicks #Climate #GreenEnergy #Money #Power #Electricity #Solar #GlobalWarming #Wind #EVs #Oil #Gas #FreeSpeech
