Davos: Green transition is ‘$50-trillion investment opportunity’

Crazy world of climate finance [image credit: renewableenergyfocus.com]

So is it about a claimed ‘climate emergency’ or, more likely, ‘an acceptable return for investors’?
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Financing the global shift away from fossil fuels could earn investors trillions, according to discussions at the World Economic Forum.

But there’s not enough data to get the money where it’s needed, says DW.com.

The investment opportunity presented by the transition to a green global economy has been a key topic on the agenda at the 2021 World Economic Forum.

Biden will use bureaucracy to advance green energy boondoggles

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Would anyone serious bet against it?

PA Pundits - International

By Larry Bell ~

Remember Solyndra?

In case you’ve forgotten, it was a California solar panel developer that defaulted on a $535 million Obama-Biden administration Department of Energy stimulus loan guarantee that, along with four other bankrupted companies, collectively left U.S. taxpayers on the hook for more than $2.2 billion.

According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the White House had pressed the Office of Management and Budget to greenlight the loan in a hurry.

In response, OMB officials reportedly expressed concern that they were being rushed to approve the company’s project without adequate time to assess the risk to taxpayers.

Energy Department and OMB analysts had reportedly questioned the wisdom of the loan which analysts determined, based upon Solyndra’s own numbers, would rapidly run out of cash.

Another of those bankruptcies involved a 2019 DOE $528.7 million loan it gifted to Fisker Automotive, a start-up company promoted…

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Siemens Energy in $146m bid to harvest hydrogen from offshore wind

Let’s keep pretending the climate will notice if a few hundred wind turbines are dotted around the seas. Better still, let’s make them even more expensive and unwieldy by adding some new technology that we can’t easily service as it’s miles offshore. It’s claimed that ‘brilliant minds’ will be working on this, but it doesn’t take a genius to see the flaws in the plan.
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Siemens Gamesa and Siemens Energy have today announced plans to invest €120m ($146m) in a five-year strategy to unlock the potential of harvesting green hydrogen from offshore windpower, reports Power Engineering International.

The companies are collaborating on a solution to integrate an electrolyzer into an offshore wind turbine as a single synchronized system to directly produce green hydrogen.

Over the next five years, Siemens Gamesa will invest €80m and Siemens Energy €40m in the initiative, with a view to unveiling a full-scale offshore demonstration by 2025/26.

Ben Pile: How the CCC turns 10 opinions in 66 million.

Watch this excellent seven minute video and read the twitter thread here by Ben Pile. The climate change committee is using soviet style ‘citizen’s assemblies’ to justify their highly questionable ideas about how we should live to government.

China has no intention to reduce fossil fuel use. Just the opposite.

New pipelines under construction between Russia and China.

A damning new report from GWPF outlines massive new energy projects being undertaken by the CCP which dwarf its figleaf ‘green energy’ enterprises, here’s a short excerpt, but everyone should download and read the full document.

China today relies on fossil fuels for 86% of its total primary energy consumption (58% from coal, 20% from petroleum and other liquids, and 8% from natural gas).28 Rather than curbing its appetite for fossil fuels, Beijing is voraciously seeking more. In the case of coal, China has aggressively relaxed regulations that restricted domestic coal production, seeking to rapidly raise production capacity. ‘In the first half of 2020 China approved 23 gigawatts-worth of new coal power projects, more than the previous two years combined,’ reported
AFP, citing Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based environmental NGO. The CCP approved 141 million tons of new annual coal mining capacity in the first half of 2019. In all of 2018, it approved 25 million tons.

Beyond Redemption: Germany’s Suicidal Wind & Solar Obsession Delivers Energy Debacle

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The cracks in renewable energy policies can be papered over for a while, but when power shortages get acute they’re too big to miss. Meanwhile there’s the escalating cost of trying to deal with the built-in problems due to intermittency.

STOP THESE THINGS

You know RE scammers are on the ropes, when they start talking about non-existent grid-scale batteries, pumped hydro and, the latest lunacy, converting chaotically intermittent wind and solar into hydrogen gas.

In the beginning, when the quizzical pressed them about the inherent unreliability of wind and solar, it was brushed off with glib statements such as “the wind is always blowing somewhere” and faint suggestions that if the sun’s down, the wind will be blowing to make up for it.

As soon as the percentage of wind and solar capacity on the grid gets beyond double digits, their sporadic and haphazard delivery becomes evident for all and sundry. South Australians and Californians are now well-familiar with power rationing, when the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in.

As with every marketing pitch, papering over the cracks as they emerge, is all. And nowhere is that phenomena more acute than in…

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Andy Shaw: A Guide to the Green Industrial Revolution

Guest post from our good friend Andy Shaw; taking a light hearted look at some pretty serious issues around Boris Johnson’s version of the Green New Deal. Andy is also the powerhouse behind London based Comedy Unleashed who are still running, despite the batflu restrictions. Book early and get along there to enjoy a pint, pizza and pisstake if you’re in the area. Give Andy a follow on twitter to keep up with the latest.

A Guide to the Green Industrial Revolution

The government has announced their Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. It will bring electricity to light homes, gas for cooking and cars to drive! You may think that we already have these things, but this is a Green revolution, everything that we have got used to will be re-invented. Boris Johnson’s 10 point plan includes heat pumps, hydrogen gas and batteries, but what is really going on? This is your 6 point guide.

1. Green is popular!

Boris Johnson’s dad and his current girlfriend have a favourite colour and it is .. green! This shows that green policies are popular across generations and that the government is right to revolutionise our entire economy.

Wind farms creating ‘new Clearances’ for residents in Scotland

Windfarm objection in Galloway

The suspicion may exist that the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party never seems to win in this sparsely populated region, so is not inclined to much sympathy for its residents when making decisions on the many windfarm applications.
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Residents are moving away from parts of south-west Scotland because they are losing much of the local landscape to wind farm developments, it has been claimed.

Now Trevor and Elaine Procter, who live at Knockvennie, near Dumfries, are urging people to contact local councillors to object to the “tsunami” of planning applications for such developments, reports The National (via Wind Watch).

They have lived in their current home for 12-years, and Trevor said the effect on locals was comparable to the Highland Clearances.

Reliable Electricity? Bah Humbug!

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Green energy means: pay more, get less. But you already knew that, or if not, where have you been?

PA Pundits - International

By Kenneth Green~

In a refreshingly honest article in the Boston Review, David McDermott Hughes confirms something that we energy evangelists have been saying for some time: Environmentalists do not simply want people to transition to “green energy,” they want humanity put on energy rationing, for the good of the planet. Now, apparently, they’ve also decided that we need to add intermittent fasting to our energy diet because, gosh darnit, electricity in developed countries like the United States is just too darn reliable for our own good! It needs to go out once in a while, or, well, the planet is doomed.

According to Hughes, “For those seriously concerned about climate change, the inverse—the demand for electrical continuity—may be the real problem.” Yes, you read that right, the desire to have electricity available 24/7 is the cause of our global climate catastrophe, and we need to learn to live…

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Hywind, low economics: the cost of floating offshore wind power

Image credit: Equinor, Via GWPF

Guest reblog of a post written by Andrew Montford at the GWPF

Yesterday, I wrote about the financial travails of the Kincardine Floating Windfarm and the eye watering bill that is going to have to be paid for its construction. The cost of floating offshore wind power is, it seems, going to be high.

UK can be ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power’ – PM

Saudi Arabia exports oil. Who does he plan to export electricity to – Ireland perhaps? The green lobby obviously wrote his script, but nobody told him ‘carbon’ theories of climate don’t cut the mustard. And how does his plan work if Scotland leaves the UK? Something’s blustery other than the weather.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he wants to make a “big bet” on renewables, turning the UK into the “Saudi Arabia” of wind power, reports BBC News.

Speaking via video link to a climate roundtable discussion at the UN in New York, Mr Johnson said the country held “extraordinary potential for wind”.

He said the UK should embrace a range of new technologies to achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

Scotland’s ‘green jobs’ fiasco

Scottish offshore wind project [image credit : urbanrealm.com]

Electricity bill payers are in effect subsidising work that’s being exported round the world while promises of so-called green jobs for Scottish workers, and the government’s own ’emissions’ policies, are forgotten or ignored. The irony being that the high cost of UK electricity – and rising due to renewables – is part of the problem.
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A trade union has called for a halt to new offshore wind farms until a local supply chain is established, says The National (via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF).

GMB London echoed the growing anger from GMB Scotland after it was announced last week that contracts to supply turbine jackets for SSE’s offshore wind farm, Seagreen, in Angus, were awarded to firms in China and UAE.

The decision meant Scottish firm Burntisland Fabrications (BiFab) was left overlooked in favour of companies based thousands of miles away, even though it has engineering sites in the country, in Fife and Stornoway.

Despite BiFab securing backing from the Scottish Government to win the work, SSE Renewables claimed the gap between the submissions of foreign firms and BiFab was “too significant to close”.

Solar Panels Generate Mountains Of Waste – And Heat The Planet

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Time for climate obsessives to look the other way — again.

PA Pundits - International

By Duggan Flanakin ~

The problem of solar panel waste is now becoming evident. As environmental journalist Emily Folk admits in Renewable Energy Magazine, “when talking about renewable energy, the topic of waste does not often appear.” She attributes this to the supposed “pressures of climate change” and alleged “urgency to find alternative energy sources,” saying people may thus be hesitant to discuss “possible negative impacts of renewable energy.”

Ms. Folk admits that sustainability requires proper e-waste management. Yet she laments, “Solar presents a particular problem. There is growing evidence that broken panels release toxic pollutants … [and] increasing concern regarding what happens with these materials when they are no longer viable, especially since they are difficult to recycle.”

This is the likely reason that (except in Washington state), there are no U.S. mandates for solar recycling. A recent article in Grist reports that most used solar panels are…

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Renewables in Europe: Land requirement is an area the size of Portugal

We brace ourselves for another visit to green fantasy land (‘according to the study’) where progress to imaginary nirvana is just around the corner, regardless of glaringly obvious realities pointing the other way.
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Transitioning our energy supply from coal, oil and gas to wind and solar power is feasible, claims TechXplore. [Talkshop comment – empty assertion].

However, renewables require more land than conventional forms of energy generation.

The most affordable option for a fully renewable electricity supply in Europe is based on solar parks and onshore windfarms.

However, this solution requires some 97,000 km2 land, or roughly 2% of the total area of the European Union—an area equivalent to the size of Portugal.

About those ‘Green Energy’ unicorns… – The GWPF

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

The Manhattan Institute reckons: ‘By 2050, with current plans, the quantity of worn-out solar panels—much of it nonrecyclable—will constitute double the tonnage of all today’s global plastic waste, along with over 3 million tons per year of unrecyclable plastics from worn-out wind turbine blades. By 2030, more than 10 million tons per year of batteries will become garbage.’

Before then, all that future waste has to be manufactured, largely from mined materials. Is the world ready for this?
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You think those baby unicorns grow on trees? Better think again, says Michael Walsh @ The Pipeline.

“Green” energy, in fact, comes with a very high price tag as this report from the Manhattan Institute makes clear.

As policymakers have shifted focus from pandemic challenges to economic recovery, infrastructure plans are once more being actively discussed, including those relating to energy.

Davos: the birthplace of a New World Government? But who are the parents?

Charlie Chaplin: The Great Dictator

June 25, 2020

By Robin Horsley

DAVOS, is the small town, nestled high in the Swiss Alps, widely known for hosting the annual conference of global business-people, world leaders, activists, and journalists that takes place every January. The organisation that arranges the event, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and its enigmatic founder Klaus Schwab, are less well-known.

The WEF’s exclusive shindig used to be thought of simply as a grandiose talking-shop. The ultimate annual ‘networking’ event where the wealthy and powerful could grand-stand in front of the world’s media. But in recent years, as the ambitions and agenda of the WEF have become clearer, many people have gradually realised there is far more to Davos and the World Economic Forum than they previously thought. 

Pushback on EU ‘Green New Deal’ leads to alternative proposals.

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

From GreenTech media

The EU is currently working through the details of a €1.85 trillion ($2.08 trillion) recovery package. Before the stimulus was signed, a leaked document by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy (DG Energy) ran through a serious of policy plans to marry the European Green Deal and the COVID-19 recovery effort.

Those plans included a possible 15-gigawatt EU-wide renewable tender designed to help make up for a shortfall in national tenders. Support for green hydrogen was also advanced as a potential item for inclusion.

But the plans have not survived a barrage of lobbying by vested interests and pushback from member states still married to a more traditional energy mix, according to multiple sources following the green recovery’s development.

The great green reset is at odds with economic and energy reality.

From Forbes, by Tilak Doshi H/T to Andrew Gibson

As the world emerges from Covid-19 lockdown we are now being told that the economic recovery from the pandemic-panic needs to be “green.” Political leaders and mass media editors cite the well-known slogan “never let a crisis go to waste,” and claim that massive sums need to be spent on economic recovery plans, and that the spending has to be “sustainable.”

Prince Charles – a prognosticator of apocalyptic climate change – said at the opening of a virtual World Economic Forum event that the global pandemic presented an opportunity to “reset the global economy and prioritize sustainable development.” Using similar language, the founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab calls for a “Great Reset” of capitalism. Seeing a silver lining in the pandemic, he advocates “radical changes” to “create a new economic system” including sustainably green urban infrastructure.

Michael Moore’s new film skewers green energy

The non-solution to the non-problem gets another going-over. Anything that gives the lie to ‘clean green’ mythology and gets a few headlines has to be welcomed.
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A newly-released documentary from contrarian filmmaker Michael Moore calls green energy a fraud that is destroying the Earth, says Lorrie Goldstein @ The Toronto Sun.

Planet of the Humans also accuses the environmental movement of selling out to corporate and Wall St. interests, by shilling for these so-called renewable technologies.

The film premiered at the Traverse City Film Festival in July, but Moore released it on YouTube for free for 30 days on the eve of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on Wednesday.

Hydrogen-fired power requires nearly $800bn investment – report

More pie in the sky from the green lobby. No sign here of how the hydrogen would be produced in sufficient quantities to replace all the world’s fuels. A bunch of wind turbines and solar installations would barely begin to do it, given they’re already fully occupied with ever-increasing electricity demand. If ‘infrastructure investment in storage might cost around $637 billion by 2050’, who would be willing to pay such eye-watering sums?
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Carbon-free hydrogen production could significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions in power generation and manufacturing, but it will require a mammoth and long-term financial commitment to become cost competitive, says Power Engineering.

This is according to a new report by BloombergNEF. The research wing of media giant Bloomberg is focused on next-generation energy technologies which also reduce carbon emissions.

Hydrogen can be a zero-carbon substitute for fossil fuels. Companies such as Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS), GE, Siemens and Ansaldo Energia already are working on programs to blend hydrogen into their turbine fuel mixes.