My Gazette: Energy is Foundational

By Rich Kozlovich 

I save an inordinate number of articles dealing with every issue facing humanity.  I save them with the intention of using them in my own commentaries as source material.  But, after a while my draft files get really big and while I still want to have that materiel for reference, I have to purge those files.  So, I've decided to start a weekly series of Gazettes.  I will be publishing a "Gazette" dealing with each issue regularly, and I will insert "My Take " along the way.  

Draft file purged, material saved.   

The fact is readily available, inexpensive energy is foundational to an advanced culture.   For those of us who really enjoy history and have read a great deal,  we've seen more than enough evidence of just  how smart the ancients really, and the only thing that prevented humanity from being the 20th century thousands of years ago was they didn't have electricity, and a way to produce it.  

So, sufficient, inexpensive electricity, and so-called fossil fuels, is foundational, or we go back to the horse and buggy era, and make no mistake, the one thing all the green movement agrees on is there are entirely too many people living on the planet, and they would love to eliminate between four and six billion of us.  End energy production as we know it, and they'll have what they desire.  Human sacrifice to appease Gaia,  just like the ancient Druids. 

 Let's start here:

Don’t Follow Net-Zero Lemmings Over the Energy Cliff - Paul Driessen  Oct 27, 2023- Seventeen states – including Virginia – tie their vehicle emission standards and electric vehicle sale mandates to California, the most climate-centric state in the Union. Unless current laws change, by 2035 all their new cars, pickups and SUVs must be electric (or hydrogen-powered). In further obeisance to California, most of these states also require that their utility companies generate 100% of their electricity from “renewable sources” by 2045 or 2050. They and the federal government are also mandating that electric models replace gas-fueled furnaces, water heaters, driers, stoves and ovens within a decade or less. This means electricity demand will double in the very near future – at the same time that reliable, affordable fossil-fuel (and nuclear and hydroelectric) electricity generation plummets. Charging massive batteries to ensure power on windless, sunless days would double demand again.

Top Wind Firm Profits Tumble 98% in New Blow to alternative Energy - By Bloomberg News October 26, 2023 - Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., the largest wind-turbine maker, said third-quarter profit tumbled in another blow to a renewables sector reeling from the impact of lower prices even as demand jumps. The producer’s net income fell 98% to 9.4 million yuan ($1.29 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier, the company said Thursday in a statement. Sales volumes in the first nine months were 8.9 gigawatts, up more than a quarter on the same period in 2022. Goldwind’s shares fell as much as 5% intraday in Shenzhen on Friday. Asia’s largest economy is accelerating deployment of renewable energy as it works to curb emissions and meet rising electricity demand. Though installations are rising, competition is intensifying among China’s wind turbine producers and pushing prices lower. 

The sharp quarterly profit drop is due to higher selling expenses and research-and-development costs, Citigroup analyst Pierre Lau wrote in a note. Wind developers are facing higher project costs since all national subsidies expired in 2021 and regional governments require more local-economy contributions, Bloomberg NEF analyst Xiangyu Chen wrote last month. Clean energy technology manufacturers globally are struggling with rising costs and delays to some projects. Siemens Energy AG plunged more than a third Thursday after confirming it is in talks with the German government about state guarantees as it grapples with weakness in its wind-turbine unit.

State Forced to Cancel Electric Vehicle Mandate Vote After Widespread Power Outages - By C. Douglas Golden  December 22, 2023 - The weather in Maine is never a predictable thing at the best of times, but it appears to have developed a dark sense of humor as of late. On Thursday, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection was set to meet to discuss and potentially finalize a California-style electric vehicle mandate that would start in 2027 and force 82 percent of new vehicles to have zero emissions by the 2032 model year, according to the Portland Press Herald......