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All it took was a War.
Policies based on fashion can be dead-set one day and gone the next. Until Saturday Germany was about to close its last nuclear power plants, gas production had been falling for 20 years and it planned to phase out coal plants by 2030.
Germany was the largest energy consumer in Europe, but was also determined to pursue Energiewende, the policy of transitioning from fossil fuels.
On Sunday all that changed:
Nuclear, coal, LNG: ‘no taboos’ in Germany’s energy about-face
By Christoph Steitz, Riham Alkousaa and Maria Sheahan, Reuters
In a landmark speech on Sunday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz spelled out a more radical path to ensure Germany will be able to meet rising energy supply and diversify away from Russian gas, which accounts for half of Germany’s energy needs.
“The events of the past few days have shown us that responsible, forward-looking energy policy is decisive not only for our economy and the environment. It is also decisive for our security,” Scholz told lawmakers in a special Bundestag session called to address the […]
The World watches Ukraine. As the citizens are turning themselves into an army, they are being trained on Twitter, on how to beat tanks, pick strategic targets, and of course, there will be a propaganda campaign. Nothing can be verified. Except for the remarkable bravery of the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who knocked back an offer to be evacuated, and is fighting with the army. He is being treated as a hero — the new leader of the free world.
Winning hearts all over the world has a material benefit. Hackers are working to punish Putin, theatening an unprecedented cyberwar that will cripple his websites and expose all his secrets. “We are Anonymous. We are legion. Expect us”. There are reports #Anonymous has already taken down six Russian government websites, and have even hacked into Russian state TV stations as well, showing what is happening in Ukraine. “Soon you will feel the wrath of the worlds hackers many of which may reside in your country.” Elon Musk has also offered the Starlink Satellites for Ukraine to use.
While Russia used Shock and Awe, the Ukrainians appear to be winning now. Though if Russian armored columns make it through to Kyiv […]
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9.3 out of 10 based on 6 ratings
John Hussman warns that people may not realize how much stocks are likely to crash
Dr David Evans supplied some interesting links and adds “The biggest theme in markets is that ratios eventually revert to their mean (or average). No, it’s not different this time. A return to average on this graph implies a drop of about 75%.”
Hassman Margin-Adjusted P/E (US stock market price-earning ratio (adjusted))
John Hussman: Investors are paying top dollar for top dollar
Why is it so hard to accept that speculative bubbles can burst? Interest rates were driven to zero for a decade. Yield-starved investors chased stocks to valuations beyond the 1929 and 2000 extremes. That speculation front-loaded more than a decade of future market gains into the present. Those gains are now behind us, embedded in breathtaking multiples. If history is any guide, a collapse in valuations is likely to return those gains to the future.
The process of losing speculative gains and recovering them over time is what I’ve often called a “long, interesting trip to nowhere.” It bears repeating that the S&P 500 lagged Treasury bills from 1929-1947, 1966-1985, and 2000-2013. 50 years out of an 84-year period.
Now, […]
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8.9 out of 10 based on 8 ratings
Join Peter Ridd, Jo Nova, Walter Starck and Alan Moran for the Great Barrier Reef Webinar
Tuesday March 1: Sign up here: AEF Webinar: Is the Great Barrier Reef Dying or Thriving?
Photo: Wise Hok Wai Lum
One side of politics has just spent another billion dollars to “save the reef”. The other side of politics may spend even more. But how much is our national policy set by scientific data and how much is controlled by scenic-disaster-shots? Do Australian academics and media activists craft a false notion of a fantasy Reef-Nirvana where bleaching never occurred, where cyclones were gentle, and where corals are supposed to live in aquarium-like conditions with constant pH and temperature 24 hours a day? Is the reef really in worse condition now than thirty years ago when half of our man-made emissions had not been emitted?
Walter Starck wants to know why we have one the largest fishing zones per capita in the world but most families struggle to afford to eat Australian fish?
A STICKY POST. Details below.
9.5 out of 10 based on 86 ratings […]
While the West went weak-Green, Russia became the 2nd largest gas supplier on Earth
“The Eco-Hair-Shirt of Climate-Changey sufferance comes at a terrible price”
The Renewable-West is toothless to stop Russia doing whatever it damn-well wants.
Energy is power. As the West gave up the power to run its own factories and keep its own people warm, it also gave up the power to influence world affairs. The fashionable Eco-Hair-Shirt of Climate-Changey sufferance comes at a terrible price.
Weakness invites wars
Without its own energy supply, amidst an energy crisis, the West can’t help but buy gas from Russia. The only sanctions we can apply are weak and thus the West pays top dollar for Russian gas, and sends more tank-money to a nation with power because it’s selling a product that everyone wants. Nobody wants a wind farm unless someone else pays a subsidy.
The best thing the West could do now is run their old coal and nuclear plants at top speed, launch the UK Shale industry, and get serious about the North Sea. Then the price of gas would fall, the EU could use sanctions that mattered.
Instead Germany is shutting nuclear plants, Britain […]
The Socialists in Spain offered bonanza subsidies to build solar plants. People accepted them. Too many people accepted them.
Then the Socialist-rulers realized they could not pay them all. But the solar panels had been built. The debts were all accrued. All that was left was for investors to learn the true value of surges of surplus energy at the same time of day.
Sadly people faced losing their homes, in what must have been a grueling realization.
If only Socialists could do maths, they could have seen this coming. It’s not even quantum mechanics, it’s just arithmetic.
If only investors researched their investments and remembered that if it looks too good to be true, everyone else will pile on, and supply will wildly exceed demand, especially because no one really wants extra electrons for lunch.
Teach the children. The government should not be picking winners, but if it does, buy something else.
h/t Jim Simpson
9.8 out of 10 based on 54 ratings
Mike Cannon-Brookes might be an Australian tech-billionaire who wants to buy out one of our biggest energy companies and get rid of coal, but not only does he apparently not understand electricity grids, he doesn’t even know what a free market is.
In a free market customers could choose not to buy green electrons:
If we had a real free market in energy, we could a tick-that-box on our plan that said “100% coal fired, cheapest available reliable electricity”. Instead, all Australians are forced to buy electricity from a hobbled patchwork grid which has been repurposed as a Global Air Conditioner.
It’s a national grid crafted through “Renewable Energy Targets”, and pure hopium. Hidden in our electricity bills, taxes, and frozen-pea packets at Coles, are multiple subsidies to help wind and solar power. Poor Australians have paid to help put discounted solar panels on their rich neighbors roofs, and are paying for back up, storage, stabilizers, unnecessary two-billion dollar interstate transmission lines, and demand management plans.
Every windless minute at night the poor pay more for electricity than they would have — if the Agents of Weather-changing Sorcery were not allowed to romp freely through the energy market. Once […]
Do EV’s make good reefs?
h/t to Paul Homewood who notes The BBC didn’t mention the burning lithium battery story.
The Felicity Ace cargo ship caught fire on Wednesday last week:
German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that an internal email from Volkswagen USA stated that the ship was carrying 3,965 vehicles of the VW, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini brands.
It’s not clear if the fire started in an EV battery but once the flames got into them, the ship was abandoned to burn.
According to a study done in 2013 by the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building, and Urban Development, the batteries burn extremely hot and produce noxious gases.
“In the event of a lithium ion battery catching fire, it is important to note that such a fire reaches very high temperatures, produces toxic gases and is inextinguishable,” the report concluded. — The Independent
Five days later the fire has finally run out of material to consume.
Now Felicity Burnt. | Reuters
Luxury cars on fire on cargo ships is a thing now
March 12th, 2019: The Grande America caught fire with 2,000 luxury cars on board and sank.
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Lesson 4-billion-and-one in How Big Government Screws Everything Up
Cuadrilla Shale Gas.
Remember Cuadrilla, the company that discovered 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in Lancashire, UK in 2011? It multiplied the entire national reserve of shale gas by 37 fold. At one point the market value was estimated to be something like £136 billion and could keep the UK “in gas” for 56 years.
It should have changed everything. But in 2022 the UK is in an energy crisis and instead of expanding those shale wells, the UK government is sealing them up. They’re the only two viable shale gas wells in Britain, and the government wants them to pour concrete down the holes.
It’s been a long slow grind to nothing. The anti-frackers frightened the people with stories of “known carcinogens called ‘silicon dioxide’” and seismic shocks that registered 1.5 on the Richter scale. So the people of the UK gave up an industry worth £6 billion a year, and a reliable energy supply because a government department was afraid of pure sand and a class of earthquake so small it’s “rarely felt” and so common the world has “several million” of them each year.
Andrew […]
All Trudeau has to do is declare vaccination is voluntary…
The Trucks can’t be towed away — apparently all the towing companies “have Covid”. And the Truckers have been resolutely peaceful and considerate (honking aside). The protests are spreading, not shrinking. The Ambassador Bridge is now also blockaded — that’s the major bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan and Windsor. Hundreds of Truckers on the Alberta border are still gathered there. The Cavalry has arrived! Hordes of cowboys on horses have joined them. In Alaska, trucks are gathering too. Truckers in Alaska can’t drive to the rest of the USA without crossing the Canadian border.
The Ottawa Mayor has declared a “State of Emergency” because people were burning down buildings, destroying statues, and looting Nike stores — wait… No. That’s all fine. It’s a state of emergency because someone is honking horns. Trudeau could have come out to meet the workers revolution, listen to them, and negotiate, as any good leader would. Instead, the troopers started to arrest people carrying cans of fuel or propane gas to support the Truckers. Staying warm in parked trucks is now an act of insurrection.
It was minus 5C last night in Ottawa, and it’s forecast […]
Greens destroy wilderness one innumerate fantasy at a time. If only they had enough fossil fuels underground they might have saved this forest.
A solar wilderness. Tiahang Mountain Solar plant.
“Industrial solar farms require 300-400 times more land than natural gas or nuclear plants” — — Michael Shellenberger @ShellenbergerMD
Dystopia await all those who think solar power is free
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Solar panels on Taihang Mountain have a theoretical capacity of 20MW
“It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20,000 tons annually replacing 7,500 tons of coal each year. “
Since China consumes 4,319,921,826 tons of coal each year, that’s one plant down, and only 575,145 more to build…
9.9 out of 10 based on 74 ratings
Sorry I can’t do the updates today, but hopefully readers can below.
Great to hear from so many Canadians!
9.4 out of 10 based on 44 ratings
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9.9 out of 10 based on 14 ratings
11 convoys are converging across Canada. One convoy was claimed to be over 70 kilometers long* last night and growing. US truckers are joining in, and they can’t come over the border they are going to block it.
This is not a union organized thing. It’s grassroots and it’s come out of nowhere. People are coming out and standing in minus 20 degree weather just to cheer the trucks on. The fundraising started last Friday and has reached $5m. It has grown so fast that GoFundMe is holding funds til the organisers present a clear plan. Truckdrivers are even coming from Alaska. There’s an ocean of cars in support in Acheson Alberta.
UPDATE#2: The Empire fights back. Snezhana reports: Facebook shut down the #FreedomConvoy2022 page and Social media is starting to shut down pages supporting #TruckersForFreedom to censor what’s happening in #Canada!
The Facebook Group had grown to 545,000 members before it was shut down.
If news of this convoy spread freely and was supported like the BLM rallies imagine how fast it could grow. Spread the word. We’re in an information war. Share the news any way you can. Never give in. […]
VW e-Up | Photo by M 93
A German car reporter bought a new VW e-Up car in Wolfsburg and drove the 650 km to Munich. But the weather was freezing and to get further on each charge Lisa Brack kept the heating off most of the time. She still needed three charging stops and took 13 hours to get home.
Gosselin said that a diesel car would usually finish that trip in seven hours without a fuel stop (and with a heater running).
13 hours of driving and charging
The subfreezing weather was a major drawback for the VW e-car. According to the kreiszeitung.de, “the heating stayed off for almost the entire journey in freezing temperature” in order not to draw down the battery so quickly. This meant that to survive the trip, Brack had to take along a generous supply of “hats, scarves, gloves and generally warm clothing”…
According to the kreiszeitung.de, she made the crucial mistake of charging up too seldom and wasted much time charging the batteries to 100% instead of 80% (the last 20% take the longest). “Charge faster, accept a little less range and charge […]
Surprisingly, the World War I era temperatures are still changing. Mornings that seemed nippy at the time are now susceptible to frosts.
Someone should warn the farmers — except they’re all dead.
Thanks to Chris Gillham for independently and laboriously going through the new unannounced changes in another cycle of BOM’s hidden revamp of Australia’s history. ACORN 2.2 is the latest version of the Australian Climate Observation Reference Network of “the best” 112 weather stations across Australia.
Bureau of Meteorology ‘cools the past, warms present’
Graham Lloyd, The Australian
“The bureau has now remodelled the national temperature dataset three times in just nine years,” Dr Jennifer Marohasy said.
In the last five years the ACORN re-revisions by the BOM have discovered another quarter of a degree of warming that we didn’t know about from the last hundred years. It’s not clear why the BOM doesn’t want to tell the world how good they are at correcting thermometer records from 1913. It seems like a remarkable skill.
The minima just keep getting cooler
Chris Gillham plots the longest running stations from the ACORN 2.2 set against the old raw readings:
Who knew all those old […]
Scott Manley has done an excellent summary video of the Tongan volcano, much of the science and history of it as well as the effects thousands of miles away. The area around the volcano had completely reformed in the last ten years. He has collected some great footage together.
It’s interesting watching air pressure waves travel across Japan and the USA. Ken Stewart found the compression- decompression wave hit the east coast of Australia at about 5:16 Qld time and took 3 hours and 24 minutes roughly to get to Shark Bay, an average speed of about 1,160 kph. The decompression was about half an hour after the first peak and can be seen (still) in weather station pressure data.
Eruptions of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai are roughly 900 years apart and this one was on schedule.
Thanks to Greg …
A
The CliffMass weather blog noted that the pressure wave hit Seattle at 4:30AM local time, so the air pressure spike took 8.5 hours to cross the Pacific at about 664miles per hour. h/t WattsUp
Sending best wishes for the poor people of Tonga. Planes are on the way to help, slightly complicated because Tonga is still Covid free, and […]
by Jo Nova
Who would have guessed that giant protected monopolies would devolve into wallowing workplaces where sad-sack un-productive workers accumulate?
“Hazard Harrington” writes from the inside of Big Tech about the terminal decline, the dark moods, despondency and lack of productivity. When the most exulted culture at work are the most victimized, the miserable workers share their misery and nobody gets anything done.
Wokeness is that dead end where everyone can blame everyone else, and no one, apart from white men, can be sacked. So the people who can’t compete collect in a kind of Sargasso sea of civilization.
h/t Bill in AZ
UPDATE: Hazard Harrington’s account is now gone. Archive copy
@HazardHarringto from Inside Big Tech
… COVID/WFH [Working From Home] has totally broken people. They are fundamentally weak, often with no social support outside of work. They’re the people with no children, no spouse. Only a dog or cat for emotional support.
There’s constant talk, even now, about how hard things are for everyone. Often meetings start with going around the room to ask “How is everyone feeling?” Literally everyone else went on sad rants about their lives. “I’m so MAD a […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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The nerds have the numbers on precious metals investments on the ASX
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