Category: energy

The Electric Firetruck Acid Test

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From the Toronto Sun, a note on a new fire truck in Vancouver. It’s electric.

“… the new e-truck will cost $300,000 more than a comparable diesel model, pump 40 per cent less water and have such a short range (30 km) because of its enormous weight that it will have to have backup diesel power in case it runs out of juice on the way to a blaze.”

It seems like an incredibly stupid purchase, guaranteed to get you booted out of office. Let’s see if it’s accurate. A “fact check” if you will.

The central question is, “Is it likely purchases of this nature will contribute significantly to saving us from the coming climate horror, or is it a vanity bonfire fueled by virtue signaling public officials?” We’re provisionally accepting the assumption of CO2 precipitated planetary catastrophe here, because it is a religious tenet for a goodly majority of Vancouverites… who elected the people who bought the truck. The virtue Vancouver public officials are signaling is sacrosanct.

Still, some questions naturally follow (though I doubt Vancouver asked them).

How much emitted CO2 will it prevent? Is there data about life cycle carbon emissions for EV vs ICE (internal combustion engines)?

There is, and Bjorn Lomborg references a comprehensive set of data at the International Energy Agency in a WSJ article. Policies Pushing Electric Vehicles Show Why Few People Want One:

Making batteries for electric cars also requires a massive amount of energy, mostly from burning coal in China. Add it all up and the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car emits a little less than half as much CO2 as a gasoline-powered one.

The climate effect of our electric-car efforts in the 2020s will be trivial. If every country achieved its stated ambitious electric-vehicle targets by 2030, the world would save 231 million tons of CO2 emissions. Plugging these savings into the standard United Nations Climate Panel model, that comes to a reduction of 0.0002 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

Vehicle electrification is having a very small impact on future climate. And an electric firetruck’s contribution to CO2 reduction is proportionally much less than a car’s. A firetruck is driven very few miles compared to a car, and since driving is where the emissions are actually saved an electric firetruck is CO2 reduction theater. A better use of well over a million dollars would have have been replacement of every city car with an EV. Well, except for public safety vehicles like police cars. They’d have to be hybrids if they were appropriate to their mission.

As the article alludes, the firetruck needs diesel backup. Unsurprisingly, it’s an OEM option. If we look at the truck specs we can see whether that’s really optional; get some indication about whether the range is only 30 kilometers; and gain some insight into how well the truck can pump water once it gets to the fire.

The truck is an Austrian made Rosenbauer RT, and there is a claim here that it can go 100 kilometers, round trip. That would be 60 miles.

“The system is set to be recharged incredibly quickly and can power the truck for 100 km of driving; Moore notes that in Vancouver they usually only drive five to 10 km, and never anywhere near 100 km. And if they do need power for an extended period of time there is a range extender, a 350 hp diesel engine from BMW which can refill the batteries faster than driving depletes them. Using that it can go another 300 to 400 km.”

No word on what ‘incredibly quickly’ means, but with a dedicated 350 HP Beamer diesel, it doesn’t matter. Of course, that makes it a hybrid, not an EV.

The range discrepancy might be explained by the fact that there are options for 1 or 2 50KW hour battery packs, and how far it can go/how long it can pump will vary depending on the outside temperature.

On the pumping question we have this:

With the battery packs at 100% of charge, the water pump can work continuously for one hour at 528 gpm until the charge falls to 20%. When the turbodiesel engine kicks in, the truck can keep pumping water for five hours more.

With 2 battery packs then, it can pump for an hour. Let’s assume 80% of that is available given the need to drive to and from the fire. That’s 48 minutes. That’s maybe 24 minutes with a single battery pack.

It seems that each truck would have to be equipped with the Beamer diesel in order to fulfill a mission of public safety. Practically, that means it’s a hybrid, not an EV. The carbon emissions it does save? At best, that’s for an hour of operation per fire. But then it has to be recharged…

Beyond the base emission scenario there are carbon questions related to a firetruck’s job.

Are the batteries in Vancouver’s new truck kept up solely by a combination of dedicated windmills, solar panels, and hydro power? If not, there is a carbon cost to having it sit in the firehouse.

Is there additional carbon generated by fires that will burn longer, or spread, with less water being delivered? Is the cost of increased property damage considered? What about increased danger to life and limb?

The laser focus on CO2 emissions is the same error similar myopic apparatchiks made with the CCP virus. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE MATTERS but flattening the curve. Pathetic.

So, right in line with the logic behind mandating electric vehicles before we have the means of powering them. Ref: California, where internal combustion engine vehicles were banned by 2035 just a few days before EV owners were asked not to charge their EVs due to threats of rolling blackouts.

Get back to me when you have affordable electricity infrastructure in place. You’ll need nukes.

Erewhon

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Forcible modification of basic human behavior is the Utopian’s dream and necessity. It’s what the attack on free speech is about. If you can’t say something without fear of punishment, self censorship will eventually disable your ability to even think about it.

In a debate with a Utopian, you might cite the failure of previous attempts to establish heaven on earth – in WWII Germany, China during Mao’s “Cultural Revolution,” Cambodia under Pol Pot, Venezuela under Maduro, Cuba under Castro, Ukraine under Stalin, etc. etc..

It will avail you not. The fall back response is that the right people weren’t in charge. Utopia’s never really been tried.

The people currently volunteering to try their hand at being the right people run the World Economic Forum.

The WEF is an NGO apparently operating under the delusion that ‘the problem’ can be solved by instituting tyranny in multiple countries simultaneously:

World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab wrote back in June, “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

John Kerry’s on board, if you were wondering how stupidly bad this idea is.

If you weren’t wondering, maybe Milton Friedman can help you overcome Schwab and Kerry’s assumption that if things aren’t perfect, we can only fix them by forcibly changing human behavior to accord with the utopian visions of elite collectivists.

Take that as a 2 minute introduction to the longer conversation below. That conversation examines the results of WEF policy implementation.

Objections to the WEF agenda are often described as “conspiracy theories.” My understanding of conspiracy theories is that they describe secret plans of which only the theorists are aware.

The WEF makes no secret of its plans. Fortunately, discussions of these plans are not yet banned by YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Such a ban would also be an open conspiracy. And not a theory.

Jordan Peterson and Micheal Yon are still allowed to discuss Dutch farmer’s protests against WEF inspired ideas which would destroy farming in the Netherlands. This is an hour and 20+. It is not going to enhance your optimism. It is quite worth watching.

I leave you with one takeaway in case you do not spend the time on the video: Tiny Netherlands is the world’s second largest exporter of food. Dutch farmers arguably constitute the most efficient agricultural system in the world. Even as they are distracted by keeping their fingers in the dikes.

The WEF hegemony places them in its crosshairs. The WEF premise: Nitrogen in fertilizer is a catastrophic global warming threat. Dutch farmers use too much nitrogen. It must stop.

The Dutch government agrees. It intends to destroy its agricultural supremacy. In favor of what ecological improvement, exactly? Who will replace the world’s second largest food exporter with less environmental impact? Somalia? Bangladesh?

It won’t be Sri Lanka. Because Sri Lanka already tried implementing the same plan the Netherlands government is contemplating. It didn’t work out well. Sri Lankans are starving because food crops have been triple decimated. Fuel is not scarce, though. It is unavailable. Food exports were the major source of foreign currency to buy gasoline and diesel fuel.

This attack on farmers is not limited to the Netherlands. Canada is on the same track. Despite the horrific results in Sri Lanka.

And Canada’s plan to ruin farming is just one of their problems. If you’re up for more Peterson, this is a devastating look at Canada’s Sorry State. But, I digress.

The goal of The Great Reset is a drastic reduction in the human population through immiseration, starvation, and chaos. In Germany, for example, it’s manifesting as an energy shortage. The Germans closed down perfectly viable nuclear plants in favor of windmills, and solar panels, and Russian natural gas. They were burning more CO2 intensive coal to make up for energy shortfalls even before the Russians turned Nordstream off. Now Germans are gathering wood to burn for heat this winter.

“What did environmentalists use for lighting before candles? …Electricity.”

Warmth is marginally before food in the hierarchy of needs. You die more quickly from hypothermia than from starvation. Not a whole lot faster, but rioting warms you at least until you collapse from malnutrition.

It will get worse for the Germans when they can’t import food from the Netherlands and have lessened ability to grow their own because of fertilizer shortages. The major process for making fertilizer involves natural gas. Germany is already restricting hot water, and is very unlikely to have sufficient gas for home heating this winter, much less for fertilizer production going into next spring.

Green Ordeal

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Don’t pretend that high prices and American suffering are a ‘bug’ for the establishment — it’s a historic feature

Yes, the record of those establishment hacks seems pretty bad. Of course, that assumes they want cheap gas, cheap food, energy independence and to promote America’s interests. There’s every reason to think the opposite: We’re not getting cheap gas, cheap food, energy independence, etc. because that’s not what the establishment wants. What we’re getting is what the establishment does want; if we don’t like it, tough.

Obama, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, AOC, et. al., want energy usage curtailed. They’ve repeatedly told us they will make this happen by dramatically increasing the cost of energy.

Now they are experiencing success. So, they must deny high prices have anything to do with their policies. This is because the human immiseration from high energy prices quickly becomes experientially and intuitively obvious to everyone. Acknowledging your success in the endeavor is saying the quiet part out loud.

Michael Moore did a masterful job of implying that quiet part, without going full Extinction Rebellion, in his 2019 film Planet of the Humans. He caused a stir because he severely ruffled some envirostatist feathers by pointing out the magnitude of the Green Energy public/pirate partnership fraud.

Moore nails the fraud part. But his real message was subtle: We face an existential, ecological dilemma. We can escape it only by drastic reductions in human population and impoverishment of (most of) those who remain.

My review is here: Planet Without Humans. There’s a link to Moore’s film there, and it is worth watching. The skewering of the green fraudsters is amusing, and the barely submerged lamentation about humans as a cancer on the planet is a “know your enemies” education.

Following are some practical insights, in three parts, about the policy effects arising from Envirostatist population control goals.

Together, these are a primer on the domestic oil industry: The mechanics of leases/permits/financing/production under the Biden Administration. Written by David Middleton, who describes himself as “a geologist/geophysicist in the “climate wrecking industry” since 1981 at Watts Up With That?.

Democrat Senators Demand That Oil Companies Increase Production

Do they really think we can just “dial up the volume” on oil wells? Competent operators produce oil wells at the rate that maximizes the volume of recoverable oil. We don’t dial the volume up and down in an effort to control uncontrollable oil prices. When prices rise, we have more cash flow to spend on additional drilling. This increases oil production, which eventually lowers prices. Production will increase in response to higher prices, but it’s not an instantaneous thing.

Jen Psaki: “There are 9,000 approved oil leases that the oil companies are not tapping into currently”…

“Oil leases” are the mineral rights to geographical tracts of land/seafloor. They don’t have oil because the government designates them as “oil leases.” In the Central GOM, on the shelf, a standard “oil lease” is a 3 mile by 3 mile square tract, covering 5,000 acres. Standard deepwater leases are a bit larger, covering 5,760 acres… However, they’re all just square tracts of acreage. Well, not all… Some leases along the edges of the protraction areas are smaller polygons. The geology of the Gulf of Mexico and the oil that migrated into its geological traps didn’t pay attention to the future leasing plans of the US government.

Jen, Joe… Is it 9,000 leases or 9,000 permits that oil companies are allegedly sitting on?

Since, Brandon seemed serious about “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters”, oil companies with large lease positions on Federal lands in places like New Mexico and Wyoming began stockpiling drilling permits to ensure that they had sufficient inventory to continue drilling through at least the next 4 years…

These companies stockpiled four years worth of drilling permits. They may “have 9,000 permits.” However, they’re not “to drill now.” They applied for sufficient permits to maintain their drilling programs from 2021 through 2024… Because Brandon promised to shut down permitting…

The concern was so great that we were advised to file Suspension of Operations (SOO) applications for all of our leases in the Gulf of Mexico…

“Biden’s first actions as president included re-entering the Paris Climate Accord, canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline, halting a leasing program in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), issuing a 60-day halt on new oil and gas leases and drilling permits on federal lands and waters (which account for nearly 25% of U.S. production), directing federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel “subsidies,” imposing tougher regulations on oil and gas methane emissions (which were first promulgated under President Barack Obama and had been eased under President Donald Trump), and hiring SEC regulators to prepare climate and ESG disclosure mandates.”

But don’t worry, Fauxcahontas has a solution:
Elizabeth Warren Says the Solution to High Gas Prices Is Higher Taxes on Oil Companies

She’s just lucky Ellis Wyatt isn’t in charge of the oil companies.

Asking for it

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“Because, as we all know, elections matter. And when folks vote, they order what they want. And in this case, they got what they asked for.”
– VPOTUS Kamala Harris

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
– H. L. Mencken

Twelve seconds:

March 15, 2020 – Debate with Bernie Sanders

The Biden campaign was quick to say that Biden’s statement was misinformation. Haha, they actually didn’t say that. They did explain “what information he really meant to convey.”

That’s just Joe, he said the quiet part out loud.

The approved meaning was there will be no more drilling on Federal land. A plausible explanation for what he meant to say. Not so plausible for his real meaning.

If fossil fuel extraction in your own country is an existential threat, why would you – POTUS – stop with Federal land? You can wield the full weight of the regulatory state against all US producers everywhere.

Joe’s error does not rise to Kinsley gaffe level (a slip of the tongue revealing some truth that a politician did not intend to admit), because a real Kinsley gaffe has a minimum bar: A history of public speech hinting that bewildered incognizance is not your standard method of dealing with reality.

If you have to decimate domestic oil production to finesse a campaign promise… If that implies pretending oil from Iran and/or Venezuela is preferable to United States production… If you refuse to accept oil from an ally by keeping Keystone XL closed when shutting down Russian oil…

Then it is not a gaffe. It’s a plan.

When any POTUS declares his intent to destroy an industry it has a tendency to affect capital markets.

U.S. oil drillers ‘dying on the vine’ as private equity flight prompts funding drought

…and to encourage overreach from Federal agencies predisposed to assist in the destruction. The Feds, with subsidies to investors like Warren Buffet, makers like Elon Musk, and scams like Solyndra have encouraged activist investors to lobby for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) purity. That’s probably more accurately described as DIE (diversity, inclusion, equity) investment.

ESG Watch: Heat turned up under banks for role in financing fossil fuels

The SEC is getting ready to make ESG reporting mandatory.

What will SEC’s climate disclosure rules mean for U.S. companies?

And do not forget legal obstructionism. Here’s an example – an arbitrary guesstimate made by biased bureaucrats called the “social cost of carbon.”

Biden Administration Halts New Drilling in Legal Fight Over Climate Costs

Gaslighting

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Gaslighting is an emotionally-abusive strategy that causes someone to question their feelings, thoughts, and sanity. Someone who employs gaslighting tries to convince the other that their own perception of reality is wrong. The purpose of this is to convince the person being gaslit that they can’t trust their own instincts or thoughts. A gaslighter may try to convince you that your memories are incorrect, that you overreact to situations, or that something is “all in your head.” They may then try to convince you that their version of events is the truth.

In 2008, future Obama administration Secretary of Energy Steven Chu shared his vision for American energy policy:

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

In the month before the Obama administration assumed office, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.59. This week, [April 1, 2012] the price of gasoline has climbed to $3.79.

The Biden administration resumed Obama’s sabotage of our domestic oil and gas producers on day one. The average price for gasoline at the end of Biden’s first week of office was $2.39 a gallon. Prices have now hit above $4.

The Democrats, having pummeled investment in oil and gas extraction, pretend that production can be flipped like a light switch. Jen Psaki tells us there are “9,000 leases not being exercised.” This may be true, but it is entirely unrelated to the fact the United States is no longer energy independent. How does that even happen in under 12 months?

Leases not in use is a factoid servicing a Big Lie.

A friend wrote:

“A lease is but one element necessary to overcome to get oil to market: “Copious permitting paperwork over a period of months or years, financing from banks and investors being pressured to disinvest, means of getting the crude to refineries, refining capacity, taxes that threaten return on capital, and legal challenges.”

That’s a great summary of this must read article:
In-depth analysis debunks Biden admin blaming oil companies for not developing 9000 leases – Feds ‘spent over a year making it more difficult’ to drill & environmentalists ‘constantly sue to stop any development’

With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine the plot has gotten out of hand for the President. So, he complains that the oil and gas producers aren’t doing enough. Putin provides Democrats more cover for the real Green Ordeal objective, described masterfully in this excerpt from a book review by Peter W. Wood of Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers: RTWT.

[T]he real endgame is a remnant human population on a vegan diet perhaps supplemented with insects; the restoration of Earth’s landmass to animal-friendly wilderness; and small-scale cooperative (socialist) societies living in harmony with nature. Less utopian versions of this vision are available, but properly understood, all of them rule out modern life as we know it. People like Biden don’t take any of that seriously. Their interest is in the political game, not the endgame, but it is important to understand the premises and the motives of the activists who are driving the politics. They may never get their utopia, but they can cause profound misery in their attempts to reach it. And we are seeing some of that now.

‘Under My Plan, Electricity Rates Will Necessarily Skyrocket’

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That was Barack Obama in 2008. Obama’s electricity plan was not implemented, but it lurks in the dreams of the Green Ordealers: Every environmental problem could be solved if there were fewer humans and they were all less well off.

It’s Critical Race Theory applied to all humans everywhere. White people may be colonialist, homophobic, and racist by the accident of being. But every human being is a planet killer by the same standard.

In support of Critical Humanity Theory, President Biden is emulating Obama’s plan. On his first day in office Biden targeted energy in the form of gasoline, natural gas, and propane.

Now, with a world supply shock from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rate of oil price increase is exceeding the trajectory Obama planned for electricity.

Adding to the gasoline price acceleration, Biden today banned imports of Russian oil (Good for him, but it’s only about 3% of US usage.).

The President warned us to be ready for the “Putin price hike.” Nah. It will be a joint effort. I think Biden had ‘the don’t let a crisis go waste’ principle in mind: “I can raise gas prices, blame it on Putin, and AOC will be happy.”

Everything to the left on that chart can reasonably be called the ‘Biden price hike.’ These stickers were being placed on gas pumps long before Vlad mobilized.

Since the President refuses to unleash American oil and gas production, or change his decision to shutter the Keystone XL pipeline, I think the price hikes remain his.

Instead of importing the Keystone oil from Canada, an ally, we’re begging in Venezuela, and soon Iran, for oil.

Oil which we will burn. Just like American or Canadian oil. CO2 will not be reduced, but we’ll pay a lot more to produce it. To thugs.

I admit Justin Trudeau is a thug too, but there’s more hope Canada will depose him. If there was ever a worthwhile nation re-building effort we should support – it’s Canada.

Enter Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, telling us all we need to do to avoid high gas prices is buy electric cars.

“Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well. Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.”

Get back to me when that charging network you’re spending 5 billion taxpayer dollars on is complete, Pete. Meanwhile, how about a cost free initiative? Open Keystone XL and lift all Federal impediments to American energy production. We could be energy independent again.

Buttigieg is correct, there is a gasoline saving in driving an EV. That is not the same as saving money, saving energy, or reducing CO2 emissions, however.

There’s the cost of buying a new car you may well not need, and with groceries up 20%, maybe can’t afford. You also may be pinched financially by the cost of heating your home.

The taxes we pay to subsidize other people’s electric car purchases need to be accounted for.

And, what if everybody buys an EV? Will demand for electricity make prices:
a) rise,
b) fall,
c) remain the same, or,
d) go to zero, with a grid collapse?

Will the Feds add a special ‘transportation electricity’ tax in order to replace gasoline taxes? The Transportation Secretary didn’t address the question.

Electric cars get their power mostly from coal and natural gas. Prices on those fossil fuels are up, so that will raise electricity prices. Any money savings for electricity as fuel is unlikely to last without major investment in nuclear plants.

So saving money with an EV may be over optimistic in the mid-term. And, without nukes, in the long term.

Gasoline is the current energy hot-button. It’s a preview for the real green agenda: All energy costs must be high to discourage humans from reproducing.

You may find that objectionable. I do not mean every amateur environmentalist is an Extinction Rebellion fellow traveller, but the envirostatist elite are committed to that Malthusian principle. It explains a great deal, and its modern incarnation is well described by Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome 50 years ago.

Solyndrafication

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Jennifer Granholm is highly experienced at gamifying green giveaways. She has acquired lots of badges, awards, stickers, and trophies – and now she’s leveled up.

Her latest accomplishment is the “If you fail, just do the same thing again. Only bigger,” badge, with “Fed cluster.” It grants the power to reuse your old speeches just by changing a few numbers.

Biden Administration Rolls Out $3 Billion EV Battery Program

“As electric cars and trucks continue to grow in popularity within the United States and around the world, we must seize the chance to make advanced batteries — the heart of this growing industry — right here at home,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “With funding from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re making it possible to establish a thriving battery supply chain in the United States…

But the White House acknowledged that China controls an “outsized share” of global mineral refining capacity in a supply chain report published in June. Mineral refining is a key component for renewable energy technology including battery manufacturing.”

Compare that announcement with this one from 2010:

Our first clue should have been that they didn’t name it ‘MichiganWatt’ – December 9, 2010.

Despite bad reviews of ethanol and an unrequited flirtation with windmills, the Governor thinks she has a clue about THE NEXT BIG THING:

“In Michigan, we are trying our own version of this race — focused on the lithium-ion advanced battery for electric cars, a high-tech product previously manufactured almost exclusively in Asia.

We offered irresistible state tax incentives for manufacturers of “advanced energy storage.” We pancaked our state incentives on top of the competitive federal Department of Energy grants to advanced-battery companies and suppliers. We also created robust public-private partnerships.”

Her reasoning was that if we gave A123 $100 million it would make them a success. What it did was encourage bad business decisions. “Irresistible tax incentives,” are so hard to resist you don’t worry about business plans.

That mention of ethanol? It was the previous BIG THING. Granholm had just watched the bankruptcy of her earlier irresistibly incentivized green boondoggle – $20 million for an ethanol plant that never got built.

That bright future for batteries in Michigan didn’t work out either.

One of the reasons China has an outsized share of battery manufacturing is because Jennifer Granholm hand picked winner went bankrupt. And then the Chinese bought it for pennies.

And the winner the statists picked is… China – August 13, 2012.

A123 has ripped off the American taxpayer for $249 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. It was one of former governor Granholm’s favorite picks, to the tune of $100 million. The Chinese are grateful, I suppose, for taxpayer assistance while A123’s stock dropped from $26.00 to $0.82. Without said assistance, A123 might have been gone before they could buy it. Worse yet, from Obama’s point of view, Bain Capital might have turned it around.