One of the most memorable scenes in “Absolutely Fabulous” features horrible mother extraordinaire Eddie pretending to empathise with her long-suffering daughter Saffron who’s crying after the latest insult from the AbFab duo.
A "plan" suggests some analysis and, er, um, planning was involved.
What the transition proponents have always had is really more of a mission statement. Not a plan.
A plan would notice that sometime, oh, about tomorrow, all the wind turbines installed will start to need replacing. So all of their efforts to install new ones will just go to replacing obsolete capacity, unless they redouble our efforts and expenditures yet again.
To be perfectly fair, the transition is too complex to for one single entity to plan the entirety of it. But the current way of "making it up as we go" isn't working either, not when it is based on magical thinking.
Fabulous imagery to start this piece, I can't get Von der Lyen and Scholz out of my head as they comfort the Citizens of Germany. A good laugh, but I think that like those songs you can't get out of your head, I will be seeing them all day long. :)
We should start calling CO2 a green gas - it increases greening of the Earth’s surface the more of it in the air there is, and only CO2 can do that… clever little molecule.
The interesting thing about reliance on Russian gas, and by implication at Russia’s mercy, is despite sanctions, self-exploding pipelines, etc the Russians simply cannot be dissuaded or prevented from selling gas to Europe. The more the efforts to stop Russian gas reaching Europe, the more determined the Russians are to ship it. Funny lot the Rus.
There is also a very curious thing about investors, they actual want a return on their investment, as good as possible, and don’t consider their investments donations to causes. Plus, managers of companies and financial institutions have a fiduciary duty to maximise returns to their shareholders and can get sued if they are negligent in so doing.
There are two consistent features of the argument for BEVs and heat pumps, both will save you a lot of money and are better than what they replace. Both do neither.
Meanwhile in the Islamic Republic of Loonistan, formerly the UK, a Government minister tells us the Country must withdraw from an International energy agreement (which none of us citizens knew about) in order to meet Net Zero targets and transition to cleaner cheaper energy. The day before, it was announced that that cheaper energy is so cheap, the Government will apply a statutory price cap on energy suppliers to avoid bills going so high that many will be unable to pay them. As any fule and knave do kno’, price caps are the surest way to ensure a shortage in supply of something.
It may interest you to know that plants only absorb CO2, until they can’t, those that are consumed and or their usefulness in production is lost die, and are removed for next crop. Plants like bushes, shrubs and trees reduce the number of pore’s need to absorb CO2. When CO2 is created from burning so are many other toxic and global warming gasses, CO2’e’ Sooty particulate matter, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, Hydrofluorocarbon gases, Perfluorocarbon gases, Sulfur Hexafluoride. Filling greenhouses with CO2 to increase production is near pure CO2 that is it’s had above particulates/gases removed.
As FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils become difficult to access and prices increase, expect more conflicts and wars for whatever unfathomable up reason.
Don’t forget Energy = Life, and likewise, Energy = GDP.
And so we should reflect on: “Labour (work) without Energy is a corpse, Technology without Energy is a sculpture, and a City without Energy is a museum” — (Steve Keen/Nate Hagens - The Great Simplification, Energy Blind)🤔
I don’t know what point you are making. “Plants like bushes, shrubs and trees reduce the number of pore’s need to absorb CO2.” This sentence seems incomplete and should say… reduces number of pores where/when atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increased. Which is why less water is needed since there are fewer pores for water to ‘leak’ out of the plant. As for the rest: matter cannot be created nor destroyed, therefore whatever is released during combustion was formerly in the environment and fixed by the plant or fossil fuel. Nature is just getting back what belongs to Nature.
Everything is finite, even the number of atoms in the Universe - but finite often is a lot.
A capitalist market economy cannot operate unless resources are finite and scarce. Unless what you make is scarce it is impossible to reduce stock of it to zero, and you don’t have a business. The air is not scarce in economic terms, so you can’t make business out of making it. However bottled air is scarce, so someone can make a business out of that.
The capitalist free market economy turns scarcity into abundance because of the supply/demand/price mechanism. When I was young, oil was about $30 a barrel. As demand increased ahead of supply, this pushed prices up. Price sends a signal to consumers - use less save money, and to suppliers - supply more make money.
As oil prices increased car manufacturers were encouraged to develop ‘lean-burn’ engines and build lighter car bodies from light- weight materials. New plastic materials were developed and thinner plastic was used in containers. it was worthwhile investing in new exploration and drilling new wells. As prices went up more, it was worth investing in extraction from under the seabed. Further price increases encouraged investment in new technology, particularly horizontal drilling in the late 1960s. This allowed extraction from smaller peripheral deposits, via the main well. It is also the technique used in fracking. Liquification and pipelines allowed natural gas to be transported and to become a primary energy source instead of just being flared off at the well head, and to replace oil and coal in power stations. Recent advances in extraction methods have allowed old wells to be reopened and to extract oil which previously could not be taken.
In fact we have more available oil now than we had 100 years ago. Nobody knows how much oil, coal and gas is in the ground, but there are no indications we shall run out any time soon, because the one infinite resource is the Human resource which will provide the ideas, ingenuity and innovation to ensure we don’t, or maybe invent a new resource which is better to power the World. That’s the wonder of capital free markets - they turn scarcity into abundance - if Governments and misanthropists allow.
As always - a good mornings entertainment with my coffee, this was a good one. Maybe the worse the week - the more entertaining the article?....
I love your comment on this, so I added some translation from propaganda speak to my own ...“The group aims to facilitate (force them into) more effective engagement (to do what they want) with high-emitting (polluting) companies to help (to make) them transition to a low-carbon economy.” In other words - just a bunch of bullies - all for our good don't you know!
Also the study on trees - how come they don't do a study on CO2 - since just like trees in this study there is so much to take into account, change one thing and it does affect another!
This just made my day....."If only someone could explain to them that clearing trees for a gigafactory is totally different from clearing trees for farming because farming is bad and EVs are good."
Great article. Heat pumps are great for warm climates. Not so much for Northern Germany. Not to mention that many multifamily residences in Berlin and other major German cities use district heat, which is already more efficient than individual furnaces. How do they imagine heat pumps replacing district heating systems?
I'm told they can also work well in northern countries provided the house they're installed in has the proper comprehensive insulation -- which costs extra.
I think it is hilarious that Bloomberg referred to the heat pump fad as a “bubble” as that has obvious financial connotations that I would think a financial writer would understand?!?
Sorry to run off, but I have to facilitating effective engagement with my washing machine.
Brilliant, Irina. Comparing Europe’s nut zero plan to Saffie’s situation! I always emphasized with poor Saffie, but she had an inner resilience that I hope is missing from the climate howlers.
The sad little comment about heat pumps. That’s what Rob Henderson calls luxury beliefs. This is clearly s a guy who just can’t contemplate a cold house, nor does he think he will ever experience one. What an amazing display of upper class privilege.
My heart bled for Saffie throughout the series. But you're right. She was resilient and actually smart -- also adaptive. There's a lesson right there if only someone wants to learn it.
I consider this to be a superb bit of your writing.
My thoughts ....Those who would destroy human affluence must first murder the language they use.
Our knowledge is embedded in the clarity of the concept in our minds. The path to the destruction of thinking is the destruction of clear meaning in the language we use.
If the activists were clear in their stated goals, their reject would be assured.
I fear Irina your commentary on wrong decisions, energy consuming products and generation and missed opportunities will find no end. There was a time when humanity just needed to do two things (a) drastically cut back on its use of FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils, and (b) restrict propagating itself, sadly that time has passed.
Humanity finds itself in the position of a drowning person clutching at straws.
Human was having a great time lying in an inflatable plastic ring (Oil Products), eyes closed, sun’s warmth gently caressing his face, bathed in tranquility, drifting in the warm shallows of the sea, but unnoticed gradually drifting to the wider ocean assisted by a rip tide (Environmental Destruction). Human eventually opened its eyes from being tossed about, now aware of larger and stronger waves, Human couldn’t believe how far it had drifted, it was then that Human realised the plastic inflatable was its only real life support but it had developed a leak (Depleting Flammable Fossils). He could just see the shore but frighteningly strange all Human could see was smoke and flames. Human tried to swim whilst clutching the deflating inflatable ring but the tide was just too strong, Human was getting hotter with the effort, and human’s head and back were burning from the sun. Human decided to hold onto the ring for as long as it provided support, it was still helping Human to tread water (Renewables). Human drifted into an oil slick it was littered with every conceivable piece of plastic detritus humans have produced, tooth brushes, ear buds, straws, children’s and adult sanitary products, nurdles, plastic ducks, paint and agrochemical containers, Human lost count in naming them all. Human drifted along hoping the inflatable would last until someone or something came to the rescue. Sadly that didn’t happen, Human along memories of human’s world died🤔
Bonus points for “…having troubles…”. :-)
Allow me to congratulate you on another brilliant piece! Yes the transition is not going according to plan...if there was a plan in the first place!
A "plan" suggests some analysis and, er, um, planning was involved.
What the transition proponents have always had is really more of a mission statement. Not a plan.
A plan would notice that sometime, oh, about tomorrow, all the wind turbines installed will start to need replacing. So all of their efforts to install new ones will just go to replacing obsolete capacity, unless they redouble our efforts and expenditures yet again.
Thank you! I believe there was a plan... which the bureaucrats made as they went. Smartest way to devise a plan, right?
To be perfectly fair, the transition is too complex to for one single entity to plan the entirety of it. But the current way of "making it up as we go" isn't working either, not when it is based on magical thinking.
Quite true. I think they went for too many entities doing the planning (and the advising).
Do they actually believe what they are doing/saying?
Squish-squish, indeed. 🙄
It’s called - a noble lie.
I think many of them genuinely believe what they are doing is the right thing to do.
Those feisty German populist radicals at it again. You have to love it!
It’s tough to be a climate alarmist catastrophist these days, but it helps to be dishonest and a total idiot!
Fabulous imagery to start this piece, I can't get Von der Lyen and Scholz out of my head as they comfort the Citizens of Germany. A good laugh, but I think that like those songs you can't get out of your head, I will be seeing them all day long. :)
They way I get rid of those songs is to think of another equally annoying song, hair of the dog style. It works. :D
Très drôle- Irina.
We should start calling CO2 a green gas - it increases greening of the Earth’s surface the more of it in the air there is, and only CO2 can do that… clever little molecule.
The interesting thing about reliance on Russian gas, and by implication at Russia’s mercy, is despite sanctions, self-exploding pipelines, etc the Russians simply cannot be dissuaded or prevented from selling gas to Europe. The more the efforts to stop Russian gas reaching Europe, the more determined the Russians are to ship it. Funny lot the Rus.
There is also a very curious thing about investors, they actual want a return on their investment, as good as possible, and don’t consider their investments donations to causes. Plus, managers of companies and financial institutions have a fiduciary duty to maximise returns to their shareholders and can get sued if they are negligent in so doing.
There are two consistent features of the argument for BEVs and heat pumps, both will save you a lot of money and are better than what they replace. Both do neither.
Meanwhile in the Islamic Republic of Loonistan, formerly the UK, a Government minister tells us the Country must withdraw from an International energy agreement (which none of us citizens knew about) in order to meet Net Zero targets and transition to cleaner cheaper energy. The day before, it was announced that that cheaper energy is so cheap, the Government will apply a statutory price cap on energy suppliers to avoid bills going so high that many will be unable to pay them. As any fule and knave do kno’, price caps are the surest way to ensure a shortage in supply of something.
It’s a mad, mad, mad World.
It may interest you to know that plants only absorb CO2, until they can’t, those that are consumed and or their usefulness in production is lost die, and are removed for next crop. Plants like bushes, shrubs and trees reduce the number of pore’s need to absorb CO2. When CO2 is created from burning so are many other toxic and global warming gasses, CO2’e’ Sooty particulate matter, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, Hydrofluorocarbon gases, Perfluorocarbon gases, Sulfur Hexafluoride. Filling greenhouses with CO2 to increase production is near pure CO2 that is it’s had above particulates/gases removed.
As FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils become difficult to access and prices increase, expect more conflicts and wars for whatever unfathomable up reason.
Don’t forget Energy = Life, and likewise, Energy = GDP.
And so we should reflect on: “Labour (work) without Energy is a corpse, Technology without Energy is a sculpture, and a City without Energy is a museum” — (Steve Keen/Nate Hagens - The Great Simplification, Energy Blind)🤔
I don’t know what point you are making. “Plants like bushes, shrubs and trees reduce the number of pore’s need to absorb CO2.” This sentence seems incomplete and should say… reduces number of pores where/when atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increased. Which is why less water is needed since there are fewer pores for water to ‘leak’ out of the plant. As for the rest: matter cannot be created nor destroyed, therefore whatever is released during combustion was formerly in the environment and fixed by the plant or fossil fuel. Nature is just getting back what belongs to Nature.
Everything is finite, even the number of atoms in the Universe - but finite often is a lot.
A capitalist market economy cannot operate unless resources are finite and scarce. Unless what you make is scarce it is impossible to reduce stock of it to zero, and you don’t have a business. The air is not scarce in economic terms, so you can’t make business out of making it. However bottled air is scarce, so someone can make a business out of that.
The capitalist free market economy turns scarcity into abundance because of the supply/demand/price mechanism. When I was young, oil was about $30 a barrel. As demand increased ahead of supply, this pushed prices up. Price sends a signal to consumers - use less save money, and to suppliers - supply more make money.
As oil prices increased car manufacturers were encouraged to develop ‘lean-burn’ engines and build lighter car bodies from light- weight materials. New plastic materials were developed and thinner plastic was used in containers. it was worthwhile investing in new exploration and drilling new wells. As prices went up more, it was worth investing in extraction from under the seabed. Further price increases encouraged investment in new technology, particularly horizontal drilling in the late 1960s. This allowed extraction from smaller peripheral deposits, via the main well. It is also the technique used in fracking. Liquification and pipelines allowed natural gas to be transported and to become a primary energy source instead of just being flared off at the well head, and to replace oil and coal in power stations. Recent advances in extraction methods have allowed old wells to be reopened and to extract oil which previously could not be taken.
In fact we have more available oil now than we had 100 years ago. Nobody knows how much oil, coal and gas is in the ground, but there are no indications we shall run out any time soon, because the one infinite resource is the Human resource which will provide the ideas, ingenuity and innovation to ensure we don’t, or maybe invent a new resource which is better to power the World. That’s the wonder of capital free markets - they turn scarcity into abundance - if Governments and misanthropists allow.
Wow and I though I’d gone over the top, but time will tell, we won’t have long to wait, certainly with next 10 to 30 years.
In the meantime, desperation, denial, fear, Hopeium🤔
As always - a good mornings entertainment with my coffee, this was a good one. Maybe the worse the week - the more entertaining the article?....
I love your comment on this, so I added some translation from propaganda speak to my own ...“The group aims to facilitate (force them into) more effective engagement (to do what they want) with high-emitting (polluting) companies to help (to make) them transition to a low-carbon economy.” In other words - just a bunch of bullies - all for our good don't you know!
Also the study on trees - how come they don't do a study on CO2 - since just like trees in this study there is so much to take into account, change one thing and it does affect another!
Excellent translation! And yes, the worse the week, the funniest the Friday here. We all cope any way we can. :)
This just made my day....."If only someone could explain to them that clearing trees for a gigafactory is totally different from clearing trees for farming because farming is bad and EVs are good."
Great article. Heat pumps are great for warm climates. Not so much for Northern Germany. Not to mention that many multifamily residences in Berlin and other major German cities use district heat, which is already more efficient than individual furnaces. How do they imagine heat pumps replacing district heating systems?
I'm told they can also work well in northern countries provided the house they're installed in has the proper comprehensive insulation -- which costs extra.
Yes, the fine print.
I think it is hilarious that Bloomberg referred to the heat pump fad as a “bubble” as that has obvious financial connotations that I would think a financial writer would understand?!?
Sorry to run off, but I have to facilitating effective engagement with my washing machine.
You would, wouldn't you? And yet... :)
Do tell us how the engagement went!
All the stakeholder feedback was positive!
:D Great to hear!
Brilliant, Irina. Comparing Europe’s nut zero plan to Saffie’s situation! I always emphasized with poor Saffie, but she had an inner resilience that I hope is missing from the climate howlers.
The sad little comment about heat pumps. That’s what Rob Henderson calls luxury beliefs. This is clearly s a guy who just can’t contemplate a cold house, nor does he think he will ever experience one. What an amazing display of upper class privilege.
My heart bled for Saffie throughout the series. But you're right. She was resilient and actually smart -- also adaptive. There's a lesson right there if only someone wants to learn it.
I consider this to be a superb bit of your writing.
My thoughts ....Those who would destroy human affluence must first murder the language they use.
Our knowledge is embedded in the clarity of the concept in our minds. The path to the destruction of thinking is the destruction of clear meaning in the language we use.
If the activists were clear in their stated goals, their reject would be assured.
Good point about the destruction of language. The crusaders are hard at work doing just that.
Awesome write up
Thank you!
I fear Irina your commentary on wrong decisions, energy consuming products and generation and missed opportunities will find no end. There was a time when humanity just needed to do two things (a) drastically cut back on its use of FREE FINITE Flammable Fossils, and (b) restrict propagating itself, sadly that time has passed.
Humanity finds itself in the position of a drowning person clutching at straws.
Human was having a great time lying in an inflatable plastic ring (Oil Products), eyes closed, sun’s warmth gently caressing his face, bathed in tranquility, drifting in the warm shallows of the sea, but unnoticed gradually drifting to the wider ocean assisted by a rip tide (Environmental Destruction). Human eventually opened its eyes from being tossed about, now aware of larger and stronger waves, Human couldn’t believe how far it had drifted, it was then that Human realised the plastic inflatable was its only real life support but it had developed a leak (Depleting Flammable Fossils). He could just see the shore but frighteningly strange all Human could see was smoke and flames. Human tried to swim whilst clutching the deflating inflatable ring but the tide was just too strong, Human was getting hotter with the effort, and human’s head and back were burning from the sun. Human decided to hold onto the ring for as long as it provided support, it was still helping Human to tread water (Renewables). Human drifted into an oil slick it was littered with every conceivable piece of plastic detritus humans have produced, tooth brushes, ear buds, straws, children’s and adult sanitary products, nurdles, plastic ducks, paint and agrochemical containers, Human lost count in naming them all. Human drifted along hoping the inflatable would last until someone or something came to the rescue. Sadly that didn’t happen, Human along memories of human’s world died🤔
She was the parent, with two spoiled teenagers.