Sustainable and inclusive devastation

There are some weeks when it’s almost boring on the energy news front. Then there are weeks when it never rains but pours evidence that: 1) the world’s gone insane; 2) someone’s playing a massive joke on all of us; or 3) we are witnessing the easily predictable result of falling educational standards in the West.

Living up to its self-assigned extra-high standards in political stupidity, Germany made a headline with the news that it was considering reopening idled mines in order to boost its self-sufficiency in critical minerals. And when I say idled mines, I mean closed, sealed, and flooded mines.

Actually, it’s not me saying it. It’s the FT: “The Käfersteige mine on the fringes of the Black Forest has lain dormant for 27 years, its rich mineral deposits abandoned, its gates locked and its tunnels immersed in floodwater. Now those gates are about to reopen, as Germany seeks to reduce its dependence on imported critical minerals by extracting more of them itself.”

So, it’s sat there for almost 30 years, flooded, and now it’s being reopened so Germany can have some local output of something called fluorspar, which I understand is used in EV batteries.

Admirable initiative by the German government, no doubt. Here’s one government employee’s take on mineral self-sufficiency:

“We should use the potential we have and prove that green and sustainable mining is possible,” according to Franziska Brantner, state secretary at the economy ministry, and project leader for a supply chain resilience push by Berlin.

Well, we all know it’s not and never will be but it’s adorable that she says it. Then she said some more:

“Historically speaking, Germany has always been a country that produces raw materials.”

Yeah, if by “historically” you mean “in the increasingly distant past”. Because right now, Germany is more dependent on China for some metals and minerals than it was on Russia for gas, at least according to a senior executive from Germany’s business lobby group BDI. Also according to import data compiled by the FT.

We’re talking 90%+ dependency. But sure, reopening one fluorspar mine and inking partnership deals with other countries to share their mineral wealth will be totally enough to make the Energiewende work. And those radical eco-activists that Germany’s is proud to have nurtured for generations will no doubt love every mine reopening.

It pains me to say it, but for all its efforts, this week Germany can’t compare with its parent company, I mean, bloc. The EU has once again shed the light of its infinite wisdom on us by proposing a new rewilding law that, per the FT again, “risks undermining efforts to build wind farms and other renewable projects, its critics say, as the bloc attempts to reconcile efforts to drive down emissions while restoring biodiversity.”

It’s like driving with your emergency brake engaged. With a spare one also engaged. It’s like looking for more emergency brakes to engage while you drive. Admit it, this requires a special kind of stupid. Or evil, but I still like stupid better.

On the one hand, the EU will be designating special go-to zones for wind and solar, with the stipulation that these will not be in vulnerable or protected areas. On the other, it appears to be planning to expand the protected areas to “rewild” them. Naturally, this shrinks the acreage of potential go-to areas.

Of course, there is always a way around everything, as this excellent in-depth look at a wind power project in Wales by Azra Dale proves. Yet the EU appears inclined to put obstacles in the way of its pet industries. Perhaps it’s to keep them motivated, who knows.

Leaving Europe, we’re off to the races with the former governor of not one but two central banks. That’s right, transition priest Mark Carney made headlines this week by saying — wait for it — that we would still need oil and gas investments during the transition.

That would be the same Mark Carney who, after heading two central banks, took the helm of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ for short. Incidentally, he’s also chair of Brookfield Asset Management, which earlier this week disclosed plans to raise $15 billion for investments in green hydrogen for the steel industry.

Also incidentally, during his speech about why we’d still need oil and gas investments, Carney kind of let it slip what he was actually thinking about.

“There still does need to be some investment in fossil fuels,” he said. “If you look at our economy, look at the oil sands, and at other aspects of our fossil fuel economy, we need to make that competitive.”

I was under the impression that oil sands were pretty competitive but what do I know.

“Competitive is not just about cost, is it relatively low cost, and it's not just about risk, it's the lowest risk in the world, that's clear,” Carney added. “But we also need to make it low carbon, and that's going to take very large investment.”

Do you need me to bold the second part of the last sentence? No, of course not. Carney is seeing an opportunity in making Canadian oil sands low-carbon, especially since not a single dollar would come out of his pocket.

“There's still going to be demand for oil and gas over the course of the next few decades, so how do we make sure we maintain our share, but our share in a way that doesn't produce additional emissions? We have a solution for that, we have the expertise for that, we need to put tens of billions of dollars from industry first, but also supported by governments in order to make that transition.” Cute.

But wait, there’s more. If you think Carney deserves the prize for blatant arrogance, I invite you to think again because he has a serious competitor and his name is John Podesta.

While Carney no doubt inadvertently speaks the quiet part aloud, Podesta this week went a step further — a big step — and tried to convince us that the fundamental laws of business no longer apply.

Commenting on forecasts that the low-carbon energy incentives in the IRA will end up costing a lot more than originally planned, the White House adviser said this was good news.

"I think this is evidence that the bill was actually working, that people are making plans, they're investing money," he said, as quoted by Reuters, as a House committee estimated the incentives will not cost $270 billion but rather $515 billion over the next ten years and the Wharton School estimated the total may actually top $1 trillion.

Now, spending a trillion dollars on incentives when you could attract three times that amount in private sector investments makes perfect sense. The thing is, those three trillion in private sector investments are only a forecast, too. By one bank: Goldman Sachs. Raise your hand if you recall Goldman Sachs being wrong before, like, for a completely random example, about subprime mortgage debt.

What Podesta is saying, basically, is that the fact that the originally planned budget for the incentives will not be enough to accomplish the stated goals is great news because it means demand for those incentives is greater than originally expected. Well, who wouldn’t want free money from the government?

Not the people in Oregon and New Jersey, that’s certain. Both states have recently had to suspend their EV incentive programs. Because they ran out of money. Of course, that can’t happen to the federal government — it will just keep raising the debt ceiling until it enters the stratosphere.

I mean, there’s $3 trillion just waiting to start pouring into incentivised low-carbon energy projects, what’s another few trillion in debt to make sure they do pour? If you think the maths doesn’t make sense you’re a climate denialist with zero knowledge about anything at all.

I leave you with this news report from Bloomberg: “Norway’s biggest oil and gas companies are reviving exploration plans in Arctic waters, as the government agitates for fresh discoveries in the Barents Sea to secure the country’s future as a key energy supplier to Europe.”