The sun, the wind, the trees, the water

Superlong read. Not my fault.

“From one half the egg, the lower,
Grows the nether vault of Terra:
From the upper half remaining,
Grows the upper vault of Heaven;
From the white part come the moonbeams,
From the yellow part the sunshine,
From the motley part the starlight,
From the dark part grows the cloudage;”

The above is a quote from the creation myth of the Finns, as told in the epic poem The Kalevala by Elias Lonnrot, which I’m embarrassed to say I only discovered recently. Creation in mythology is almost invariably an event of monumental proportions, and no less monumental effort. Alas, this sort of monumental effort only works in mythology.

That’s something our modern-day creators are finding out the hard way and, unlike mythological heroes and villains who sooner or later accept the limits to their powers, they remain perfectly unwilling to accept the fact that you can’t really create a world from an egg. Hold on to your hot (or cold) beverages because we’re in for a spectacular ride.

Let’s start with the beginning of all life and centre of ancient worship in mythology: the Sun. The solar industry has been at the forefront of the global quest to reduce human emissions of carbon dioxide, and it has been advertising this fact loudly and repeatedly lest someone forgets how benevolent it is. Emission reduction is solar’s raison d’etre, not profits.

Imagine my horror, then, when I saw this headline a couple of days ago: US solar industry downplays climate in strategy for Trump era. From the story below the headline we learn that the U.S. association of solar power developers has, as fancy modern corporate discourse would put it, decided to position itself more favourably with the future administration by shutting up about emissions. Instead, the Solar Energy Industries Association will prioritise — wait for it — “energy dominance”.

Now, in lowly social circles there is a word for this kind of behaviour and it is not a nice word. It starts with “wh” and rhymes with “boring”, and I would never dream of using it for such a benevolent industry as solar power but some less polite individuals might just do that. Going from “It’s all about saving the climate” to “Let’s do energy dominance with solar” in one smooth step to stay on the good side of the powers that be is, after all, quite a feat of moral void. Which nobody at the SEIA cares about because they’re too preoccupied with the possibility of losing their subsidy streams. They went as far as to include data centres and AI in their new priority list.

“Solar is critical to meeting America's growing need for electricity and providing power for manufacturing, data centers, cryptocurrency, and AI,” the CEO of the association said, as quoted by Reuters. Yes, critical is certainly a word one can use to describe solar in the context of electricity supply. Problematic, unreliable, and too expensive are other words that one can use to do that.

Not that Google cares about any of that. Google just inked a deal with some company called Intersect Power to build $20 billion worth of solar and batteries to power data centres it plans to build on the same site, apparently. This is one deal that would be interesting to watch, in the same way it is, you know, interesting to watch “Final Destination”.

While Google throws billions at solar to make it work like hydrocarbons, Exxon and Chevron are preparing to take on the electricity market as suppliers. Of natural gas. With carbon capture, of course, because nobody in Big Tech takes you seriously these days unless you whisper Carbon capture. Exxon has even used the surge in electricity demand to plan an increase in its oil and gas production, the cunning evil Big Oil major that it is. I swear, sometimes it looks like Exxon doesn’t read the IEA reports about peak oil demand. That’s probably because it’s cunning and evil.

Meanwhile, Germany is putting its plans to build new gas-fired power plants on hold because of the absence of political support… according to the Economy Ministry. The German economy ministry as we remember is run by a Green minister who used to write children’s books before deciding to dedicate his life to the energy transition on the days when he doesn’t sue random people for mocking him online.

The timing of this decision, if you could call it that, is quite unfortunate because wind is down again, what with it being winter and all that, and Germany’s electricity prices are surfing a tsunami because the country is forced to rely on gas, coal, and imported electricity, but more on that later because I like to save the best for last, tempting as it is to slap it on my autopsy table right now so we can have fun with it. Okay, I admit autopsy and fun in one declarative sentence doesn’t sound good but you know what I mean. Delayed gratification is a good thing.

So, leaving Germany aside for the moment, let’s pop in at 10 Downing Street although, really, let’s not, because moral hygiene is important. Anyway, the undiagnosed mental patients running the UK’s energy policy are forging ahead with their transition plans and have just today signalled they will suffer no opponents.

In a document released this morning, the Labour government said it had prepared a detailed plan to pull the UK — kicking and screaming as it is — into the new net-zero era and bring electricity bills down while reindustrialising the country. The actions that will enable this monumental endeavour would include taking away people’s rights to challenge new wind and solar projects.

Per the FT, because the Gov.uk news release mentions no word about this, “In its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, the government says there is a case for finding ways to “streamline” the process to ensure it does not “unduly slow down vital infrastructure development”.

“For example, this could include changing the rules so that claimants in each case only have one attempt to seek permission for judicial review,” the plan continues, adding that “Any changes that we decide to make will strike the right balance between reducing delays to infrastructure projects and maintaining access to justice in line with our domestic and international legal obligations.”

Well, if they promise to strike a balance they will no doubt fulfil that promise, just as they are working so hard to fulfil the promise of lower electricity bills — at some point in the distant future when there’s so little demand due to deindustrialisation and exorbitant prices that, well, those prices come down.

The idea is to remove the right of communities to challenge new project decisions in court more than once. Now, they can do it repeatedly and Labour obviously can’t have that because it’s screwing up their wind and solar timetable. I say just remove the right to challenge these projects altogether and have it done with. Or, better yet, sue a few wind and solar opponents for hate speech and anti-transitionism and the rest will learn their lesson and stop protesting. (I really, really should not be put in a position of power.)

Also as part of the new plan, dubbed the “Clean Power 2030 Action Plan”, Labour plans to launch the biggest ever wind and solar auction for subsidised generation capacity. Because the one they had in September, where they awarded contracts to 131 projects, was obviously not enough. Those electricity bills must come down and they will do so by first going up, up, and up so lots and lots of wind and solar can be subsidised enough to entice project developers to develop projects. It makes perfect sense, no? Also, this just in, the UK’s economy contracted for the second month in a row in October. I bet it’s because of evil gas prices.

You’d think that’s enough for a single Friday but I’m not done yet. Here is a revelation from John Kemp, formerly with Reuters, currently on his own, who reported this week that consumption of firewood has increased massively over the past century.

“Wood provided almost twice as much energy in 2023 as in either 1900 or 1800,” Kemp reported, following with the revelation proper, stating that “Continued growth in consumption of wood fuels illustrates that the energy transition has so far been characterised by the addition of new forms of energy rather than the replacement or substitution of older ones.” Well, I never, and you never, either, I’m sure.

Consuming more firewood is perfectly fine for the transition, if you think about it, because as we recently learned trees haven’t been doing their job absorbing CO2 well enough and the more of them we fell, the more space we’d clear to build more wind and solar, so it’s all good, really. Except the emissions from burning the wood but I guess that’s kind of like the UK Labour’s plan to bring bills down by bringing them up first. You must emit to reduce emissions.

Now, for the best bit because I’m not entirely devoid of mercy. Norway campaigns to cut energy links to Europe as power prices soar, the FT reported this week, citing Norway’s energy minister as saying that “It’s an absolutely shit situation,” and if anyone wants to join my new fan club of Terje Aasland, you know where to find me. We will meet Thursdays and sing praises to a rare clear-headed and blunt human from the land of oil, gas, and water.

The story: electricity prices in Norway are skyrocketing because it is exporting so much to Denmark, Germany, and the UK. The government is freaking out and wants to cut the interconnector to Denmark (the one of offshore wind fame) and suspend exports to Germany and Labour-ruled UK, and I, for one, think this is worth an epic book series, a TV adaptation, a symphony, and some really big paintings.

In case you’re wondering what Europe’s reaction to the news was, it’s as beautiful as the news itself. “This is a crunch moment for EU-Norway relations. Reducing power connections to Europe will not be well received,” some EU ambassador to Norway said. I have no doubt that Norway will start caring about that in three, two, one… never. I can’t wait for the EU to accuse the Vikings of weaponising their natural resources. Maybe some sanctions are in order, too, along with a brave declaration along the lines of “We don’t need your filthy gas”.

Electricity prices in Norway hit the equivalent of $1.18 per KWh yesterday, which was the highest in 15 years and also 20 times higher than a week ago. No wonder the government is freaking out. Norway may be a rich nation but a 20-fold surge in electricity prices in a matter of days is not something even a rich nation would take lying down, especially since the government absorbs additional electricity cost to the tune of 90% over a certain level, as the FT notes in its report.

It seems even Norway can’t afford this kind of subsidising for very long. And that’s a leftist government that’s thinking of clipping the EU’s and the UK’s electricity import wings. Imagine what happens when the right-wingers take power, which is apparently what’s on the cards for Norway. The situation that minister Aasland described is about to hit the European fan at speed.