The Zenith of the Green New Scam

The dire predictions and vast benefits haven’t panned out

Three Mile Island

The computerized climate models from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and other institutions laid the “scientific” foundation for the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory that has led to the subsequent 30+ years of climate hysteria and a politicization of the study of the weather and climate in general. The result has been a cottage industry of academics, nonprofits, captured journalists, and political scientists (NOT physical scientists), and government actors who have collectively produced evermore extreme claims of impending disasters due to “man-caused climate change.” Various governments have used these disaster scenarios to gin up support for radical policies to drastically alter energy production and use in their respective countries through massive subsidies of so-called “clean energy” and “green technology,” as well as regulations aimed at “ending the use of fossil [sic] fuels.”

It took a few years, but the “green blob” finally settled on manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) as the main culprit, and climate extremists and their allies in government have been railing about the need to rapidly transition to non-CO2-producing energy sources to “save the planet” from impending climate-driven catastrophes.

The problem for the blob is that contrary to the predictions of the various climate models, no scientific evidence has yet been developed to categorically prove the theory that manmade CO2 emissions cause climate change. The various hair-on-fire predictions from the likes of Al Gore have been proven to be drastically wrong over the years (see here, here, and here).

In point of fact, there is no scientific evidence that manmade CO2 emissions cause climate change. Rather, the real causes of significant climate change (over long periods of time) are natural solar cycles, major and minor volcanic eruptions, natural changes in ocean currents, and the hydrologic (water) cycle in the Earth-Atmosphere system that has existed for millennia. In short, the factors that most US high school physics students learned through the 1970s until physical science textbooks began to be corrupted by CAGW theory activists in public education. I fondly recall learning about the beneficial effects on plant growth of introducing carbon dioxide into enclosed terrarium experiments in my own high school physics class. I wonder if such simple and highly illuminating experiments are ever conducted these days?

THEORY TO POLICY

The Democrat Party has been all-in on the so-called “green new deal” from the get-go. The GND scam involves heavy taxpayer subsidization of green technology and energy production concurrent with efforts to heavily regulate and minimize US domestic production of hydrocarbons. Enter the Biden-Harris regime in 2021.

Two key events during the Biden-Harris regime signified what would be the highwater mark of green radicalism through US government policy:

• Executive Order 13390 that shut down the Keystone XL pipeline and US domestic oil and gas production, driving energy costs sky high. Note that in January 2023, it was reported that Canadian oil intended to be transferred via the XL pipeline will now be shipped across Canada via the Trans Mountain pipeline to China!

• Passage of the Democrats’ main policy goal, the so-called “green new deal,” through language included in a gargantuan “infrastructure bill” and the Orwellian-named “Inflation Reduction Act.” The bills included a cornucopia of green technology boondoggles to the tune of over $600 billion. The unstated goal that was never fully debated during deliberation is to “reduce greenhouse gasses by 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.” The IRA in particular is sugar-coated to include tax credits and other financial incentives aimed at making clean energy options (sic) more accessible for consumers (with emphasis on DEI targeted demographics, of course).

REALITY SINKS IN

The green promises and favored green technology solutions aren’t delivering what climate alarmists promised. Set aside the scientific arguments for now (there is ZERO proof that manmade CO2 has a major effect on climate change); what drives reality are the economics. For example, here is the cold, hard truth about Electric Vehicles from economist and investment banker James Rickards:

A major part of the climate agenda includes electric vehicles (EVs). I’ve been warning for years that EVs aren’t feasible as a transportation solution for more than relatively few Americans and that they are little more than glorified golf carts despite the $70,000-and-up price tags.

In the first place, EVs don’t cut carbon emissions. The car itself does not have emissions, but it’s charged with electricity from power plants that do.

The batteries are made with poisonous chemicals and metals including lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel that come from mining operations that use enormous amounts of water and electricity to extract the needed materials.

It takes thousands of tons of ore to extract enough critical minerals to make one battery. EVs don’t take a charge in extreme cold, and the batteries can’t hold a charge. Travel range is grossly overstated for many reasons, including the fact that EV car heaters drain the batteries (with internal-combustion engines, ICEs, the engine makes heat which can easily be directed into the car to keep passengers comfortable with no additional energy required).

The American public has figured it out, too. Ruy Texiera, one of the more thoughtful progressive theorists, opines that the radical progressive policy agenda that includes the green revolution is “over,” including “[t]elling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using them was a terrible idea and voters hate it”:

The hard fact is that progressives’ intransigent hostility to fossil fuels is not widely shared by ordinary voters, who are fundamentally oriented toward cheap, reliable and abundant energy. In a recent result from the New York Times/Siena poll, two-thirds of likely voters said they supported a policy of “increasing domestic production of fossil fuels such as oil and gas.” Two-thirds!

Support for increasing fossil fuel production is particularly strong among working-class (noncollege) voters: 72 percent of these voters back such a policy. Support is even higher among white working-class voters (77 percent). But remarkably, support is also strong among many demographics where one would think, based on conventional wisdom, one would likely see opposition. For example, 63 percent of voters under 30 said they wanted more oil and gas production, as did 58 percent of white college-graduate voters and college voters overall.

There are other excellent signs that the worm is turning on the green scam, including from some surprising sources. The below commentary from Gordon Fulks, PhD (physics) is posted here with his permission. Dr. Fuchs, a director of the CO2 Coalition, has long been involved in exposing the unscientific premises behind the green new deal, as well as the sidelining of the scientific method by climate alarmists who have been misreporting historical climate data for years to serve their political green new scam ends. His commentary on the potential return to sanity in electric power production follows:

At a time when every politician running for office is making extravagant promises that completely defy reality, three recent developments offer hope that our electric power sector may be returning to a measure of reality, despite all of the nonsense from the political class.

How can that be?  Reality is usually defined by the money that the ruling class pays out to its supporters.  In the case of electric power, the Biden administration is frantically trying to spend the billions of dollars Congress allocated for 'renewable energy' and for the many schemes to attempt to turn severely intermittent wind and solar into the reliable electricity necessary for an advanced economy. A large part of that effort is going toward finding a miracle that is cost-effective. Extraordinarily expensive "solutions" are no solution at all, even if politicians continuously tout them.

Much of this drama is playing out in the Pacific Northwest, a region that has been extremely backward on most subjects related to science, engineering, and energy. We want purely ideological solutions that are the latest fad, free of carbon and nuclear. The problems are that they do not exist and those that are tried end up being environmentally damaging. We are just beginning to realize that vast windmill arrays are industrializing our last wild and open spaces and thereby destroying the beauty that makes the Northwest special.

1) Native Americans may save us.

Who might save us from ourselves?  Surely not the political elites who got us into this mess in the first place. What about the many native peoples for whom the land is sacred? They recently scored a major success, by forcing the Federal government and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek to withdraw the sale of large tracts for offshore wind development.

But it was more than their moral leadership that saved us. Only one inexperienced company bid on the project, with all other potential bidders dropping out. Why? Because offshore wind is especially risky, suffering from high costs and a hazardous environment. One winter storm can tear the windmills from their moorings and scatter them all along the Pacific Coast. Who will pay for that sort of a debacle, let alone the costly maintenance necessary in a corrosive marine environment? And ultimately, who wants extremely intermittent power anyway?  No one.

2) Bill Gates may save us.

Another unlikely ally in the fight for sanity is Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft.  With his vast fortune and determination to do something worthwhile with it, he has tried schemes that were hair-brained, like trying to block out the Sun in Sweden to see if he could cool the country and by extension the planet. Happily, the Swedes like what little warmth they get from sunshine and turned him down flatly.

Not to be deterred, Gates is investing a billion dollars in a new-design of nuclear power plant that has broken ground in Kemmerer Wyoming.

Separately Microsoft has signed a 1.6-billion-dollar power purchase agreement for all of the 819 MW of nuclear power that Unit #1 at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania can generate. That is the equivalent of thousands of large wind turbines, with the notable caveat that intermittent power is no substitute for reliable electricity.  Data centers require a stable source of electricity. Nuclear power provides reliability. 'Renewable power' does not.

Microsoft needs that much power for its data centers and the coming Artificial Intelligence (AI) era.

The reopening of Three Mile Island would have been unthinkable, just a few years ago. People now seem to have forgotten about the partial meltdown of Unit #2 in 1979 or they have matured enough to realize that the dangers of nuclear power can be managed, just like all the other hazards (real or imagined) in a modern society.

The reopening of Unit #1 will require a lot of money but far less than building a completely new facility. Microsoft expects it to be back in operation in four years.

The remarkably good news here is not that Microsoft will be able to run its data centers, but that the United States is finally beginning to make rational decisions about our need for large quantities of reliable electricity at a reasonable price.

Thank you, Bill Gates. Thank you, Microsoft.

3)  Amazon may save us.

Most of us think of Amazon as the company that quickly delivers whatever consumer goods we desire.  But that is the unprofitable part of their business. The division that makes money handles web services. Oregonians who live in the Eastern part of Oregon know that Amazon amounts to far more than a fleet of delivery trucks. They see large faceless concrete buildings with elaborate cooling facilities and large backup natural gas generators that hint of enormous power consumption.

Amazon and other web service providers like Google and Facebook were attracted to Oregon by generous tax breaks. They came in droves sucking up large quantities of cheap hydroelectric power. What they did not count on was that the public officials who offered them great deals to locate here were not tech savvy enough to plan for the power they would need. Like so many who welcome development, they promised far more than they could deliver.  This came at a time when local politicians were also trying to force electric utilities like Portland General Electric to curtail power production from fossil fuels as they were promoting an all electric economy.

Amazon and others have been forced to propose various ways to find the power they need and meet all the ideological requirements Oregon politicians demand. It has not worked. Data centers need much more power, and the existing grid cannot supply it. Does the grid go dark? That is a distinct possibility within the next few years.

As a business, Amazon is forced to pay attention to reality, before it consumes them.  Even though ideologically similar to Oregon politicians, Amazon will cease to exist, if they keep posturing with renewable energy.  So they took a bold step on Wednesday, October 16 announcing that they plan to build small modular nuclear reactors to power their data centers. These will not be set up in Oregon, where nuclear power is essentially banned, but just across the Columbia River in Washington State, where there is already a large nuclear power plant operating.  Power can be easily shipped to Oregon.

Amazon announced that they are investing $500 million dollars in a Maryland-based modular nuclear reactor company called X-Energy, rather than the local modular reactor company affiliated with Oregon State University, called NuScale. But the announcement boosted NuScale stock by 30%, because of the enthusiasm generated by Amazon.

Amazon also announced that they are working with Energy Northwest, a consortium of 29 Washington State utilities on their nuclear project. This suggests that many Northwest utilities are finally waking up to the fact that the region will need great amounts of additional electric power in the future, power that can only come from reliable sources.

Thank you, Amazon for promoting a solution to the looming Pacific Northwest power shortage, before the lights go out. This may not save us from the massive rate increases that are beginning to hit consumers, because of the renewable debacle. But it may keep the lights on.

While still describing these plans in terms of a non-existent "Climate Crisis" and a belief in "Global Warming," promoters are taking big steps toward a future that will work. That is remarkably good news.

Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)

Corbett, Oregon USA

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Economists, average Americans, and big-tech billionaires are weighing in on the green new scam and questioning the Left’s headlong rush toward the sustainable energy fraud. Whether it is the horror stories about exploding EV batteries, EV fires, purposeful skyrocketing energy prices, or the reality that clean energy simply cannot produce the energy required to maintain current energy needs let alone accommodate the requirements of AI data centers and other future needs – not to mention that the predicted climate disasters simply haven’t materialized as promised by green scam backers! – Americans are beginning to understand the realities of radical green policies. And the potential return of nuclear energy is the clearest sign that some sanity is being injected into the US energy production debate.

The massive green subsidies of the Biden-Harris regime could very well be the highwater mark of the green nonsense in America. This is a great shift that is long overdue!

The end.