Archives de catégorie : energy and fields

better to know...?, energy and fields

BP Abandon Teesside Hydrogen Plant

by P. Homewood,  Dec 01,2025 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

image

BP is preparing to shelve plans to build a major hydrogen project in Teesside in a fresh blow to Ed Miliband’s net zero plans.

The Telegraph understands that BP will withdraw its request to the Government to build the nationally significant project, which clashed with separate plans backed by Sir Keir Starmer to construct the largest data centre in Europe.

The Energy Secretary has already twice delayed a decision on whether to grant the so-called development consent order (DCO) to start producing “blue” hydrogen from natural gas, and then capture and store the carbon emissions.

A decision was due on Thursday Dec 4, but it is understood that BP has withdrawn its application for the DCO ahead of an announcement.

The H2Teesside scheme was announced by BP in 2021 and had been slated to deliver more than 10pc of a plan for a clean power system by 2030.

Full story here.

Producing hydrogen from gas and then burning it to generate electricity, instead of using that same gas, is insane in itself.

To spend more money and waste yet more of that gas to capture carbon is even more so.

It cannot work without massive subsidies and I suspect BP have seen the writing on the wall. With interest in Net Zero dwindling and the public beginning to wake up the realities, BP are worried they will be left with a white elephant.

better to know...?, energy and fields

A Sobering Reality: Global Fossil Fuel Demand Continues to Rise

by P. Gosselin, Nov 23, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Bkackout News here reports that despite ambitious international climate targets and the promise of a rapid energy transition, we are witnessing a paradoxical development: Global demand for fossil fuels has not fallen, but continues to increase.

The world economy’s growing hunger for energy directly clashes with political expectations, and the so-called “Peak Demand” for oil and gas, once predicted by experts, is currently not in sight.

Just a few years ago, there was optimism when the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced an impending peak in fossil fuel demand. This confidence supported many climate strategies. However, rising economic risks and political headwinds led many governments to revise their strategies. The consequence: The energy transition lost momentum while real demand increased.

Earlier forecasts thus have become obsolete, and the expected rapid electrification of the economy is progressing more slowly than planned.

Fossil fuels are not being replaced

A central problem is that renewable energies are currently not replacing conventional sources, but merely supplementing them. We are in a Phase of Addition. Although solar and wind power are being expanded massively, this is not enough to meet the strongly growing global energy demand.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

The Transition That Never Transitioned: Fossil Fuels Still Powered 86% of the World in 2024

by Dr. M. Wielicki, Nov 20, 2025 in IrrationalFear

It’s November 2025. We are exactly a quarter century removed from the millennial panic, the Kyoto Protocol hype, and the first waves of “irrevocable tipping points” that were supposedly coming in 10 years (i.e., 2010).

We were told that fossil fuels had to be phased out immediately, or the planet would warm by 5–6°C by 2100. 25 years, multiple trillions of dollars, millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and countless “last chance” climate summits later…

Fossil fuels supplied ~88% of global primary energy in 2000.
In 2024, they supplied 86%.

Let that sink in.

 

 

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Global energy supply increased 2% in 2024 driven by rises in demand across all forms of energy, with non-OECD countries dominating both the share and annual growth rates. Fossil fuels continue to underpin the energy system accounting for 86% of the energy mix. Source: https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review/home
energy and fields

Unlocking America’s Rare Earth Riches Could Finally Break China’s Grip On Minerals

by P.  Driessen, Nov 03, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

China rare earth mining
You’d be crazy to buy a car based on its shiny exterior, dazzling instruments, and gorgeous leather interior – but without examining the engine or taking a test drive.

And yet that’s how America has handled the metals and minerals that are vital to our defense, medical, communication, automotive, aerospace, lasers, computer/AI/data centers, and every other sector of our economy. [emphasis, links added]

They’re worth multi-trillions of dollars and are the foundation for jobs, living standards, national security, “green” energy, and more.

In the Stone Age, humans relied on flint and obsidian. The Bronze Age utilized copper, tin, and lead, plus gold and silver. The Iron Age prioritized iron and carbon. Today, we need almost every element in the Periodic Table, plus countless non-metallic minerals.

However, without any attempt to determine what deposits might lie beneath, decision-makers have made hundreds of millions of acres of America’s “public lands” off limits to exploration and mining, primarily in Alaska and the eleven states west of the Dakotas.

They’re managed by federal agencies for nearly every activity and value except potential subsurface treasures.

In fact, well over two-thirds of those lands have been effectively placed under lock and key: an area larger than Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming combined!

Of course, some places are so unique, magnificent, or ecologically priceless that they should be off limits to resource extraction – from Arches to Zion National Park. But America cannot afford wide buffer zones around them, much less buffer zones around the buffer zones.

Moreover, countless other areas have also been closed off – some by acts of Congress, others by presidential or bureaucratic decree, or unending wilderness and wildlife studies. All with virtually no consideration of subsurface values.

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energy and fields, minerals and ores

A geoscientist shortage could undermine U.S.-Australian deal on critical minerals

by R. Kurmeloys, Oct 29, 2025 in Science

Universities aren’t training the specialists needed to exploit the country’s rich resources

 

The Mount Holland lithium mine in Western Australia is just one of the nation’s roughly 350 mines.PHILIP GOSTELOW/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

When the United States and Australia last week announced an $8.5 billion deal for the island continent to develop new supplies of critical minerals used in clean energy technologies and military hardware, many analysts focused on what the pact might mean for geopolitics and global trade. But some researchers raised concerns about a different resource: the geoscientists needed to find and extract the minerals. Even as demand for these specialists is growing, they say, Australia’s universities are having difficulty attracting earth science students and are shuttering programs.

The government wants to reverse the trend, and last week’s deal sharpened the economic stakes. “If you can’t find those resources to begin with, there ain’t nothing to sell,” says earth scientist David Cohen, former president of the Australian Geoscience Council.

Under the deal, Australia will supply raw and processed critical minerals, such as cobalt and nickel, to the U.S. as part of a broader effort to break China’s near-complete hold over that market. Australia already has some 350 mines and is the world’s largest producer of hard-rock lithium, a critical mineral used in current battery technology, and zirconium, used to make heat-resistant alloys.

But an ongoing slump in Australia’s geoscience training efforts could hamper the search for new deposits. Over the past 15 years, Cohen notes, the number of Australian universities awarding geoscience degrees recognized by professional accreditation bodies has dropped from 21 to 13. Macquarie University and the universities of Wollongong and Newcastle have recently closed their earth science departments or merged them with others, and there’s growing concern about the program at the Queensland University of Technology, notes geologist Hugo Olierook of Curtin University. At Australian National University, recruitment struggles and other issues have meant that “if you adjust for inflation, our budget is 50% of what it was in 2020,” says computational and observational geodynamicist Rhodri Davies.

“The future for home-grown talent is bleak,” Olierook told Australia’s Science Media Centre after last week’s deal.

Researchers say the decline threatens Australia’s scientific capability to address a wide range of issues beyond mining, including climate change, water quality and supply, and energy development. And unless the trends change, the nation will face a “capability gap” in the geosciences by 2035, found a report released in September by the Australian Academy of Science. Other countries around the world are experiencing similar declines, meaning Australia likely can’t solve the problem simply by importing talent, says Cohen, who also serves as treasurer of the International Union of Geological Sciences.

…,

 

energy and fields

Europe’s Energy Crisis Shows Net Zero Dogma Comes At A Cost

by V. Jayaraj, Oct 23, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

The China threat calls for an ideologically free energy policy.

Shipping port near power plant
Whether China’s threat to restrict the export of rare earth minerals materializes or is resolved through trade negotiations, the episode underscores the fragility of U.S. supply chains and the importance of developing domestic sources. [emphasis, links added]

Nowhere is this more evident than in the energy sector, where climate policies have made dozens of countries more reliant on imports than ever before.

Adherence to climate orthodoxy has repeatedly exposed countries to avoidable risks, each instance demonstrating the cost of subordinating real-world utility to the pseudoscience of theoretical models and the grifting of special interests.

The reshuffling of the global flow of oil and coal after 2022 exposed the foolishness of the anti-fossil fuel agenda.

European nations, led by Germany and the United Kingdom, embarked on aggressive phaseouts of fossil fuels, dismantling coal plants and shrinking domestic natural gas output in favor of wind and solar.

Domestic production of hydrocarbons collapsed, and reliance on imported energy spiked, particularly for the Germans and British.

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energy and fields

Place Your Bet on the Future of Energy: U.S. Or China

by F. Menton, Oct 1, 2025 in WUWT

The first eight months of the second Trump administration have seen a sea change in energy policy. Previously, under Biden, the federal government had undertaken a blowout of hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies and incentives for so-called “renewable” energy sources, while simultaneously implementing dozens of regulations and restrictions to suppress the production and use of fossil fuels. President Trump has now reversed all of that.

However, please take note of an important distinction: although Trump and Congress have zeroed out nearly all subsidies and tax credits for wind and solar generation and for grid-scale batteries, they have not enacted comparable subsidies and incentives for fossil fuels. Instead, all sources of energy production now must stand or fall without subsidies, based on their ability to fulfill customer demand and to generate profit. All sources of energy are now on equal footing, and without subsidies.

Meanwhile, over in China, billions of dollars in subsidies have flowed for many years into developing the ability to produce the infrastructure for a wind/solar/storage energy system — things like polysilicon, solar panels, solar cells, wind turbine blades, wind turbine nacelles, and battery cells. As a result, China has become completely dominant in the world in manufacturing these and many related items.

So who is making the better energy bet?

For one possible answer to that question, here is a Wall Street Journal piece from September 21(probably behind pay wall). You get a clear idea where they are going from the headline, “The U.S. Is Forfeiting the Clean-Energy Race to China.”

In the vision of the authors of the piece (David Uberti, Ed Ballard, and Brian Spengele), there is an international race under way for dominance in “clean energy,” and the United States is in the process of losing it. The problem is that the U.S. is failing to put up the necessary government subsidies for “clean energy” to vie for the lead. Excerpt:

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Europe: AI Development or Net Zero?

by  S. Goreham, Sep 18, 2025 in CornwallAlliance

This year, European nations announced plans to pursue artificial intelligence. National leaders announced AI spending goals totaling hundreds of billions of euros in efforts to catch up to the United States. But AI requires huge amounts of electrical power, conflicting with Europe’s commitment to achieve a Net Zero power grid.

Since ChatGPT released their AI chatbot in November of 2022, artificial intelligence has exploded. In only two years, the AI revolution became the driving force in the US high-tech industry. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other firms will spend over $100 billion this year building and upgrading data centers to run AI. Nvidia, the dominant supplier of AI graphics processor units (GPUs), became the most valuable company in the world, its market capitalization soaring from $300 billion to $4.3 trillion in less than three years.

Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity. AI processors run 24 hours a day, enabling computers to think like humans. When servers are upgraded to support AI, they consume 6 to 10 times more power than when used for cloud storage and the internet. Data centers consumed 4% of US power at the start of 2024 but are projected to consume 20% within the next decade.

The need for new generating capacity for AI now drives US electricity markets. Coal-fired power plant closures have been postponed in Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and other states. Nuclear plants are restarting in Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Dozens of small modular reactors are on the drawing board. More than 200 gas-fired plants are in planning or under construction, including more than 100 in Texas. Companies building AI data centers are constructing their own on-site power plants, unwilling to wait for grid power. The pursuit of artificial intelligence is rapidly replacing obsolete US Net Zero policies.

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energy and fields

The UK is going back to coal

by A. Montford, Sept 12,2025 in NetZeroWatch

When the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, we rely on so-called ‘firm capacity’ to step in and keep the lights on. In the UK, that means gas-fired and nuclear power stations and pretty much nothing else – the giant wood-burner at Drax is the only significant exception.

Unfortunately, both the gas-fired and nuclear fleets are now very old, and much of the capacity is nearing the end of its life. Regulators have granted extensions to some of the nuclear units, but after 2028 permanent closures are likely. Meanwhile, as much as a third of our gas-fired capacity is expected to retire over the next five years.

Unless these units can be replaced, or their lives extended, we face a capacity crunch by 2030 at the latest. At best that means sky-high prices, and at worst, brownouts – electricity rationing in other words. That is a horrific prospect. As the Spanish found out to their cost during the recent Iberian blackout, when the power supply goes down, people die.

However, replacement is currently looking unlikely. With so much wind and solar on the grid, nobody wants to put money into new power stations, either gas-fired or nuclear. The financial numbers simply don’t add up any longer, either for new units or for overhauls of existing ones.

In theory, we could subsidise our way out of this. Although little or no new capacity has emerged from the government’s capacity market auctions, if caps on prices were removed, in theory someone might take the risk.

However, in practice this won’t happen. That’s because a surge in power demand from new datacentres means that the lead time for a new gas turbine is now eight years. Lead times for nuclear are mostly even longer – the Koreans have delivered in as little as eight years, but everyone else takes much longer. And this is the United Kingdom, where building anything takes an eternity.

Either way, new gas turbines or nuclear will arrive too late to help the UK avoid a capacity crunch.

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energy and fields

New Scientist: “We could get most metals for clean energy without opening new mines”

by  E. Worrall, Aug 25, 2025 in WUWT

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Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2493449-we-could-get-most-metals-for-clean-energy-without-opening-new-mines/

This seems a strange claim, or at least an odd take on the issue. Most mining engineers I’ve met could recite from memory exactly what is in the waste product of the last mine they worked on. And reprocessing waste from past mining operations is big business, in cases where the waste is valuable.

Those minerals will be extracted when the time is right. But until the value of extraction makes it profitable, a significant strategic need arises, or technological advances bring down the cost, why would anyone bother?

As for the claim such extraction could cover the entire needs of battery, solar panel, wind turbine manufacture, most of the estimates for the required minerals I’ve seen are so gigantic, lets just say expert or not, I’d like to see Elizabeth Holley’s calculations.

energy and fields

Chart: What Powered the World in 2024?

by D. Neufeld, Aug 22, 2025 in VisualCapitalist

The Global Energy Mix in 2024

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Global energy demand increased 2% to reach an all-time high of 592 exajoules (EJ) in 2024.
  • Non-fossil fuels grew 7% year-over-year, bringing their share of the global energy mix to 13.5%.

Global energy use rose to 592 EJ in 2024, marking a new record in demand.

While cleaner technologies continue to expand, traditional energy sources still form the backbone of the global energy system. At the same time, the Asia Pacific region drove 68% of demand growth, reflecting the region’s rapid economic momentum and industrialization.

This chart shows the global energy mix in 2024, based on data from the Energy Institute.

Fossil Fuels Underpin the Global Energy Mix

Last year, oil, coal, and natural gas together supplied 86.7% of global energy needs.

Oil remained the dominant energy source, accounting for 199 EJ, or 33.6% of global supply. In 2024, average oil prices declined by 3%, though they were still 27% higher than in 2019. The U.S. held its position as the world’s largest producer, contributing roughly one-fifth of total output.

Coal followed at 27.9%, supported by increased consumption in emerging economies. Natural gas, though cleaner than coal, supplied 25.2%, rounding out the fossil fuel trio.

Energy Source 2024 Total Energy Supply (EJ) Share
Oil 199 33.6%
Coal 165 27.9%
Natural gas 149 25.2%
Nuclear energy 31 5.2%
Hydroelectricity 16 2.7%
Other renewables 33 5.6%
Total 592

It’s also worth noting that low-carbon energy sources are growing at a meaningful pace.

In 2024, their combined share rose to 13.5%, supported by a 7% annual increase. Wind and solar stood out in particular, growing by 16% to remain the fastest-rising energy sources worldwide.

Moreover, nuclear energy accounted for 5.2% of supply, with France and Japan responsible for nearly two-thirds of its growth as long-idled plants were brought back online.

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energy and fields

Trump DOE Gives Coal Plant Lifeline Despite Seething Enviro Rage

by A. Streb, Aug 22, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Activists warn the move will raise costs and pollute while officials cite grid reliability and energy security.

Campbell coal plant
The Department of Energy (DOE) on Thursday issued an emergency order that will keep a Michigan coal plant [pictured above] running to reduce the risk of blackouts while summer heat strains the power grid and despite environmental protests fighting to shutter the plant. [emphasis, links added]

DOE’s order directs the major grid operator for the central U.S. — the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) — to continue running a coal-fired plant in Michigan to stave off power shortages, which has sparked ire from some environmental activists who claim the plant will pollute the area.

The order follows a similar May emergency directive to keep the same Michigan J.H. Campbell plant running, which was soon followed by a major blackout in New Orleans, an event that DOE Secretary Chris Wright hailed as proof of why the Trump administration prioritizes energy abundance.

“The United States continues to face an energy emergency, with some regions experiencing more capacity constraints than others. With electricity demand increasing, we must put an end to the dangerous energy-subtraction policies embraced by politicians for too long,” Wright said Thursday.

“This order will help ensure millions of Americans can continue to access affordable, reliable, and secure baseload power regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.”

DOE noted that the May order to keep the coal plant open has allowed it to function as a critical power generator on the grid during periods of high energy demand.

The J.H. Campbell plant was set to close on May 31, a full 15 years before reaching the end of its design life, the agency said.

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energy and fields, minerals and ores

The battle for Ukraine’s geological wealth

by R. Stone, July 31, 2025 in Science

In late June, Russian forces advanced in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, seizing another few square kilometers of ground—and a significant deposit of lithium. The loss adds to a growing tally of Ukraine’s geological riches that have fallen into enemy hands. It is also one more blow to a landmark agreement that the United States and Ukraine had signed weeks earlier, enabling U.S. firms to gain access to the nation’s mineral wealth.

Under the 30 April deal, the U.S. and Ukraine pledged to establish an investment fund to rebuild Ukraine with revenues from mineral, oil, and natural gas projects. Ukraine will maintain ownership of its natural resources, while future U.S. military aid would be deemed a contribution to the fund matched by revenue from Ukraine’s mineral wealth. But with war raging, implementation largely must wait, says Anatolii Bulat, director of the M.S. Poliakov Institute of Geotechnical Mechanics (IGTM), which is tracking the fate of the country’s mineral deposits. Without lasting peace in Ukraine or a U.S. pledge to help defend Ukraine’s mineral assets, the security situation in the country will be too unstable for a long-term investment in a mine and its supporting infrastructure, the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued in a recent briefing. It noted that such projects take an average of 18 years to complete and can cost $1 billion.

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energy and fields

USGS Finds Nearly 30 Billion Barrels Of Untapped Oil Under Federal Lands

by I. Slav, June 26, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

The United States is the largest oil and gas producer in the world. It is also experiencing a slowdown in its oil production for a number of reasons, including natural depletion. [emphasis, links added]

The U.S. Geological Survey, however, has just published a study stating that there are almost 30 billion new barrels of untapped oil—under federal lands, no less.

Oil and gas drilling was a contentious topic during the Biden administration. The administration decidedly did not like it and put a serious effort into curbing this drilling as much as the law allowed.

As soon as Donald Trump became president, the tables turned, and drilling on federal lands became very much a desirable direction for federal energy policy to move in, with the president prioritizing affordable energy and higher exports.

Now, the U.S. Geological Survey has thrown its weight behind the American energy dominance idea, reporting an estimated undiscovered oil reserves of 29.4 billion barrels across the country, with the leader being Alaska, with 14.46 billion barrels of untapped oil under federal lands.

New Mexico is next, with 8.925 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, followed by Nevada, with 1.4 billion barrels. Untapped gas reserves on federal lands were estimated at over 391.55 trillion cu ft.

Now, the only question is when these hitherto untapped resources will be tapped.

USGS reports 29.4 billion barrels of untapped oil under U.S. federal lands. Map: USGS

The number of drilling rigs in the U.S. oil patch has been on a steady decline recently, reflecting an extended weakness in international prices. This has now changed, of course, after Israel attacked Iran on June 13, but the industry is in no rush to reverse course for the time being.

The industry is playing it safe, not least because cheap drilling sites are running out—or maybe not, if the USGS assessment of untapped resources is correct.

For years now, the biggest production growth driver of U.S. oil has been the Permian Basin, spanning Texas and New Mexico. The Permian has single-handedly offset declines in several other shale plays and has largely uneventful day-to-day business in conventional fields.

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energy and fields

Geothermal Gold Rush: U.S. Digs Deep To Power the Future

by N. Chatterjee, May 12, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

American energy sector is on the cusp of a tectonic transformation.

This week, members of the House Committee on Natural Resources heard testimony on the vast potential of geothermal energy as “a new era of American energy — built with American innovation, American technology and American workers,” as one witness put it. [emphasis, links added]

Chris Wright, President Donald Trump’s new energy secretary, has fervently endorsed geothermal as a way to “energize our country,” and a March study found that geothermal could meet roughly two-thirds of the voracious energy demands of AI datacenters by the early 2030s.

Even right here in New York City, new residential and office developments underway in Greenpoint, Coney Island, and Manhattan are being built to rely significantly on this power source.

Geothermal has the potential to be the Holy Grail of energy: unlimited and right under our feet.

But there’s a problem. Geothermal is expensive because it’s difficult to access … until now.

Today, American innovators are supercharging the geothermal energy revolution with directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the same technologies that delivered the miracle of American shale.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

How Wind And Solar Sent Energy Prices Sky-High in ‘Green’ Countries

by B. Lomborg, May 8, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

Ask families in Germany and the UK what happens when more and more supposedly “cheap” solar and wind power is added to the national power mix, and they can tell you by looking at their utility bills: It gets far more expensive. [emphasis, links added]

The idea that power should get cheaper as we get more green energy is only true if we exclusively use electricity when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.

But modern societies need power around the clock. When there is no sun and wind, green energy needs plenty of backup, often powered by fossil fuels. What this means is that we pay for not one but two power systems.

And as the backup fossil fuel power sources are used less, they need to earn their capital costs back in fewer hours, leading to even more expensive power.

This means the real energy costs of solar and wind are far higher.

One study looking at China showed that the real cost of solar power on average turns out to be twice as high as coal, while a peer-reviewed study of Germany and Texas shows solar and wind are many times more expensive than fossil fuels.

Germany and the UK now have so much “low-cost” solar and wind that their electricity costs have become among the world’s most expensive.

The latest data from the International Energy Agency make it clear that there is a strong and clear correlation between more solar and wind and much higher average energy prices for households and industries.

In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is a bit over 11¢ per kilowatt-hour.

For every 10 percentage points of solar and wind, the cost increases by more than 4¢. The results are nearly similar for 2019, before any impacts of COVID and the Ukraine war.

Look at Germany, where 34¢ per kWh is more than twice the US cost and nearly four times the Chinese price.

Countries that use a higher percentage of solar and wind power tend to have higher energy prices per household. Mike Guillen/NY Post Design

Germany has installed so much solar and wind that, at full capacity, it could produce two times Germany’s electricity demand.

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energy and fields

Have The Intermittent Energy Blackouts Begun?

by F. Menton, May 1, 2025 in WUWT

Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands. Is this related to the increasing penetration of intermittent generation from wind and solar facilities?

For years, many in the climate skeptic community have warned that expansion of intermittent renewable electricity generation on the grid will, sooner or later, lead to frequent blackouts. The reason for the warning is easy to understand: The grid has some rather exacting operational requirements that the intermittent renewable generation technologies cannot fulfill. Primary among these requirements are, first, minute-by-minute matching of electricity supply with electricity demand and, second, grid-wide synchronization of the frequency of the alternating current. When wind and solar provided relatively small portions of the electricity consumed, other generation sources, particularly thermal (fossil fuel) and hydro, would fulfill these requirements. But as wind and solar come to dominate generation, the problems become much more difficult to solve.

Here at Manhattan Contrarian, I have mostly steered clear of covering this topic. Although I think I understand the main issues, I am certainly not a grid engineer. And there are many smart people who are engineers and who have the job of “balancing” the grid to keep it consistently up and running in the face of the challenges of intermittent wind and solar generation. Maybe they can succeed. I doubt it. But I definitely have wanted to avoid “crying wolf,” predicting over and over that frequent blackouts are imminent, only to find that the engineers have come up with solutions that seem to work reasonably well.

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energy and fields

China Breaks Pledge To Stop Building Coal Power Plants Abroad

by I. Slav, Apr 30, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

China is still building new coal-powered generation capacity abroad despite a pledge made in 2021 to stop it and focus on transition technology.

According to a new report by climate think tank Global Energy Monitor, China is involved in 88% of new coal power capacity projects in the new BRICS members. [emphasis, links added]

“Chinese firms are backing 7.7 GW of new coal, virtually all found in Indonesia, despite President Xi’s pledge to end support for overseas coal projects,” Global Energy Monitor said.

Yet China is also backing a lot of transition capacity, accounting for about half of the solar power capacity under construction, or 947 MW, as well as close to 90% of wind power capacity, or 601 MW.

The new BRICS members are Indonesia, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Nigeria.

New power generation projects across the new BRICS members are mostly hydrocarbon forms of capacity, the climate think tank also reported, noting that the total oil, gas, and coal capacity under construction across the 10 new members amounts to 25 GW.

Wind and solar capacity under construction, on the other hand, stands at a measly 2.3 GW.

Close to two-thirds of all the new capacity under construction in the new BRICS members, hydrocarbon and alternative, features Chinese state-owned companies, Global Energy Monitor also reported.

“There’s a real risk of sending these countries down the wrong path by investing in coal, gas, and oil,” Global Energy Monitor’s project manager for the think tank’s Global Integrated Power Tracker told Reuter

energy and fields

‘Electric Vehicles: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’ Exposes The Dark Side Of EVs

by L. Elder, Apr 24, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

 

A new documentary challenges the claimed environmental benefits of EVs over gas-powered cars.

Electric Vehicles: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly movie
Are electric vehicles better for the planet than gasoline-powered vehicles? This is the question we explore in my new documentary “Electric Vehicles: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

Whether one agrees with former President Joe Biden, who calls climate change “an existential threat,” or whether one agrees with the late physicist Freeman Dyson, who dismissed Al Gore and his “An Inconvenient Truth” as “lousy science,” this question remains: are electric vehicles better for planet Earth than “gas guzzlers”? [emphasis, links added]

After all, fossil-fuel-generated energy is required to manufacture an electric vehicle and then to transport it to the dealership. The electricity required to charge it comes mostly from fossil-fuel-generated power.

Electric vehicles are a triumph of technology, with incredible features. They are quiet, fast, and fun to drive. The self-driving feature, while not foolproof, will likely save lives because human driving errors are more common. (There are some gas-powered cars with a similar feature.)

There are concerns about the driving range, as well as the availability of charging stations for long drives.

Right now, an EV compared to a gas-powered car of similar size may be more expensive. There are still tax incentives available, but they may be reduced, if not phased out at some point.

With the more expensive purchase price, mandates to buy an EV or to restrict the sale of gas cars stand to hurt those less well off.

Then there is the China factor. The computer chips required for the EV disproportionately come from China.

The minerals in the batteries — lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese — are mined, processed, and manufactured in China or places under China’s control, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Take cobalt in the Congo.

Two years ago, NPR wrote “How ‘modern-day slavery’ in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy.” It featured the work of Siddharth Kara, author of the book “Cobalt Red.” Kara said:

“People (including children) are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain. … Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese (workers) touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust. … There’s complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands (for $1 or $2 a day).”

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energy and fields

Wake Physics: Large Wind Farms Are Making Downstream Turbines Unprofitable

by P. Gosselin, Apr 20, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

A virtual wake-up call for the wind power industry. Two companies are sounding the alarm as they risk losing a lot of money.

Although they are not making losses yet, they are earning less. It’s about the the wake effect on wind farms by other wind farms.

Windmesse.de

The expansion of offshore wind energy in the North Sea is a central component of the European energy transition. However, two of the biggest players in the industry are now warning of negative effects: Ørsted and Equinor have jointly calculated that the planned 1.5 gigawatt wind farm ‘Outer Dowsing’ could cause significant so-called wake losses. These are yield losses that occur when the wind is weakened by upstream wind farms, causing downstream turbines to produce less electricity.

The two companies estimate that their existing wind farm projects in the British part of the North Sea could lose up to 361 million pounds – the equivalent of around 422 million euros – in the long term as a result of the new wind farm. The wind farms already in operation, which are dependent on constant wind conditions in order to achieve their planned output and ensure profitability, will be particularly affected.”

The phenomenon is called the wake effect and it is by no means new, as you can see in the Sciencemediacenter, an article from 2012:

The existence of wind turbine wakes has been known for decades. For smaller wind turbines and onshore wind farms, it for a long time was not considered to be so important. With the increasing size of individual wind turbines (multi-MW turbines) and larger wind farms in recent years, the size and length of the wakes are increasing and becoming increasingly relevant. I pointed this out back in 2010 and developed a simple model that can be used to estimate the length of wind farm wakes. This model shows the dependence of the length of wakes on subsurface roughness and thermal stratification of the air. Wakes of tens of kilometers in length can be predicted for offshore wind farms with stable stratification. Ms. Lundquist’s working group already presented simulation results with the WRF flow model in 2012, some of which show even longer wakes.“

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better to know...?, energy and fields

“Solar Madness In Germany”: Gigawatt-Hours Of Subsidized Electricity Gets Dumped Abroad For Free”

by  P. Gosselin, Apr 16, 2025 in NoTricksZone

Blackout News here reports on how Germany’s uncontrolled solar production without appropriate storage and consumption models is putting a huge burden on the domestic market and consumers.

At the same time, neighboring countries are benefiting from all the free electricity Germany uncontrollably overproduces and consumers just don’t need!

Image generated by Grok AI

Experts are warning of the collapse of an over-regulated energy system that is increasingly moving away from reality. Germany has significantly expanded its solar PV capacity in recent years. According to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), the total installed solar PV capacity in Germany reached 99.3 GW at the end of December 2024.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Geothermal electricity generation

by C. Morris, Apr 12, 2025 in WUWT

Geothermal power stations are mature technology with proven performance, reliable operation and ideal for baseload generation. The units are synchronous, so they support the grid.  The production from them is considered by most to be renewable. They do not use fossil fuels to provide the heat. It is not “carbon free”, but no generation truly is. It has a relatively small footprint, environment harm is low, and it can coexist with farming or industrial development. Most developments have a cheaper energy cost than onshore wind, using published accounts for analysis. For countries or areas where the resource is there, geothermal generation is very viable.

The resource

Geothermal power stations are very much a niche generation source (only about 15GW worldwide,  from 673 units at 198 fields according to Google), totally dependent on locality. They are mainly associated with plate boundaries, particularly the Pacific Ring of Fire. Compare the plate boundaries and volcanic activity in Figure 1 with station locations in Figure  2

Associated with the plate boundaries and other weak points in the earth’s crust, the deep underlying heat in the mantle can find its way to the surface easier. “Bubbles” of magma can push up to relatively shallow depths. These may force their way to the actual surface as volcanoes with their lava. With the distortion and earth movement from this activity, the crust’s rock formations are deformed and cracked – earthquakes.  Groundwater can enter all the fault cracking in the rocks. This will be heated up by the hot magma, even if that has solidified.

Geothermal resources exploited for power production are the plumes of hot water formed from the heating of this deep groundwater. In geologic terms, such convection systems are short lived – generally lasting between 200 and 450 thousand years. They end because the heat source has gone or the cracking has been filled by precipitated minerals from the circulating water as it cools. The world is full of solidified magma (granite) and prehistoric geothermal systems. Many of the latter are now mined for gold and other precious materials.

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energy and fields

Is Coal Dead? Surging Demand, Trump’s Recent Push, and China’s Dominance Say Otherwise

by T. Doshi, Mar 31, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

coal freight china
The death of coal, held to be the eldest and ugliest of the three fossil fuel siblings, has long been exaggerated Mark Twain-style. [emphasis, links added]

While oil and natural gas needed to be tolerated for some time in the “energy transition”, dirty coal — responsible for soot, smog, and respiratory disease — was already beyond the pale for many decades in most Western developed countries.

The latest twist in this tale of a death exaggerated starts with a Guardian story on Monday last week. In his trip to China — the world’s largest coal consumer by far, and with no letup in sight — the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband “is hoping to shape a new global axis in favour of climate action along with China and developing countries, to counter Donald Trump’s abandonment of green policies in the US.”

Then, on Saturday, the Daily Mail reported that Miliband “admits his solar panels bought for English schools and hospitals are Chinese and may be made using coal.”

The hubris and the irony leap out.

The birthplace of coal and the industrial revolution and which once “ruled the waves” of 70% of the globe, Great Britain closed its last coal plant last year. It is number 22 on the list of the world’s largest CO2 emitters, accounting for a puny 0.8% of global emissions.

This pales in comparison to China at number one, spewing out 34% of the world’s emissions, and to the US, the next largest emitter, at 12%.

Apparently, “Mad Ed”, with his folly of climate leadership, still believes that the sheer illustrative example of a net-zero ‘green’ UK will lead the world into ditching fossil fuels.

As my colleague Ben Pile said pithily of Mr. Miliband’s China visit, “Don’t make me laugh.” In an oft-cited statistic, China builds an average of two coal power plants a week.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Tech Giants quietly drop renewables and sign pledge to triple Nuclear Power

by Jo Nova, Mar 14, 2025

Renewables are so over

Just like that — the renewables bubble went phht.

After twenty years of hailing wind and solar, suddenly the world’s tech giants are cheering for nuclear power. Worse —  they don’t even mention the words carbon, low emissions or CO2. The new buzzwords are “safe, clean and firm“. They talk about needing energy “round the clock”, and they talk about “energy resilience” — but they don’t saynuclear is “low emissions”. It’s like they want everyone to forget their activism. Did someone say something about climate change?

Meta, Amazon, and Google have flipped like a school of barracuda. Five minutes ago, life on Earth depended on achieving Net-Zero with fleets of wind farms in the sunset, now, they just want energy and lots of it. The big tech fish and their friends have signed a Large Energy Users Pledge admitting that the demand for energy is rising rapidly, that nuclear should triple by 2050 and that large energy users depend on the availability of abundant cheap energy (Small energy users too,  Mr Bezos-Zuckerburg-Pichai.) The closest they come to hinting at the ghost of renewables is when they say they want energy that’s not dependent on “the weather, the season, or the geographical location”.

There’s no “Sorry we got it wrong”. There’s no apology for hectoring us, censoring us, or wasting billions of dollars. It’s just Mr Don’t-Look-Over-Here telling us what most engineers knew for 30 years. This is the billionaire club asking the taxpayers to build them more nuclear plants.

Signatories include Siemens Energy, which suffered a 36% share price fall 18 months ago when it admitted it was losing billions trying to maintain wind turbines.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

CERAWEEK IEA chief sees need for investments in existing oil, gas fields

by T. Gardner, Mar 10, 2025 in Reuters

HOUSTON, March 10 (Reuters) – Fatih Birol, the director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said on Monday there is a need for investment in oil and gas fields to support global energy security.
The comment puts the energy watchdog for industrialized nations more in line with President Donald Trump’s pro-drilling agenda, after it came under pressure from fossil fuel advocates years ago for proposing an end to new oil and gas projects.
“I want to make it clear … there would be a need for investment, especially to address the decline in the existing fields,” he said at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. “There is a need for oil and gas upstream investments, full stop,” he said.
Birol has been under pressure from Trump’s administration and from the president’s fellow Republicans in Congress for the IEA’s shift in recent years toward a focus on clean energy policy.
In 2021, the IEA said companies should not invest, opens new tab in new coal, oil and gas projects if the international community wants to reach net zero emissions by mid-century to fight climate change. Countering global warming was a key priority for the administration of former President Joe Biden.
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