The cost of Net Zero & Europe's energy crisis
In this newsletter:
1) Allysia Finley: Climate policy meets cold reality in Europe
The Wall Street Journal, 28 September 2021
2) Irina Slav: Are carbon taxes to blame for Europe’s energy crisis?
OilPrice.com, 27 September 2022
OilPrice.com, 27 September 2022
3) Streets go dark and lifts grind to a halt as China cuts power to meet climate targets
The Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2021
5) Surge in UK wholesale gas prices fuels winter energy crisis fears
The Guardian, 28 September 2021
6) Monica Showalter: Green energy leaves Europe in the cold -- the freezing cold
American Thinker, 28 September 2021
The Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2021
4) China desperate for more coal as energy crisis cripples large section of industry
Reuters, 28 September 2021
Reuters, 28 September 2021
5) Surge in UK wholesale gas prices fuels winter energy crisis fears
The Guardian, 28 September 2021
6) Monica Showalter: Green energy leaves Europe in the cold -- the freezing cold
American Thinker, 28 September 2021
7) Janet Daley: Green warriors are on a mission to stamp out prosperity as we know it
The Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2021
The Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2021
Full details:
1) Allysia Finley: Climate policy meets cold reality in Europe
The Wall Street Journal, 28 September 2021
The rush to renewables causes severe energy price spikes and shortages. Biden’s policies would do the same in the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal, 28 September 2021
The rush to renewables causes severe energy price spikes and shortages. Biden’s policies would do the same in the U.S.
European leaders at the United Nations last week applauded themselves as they doubled down on their pledges to slash CO2 emissions. And Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the U.K. “will lead by example, keeping the environment on the global agenda and serving as a launch pad for a global green industrial revolution.”
Such vows of carbon chastity are, to say the least, ironic as Europe grapples with a severe energy shortage and surging prices wrought by its green industrial revolution.
In the past decade the U.K. and Europe have shut down hundreds of coal plants, and Britain has only two remaining. Spain shut down half of its coal plants last summer. European countries have spent trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables, which last year for the first time exceeded fossil fuels as a share of electricity production.
But renewables don’t provide reliable power around the clock, and wind power this summer has waned across Europe and in the U.K., forcing them to turn to gas and coal for backup power. Yet demand for these fossil fuels is also surging across Asia and South America, where drought has crimped hydropower. Manufacturers there are also consuming more energy to supply Western countries with goods.
Japan has become especially dependent on liquefied natural gas imports since it shut down most of its nuclear power plants after Fukushima in 2011. Even China has been forced to ration electricity to energy-hungry aluminum smelters because of a coal power shortfall. This has sent global aluminum prices soaring.
Increased global demand has caused the price of coal to triple and the price of natural gas to increase fivefold over the past year. Europe’s cap-and-trade scheme has pushed prices even higher. Under the program, manufacturers and power suppliers must buy carbon credits on an open trading market to offset their emissions. The price of credits has spiked this year as demand for them from coal plants and other manufacturers has increased while government regulators have tightened supply.
Russia is exploiting Europe’s energy difficulties by reducing gas deliveries, perhaps to pressure Germany to complete certification of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine. Russia’s Gazprom has booked only a third of the available transportation capacity through its Yamal pipeline for October and no additional deliveries via its Ukraine pipeline. Europe has become ever more dependent on Russia—the world’s second largest gas producer, after the U.S.—for energy because the U.K. and Germany have banned hydraulic fracturing, letting their rich gas shale resources go to waste. Meantime, the Netherlands is shutting down Europe’s biggest gas field.
In short, all of Europe’s green chickens are coming home to roost. Several U.K. retail electricity providers have collapsed in recent weeks because of the surging price of gas. Energy experts warn that some German power suppliers are in danger of going insolvent. Germany’s electricity prices, which were already the highest in Europe because of heavy reliance on renewables, have more than doubled since February.
Skyrocketing power prices have caused U.K steel makers to suspend production. A former energy adviser to the U.K. government warned last week that the country’s energy shortage this winter could prompt a “three-day working week”—a reference to the coal and rail worker strike in 1974 that caused the government to ration energy for commercial users.
The European Steel Association has warned that the Continent’s producers are becoming globally uncompetitive. Fertilizer producers, which use gas as a feedstock, are raising a fuss. Norway’s Yara International plans to curb 40% of its fertilizer production capacity in Europe. U.S.-owned CF Industries earlier this month halted operations at its fertilizer plant in northeast England, threatening downstream businesses.
Beer and soda manufacturers use the carbon dioxide that is generated as a byproduct of fertilizer production for fizz. Carbon dioxide is also used to stun livestock before they are slaughtered, as well as for vacuum packs and dry ice to store frozen foods. The U.K.’s Food and Drink Federation has warned that consumers might soon notice products missing from supermarket shelves from the carbon-dioxide shortage.
The warning prompted the U.K. government last week to lend financial support to CF Industries. European metals producers are asking governments for aid. There will be more bailouts as European energy demand heats up this winter. These energy woes will only get worse in the coming years as governments push harder to purge fossil fuels.
U.S. gas and coal producers have benefited from rising prices in Europe. Growing exports, however, are pushing up prices that Americans pay for energy because domestic production lags pre-pandemic levels. Natural-gas prices in the U.S. have doubled since the spring, and some coal power plants are scrounging for fuel.
Europe offers a portent of the havoc to come under the Biden administration’s policies that aim to shut down fossil-fuel production and power the U.S. grid exclusively with renewables. Democrats won’t succeed in banishing fossil fuels. Instead the U.S., like Europe, will need more gas and coal to back up renewables, and the U.S. will become dependent on adversaries like Russia for energy.
2) Irina Slav: Are carbon taxes to blame for Europe’s energy crisis?
OilPrice.com, 27 September 2022
Europe’s energy crisis was, in part, caused by the desire of governments to make fossil fuels ‘prohibitively expensive’
The common claim that energy can be clean, reliable, and cheap has fallen flat, teaching policymakers a painful lesson
The harsh reality about carbon taxes is that they increase the cost of living and likely reduce quality of life
Such vows of carbon chastity are, to say the least, ironic as Europe grapples with a severe energy shortage and surging prices wrought by its green industrial revolution.
In the past decade the U.K. and Europe have shut down hundreds of coal plants, and Britain has only two remaining. Spain shut down half of its coal plants last summer. European countries have spent trillions of dollars subsidizing renewables, which last year for the first time exceeded fossil fuels as a share of electricity production.
But renewables don’t provide reliable power around the clock, and wind power this summer has waned across Europe and in the U.K., forcing them to turn to gas and coal for backup power. Yet demand for these fossil fuels is also surging across Asia and South America, where drought has crimped hydropower. Manufacturers there are also consuming more energy to supply Western countries with goods.
Japan has become especially dependent on liquefied natural gas imports since it shut down most of its nuclear power plants after Fukushima in 2011. Even China has been forced to ration electricity to energy-hungry aluminum smelters because of a coal power shortfall. This has sent global aluminum prices soaring.
Increased global demand has caused the price of coal to triple and the price of natural gas to increase fivefold over the past year. Europe’s cap-and-trade scheme has pushed prices even higher. Under the program, manufacturers and power suppliers must buy carbon credits on an open trading market to offset their emissions. The price of credits has spiked this year as demand for them from coal plants and other manufacturers has increased while government regulators have tightened supply.
Russia is exploiting Europe’s energy difficulties by reducing gas deliveries, perhaps to pressure Germany to complete certification of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine. Russia’s Gazprom has booked only a third of the available transportation capacity through its Yamal pipeline for October and no additional deliveries via its Ukraine pipeline. Europe has become ever more dependent on Russia—the world’s second largest gas producer, after the U.S.—for energy because the U.K. and Germany have banned hydraulic fracturing, letting their rich gas shale resources go to waste. Meantime, the Netherlands is shutting down Europe’s biggest gas field.
In short, all of Europe’s green chickens are coming home to roost. Several U.K. retail electricity providers have collapsed in recent weeks because of the surging price of gas. Energy experts warn that some German power suppliers are in danger of going insolvent. Germany’s electricity prices, which were already the highest in Europe because of heavy reliance on renewables, have more than doubled since February.
Skyrocketing power prices have caused U.K steel makers to suspend production. A former energy adviser to the U.K. government warned last week that the country’s energy shortage this winter could prompt a “three-day working week”—a reference to the coal and rail worker strike in 1974 that caused the government to ration energy for commercial users.
The European Steel Association has warned that the Continent’s producers are becoming globally uncompetitive. Fertilizer producers, which use gas as a feedstock, are raising a fuss. Norway’s Yara International plans to curb 40% of its fertilizer production capacity in Europe. U.S.-owned CF Industries earlier this month halted operations at its fertilizer plant in northeast England, threatening downstream businesses.
Beer and soda manufacturers use the carbon dioxide that is generated as a byproduct of fertilizer production for fizz. Carbon dioxide is also used to stun livestock before they are slaughtered, as well as for vacuum packs and dry ice to store frozen foods. The U.K.’s Food and Drink Federation has warned that consumers might soon notice products missing from supermarket shelves from the carbon-dioxide shortage.
The warning prompted the U.K. government last week to lend financial support to CF Industries. European metals producers are asking governments for aid. There will be more bailouts as European energy demand heats up this winter. These energy woes will only get worse in the coming years as governments push harder to purge fossil fuels.
U.S. gas and coal producers have benefited from rising prices in Europe. Growing exports, however, are pushing up prices that Americans pay for energy because domestic production lags pre-pandemic levels. Natural-gas prices in the U.S. have doubled since the spring, and some coal power plants are scrounging for fuel.
Europe offers a portent of the havoc to come under the Biden administration’s policies that aim to shut down fossil-fuel production and power the U.S. grid exclusively with renewables. Democrats won’t succeed in banishing fossil fuels. Instead the U.S., like Europe, will need more gas and coal to back up renewables, and the U.S. will become dependent on adversaries like Russia for energy.
2) Irina Slav: Are carbon taxes to blame for Europe’s energy crisis?
OilPrice.com, 27 September 2022
Europe’s energy crisis was, in part, caused by the desire of governments to make fossil fuels ‘prohibitively expensive’
The common claim that energy can be clean, reliable, and cheap has fallen flat, teaching policymakers a painful lesson
The harsh reality about carbon taxes is that they increase the cost of living and likely reduce quality of life
The European energy crisis seems to be the only thing anyone is talking about these days. Analysts opine over why it happened and how likely it is to spread globally (very, is the answer). The focus of most analysis has been overwhelmingly on the supply and demand gap that caused the crisis. In contrast, the underlying reason for the crunch hasn’t received nearly as much attention.
The fact is, Europe has been producing a lot less gas of its own in its drive to ‘go green’. It has made sure nobody really wants to produce gas because carbon taxes make fossil fuel production a lot more expensive. And there are more of these taxes coming, taxes which will only exacerbate this problem.
“Europe’s decarbonisation agenda requires making fossil energy use more expensive. That was always going to be a tough sell. Now that higher prices are suddenly here, it is going to be harder still.” This is what FT’s European Economics Commentator Martin Sandbu wrote in a recent article.
Indeed, the price aspect of the energy transition has been kept out of the public eye by government officials and environmentalist organizations who have all been hard at work hammering home the notion of falling costs for wind turbines and solar panels. As the current energy crunch shows, it’s not all about the falling costs of turbines or panels: even if those costs fall to zero, without sun or wind they cannot generate any electricity.
The harsh truth about a global energy transition
Only a few voices have dared warn that the energy transition will be anything but cheap. One of the big reasons for this would be the strategy of making fossil fuel production and use prohibitively expensive.
The noble idea behind this strategy is to discourage fossil fuel use, which would automatically lower emissions. It’s no wonder that carbon taxes are a popular measure for controlling emissions. They are simple and straightforward, and their effect is immediate. However, there are also side effects; these include higher electricity bills and, eventually, higher prices for everything.
“Gone will be that £19 London-Mallorca return flight on Ryanair,” wrote the FT’s Simon Kuper in an article about “real carbon taxes.” “Our clothes, petrol, meat and coffee will all get pricier. We’ll need to send an army of workers around the rich world’s houses ripping out boilers, installing heat pumps and insulating attics.”
According to Kuper, the current carbon taxes in Europe are more virtue-signaling than climate action. Carbon, he wrote, needs to become a lot more expensive to make a difference in emissions. But with it, everything else will become expensive. Politicians are aware of this, and it is the reason why they have not pushed for much higher taxes, especially after European businesses started complaining about the current carbon prices on the European emissions market.
One could look at this as a classic carriage-before-the-horse situation, in which authorities are pushing for what will effectively be a radical change in people’s way of life before they have ensured this change will be affordable for everyone - instead, European governments followed the Paris Agreement blindly.
On the other hand, the situation could be seen as unavoidable, as many critics have argued. The reason it was inevitable is that renewable energy and related technology has simply not been around long enough to become as dirt cheap as coal used to be before demand caused prices to skyrocket despite, one might note, carbon taxes. There is also the uncomfortable fact that renewable energy generation depends on the weather, which adds a substantial cost in terms of alternative backup sources of energy, which is what we are currently seeing in Britain and Europe.
Carbon taxes, according to pretty much everyone, are the only way to make sure our species reduces its carbon footprint. The higher these are, the better, proponents say, because high carbon taxes would speed up the transition to low-carbon energy. What they don’t say, including all those asset managers making net-zero commitments and urging governments to act more aggressively on emissions, is that this transition to low-carbon energy also means a transition to a lower standard of life.
Politicians like to advertise the energy transition as clean, reliable, and cheap. Yet this, as anyone who has ever worked in manufacturing or services knows, is the equivalent of fast, cheap, and good. You can never have all three at once.
You could therefore have clean and reliable, but it wouldn’t be cheap. Or you can have clean and cheap but, as we can see, it’s unreliable. As for reliable and cheap - these would be the detested fossil fuels that some governments are trying so hard to get rid of that they are willing to shoot themselves in the leg with carbon taxes.
The fact is, Europe has been producing a lot less gas of its own in its drive to ‘go green’. It has made sure nobody really wants to produce gas because carbon taxes make fossil fuel production a lot more expensive. And there are more of these taxes coming, taxes which will only exacerbate this problem.
“Europe’s decarbonisation agenda requires making fossil energy use more expensive. That was always going to be a tough sell. Now that higher prices are suddenly here, it is going to be harder still.” This is what FT’s European Economics Commentator Martin Sandbu wrote in a recent article.
Indeed, the price aspect of the energy transition has been kept out of the public eye by government officials and environmentalist organizations who have all been hard at work hammering home the notion of falling costs for wind turbines and solar panels. As the current energy crunch shows, it’s not all about the falling costs of turbines or panels: even if those costs fall to zero, without sun or wind they cannot generate any electricity.
The harsh truth about a global energy transition
Only a few voices have dared warn that the energy transition will be anything but cheap. One of the big reasons for this would be the strategy of making fossil fuel production and use prohibitively expensive.
The noble idea behind this strategy is to discourage fossil fuel use, which would automatically lower emissions. It’s no wonder that carbon taxes are a popular measure for controlling emissions. They are simple and straightforward, and their effect is immediate. However, there are also side effects; these include higher electricity bills and, eventually, higher prices for everything.
“Gone will be that £19 London-Mallorca return flight on Ryanair,” wrote the FT’s Simon Kuper in an article about “real carbon taxes.” “Our clothes, petrol, meat and coffee will all get pricier. We’ll need to send an army of workers around the rich world’s houses ripping out boilers, installing heat pumps and insulating attics.”
According to Kuper, the current carbon taxes in Europe are more virtue-signaling than climate action. Carbon, he wrote, needs to become a lot more expensive to make a difference in emissions. But with it, everything else will become expensive. Politicians are aware of this, and it is the reason why they have not pushed for much higher taxes, especially after European businesses started complaining about the current carbon prices on the European emissions market.
One could look at this as a classic carriage-before-the-horse situation, in which authorities are pushing for what will effectively be a radical change in people’s way of life before they have ensured this change will be affordable for everyone - instead, European governments followed the Paris Agreement blindly.
On the other hand, the situation could be seen as unavoidable, as many critics have argued. The reason it was inevitable is that renewable energy and related technology has simply not been around long enough to become as dirt cheap as coal used to be before demand caused prices to skyrocket despite, one might note, carbon taxes. There is also the uncomfortable fact that renewable energy generation depends on the weather, which adds a substantial cost in terms of alternative backup sources of energy, which is what we are currently seeing in Britain and Europe.
Carbon taxes, according to pretty much everyone, are the only way to make sure our species reduces its carbon footprint. The higher these are, the better, proponents say, because high carbon taxes would speed up the transition to low-carbon energy. What they don’t say, including all those asset managers making net-zero commitments and urging governments to act more aggressively on emissions, is that this transition to low-carbon energy also means a transition to a lower standard of life.
Politicians like to advertise the energy transition as clean, reliable, and cheap. Yet this, as anyone who has ever worked in manufacturing or services knows, is the equivalent of fast, cheap, and good. You can never have all three at once.
You could therefore have clean and reliable, but it wouldn’t be cheap. Or you can have clean and cheap but, as we can see, it’s unreliable. As for reliable and cheap - these would be the detested fossil fuels that some governments are trying so hard to get rid of that they are willing to shoot themselves in the leg with carbon taxes.
3) Streets go dark and lifts grind to a halt as China cuts power to meet climate targets
The Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2021
Lifts have stopped working and street lights have gone dark in Chinese provinces home to millions of people, as authorities ration electricity in the face of rising coal prices and targets to reduce carbon emissions.
The Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2021
Lifts have stopped working and street lights have gone dark in Chinese provinces home to millions of people, as authorities ration electricity in the face of rising coal prices and targets to reduce carbon emissions.
Global consumers could also experience a shortage of iPhones and other electronics ahead of Christmas after power cuts to meet energy consumption caps forced factories to halt production.
Cars are stuck in traffic jams, people at home are dusting off torches, and shopkeepers are lighting candles as a last resort.
Cities such as Shenyang and Dalian - home to more than 13 million people - have been affected, with disruption at factories owned by suppliers to global companies like Apple and Tesla.
Enforcing energy caps are a positive for long-term climate change concerns. But idle factories mean widespread implications for snarling global supply chains, and could squeeze growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Nomura economists have already cut their economic growth forecast for the year to 7.7 per cent from 8.2 per cent.
As well as electronics suppliers, energy-intensive industries including aluminium smelters and gold mines have also suspended operations. Others, such as paper and glass, could be hit next.
The food industry is also suffering without refrigeration. One crab farmer estimates he’s lost nearly £3,000 worth of stock after power cuts stopped his freezers from working.
Jilin is one of more than 10 provinces that have been forced to ration power as generators feel the heat of soaring coal prices that they can't pass on to consumers.
Speaking to local power firms on Monday, Han Jun, the governor of Jilin province, with a population of close to 25 million people, said "multiple channels" needed to be set up to guarantee coal supplies, and China should source more from Russia, Mongolia and Indonesia.
China, the world’s largest polluter, is under increasing global pressure to reduce carbon emissions as international climate talks to be held in Glasgow approach.
Beijing itself has also announced significant targets, saying it will reach peak emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060.
Meeting that target will mean reducing its use of coal, which is still how much of the nation of 1.4 billion gets its electricity.
Coal accounts for roughly 60 per cent of China’s power generation, part of why authorities have sought to limit energy intensity.
Factories have been churning overtime as China’s economy works to bounce back post-pandemic lockdown. A resurgence in global demand came as the world started to return to normality.
As such, only one-third of the country’s regions and provinces hit energy goals in the first half of the year, prompting local authorities to properly enforce emissions targets.
Increased demand for power sources, particularly coal and natural gas, have also caused prices to soar, pinching power providers who have limited ability to pass on the cost to consumers given tight government regulation.
In some instances, they’re simply losing too much money to justify continuing to operate.
Power cuts only solve part of the environment challenge and have thrown up other issues.
The Chinese government has encouraged people to purchase electric vehicles to reduce transport-related pollution. But recent electricity rationing has meant some people haven’t been able to charge up their wheels.
And in a country where nearly everything is linked to smartphones, such as digital wallets, ride-hailing apps, delivery services, and vaccine certificates, being unable to plug them in for more power can be debilitating.
Power limits are a further worry for residents of northern China, which suffers harsh winters.
Past botched energy policy implementations have left millions freezing during cold weather, leaving people wondering if they’ll soon need to brace for cold both inside and outside their homes.
“We are already approaching winter; how could they shut off power for people in the northeast?” complained one person online.
Some in their teens and 20s – too young to remember the challenges of a developing China – expressed surprise at seeing their hometowns cloaked in darkness for the first time.
Cars are stuck in traffic jams, people at home are dusting off torches, and shopkeepers are lighting candles as a last resort.
Cities such as Shenyang and Dalian - home to more than 13 million people - have been affected, with disruption at factories owned by suppliers to global companies like Apple and Tesla.
Enforcing energy caps are a positive for long-term climate change concerns. But idle factories mean widespread implications for snarling global supply chains, and could squeeze growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Nomura economists have already cut their economic growth forecast for the year to 7.7 per cent from 8.2 per cent.
As well as electronics suppliers, energy-intensive industries including aluminium smelters and gold mines have also suspended operations. Others, such as paper and glass, could be hit next.
The food industry is also suffering without refrigeration. One crab farmer estimates he’s lost nearly £3,000 worth of stock after power cuts stopped his freezers from working.
Jilin is one of more than 10 provinces that have been forced to ration power as generators feel the heat of soaring coal prices that they can't pass on to consumers.
Speaking to local power firms on Monday, Han Jun, the governor of Jilin province, with a population of close to 25 million people, said "multiple channels" needed to be set up to guarantee coal supplies, and China should source more from Russia, Mongolia and Indonesia.
China, the world’s largest polluter, is under increasing global pressure to reduce carbon emissions as international climate talks to be held in Glasgow approach.
Beijing itself has also announced significant targets, saying it will reach peak emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060.
Meeting that target will mean reducing its use of coal, which is still how much of the nation of 1.4 billion gets its electricity.
Coal accounts for roughly 60 per cent of China’s power generation, part of why authorities have sought to limit energy intensity.
Factories have been churning overtime as China’s economy works to bounce back post-pandemic lockdown. A resurgence in global demand came as the world started to return to normality.
As such, only one-third of the country’s regions and provinces hit energy goals in the first half of the year, prompting local authorities to properly enforce emissions targets.
Increased demand for power sources, particularly coal and natural gas, have also caused prices to soar, pinching power providers who have limited ability to pass on the cost to consumers given tight government regulation.
In some instances, they’re simply losing too much money to justify continuing to operate.
Power cuts only solve part of the environment challenge and have thrown up other issues.
The Chinese government has encouraged people to purchase electric vehicles to reduce transport-related pollution. But recent electricity rationing has meant some people haven’t been able to charge up their wheels.
And in a country where nearly everything is linked to smartphones, such as digital wallets, ride-hailing apps, delivery services, and vaccine certificates, being unable to plug them in for more power can be debilitating.
Power limits are a further worry for residents of northern China, which suffers harsh winters.
Past botched energy policy implementations have left millions freezing during cold weather, leaving people wondering if they’ll soon need to brace for cold both inside and outside their homes.
“We are already approaching winter; how could they shut off power for people in the northeast?” complained one person online.
Some in their teens and 20s – too young to remember the challenges of a developing China – expressed surprise at seeing their hometowns cloaked in darkness for the first time.
4) China desperate for more coal as energy crisis cripples large section of industry
Reuters, 28 September 2021
SHANGHAI, Sept 28 (Reuters) - China should work to import more coal from Russia, Indonesia and Mongolia in order to resolve supply shortages now crippling large sections of industry, said Han Jun, governor of the northeastern province of Jilin, one of the worst-hit regions.
Speaking to local power firms on Monday, Han said "multiple channels" needed to be set up to guarantee coal supplies, according to the province's official WeChat social media account. He said the province would also dispatch special teams to secure supply contracts in the neighbouring region of Inner Mongolia. read more
Jilin is one of more than 10 provinces that have been forced to ration power in order to cope with supply constraints. Power generators are also facing soaring coal prices, but are unable to pass them on to consumers. read more
Han urged companies to fulfil their "social responsibilities" and "overcome the difficulties" caused by coal price rises.
David Fishman, China energy policy researcher and manager at the Lantau Group, an economic consultancy, said flaws in China's pricing system were ultimately to blame for the current round of shortages.
"This is about coal generators unable to operate their plants profitably, in most cases," he said.
"In the short term, the only relief policies that make sense are digging more coal out of the ground, which is bound to be an unpopular idea, or make end-users pay more for their power," he added.
Reuters, 28 September 2021
SHANGHAI, Sept 28 (Reuters) - China should work to import more coal from Russia, Indonesia and Mongolia in order to resolve supply shortages now crippling large sections of industry, said Han Jun, governor of the northeastern province of Jilin, one of the worst-hit regions.
Speaking to local power firms on Monday, Han said "multiple channels" needed to be set up to guarantee coal supplies, according to the province's official WeChat social media account. He said the province would also dispatch special teams to secure supply contracts in the neighbouring region of Inner Mongolia. read more
Jilin is one of more than 10 provinces that have been forced to ration power in order to cope with supply constraints. Power generators are also facing soaring coal prices, but are unable to pass them on to consumers. read more
Han urged companies to fulfil their "social responsibilities" and "overcome the difficulties" caused by coal price rises.
David Fishman, China energy policy researcher and manager at the Lantau Group, an economic consultancy, said flaws in China's pricing system were ultimately to blame for the current round of shortages.
"This is about coal generators unable to operate their plants profitably, in most cases," he said.
"In the short term, the only relief policies that make sense are digging more coal out of the ground, which is bound to be an unpopular idea, or make end-users pay more for their power," he added.
5) Surge in UK wholesale gas prices fuels winter energy crisis fears
The Guardian, 28 September 2021
Analysts say crisis that has led to collapse of suppliers and threatened factory production could deepen
British wholesale gas prices reached new all-time highs on Tuesday, stoking concerns that a cold winter could deepen a crisis that has led to the collapse of multiple energy suppliers and stoked fears of factory shutdowns and soaring bills.
The price of gas for delivery in the winter months jumped by more than 20% to 218.4p a therm during late morning trading, as the existing Europe-wide gas price surge was exacerbated by a fall in supply from Russia.
The situation in the UK, where market prices have quadrupled in the past year, is particularly acute.
Global price rises have been compounded by the UK’s unusually low gas storage capacity, as well as outages in the electricity system, including a fire at a key power import cable, leading to increased reliance on gas power plants.
Consumers have been warned to expect higher bills and more household energy supplier failures, while heavy industry and the food and drink sector are facing the prospect of shutdowns and shortages.
The “winter gas season”, when heating demand is usually higher due to colder temperatures, starts on 1 October, and there are predictions of a colder-than-average winter.
Analysts warned lower temperatures could exacerbate the crisis.
“If the winter is colder than normal, natural gas supplies could run even shorter, leaving Europeans and possibly other countries, especially those that can barely afford current energy prices, in the cold,” said analysts at SP Angel.
Full story
6) Monica Showalter: Green energy leaves Europe in the cold -- the freezing cold
American Thinker, 28 September 2021
Calamity after calamity hits these greenies in the face and they still have no intention of recognizing that green energy is a second-rate scam utterly unfit for a first world economy or standard of living. Now Europe is about to go black in an icy cold winter to learn the hard way.
The Guardian, 28 September 2021
Analysts say crisis that has led to collapse of suppliers and threatened factory production could deepen
British wholesale gas prices reached new all-time highs on Tuesday, stoking concerns that a cold winter could deepen a crisis that has led to the collapse of multiple energy suppliers and stoked fears of factory shutdowns and soaring bills.
The price of gas for delivery in the winter months jumped by more than 20% to 218.4p a therm during late morning trading, as the existing Europe-wide gas price surge was exacerbated by a fall in supply from Russia.
The situation in the UK, where market prices have quadrupled in the past year, is particularly acute.
Global price rises have been compounded by the UK’s unusually low gas storage capacity, as well as outages in the electricity system, including a fire at a key power import cable, leading to increased reliance on gas power plants.
Consumers have been warned to expect higher bills and more household energy supplier failures, while heavy industry and the food and drink sector are facing the prospect of shutdowns and shortages.
The “winter gas season”, when heating demand is usually higher due to colder temperatures, starts on 1 October, and there are predictions of a colder-than-average winter.
Analysts warned lower temperatures could exacerbate the crisis.
“If the winter is colder than normal, natural gas supplies could run even shorter, leaving Europeans and possibly other countries, especially those that can barely afford current energy prices, in the cold,” said analysts at SP Angel.
Full story
6) Monica Showalter: Green energy leaves Europe in the cold -- the freezing cold
American Thinker, 28 September 2021
Calamity after calamity hits these greenies in the face and they still have no intention of recognizing that green energy is a second-rate scam utterly unfit for a first world economy or standard of living. Now Europe is about to go black in an icy cold winter to learn the hard way.
Greenie energy has been vaunted by politicians such as President Obama, Joe Biden, and virtually every European politician in power as progress itself, the way forward, the wave of the future. Anyone who's got problems with it, as Obama smarmily assured, is "stuck in the past."
Turns out that's crap. After going green and shutting down its coal, fossil fuel, fracking, and nuclear energy production, and feeling mighty virtuous for doing it, Europe is now going cold -- freezing cold. The region faces a very bad winter ahead with energy shortages across the board. Seems green energy can do everything to make a lefty European feel good except produce the actual energy. So, courtesy of the phony prophets of greenie virtue, Europeans are going without, even as Joe Biden is doing his darndest to take America down that cliff.
In an excellent signed piece by Wall Street Journal editorial writer Allysia Finley, she described the scope of the crisis:
"...the U.K. and Germany have banned hydraulic fracturing, letting their rich gas shale resources go to waste. Meantime, the Netherlands is shutting down Europe’s biggest gas field.
In short, all of Europe’s green chickens are coming home to roost. Several U.K. retail electricity providers have collapsed in recent weeks because of the surging price of gas. Energy experts warn that some German power suppliers are in danger of going insolvent. Germany’s electricity prices, which were already the highest in Europe because of heavy reliance on renewables, have more than doubled since February.
Skyrocketing power prices have caused U.K steel makers to suspend production. A former energy adviser to the U.K. government warned last week that the country’s energy shortage this winter could prompt a “three-day working week”—a reference to the coal and rail worker strike in 1974 that caused the government to ration energy for commercial users.
The European Steel Association has warned that the Continent’s producers are becoming globally uncompetitive. Fertilizer producers, which use gas as a feedstock, are raising a fuss."
It's not just about staying warm and being able to turn the stove on. Steel production? Like, what Germany uses to make those nice cars they make? Bye-bye. Fertilizer production? Like what's used in agriculture, you know, to grow food? Well, go without, do the Somalia thing and feel the fourth world. Carbon dioxide production? Sorry, Germany, no beer.
According to Bloomberg:
"The unprecedented energy crunch has been brewing for years, with Europe growing increasingly dependent on intermittent sources of energy such as wind and solar while investments in fossil fuels declined.
Environmental policy has also pushed some countries to shut their coal and nuclear fleets, reducing the number of power plants that could serve as back-up in times of shortages.
“It could get very ugly unless we act quickly to try to fill every inch of storage,” said Marco Alvera, chief executive officer of Italian energy infrastructure company Snam SpA. “You can survive a week without electricity, but you can’t survive without gas.”
Ugly, as in being forced to turn to Russia's Vladimir Putin for energy production -- on his terms. He's played Europe "like a yo-yo" on whether or not he will deliver that energy.
Full story
Turns out that's crap. After going green and shutting down its coal, fossil fuel, fracking, and nuclear energy production, and feeling mighty virtuous for doing it, Europe is now going cold -- freezing cold. The region faces a very bad winter ahead with energy shortages across the board. Seems green energy can do everything to make a lefty European feel good except produce the actual energy. So, courtesy of the phony prophets of greenie virtue, Europeans are going without, even as Joe Biden is doing his darndest to take America down that cliff.
In an excellent signed piece by Wall Street Journal editorial writer Allysia Finley, she described the scope of the crisis:
"...the U.K. and Germany have banned hydraulic fracturing, letting their rich gas shale resources go to waste. Meantime, the Netherlands is shutting down Europe’s biggest gas field.
In short, all of Europe’s green chickens are coming home to roost. Several U.K. retail electricity providers have collapsed in recent weeks because of the surging price of gas. Energy experts warn that some German power suppliers are in danger of going insolvent. Germany’s electricity prices, which were already the highest in Europe because of heavy reliance on renewables, have more than doubled since February.
Skyrocketing power prices have caused U.K steel makers to suspend production. A former energy adviser to the U.K. government warned last week that the country’s energy shortage this winter could prompt a “three-day working week”—a reference to the coal and rail worker strike in 1974 that caused the government to ration energy for commercial users.
The European Steel Association has warned that the Continent’s producers are becoming globally uncompetitive. Fertilizer producers, which use gas as a feedstock, are raising a fuss."
It's not just about staying warm and being able to turn the stove on. Steel production? Like, what Germany uses to make those nice cars they make? Bye-bye. Fertilizer production? Like what's used in agriculture, you know, to grow food? Well, go without, do the Somalia thing and feel the fourth world. Carbon dioxide production? Sorry, Germany, no beer.
According to Bloomberg:
"The unprecedented energy crunch has been brewing for years, with Europe growing increasingly dependent on intermittent sources of energy such as wind and solar while investments in fossil fuels declined.
Environmental policy has also pushed some countries to shut their coal and nuclear fleets, reducing the number of power plants that could serve as back-up in times of shortages.
“It could get very ugly unless we act quickly to try to fill every inch of storage,” said Marco Alvera, chief executive officer of Italian energy infrastructure company Snam SpA. “You can survive a week without electricity, but you can’t survive without gas.”
Ugly, as in being forced to turn to Russia's Vladimir Putin for energy production -- on his terms. He's played Europe "like a yo-yo" on whether or not he will deliver that energy.
Full story
7) Janet Daley: Green warriors are on a mission to stamp out prosperity as we know it
The Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2021
The climate campaign, as it stands, is opposed to mass prosperity, to self-determination and ultimately to social equality. Gas bills are just the start.
The Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2021
The climate campaign, as it stands, is opposed to mass prosperity, to self-determination and ultimately to social equality. Gas bills are just the start.
Maybe this is it. Tumultuous turning points in history are often scarcely noted as they happen because the changes are so incremental and mundane that they do not seem to be much more than little local difficulties.
But perhaps we are living through the dying moments of what will one day be seen as a golden age of mass prosperity and individual freedom that is destined to become mythic in the eyes of later generations.
What are the tiny steps that might be harbingers of this great collapse of the Age of Affluence with its expectations of self-determination and mobility? Has your energy supplier doubled your charges, or gone bust and handed you over to one of the small number of monopolistic corporations that will now control delivery of the most essential commodity in modern life?
Well, you say, that could just be a consequence of global gas shortages. But hasn’t the running down of gas supplies been a deliberate climate policy, without any proper thought being given to how inadequate the alternatives to gas might be? (Windmills are useless when the wind doesn’t blow. Who knew?) Isn’t the Government now preparing to decree, in unprecedented statutory detail, precisely how you will be permitted to access the essential life-sustaining heating and fuel that your household requires?
And will this effectively mean that the supply will take so much of your income that your consumption (and hence your lifestyle choices) will have to be sharply reduced? Is the government quite deliberately proposing to make what have become the standards of living that ordinary people expect, so expensive and problematic that they will, once again, become the province of the rich and powerful?
Perhaps you think it fanciful to talk of the end of an era in terms of fuel bills or private transport. But what is significant about these deprivations is their inexorable direction and the callousness with which they are proposed.
Boris Johnson, doing his bizarre Marie Antoinette impersonation at the UN, seemed to have no understanding whatever of the hardship that his unthought-out, uncosted, unaccountable gallop to a green heaven would impose on huge swathes of the population who had come to think of themselves as free agents in an economically advanced, liberal society.
There is a very serious misalignment here between what are still (just) the political assumptions on which we understand our modern governing priorities to rest, and what is coming to be taken as an incontrovertible truth that cannot be resisted: a messianic recipe for saving the world which is so apocalyptic that it must not be delayed or mitigated even by what was once our most sacred social principle - that governments should not enact measures which will inevitably damage the quality of life of people who are already disadvantaged. In other words, policies which disproportionately hurt the less well-off.
The chief objective of twentieth century democracy was to equalise the living conditions and economic opportunities of entire populations. Whatever your view of the urgency of climate change, it is critically important to recognise that many of the steps now being proposed (in some cases, enshrined in law) to deal with what is considered to be a global emergency are designed precisely to reverse that progress.
The quite explicit message, not only of the lunatics who block motorways but of the wider environmental movement, is that too many people can now afford too much. This is the real force of the new incarnation of anti-capitalism: far too great a proportion of the population can now spend money in ways that are potentially dangerous to the environment, and it is free market economics which made this possible.
The “planet” (always spoken of as if it were a sentient being in danger of “dying”) is suffering the consequences of their self-indulgence and profligacy. Answer: make sure, by strategy or edict, that either they are unable to afford their irresponsible behaviour or are actually banned from doing so.
Make no mistake, this is the moral core of the militant environmental cause: there is too much wealth, too much “waste”, too much choice and too many people living too long. (Since the pandemic cut a swathe through the elderly population of the West, they have gone rather quiet on this last point.)
A damaging confusion at the heart of this doctrine is the role that capitalism and the industrial revolution - its twin evil in the eyes of the environment lobby - played in the lives of the great mass of the population. The current version of Marxist mythology casts them as being the joint causes of the victimisation of the poor.
Marx himself did not see it this simplistically: he understood that industrialisation not only created more diversified wealth (which was previously tied to the ownership of land) but liberated the rural population from what was effectively agrarian serfdom.
But that message does not suit the self-flagellating version of the fable which seems in a rather inchoate way to long for some purer form of existence, not just pre-industrial but even pre-agricultural, at one with the Earth (in its role as spiritual companion) and Nature (whose own ruthless imperatives are never explored).
This odd mix of childlike sentimentality and economic illiteracy makes no room for the obvious truth: that industrialisation and market economics transformed the nasty, brutal and short lives of most people into something that at least approached the comfort and security that were once the sole property of those who were the inheritors of privilege. This is the quite shamelessly blatant refrain of the most aggressive elements of the climate change lobby.
Insulate Britain says, in no uncertain terms, that it is happy to prevent people from pursuing their livelihoods since commerce itself is the enemy. You may well believe that climate change is urgent enough to justify virtually any step that is taken to address it. But be quite sure about what you are endorsing and the sacrifices it will involve - for you and for people less well off than you.
This campaign, as it stands, is opposed to mass prosperity, to self-determination and ultimately to social equality. Gas bills are just the start.
But perhaps we are living through the dying moments of what will one day be seen as a golden age of mass prosperity and individual freedom that is destined to become mythic in the eyes of later generations.
What are the tiny steps that might be harbingers of this great collapse of the Age of Affluence with its expectations of self-determination and mobility? Has your energy supplier doubled your charges, or gone bust and handed you over to one of the small number of monopolistic corporations that will now control delivery of the most essential commodity in modern life?
Well, you say, that could just be a consequence of global gas shortages. But hasn’t the running down of gas supplies been a deliberate climate policy, without any proper thought being given to how inadequate the alternatives to gas might be? (Windmills are useless when the wind doesn’t blow. Who knew?) Isn’t the Government now preparing to decree, in unprecedented statutory detail, precisely how you will be permitted to access the essential life-sustaining heating and fuel that your household requires?
And will this effectively mean that the supply will take so much of your income that your consumption (and hence your lifestyle choices) will have to be sharply reduced? Is the government quite deliberately proposing to make what have become the standards of living that ordinary people expect, so expensive and problematic that they will, once again, become the province of the rich and powerful?
Perhaps you think it fanciful to talk of the end of an era in terms of fuel bills or private transport. But what is significant about these deprivations is their inexorable direction and the callousness with which they are proposed.
Boris Johnson, doing his bizarre Marie Antoinette impersonation at the UN, seemed to have no understanding whatever of the hardship that his unthought-out, uncosted, unaccountable gallop to a green heaven would impose on huge swathes of the population who had come to think of themselves as free agents in an economically advanced, liberal society.
There is a very serious misalignment here between what are still (just) the political assumptions on which we understand our modern governing priorities to rest, and what is coming to be taken as an incontrovertible truth that cannot be resisted: a messianic recipe for saving the world which is so apocalyptic that it must not be delayed or mitigated even by what was once our most sacred social principle - that governments should not enact measures which will inevitably damage the quality of life of people who are already disadvantaged. In other words, policies which disproportionately hurt the less well-off.
The chief objective of twentieth century democracy was to equalise the living conditions and economic opportunities of entire populations. Whatever your view of the urgency of climate change, it is critically important to recognise that many of the steps now being proposed (in some cases, enshrined in law) to deal with what is considered to be a global emergency are designed precisely to reverse that progress.
The quite explicit message, not only of the lunatics who block motorways but of the wider environmental movement, is that too many people can now afford too much. This is the real force of the new incarnation of anti-capitalism: far too great a proportion of the population can now spend money in ways that are potentially dangerous to the environment, and it is free market economics which made this possible.
The “planet” (always spoken of as if it were a sentient being in danger of “dying”) is suffering the consequences of their self-indulgence and profligacy. Answer: make sure, by strategy or edict, that either they are unable to afford their irresponsible behaviour or are actually banned from doing so.
Make no mistake, this is the moral core of the militant environmental cause: there is too much wealth, too much “waste”, too much choice and too many people living too long. (Since the pandemic cut a swathe through the elderly population of the West, they have gone rather quiet on this last point.)
A damaging confusion at the heart of this doctrine is the role that capitalism and the industrial revolution - its twin evil in the eyes of the environment lobby - played in the lives of the great mass of the population. The current version of Marxist mythology casts them as being the joint causes of the victimisation of the poor.
Marx himself did not see it this simplistically: he understood that industrialisation not only created more diversified wealth (which was previously tied to the ownership of land) but liberated the rural population from what was effectively agrarian serfdom.
But that message does not suit the self-flagellating version of the fable which seems in a rather inchoate way to long for some purer form of existence, not just pre-industrial but even pre-agricultural, at one with the Earth (in its role as spiritual companion) and Nature (whose own ruthless imperatives are never explored).
This odd mix of childlike sentimentality and economic illiteracy makes no room for the obvious truth: that industrialisation and market economics transformed the nasty, brutal and short lives of most people into something that at least approached the comfort and security that were once the sole property of those who were the inheritors of privilege. This is the quite shamelessly blatant refrain of the most aggressive elements of the climate change lobby.
Insulate Britain says, in no uncertain terms, that it is happy to prevent people from pursuing their livelihoods since commerce itself is the enemy. You may well believe that climate change is urgent enough to justify virtually any step that is taken to address it. But be quite sure about what you are endorsing and the sacrifices it will involve - for you and for people less well off than you.
This campaign, as it stands, is opposed to mass prosperity, to self-determination and ultimately to social equality. Gas bills are just the start.
The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.
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