Net Zero Watch: Why Europe is right to fear Chinese EV makers

 

In this newsletter:

1) Volkswagen cuts jobs as demand for EVs plunges
The Daily Telegraph, 14 September 2023
   
2) Why Europe is right to fear Chinese EV makers
Barron's 15 September 2023

  
3) Matthew Lynn: Is the EU sacrificing Net Zero to protect its electric car industry?
The Spectator, 14 September 2023
 
4) The move to using electric cars will cost £9 billion in lost duty by 2030, ministers warn
Daily Mail, 14 September 2023
 
5) Steel workers facing job losses under £500 million Net Zero subsidy plan
The Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2023

6) Paying a Premium for “Green Steel”: Paying for an Illusion?
Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, November 2022
 
7) No meat, no dairy and three outfits a year: Welcome to Sadiq Khan’s plan for London
The Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2023
 
8) Meteorologists, scientists explain why there is ‘no climate emergency’
The Epoch Times, 14 September 2023
 
9) House Dems cross party lines, demand Biden admin expand oil drilling
Fox News, 14 September 2023
  
10) Green rip-off: Don’t let Net Zero crooks mug you off!
Daily Express, 14 September 2023
 
11) Rebecca Weisser: Silence of the Greens
Spectator Australia, 16 September 2023
 
12) Harry Hely-Hutchinson: Blown It?
Over a Barrel, 14 September 2023
   
13) Jane Menton and Francis Menton: New York urgently needs to confront the contradiction of trying to electrify everything while also eliminating fossil fuels
Manhattan Contrarian, 13 September 2023
 
14) And finally: World needs $2.7 trillion annually for net zero emissions by 2050, Wood Mackenzie report says
Reuters, 14 September 2023

Full details:

1) Volkswagen cuts jobs as demand for EVs plunges
The Daily Telegraph, 14 September 2023

  

Volkswagen is cutting almost 300 roles at a factory in Germany as demand for electric cars dwindles.

 
The redundancies are being carried out at the car giant’s plant in Zwickau, where a further 2,000 temporary workers are also at risk of losing their jobs.

Volkswagen’s Zwickau factory only produces electric vehicles, which have fallen in popularity due to high inflation and faltering government support.

The job cuts, which were first reported by the German press agency DPA, come as the company prepares for an influx of cheaper electric cars from China.

While purchases of electric vehicles have been strong in the past few years, manufacturers fear customers are being increasingly put off because they are too expensive.

Figures show that battery-powered cars cost around £10,000 more than petrol-driven equivalents, while the price gap between electricity and petrol has also narrowed.

Drivers had previously been told that high upfront costs for electric cars could be recouped through cheaper charging.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a surge in electricity prices.

To combat the issue, UK carmakers have been lobbying for cheaper public charges for drivers who don’t have access to outlets at home.

Volkswagen, which was contacted for comment, previously cut electric car production at another of its biggest factories after waning interest led to lower sales than expected.

In June, it also stopped work on electric models for six weeks at its plant in Emden, northwest Germany, and planned to lay off 300 of the 1,500 workers involved in making them.

The company blamed the drop in consumer interest on a fall in subsidies across Europe and higher inflation.

Demand for electric vehicles is running 30pc below the company’s forecasts.

Full story
 
2) Why Europe is right to fear Chinese EV makers
Barron's 15 September 2023

 

The single fastest-growing EV manufacturer in Europe is China’s BYD, with registrations from January to the end of July up 323% in 2023
 
The European Union and China plunged into a spat over electric vehicles this week in a dispute that could create short-term catalysts for auto stocks—and may bode ill for diplomatic relations. But the EU has good reason to fear Chinese competition.
 
The EU announced on Wednesday it was launching an investigation into Chinese electric-vehicle subsidies amid concerns that Beijing’s support for auto makers has kept prices artificially low and distorted competition. China lashed back on Thursday, with the government warning in a statement that the probe is “naked protectionism” that “will have a negative impact on China-EU economic and trade relations.”
 
The dispute—in which Tesla , popular in both Europe and China, could benefit—has sparked a fresh source of short-term catalysts for auto stocks. Chinese names like Nio, XPeng, and BYD and European counterparts like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis, have moved up and down this week in response to support from their respective camps.

It’s understandable why the EU might want to act.
 
“Chinese independent automotive brands have their biggest competitive advantage in developed markets through their high value-for-money offerings,” said Rosalie Chen, an analyst at research group Third Bridge.
 
Indeed, the data suggest Chinese brands are succeeding in pushing out of their home market. The single fastest-growing EV manufacturer in Europe is China’s BYD, with registrations from January to the end of July up 323% in 2023, according to Matthias Schmidt, the publisher of the European Electric Car Report. Schmidt’s research covers 95% of Europe’s EV volumes. Chinese manufacturers saw registrations balloon more than 130% year over year in the January to July period, while European peers notched relatively anemic 36% growth, according to Schmidt.
 
Full story
 
3) Matthew Lynn: Is the EU sacrificing Net Zero to protect its electric car industry?
The Spectator, 14 September 2023

When Europe’s political elite went all in on prioritising climate change over everything else it failed to notice that this would hand China clear industrial leadership.

They are too expensive. There are not enough of them on the market. It’s too much hassle to charge them. There are lots of reasons why people are still reluctant to switch from petrol to electric cars, with their cost right at the very top of the list.

Still, with the world about to be flooded with cheap Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), that is about to change. You might think that anyone seriously worried about combating climate change would welcome that. Except now it turns out that the EU, for all its rhetoric, cares more about protecting its own auto industry and is planning to slap tariffs on Chinese imports.

Ursula von der Leyen’s state of the union address yesterday was full of the usual self-congratulatory guff about closer cooperation, and deepening the union. It, however, did contain one nugget of news.

The EU is launching an ‘investigation’ into whether China’s EVs have received subsidies from the state. For an organisation that has been loudly boasting about how much it is spending on ‘green industries’, such as new types of vehicles and the batteries that power them, it seems, to put it mildly, just a touch hypocritical to ‘investigate’ China for doing exactly the same thing. Even so, there is little doubt about what will happen next. The subsidies will be ‘found’ and tariffs applied. Indeed, China has already started complaining about just that.

Sure, of course on one level we can see what the EU is worried about. While companies such as Tesla led the way in the early shift to EVs, China is about to overtake everyone else. BYD has already surpassed Tesla as the world’s largest manufacturer in the industry, and a whole generation of new Chinese brands are launching impressive, cheap models around the world.

With the Chinese manufacturers charging around £10,000 per vehicle compared with £30,000-plus for European rivals, it is not hard to see that they will soon dominate the global industry. To protect Volkswagen, BMW and Renault, tariffs will have to be applied. The trouble is, that will slow down the adoption of EVs, and make it harder to hit net zero.

In reality, when Europe’s political elite went all in on prioritising climate change over everything else it failed to notice that this would hand China clear industrial leadership. China already dominates global production of solar panels (at least 75 per cent), wind turbines (70 per cent) and heat pumps (40 per cent). Very soon it will dominate EVs as well.

At some point, the EU will have to decide about whether it cares more about climate change or protecting its industrial base. Very soon this conflict will be too obvious to sweep under the carpet.
 
4) The move to using electric cars will cost £9 billion in lost duty by 2030, ministers warn
Daily Mail, 14 September 2023

 

The rush to electric cars will blow a £9billion black hole in the public purse by 2030, ministers were warned yesterday.

 
Experts said fuel duty receipts would fall by around this much because of the Government's 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
 
Electric cars are also currently exempt from road tax, which is projected to cost the public finances hundreds of millions of pounds more.
 
Towns and cities across the country could also become gridlocked without new taxes such as pay-per-mile road pricing, ministers were warned.
 
It will pile pressure on ministers to come clean about whether they will introduce new road taxes to plug the hole and about the true cost of going electric.
 
The warning from experts came at a hearing of the Lords' environment and climate change committee, which has launched an inquiry into electric vehicles (EVs) and whether the Government's 2030 ban is realistic.
 
Jonathan Marshall, senior economist at think-tank the Resolution Foundation, said that the longer the Government delays coming clean about how it plans to fill the £9billion gap, the greater the tax burden on lower-income motorists will become.
 
Full story
 
5) Steel workers facing job losses under £500 million Net Zero subsidy plan
The Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2023

Thousands of workers at Britain’s biggest steel mill are facing redundancy under a taxpayer-funded net zero plan.

Tata Steel will be given £500m of taxpayer cash to fund its switch to net zero at its Port Talbot steelworks.
  
The Indian conglomerate is expected to invest £1.25bn in retooling the site to produce “greener” steel, which ministers said will reduce the UK’s entire carbon emissions by around 1.5pc.
 
However, the new processes will require fewer jobs and Tata will consult on a restructuring that could lead to 3,000 redundancies.
 
The Unite union described the plans as a “disgrace” and vowed to fight them. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said it was a “devastating blow for workers at Port Talbot and the opposite of a just transition”.
 
Tata has been in talks with the Government for months about state aid to help switch the plant’s two coal-fired blast furnaces to electric arc versions that can run on zero-carbon electricity.
 
Full story
 
6) Paying a Premium for “Green Steel”: Paying for an Illusion?
Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, November 2022

Abstract. The iron and steel industry generates around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The bulk of the emissions originates from the iron ore reduction. In this reduction, coal is used as a reagent. Steelmakers could switch to hydrogen-based direct reduction using hydrogen instead of coal as a reagent to reduce iron ore to pig iron. This would eliminate the CO2 emissions from the equivalent process in a traditional blast furnace. However, the process requires massive amounts of electricity. This paper looks at the economics of such a switch to “green steel.” We assess a marginal increase in the production of a hypothetical green steelmaker. We also undertake an investment appraisal of a green plant, based on an ongoing installation in Northern Sweden, but also briefly consider a possible/planned investment in the US. This appraisal is complemented by computing the survival function for the net present value in a systematic sensitivity analysis. It seems highly unlikely that a green steel plant can be socially profitable. If the green plant displaces conventional steel produced within the European Union’s cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, total emissions remain more or less unaffected; permits and emissions are simply reshuffled. Hence, if end-users of green steel pay a premium, they might pay for an illusion. 
 
Full paper
 
7) No meat, no dairy and three outfits a year: Welcome to Sadiq Khan’s plan for London
The Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2023

C40, a global group of city mayors chaired by Sadiq Khan, has a radical vision of net zero that critics say will restrict personal choice

Picture the scene. You have just made it through the door from work, although not by car because private vehicles no longer exist. You change out of your work clothes into something more comfortable, perhaps one of three new items of clothing you are allowed to buy every year.

Then it is downstairs for dinner, since all this virtue is hungry work. But don’t forget that meat and dairy are off the menu, so instead you might like to daydream about getting away from it all – only to remember that you used up your quota of one short-haul return flight every three years last summer.

This is the radical vision of a net zero future dreamed up by C40, a global collective of city mayors chaired by Sadiq Khan, which advocates extreme measures to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and limit global temperature increases to 1.5C.

The Mayor of London is, of course, no stranger to pushing the dial on climate change. His unrelenting expansion of the Ulez ultra low emissions zone in August faced down major criticism from affected businesses, disadvantaged citizens and vigilante vandals.

Khan is showing no signs of slowing down: this week, plans were unveiled to lower the speed limit to 20mph on a further 40 miles of roads in London, the capital’s largest-ever rollout to date.

Since December 2021, he has led C40, which is made up of the mayors of 96 cities from six different continents. It spends its time conducting research, holding conferences and drawing up “climate action plans” and was originally founded by the then-Labour mayor of London Ken Livingstone in 2005.

It merged the following year with a similar body set up by former US president Bill Clinton, and its current board president is Michael Bloomberg, the US billionaire. Its website lists the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as a “major funder”, among several other governments, charities and multinational companies.

In 2019, when Khan was vice-chairman, C40 commissioned a startling study by the University of Leeds and Arup, a consultancy, about how cities could slash their emissions by 2030. Citizens’ consumption habits were its central focus as it set out a range of “progressive” and “ambitious” targets.

Its more radical suggestions involved no less than: the abolition of private vehicles; the prohibition of meat and dairy consumption; the rationing of new items of clothing to three each per year; and the restriction of short-haul return flights to one every three years.

It also proposed slashing the use of steel and cement in construction and significantly increasing the proportion of buildings made from wood, disregarding the major restrictions this would place on attempts to solve the housing crisis by building more homes.

Khan has not proposed implementing any of these suggestions. But to his critics, the report is emblematic of C40 as an unelected, self-appointed body which holds radical positions on net zero and climate change that the public could not bear.

Howard Cox, the motoring campaigner and Reform candidate for next year’s London mayoral elections, dubs it an undemocratic “global quango” which, if elected, he would pull London out of.

For Andrew Montford, director of Net Zero Watch, it is “divorced from reason”, and Graham Stringer, the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, holds that its policies would disproportionately affect the poorest in society.

Yet at the same time as presenting these “ambitious” targets, the report itself insists that it “does not advocate for wholesale adoption” of them because they would not even be feasible unless production processes became much more cost- and resource-efficient.

They are instead “reference points” for cities to “reflect on”, and it is “ultimately up to individuals” to decide their own consumption habits. To some, this suggests the very advocates of net zero policies that would completely transform the way we live our lives accept that they would not actually work.

“Fresh from imposing misery on motorists through his draconian Ulez expansion, Sadiq Khan appears to be conspiring new ways to make people’s lives miserable,” says Craig Mackinlay, the Tory MP who chairs the net zero scrutiny group in parliament.

“I’ve really had enough of this authoritarian, miserabilist approach to net zero. What we need is for technology and innovation to allow people to become more prosperous and greener at the same time; not poorer, colder and hungrier.”

Full story
 
8) Meteorologists, scientists explain why there is ‘no climate emergency’
The Epoch Times, 14 September 2023

 

There's no climate emergency. And the alarmist messaging pushed by global elites is purely political. That's what 1,609 scientists and informed professionals stated when they signed the Global Climate Intelligence Group's "World Climate Declaration."
  
"Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific," the declaration begins. "Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures."
 
The group is an independent "climate watchdog" founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and Marcel Crok, a science journalist. According to its website, the organization's objective is to "generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change as well as the effects of climate policy." And it does so by objectively looking at the facts and engaging in scientific research into climate change and climate policy.
 
The declaration's signatories include Nobel laureates, theoretical physicists, meteorologists, professors, and environmental scientists worldwide. And when a select few were asked by The Epoch Times why they signed the declaration stating that the "climate emergency" is a farce, they all stated a variation of "because it's true."
 
"I signed the declaration because I believe the climate is no longer studied scientifically. Rather, it has become an item of faith," Haym Benaroya, a distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers University, told The Epoch Times.
 
"The earth has warmed about 2 degrees F since the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850, but that hardly constitutes an emergency—or even a crisis—since the planet has been warmer yet over the last few millennia," Ralph Alexander, a retired physicist and author of the website "Science Under Attack," told The Epoch Times.
 
"There is plenty of evidence that average temperatures were higher during the so-called Medieval Warm Period (centered around the year 1000), the Roman Warm Period (when grapes and citrus fruits were grown in now much colder Britain), and in the early Holocene (after the last regular Ice Age ended)."
 
The climate emergency is "fiction," he said unequivocally.
 
Full story
 
9) House Dems cross party lines, demand Biden admin expand oil drilling
Fox News, 14 September 2023

A group of House Democrats penned a letter Thursday to several top Biden administration and White House officials, demanding the immediate continuance of uninterrupted offshore oil and gas leasing.
  
The Democrats — led by Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas — called for the Department of the Interior (DOI) to immediately issue its legally mandated plan for offshore fossil fuel lease sales, which the agency has delayed for more than 12 months. The lawmakers noted that the Inflation Reduction Act tethers new wind leases to oil and gas leases, meaning the former could be threatened without consistent fossil fuel leasing.
 
"As members of Congress representing Americans across six districts in three states, we write to urge the U.S. Department of the Interior to take immediate action necessary to hold uninterrupted offshore oil and gas lease sales under the pending 2023-2028 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program to avoid the now expected offshore wind leasing cliff," they wrote in the letter.
 
"Limiting oil and gas sales to one per year eliminates much needed flexibility and opens the possibility for unforeseen circumstances that would delay or cancel lease sales, including the possibility of future administrations holding offshore wind leasing hostage," the Democrats continued.
 
Under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the federal government is required to issue plans every five years laying out prospective offshore oil and gas lease sales. The most recent plan, which was implemented in 2017, expired in June 2022.
 
On July 1, 2022, the DOI published a draft proposal for a replacement five-year plan, which laid out multiple options for leasing between 2023 and 2028. The plan included an option with no lease sales during the time span and a maximum option of 11 lease sales. The plan ruled out any lease sales in the Atlantic or Pacific, mainly proposing Gulf of Mexico sales.
 
"We urge the Department to quickly release a full five-year oil and gas leasing program that includes all eleven proposed sales and promptly take action to hold these sales without interruption," Gonzalez and the other lawmakers wrote.
 
"Following through on its Congressionally mandated obligations as passed in the IRA is the only way to ensure offshore wind energy has a clear path to leasing, permitting, development, and production," they added. "This means holding oil and gas lease sales under a robust, timely, and functioning five-year program as well."
 
Full story
 
10) Green rip-off: Don’t let Net Zero crooks mug you off!
Daily Express, 14 September 2023

 

The push for green technologies has opened up a whole new world of opportunities for fraudsters - don't let them win, write our Scamwatch team

Scam of the week: Green Energy Scams

The UK net zero targets and global push for sustainable and eco-friendly solutions has led to a surge in interest and investment in green energy technologies.

All the information is telling us that if we don’t do something now we will not save the planet. It's a really confusing marketplace and it’s really difficult to understand if you’re getting what you need, what’s right for your home and something that will help save the planet. The cost-of-living crisis is compounding this and meaning more than ever people want to do things that may stop their ever increasing bills from going up even further.

While we all need to do our bit, seeking clean or green energy has also opened the door for criminals to take advantage of this enthusiasm through green energy scams.

The types of scams we are seeing.

Criminals may offer fake or poorly manufactured "green" products such as solar panels, wind turbines, or energy-efficient appliances. These products often fail to deliver the promised energy savings or environmental benefits. They are marketed as something that will save you money and deliver great energy saving results. If you don’t research the companies or products properly you could end up with something that doesn’t do its job or could at worst be unsafe for you to have in or on your house.

We have seen consumers being often cold-called out of the blue and sold spray foam for their lofts which cause fire hazards, daylight saving solar panels, which don’t exist, boilers that considerably reduce energy bills, ALL of which have not matched their description and turned out to be too good to be true, leaving consumers with a product that doesn’t work and costly bills to get what they actually need.

Beware of individuals who pose as energy consultants offering unrealistically low energy bills or substantial savings. They may pressure you into making hasty decisions without proper research. Be wary of out of the blue calls or emails offering energy efficiency services. What qualifications or accreditation does this person have? Criminals rely on people’s lack of knowledge in this area or use language you may not understand to confuse you and push you into decisions that may not be right for you or may be outright lies and a scam.

Full story
 
11) Rebecca Weisser: Silence of the Greens
Spectator Australia, 16 September 2023

 

Destroy nature to save the planet

‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,’ crooned Joni Mitchell in 1969. If only the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would take such a balanced approach. It admits that, ‘Probably the greatest uncertainty in future projections of climate arises from clouds and their interactions with radiation,’ but that hasn’t tempered its claim that clouds will dramatically accelerate global warming.
 
Nobel laureate in physics for 2022, Dr John F. Clauser, disagrees profoundly. He says clouds act as a natural thermostat, stabilising temperatures. What’s more, their impact is nearly two orders of magnitude greater than that of atmospheric carbon dioxide rendering the impact of the increase in CO2 trivial. This is why he confidently says, ‘There is no real climate crisis.’
 
Naturally, this good news hasn’t made it into the IPPC’s latest Summary for Policy Makers. How many Nobel laureates in physics does it take to change the IPPC consensus that the world has entered the era of global boiling? More than three it seems.
 
Dr Ivar Giaever, the 1973 laureate in physics resigned from the American Physical Society in 2011 in disgust over its official statement that ‘global warming is occurring’.
 
Dr Robert B. Laughlin, the Nobel laureate in physics in 1998, wrote in 2010 that, ‘The geologic record suggests that climate ought not to concern us too much when we’re gazing into the energy future, not because it’s unimportant, but because it’s beyond our power to control.’
 
Climate alarmists talk about a scientific consensus about catastrophic anthropogenic global warming but more than 1,600 scientists signed a statement last month stating that, ‘There is no climate emergency,’ and called for climate science to be less political, and climate policies to be more scientific.
 
‘Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures,’ the statement says.
 
Instead of sober science, the world is awash with dangerous pseudoscience says Clauser because bureaucrats, business people, and politicians are easily snowed.
 
Full post
 
12) Harry Hely-Hutchinson: Blown It?
Over a Barrel, 14 September 2023

  

Offshore wind's troubles reveal a much larger problem

I’ve always been reassured that size doesn’t matter.

So you’ll imagine my surprise when I heard about the latest in offshore wind turbines.

The newest models are gargantuan. Clustered like a forest of spinning totem poles to the elements, each climbs over 280 meters tall, reaching nearly as high into the clouds as the Eiffel Tower, and boasting a wingspan of ~240 meters, 3.5x greater than a Boeing 747. Their foundations wrestle the waves and stretch deep into the salty depths.

Offshore wind is a remarkable feat of engineering.

These advances brought efficiencies and cost savings that fueled hype around the world that this technology could harness the power of the air and the tame the tempers of the sea to deliver abundant-zero carbon energy.

Hundreds of billions was spent building tens of thousands of turbines at breakneck speed along coasts from East Anglia to East China.

Many lofty promises were made. We are the “Saudi Arabia of offshore wind”, former UK PM and clown-in-chief Boris Johnson declared. “Wind is 9x cheaper than gas” chirped every eco-hack and midwit journalist in the northern hemisphere.

But pride comes before the fall.

And now the sector is now plummeting as if it fell from the top of one its mighty towers.

In just the past 6 months, here are some of the wincing lowlights:

* Siemens Energy’s share price collapsed by ~45% since announcing “severe” quality problems with many of its turbines

* Orsted’s share price dropped by 30% in August after revealing cost overruns will likely result in a $2.3bn write-down

* Vattenfall cancelled the development of the UK’s largest offshore wind farm

* 0 companies participated in government backed schemes in the USA and UK to build new offshore wind plants

* Developers in the USA ask for a 54% increase in the government-guaranteed power price to continue with projects

An industry that has for years been boasting of its low costs is begging hat-in-hand for government life-support.

It’s sicker than a tray of dodgy oysters in the summer sun.
 
Full post
 
13) Jane Menton and Francis Menton: New York urgently needs to confront the contradiction of trying to electrify everything while also eliminating fossil fuels
Manhattan Contrarian, 13 September 2023

 

In New York, politicians are selling the public a narrative that electricity is going to be the solution to climate change. We will eliminate all CO2 emissions by banning gasoline-powered cars, banning natural gas infrastructure, banning gas heat in buildings, and banning gas for cooking.  All of these are to be replaced with supposedly “green,” emissions-free, alternatives – which in practice consist of only one thing, electricity.  We’ve been told that this is how we are going to protect the planet for future generations.

 
But there is nothing emissions-free about the way electricity is currently generated in New York.  About half of our electricity comes now, as it traditionally has, from burning fossil fuels.  New York has announced plans to eliminate those from electricity generation by 2030, but as of now has no realistic plan to replace them.  Meanwhile, it is forcing its citizens to convert essential systems like heating to electricity, with no basis to believe that the electricity will be available to prevent people from freezing in the winter only a few years from now.  This is a glaring contradiction, that needs urgently to be addressed before we suffer a self-inflicted catastrophe.
 
At present, fossil fuels are critical to our generation of electricity.  According to the most recent data from the federal government’s Energy Information Administration, in 2021 New York got some 46% of its electricity from burning natural gas and another 1% from fuel oil, and almost all of the rest from either nuclear (25%) or hydropower (23%, most of which comes from Niagara Falls).  Non-hydro “renewables” (wood, wind and solar) provided only about 6% in total, and about 2% of that was from wood.  After decades of hype about their wondrous future, wind and solar provided only about 4%.  And in 2021, the state closed the Indian Point nuclear plant, replacing its output almost entirely with natural gas generation, meaning that the percent of our electricity supply coming from fossil fuels is now up near 50% today.

If more electricity is needed, the options are few. New nuclear plants face vociferous opposition from environmentalists, with almost no prospect that that can be overcome. A completely finished nuclear plant called Shoreham sits idle on Long Island, having never been approved for commercial operation in the face of vigorous environmental opposition. As to hydropower, we do not have another Niagara Falls. Wind and solar produce remarkably small amounts after decades of hype and massive subsidies; and what they do produce is intermittent and often unavailable when most needed on the hottest and coldest days. The last option, natural gas – the one that is available, scalable, and actually works – is the one our politicians are pledging to eliminate without anything to replace it.
 
Full post
 
14) And finally: World needs $2.7 trillion annually for net zero emissions by 2050, Wood Mackenzie report says
Reuters, 14 September 2023

  

LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Global investment of $2.7 trillion a year is needed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and avoid temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius this century, a report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie said on Thursday.

Scientists have said the world ideally needs to limit global average temperature rise to 1.5C this century to avoid catastrophic effects from climate change. Many governments have pledged to reduce emissions to net zero by mid-century to help achieve this.

However, most countries are not on track to even meet emissions targets by 2030, let alone 2050, the report said.

Full story

The London-based Net Zero Watch is a campaign group set up to highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. The Net Zero Watch newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.netzerowatch.com.