1/ It was only months ago that a leader of a G7 democracy granted himself temporary dictatorial powers, retroactively made protesting against his policies illegal, froze the bank accounts of dissidents with no due process, and jailed organizers of an opposition movement.
1/ In the second half of the 16th century, Britain plunged into an energy crisis. At the time, the primary source of energy driving the British economy was heat derived from the burning of wood, and Britain was literally running out of trees.
1/ On July 26, 1941, President Roosevelt seized all Japanese assets in the US and imposed a strict oil embargo on the country. Britain and the Dutch East Indies – the colonial predecessor to modern-day Indonesia and a major oil supplier to Japan – quickly followed suit.
1/ As a fuel, natural gas has many compelling attributes. It burns cleanly and efficiently. It produces electricity and useful heat with less CO2 emissions and far fewer toxic byproducts than coal or oil. It is also abundant and ubiquitous.
1/ The US, Canada, and Mexico have enormous proven energy reserves and the technical know-how to become the dominant energy-producing region on the planet. It can be done cleanly, safely, and domestically – all while reducing the strength of our geopolitical enemies.
24/ A single pellet of uranium fuel no bigger than your fingertip provides as much energy as a ton of coal (and certainly even more wood). How many trees will be clearcut before this boondoggle of absurdity is stopped? <fin>
1/ By systematically shutting down baseload-critical nuclear power facilities and replacing them with intermittent renewable energy, Germany has left itself – and by extension, the entire European Union – vulnerable to shortages of reliable sources of electricity.
Dear
@weatherchannel
:
It’s not extreme cold. It’s winter. In winter, sometimes it gets cold. It’s also not a major snow storm. It’s just a storm. In winter, it snows sometimes. Just fyi.
That is all.
Doomberg
1/ The mighty Mississippi River – and its direct access to some of the most prolific agricultural plains in the world – gives the US an incredible geopolitical advantage. Its importance to the US economy cannot be overstated.
2/ When such events occur in places like Russia or China, people in the West are universal in their condemnation. When they happen here, many first consider whether the aspiring totalitarian is “on their team” before casting judgment. This is shortsighted thinking.
1/ Long-haul trucking is one of those industries that everybody relies on, but that few spend much time thinking about. The men and women who crisscross our highway system to deliver indispensable goods are among the unsung heroes of our economy.
5/ Instead of inquiring into how the hack occurred or who was behind it, many Canadian reporters harassed the donors in a grotesque display of journalistic malpractice. The message from Trudeau was clear: donate to the wrong people and we’ll ruin your lives.
1/ Modern society is awash in stuff. There’s stuff at the grocery store. At the hardware store. At Amazon and eBay. We eat stuff, wear stuff, buy stuff, and store stuff. Click some buttons, swipe a card, tap a phone – and presto! Stuff appears.
23/ Germany – a country proactively shutting down nuclear power plants despite suffering a massive energy crisis – is back to burning wood for power on an enormous scale. For the planet, of course. You could not make it up if you tried.
#BREAKING
: Justin Trudeau says restrictions & mandates will be reimposed in Canada this fall & winter if a 90% 3x vaccine compliance target is not met.
1/ Since disorder is spontaneous, the human endeavor is a constant, unrelenting struggle against the forces of entropy. We are a highly ordered species – a true miracle of the universe. Beating back entropy requires energy. Ergo, energy is life.
If you read about an energy crisis in New England this winter, remember that the region is running a copy of the European energy playbook.
Shut down nukes. No pipelines. Big bet on intermittent renewables. Exposed to global LNG prices.
The rest of the US will be just fine.
23/ The US needs to get serious about its energy policy to preserve its place in the geopolitical order. If the US succumbs to childish platitudes championed by energy know-nothings, it risks becoming the next Europe. <fin>
3/ At the height of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s crackdown against the Freedom Convoy, a particularly disturbing incident occurred which has since been mostly forgotten. The protestors were being funded in part by online donation campaigns. Not for long.
1/ At its core, the human body is a symphony of chemical reactions. The complexities and interdependencies of the molecular machinery that makes our bodies function are almost too staggering to ponder.
We have magic rocks that produce essentially unlimited power. The pretzels we twist ourselves into to deny this fact are astounding. Bend over and pick up the money on the sidewalk already.
4/ In a subsequent coincidence that couldn’t possibly involve the resources of the Canadian intelligence community, the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo was “hacked,” and the personal details of some 92,000 donors to the Freedom Convoy were leaked online.
9/ Not only are they going back to the future, but they also claim doing so is carbon neutral (spoiler alert: it isn’t, not even close). Nearly 40% of Europe’s so-called renewable energy is currently obtained by combusting wood, much of it coming from forests in the US.
10/ In a farce so perverted and obscene that it can only be the work of bloated and arrogant bureaucracies, a carbon accounting loophole is causing huge amounts of CO2 to be pumped into the atmosphere today that will take decades to abate using natural means.
1/ A funny thing occurred in the gold market in March of 2020. If you happened to be in New York and in possession of four 100-ounce gold bars, you could have traded them for one 400-ounce gold bar plus a handsome premium – some say as much as $100 an ounce.
6/ Not satisfied with freezing funds donated using traditional fiat currency, the Trudeau government also ordered all regulated financial firms to cease facilitating any transactions from dozens of crypto wallets sending funds to the trucker-led protests.
After politicians' decision to close dozens of farms and cattle ranches to reduce nitrogen to comply with absurd EU regulations on nitrogen pollution, the angry Dutch farmers have issued an ultimatum threatening to block the country's airports, ports and distribution centers.
16/ By burning “carbon neutral” wood pellets and decreasing their use of coal, European environmentalists get to brag to the rest of us about what wonderful stewards of this shared planet they are, all while being among its worst offenders.
14/ We are meant to believe THIS process is somehow carbon neutral. The loophole that enables this orgy of deforestation boils down to how and where emissions are counted. In the current framework, burning wood is zero-carbon at the point of combustion.
1/ On January 10, 1901, the world was changed forever. Up on Spindletop Hill, just south of Beaumont, Texas, an enormous geyser of oil exploded into the sky, much to the awe of the drillers who made it happen.
5/ It is now well understood that the wide adoption of primary fuels with high energy density enables a better standard of living. Transitioning to higher density fuels is something that usually occurs spontaneously in an economy unless politicians interfere.
Having read the full statement by UK Prime Minister Truss, it must be said:
This is the first serious acknowledgement that domestic energy production is needed. It's an all-of-the-above strategy, including natural gas and substantial nuclear power development.
Kudos to her.
Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison is a math whiz who loves Harry Potter and taking big risks. She is also one of the supporting players in Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX catastrophe — and a new darling of the alt-right.
Read more:
8/ Given this, it might surprise our followers to learn that the European Union and Britain are incentivizing a return to the primitive concept of burning wood for energy on a massive scale.
24/ In our view, the European natural gas situation is the gravest economic crisis facing the world today. In the next few weeks, something has to give. Economic devastation to Europe’s manufacturing capacity seems almost certain. A true humanitarian crisis is possible. <fin>
19/ Studies show that the burning of mature US trees absolutely overwhelms the carbon impact of all electric vehicles ever sold in the UK. All the economic sacrifices made in the name of minimizing our impact on the climate are turned into a mockery by this one insanity.
15/ From the perspective of Britain and the EU, the wood pellets they burn were immaculately conceived – the manner in which the pellets arrived at their power plants is not relevant to their carbon emission calculations.
This clip is ASTONISHING.
Energy Sec.
@JenGranholm
demands energy companies to make massive investments to increase oil supply while simultaneously saying they want to shut them down over the next 5-10 years.
WHAT IS THIS WHITE HOUSE?!
1/ The original iteration of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone is perhaps the most iconic television anthology in history. With 156 episodes aired over five seasons (1959-64), the CBS show broke new ground with its unsettling mix of suspense, drama, horror, and moral provocations.
13/ The diesel-powered cargo ships make their way across the ocean, emitting CO2 along each of their several thousands of miles traveled. Once in Europe, the pellets are burned, emitting more CO2 per unit of heat generated than any other fuel source currently used at scale.
7/ Now, let’s consider a resulting hypothetical. Imagine a US citizen who wants to donate to a cause she supports. Wary of the changing tides in Washington, and aware of how opposition donations were handled in Canada, she is determined to donate in a discreet manner.
"Nuclear power and fossil fuels brought us here. They caused this crisis, they are not the solution."
Strong and at times emotional speech by Robert Habeck, after weeks under pressure. Defending his actions in government, but standing by Green values. He got a standing ovation.
25/ With a full line-of-sight into how people are transacting, the ability to control them is virtually without limit. The logical end state of this all-too-real thought experiment is central bank digital currencies. Good luck making private political donations after that. <fin>
17/ It is literally impossible to decarbonize much of our economy without a massive renaissance in nuclear power, making the members of Earthjustice and similar organizations either anti-human, deniers of physics, or some combination of both.
The consequences of China’s pivot on Covid just ahead of the Chinese New Year are being radically underestimated in the West. Look beyond the data in the next few weeks. It’s going to be fascinating to watch.
From a friend in China: the internal propaganda on this Pelosi trip is "off the scales." They feel Xi will not (and cannot) backdown. They expect a military response.
13/ This behavior seems virtually indistinguishable from what the US would be doing if an adversarial foreign power were in charge of its affairs, and much of it is driven by privately funded and egregiously extremist environmental groups.
Macron while asking for sacrifices from the French people realizes he is wearing a € 80,000 watch and like a magician makes it disappear under the table. Unworthy.
PM Justin Trudeau: "Everyone in China should be allowed to protest. We will continue to ensure that China knows we will stand for human rights and with people who are expressing themselves."
1/ The Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan is some of the most beautiful terrain in the United States. Long considered the premiere summer playground for vacationing Midwesterners, the UP is characterized by stunning forests, spectacular lakes, and largely unblemished nature.
Drax is chopping down trees and taking logs from some of the world’s most precious forests to burn at its Yorkshire power station, which provides 12% of the UK’s renewable energy
The Green Energy Scandal Exposed is on
@BBCOne
at 8pm and on
@BBCiPlayer
25/ We live in a time where few politicians understand how things get made. It is fine to not know where stuff comes from, but it isn’t fine to not know where stuff comes from while dictating to the rest of us how the economy should be run. <fin>