“Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.”

“For critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.” (NYT, below)

Let history note that the February 23, 2022, print edition of the New York Times admitted that “net zero” was a long shot. This breaks the narrative that Net Zero was the inevitable future with politics and business and high technology leading the way. Forget energy density; energy reality would be remade by a shared narrative of hoping and wanting it to be remade.…

“Mr. President, America is the world’s energy superpower. It is time we started acting like it again.”

We live in ironic political times when it comes to petroleum, a pillar of the master resource of energy. But consumers know and like their best energies, prominently including gasoline and diesel at the pump.

When citizen voters fuss about key petroleum products, politicians take off their ‘green’ masks and bow to reality. Remember Al Gore in his 2000 presidential run when motor-fuel prices became an issue? The author of Earth in the Balance stated:

I have made it clear in this campaign that I am not calling for any tax increase on gasoline, on oil, on natural gas, or anything else. I am calling for tax cuts to stimulate the production of new sources of domestic energy and new technologies to improve efficiency.

Ed. note: This post excerpts energy and climate material from the Media Balance Newsletter, a fortnightly published by physicist John Droz Jr., founder of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions. The complete MBN for this post can be found here.

Greed Energy Economics:
*** The green industrial revolution is a lie
*** Wind farms were paid not to generate HALF their potential electricity

Wind Energy:
*** Limits to Green Energy Are Becoming Much Clearer
*** America’s Power Grid Is Increasingly Unreliable
The stampede of green lemmings
Wind Energy Developer Compares Opponents To Hitler And The Holocaust
Offshore Wind Power Has a Long Way to Go in America
One Year After Texas Blackouts, ERCOT Expects Massive Increase in Solar and Wind Capacity
Lies My Wind Developer Told Me

Solar Energy:
Large Western NY Solar Project In Planning Stages
China Extracts Yet Another Favor from Biden to Sell Us Solar
Spain’s Solar Energy Crisis: 62,000 People Bankrupt After Investing in Solar Panels
Wind and Solar expansion is a threat to biodiversity — but by how much?…

“The pledges to reach net zero emissions made by many countries, including China and India, should have very strong implications for coal – but these are not yet visible in our near-term forecast, reflecting the major gap between ambitions and action.” (International Energy Agency, below)

The father of energy economics made it official back in 1865. “Coal, in truth, stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities,” wrote William Stanley Jevons:

It is the material energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of early times.

Another writer of the day added:

Coal is everything to us. Without coal, our factories will become idle, our foundries and workshops be still as the grave; the locomotive will rust in the shed, and the rail be buried in the weeds.