“My major argument: any planned transition to an all-electric renewable energy monoculture is likely to fail, at least in America. That is mainly because peak winter heating requirements can greatly exceed peak summer cooling requirements by as much as 400 to 500 percent in cold climates and because the required minerals are severely limited.”

On August 27, 1997, the Cato Institute published “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’,” written by Robert L. Bradley Jr. (A 58-page PDF of the study is available here and a 25^th anniversary review here.)  Bradley’s piece focused on the many stark ecological tradeoffs of politically favored renewables, as well as the high cost/low value associated of dilute, intermittent sourcing. This post extends that thinking to the deep decarbonization/all-electrification government program.

Rare earth minerals, on which the forced transition to “clean energy” depends, are critically constrained by many of the same factors as fossil fuels.…

“… for those who still believe that CO2-emissions are pollution, we urge you to remember that CO2 is essential for all life on Earth. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global biomass. It is also very favorable for agriculture, increasing crop yields worldwide.”

“If we continue to invest in innovation, mankind can easily cope with any effect of further warming. Hence, we must stop the demoralizing back-to-the-past mitigation solutions. We observe that it only leads to decline and poverty.”

– Guus Berkhout, President of CLINTEL

Climate Intelligence is an independent foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. A recent manifesto, There is No Climate Emergency: A Message to the People, follows:

In the past decades the public has been flooded with fear-mongering stories, telling them that global temperatures will rise to catastrophically high levels.…

“The fantasy, the shared narrative, is that replacing natural gas with electricity addresses the ‘climate crisis’ … Coupled with smart meters and digital currency, the home and business are subject to social monitoring and control. This is a high-tech version of F. A. Hayek’s the road to serfdom.”

On October 11, 2022, Gas Furnaces: Big Brother Says No highlighted the joint comments filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) et al. [1] These comments were in opposition to the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE)  and their (severely overreaching) “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (NOPR) to ban the manufacturing of gas-fueled residential furnaces: “Energy Conservation Program for Consumer Products.”

CEI et al.’s comments primarily highlighted how DOE/EERE is attempting to justify its proposed ban based upon improper use of the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC): “2022-10-05 Joint Comment response to the published NOPR.”…

Episode 1 of BBC’s Big Oil vs The World is a polished, emotional, lawyer-like brief for one side of a multi-sided, complex issue. But in the final analysis, the BBC case is long on agenda and feelings and short on facts, balance, and proper context. The documentary is slick propaganda that accuses oil companies of producing slick propaganda.

With its documentary Big Oil vs The World, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has added its voice to the chorus accusing the petroleum industry in general, and ExxonMobil in particular, of misleading the public and slowing the global response to climate change. The three-part documentary (Denial, Doubt, and Delay) was produced in cooperation with PBS, which ran its version on Frontline under the title The Power of Big Oil in April and May of this year.…