Worldwide Energy Crisis

[Colin Parkinson]

There should be a new category of criminal code offences. "Crimes against the integrity of democracy", or some such title. And this would include disinformation peddled by media outlets, public agents, elected officials, that impact public opinion.

I could so see such laws being abused though. You would need a rock solid description of what constitutes an offence and what does not. Because JT would have charged every trucker with that law in place.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Meanwhile never let an opportunity to kill any other emerging technology pass

Trudeau warned of nuclear weapon risk over emerging small modular reactors

A dozen experts are calling on Ottawa to launch a formal risk assessment of emerging nuclear technologies, saying there is a risk they could be used for weapons. The CEO behind one front-running nuclear company is fighting back.

www.nationalobserver.com

 

[Good2Golf]

Meanwhile never let an opportunity to kill any other emerging technology pass

Trudeau warned of nuclear weapon risk over emerging small modular reactors

A dozen experts are calling on Ottawa to launch a formal risk assessment of emerging nuclear technologies, saying there is a risk they could be used for weapons. The CEO behind one front-running nuclear company is fighting back.

www.nationalobserver.com

Well the needle was successfully swung from China and India to Nazis, so the brain trust figures, “let’s see how we can swing the needle further, to add Nazis to the rear view mirror?”

 

[YZT580]

I could so see such laws being abused though. You would need a rock solid description of what constitutes an offence and what does not. Because JT would have charged every trucker with that law in place.

how about a edict demanding common sense?

 

[QV]

I could so see such laws being abused though. You would need a rock solid description of what constitutes an offence and what does not. Because JT would have charged every trucker with that law in place.

Truckers or private citizens don't fall into the description. It would be basically like a breach of trust law.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Well the needle was successfully swung from China and India to Nazis, so the brain trust figures, “let’s see how we can swing the needle further, to add Nazis to the rear view mirror?”

I think a simpler explanation for the letter from former US Nuclear Regulatory Agency folks to the Canadian PM is:

1. the US has a nuclear energy industrial complex that they want to protect; and
2. Our PM is gullible and does not know science.

 

[Kirkhill]

2,000 Coal-bearing sedimentary basins
11,000,000,000,000 tons of coal reserves

Europe west of the Urals 49%
North America 29%
Asia 14%
Australia 6%
Africa 1%
South America 1%

760,000,000,000 tons recoverable coal reserves or about 7% of the total

Europe 44%
North America 28%
Asia 17%
Australia 5%
Africa 5%
South America 1%

UK 187,000,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves (high estimate)
UK 3,910,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves (low estimate)
UK 344,000,000 tonnes of hard coal at planned mines
UK 33,000,000 tonnes of hard coal at operational mines
UK 1,000,000,000 tonnes of lignite

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has the second largest economy in the European Union. Following a referendum in June 2016, the country informed other member states that it would leave the Union – a process refe…

euracoal.eu

Germany 82,964,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
Germany 72,400,000,000 tonnes of lignite

France 140,000,000 tons of coal reserves

Canada 4,346,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
Canada 2,236,000,000 tonnes of lignite

USA 220,167,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
30,052,000,000 tonnes of lignite

Russia 69,634,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
90,730,000,000 tonnes of lignite

Ukraine 32,039,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
2,336,000,000 tonnes of lignite

India 96,468,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
4,895,000,000 tonnes of lignite


China 130,851,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
7,968,000,000 tonnes of lignite

Australia 70,927,000,000 tonnes of hard coal reserves
79,508,000,000 tonnes of lignite

There is lots of coal in the world.
India and China have lots of coal
Russia and Ukraine have lots of coal
The US, Canada and Australia have lots of coal
Britain and Germany have lots of coal

Eastern Europe has more coal than Western Europe and the Scandinavians (including the Baltics).

 

[Kirkhill]

In today's National Post, Jesse Kline - long read and worth the subscription.

The case for doing (almost) nothing about climate change | Best of 2023

Jesse Kline: There is no question human activity is accelerating climate change, but to solve it, governments need to get out of the way

nationalpost.com

What he said.

 

[Kirkhill]

France, which has no coal - reserves are estimated at 140,000,000 tonnes of low grade coals that are difficult to mine.
France used to have uranium about the time that Euratom and the infant EU were created

France is the size of Manitoba at 550,000 km2
It has a population of 68,000,000 or approximately twice the population of Canada
It has 22 nuclear power plants, housing 56 reactors generating 61 GW of power. Canada produced electricity at the rate of 149 GW in 2021.

One power plant for every 25,000 km2
One power plant for 3,000,000 citoyens
3,000,000 citoyens within 90 km of a nuclear power plant




One for the lower mainland
One for the Calgary-Edmonton corridor
Five or Six for the St Lawrence Basin (but they already have all that hydro from all the forests they drowned).

France used to mine uranium domestically but they shuttered their last economic mine in 2001.
Since then they have been buying uranium on the open market.
One of their least cost sources has been Niger.

Germany still has viable uranium mines in the east but those were shuttered following unification in 1990.
The German mines followed Soviet environmental and industrial practices and were geared towards weapons production.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sweden's municipal incinerators.
Every town has one.
Currently they are mostly burning forests, fields and wetlands as well as the municipal trash. This is known as biomass.
The trash is both locally produced and supplied by other European cities. The Swede's charge for the service.
The incinerators used to burn coal.
They could burn oil and gas.

Almost all cities in Sweden have a District Heating powered by biomass

The Swedish Bioenergy Association publishes the BioHeat map every year, which shows all the heat networks in the country that use biomass as fuel. The 2017 map, released in February this year, shows 511 installations. 292 of these plants generate more than 10 GWh of heat. The remaining 219 are...

www.expobiomasa.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Local incinerator with a scrubber and a sludge pond for growing bacteria, algae and duckweed.
The closest thing you will find to a high efficiency closed loop system.
The bacteria, algae and duckweed = biomass.
The incinerator supplies the energy to separate the biomass from the water and burns it
Water vapours are scrubbed and recovered in a peat bed filter that can be burned as well
Excesses of everything can be sold.
Shortages of everything can be bought.

If you don't like the word incinerator call it the local furnace, or the local hearth.

 

[Kirkhill]

It seems that they have gone out of fashion but some years ago, back in the 90s, there was a fad for making artificial peat bogs to capture emissions of all sorts from processing plants. The hot vapours, and flue gases, were scrubbed in a water tower to capture heat and solids and the gaseous emissions were blown through pipes immersed in beds of peat moss.

They never really caught on because they took up a lot of space and chemical scrubbers were more efficient although more complex and costly.

If you aren't bothered about efficiencies, and want to capture carbon and convert it into food, feed, fertilizers and fuel, then exploit existing wetlands, like Burns Bog, which already have the necessary flora and fauna, and feed them with warm water and CO2. Grow peat and ducks.

Or harvest a living chunk of Burns Bog and move it where there is warm water and CO2 and grow your own peat bog.

 

[Kirkhill]

In today's National Post, Jesse Kline - long read and worth the subscription.

The case for doing (almost) nothing about climate change | Best of 2023

Jesse Kline: There is no question human activity is accelerating climate change, but to solve it, governments need to get out of the way

nationalpost.com

What he said.

UK

Eco ‘zealots’ biggest threat to tackling climate change, says Energy Secretary​

Eco “zealots” are the biggest threat to tackling climate change, the Energy Secretary has said.
In her first interview since taking the role last month, Claire Couthinho said voters in many European countries were “revolting” against net zero policies because their leaders had pushed the issue too hard.
She told The Spectator: “The biggest threat to the cause isn’t the climate change deniers, it’s the zealots who are turning people off.
“Look at what’s happening in Europe: you can see the AfD, a climate-sceptic party in Germany, at its highest point in decades. In the Netherlands, you have got the farmers’ party and in France just yesterday Macron said he is not going to ban boilers.”

And it has got mandarins worried.

Alarm bells ringing over Sunak’s net zero changes, MPs warn​

Alarm bells are ringing over the Government’s net zero drive after the Prime Minister watered down a series of green measures, MPs have warned.
The Energy Security and Net Zero Select Committee has written to Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho to set out its concerns over Rishi Sunak’s decision to delay the implementation of certain policies.
The letter states: “The Prime Minister seemed to undermine the actual gains that have been made under previous governments, suggesting that they have sought to reach net zero simply by wishing it.”
Angus Brendan MacNeil, the committee’s chairman, said: “The cross-party consensus on driving the actions needed to combat climate change has been in place for many years, so the Prime Minister’s about turn on policies that people and industries have long been gearing up for has understandably provoked widespread concern.
“Alarm bells are ringing over the Government’s ambitions when it comes to its environmental agenda. We need urgent clarity on the consequences of the new approach and reassurance that it will not derail the UK’s progress towards net zero.”
Mr Sunak announced last week that he was delaying the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by five years. He also watered down plans to phase out gas and oil boilers.

Politics latest news: Labour lead in Red Wall shrinks after Sunak's net zero backtrack

Labour’s poll lead over the Tories in crucial Red Wall seats has shrunk to its narrowest margin in more than a year.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Apparently it is necessary to protect the "cross-party consensus". That sounds kind of anti-democratic to me. You can have any party you want so long as it is green.

 

[Eaglelord17]

They are making it sound like those parties are only succeeding because of eco-scepticism.

AFD for example has grown substantially largely due to the immigration crisis in Germany.

Parties can grow for many reason, trying to pidgin hole them with one of them is simplifying a complex issue.

 

[Kirkhill]

They are making it sound like those parties are only succeeding because of eco-scepticism.

AFD for example has grown substantially largely due to the immigration crisis in Germany.

Parties can grow for many reason, trying to pidgin hole them with one of them is simplifying a complex issue.

They may not be growing solely because of eco-scepticism but I would suggest that eco-scepticism is driving numbers away from the people imposing the taxes and restrictions.

 

[KJK]

Further to what I was saying earlier about the lack of transmission lines in Alberta and the 'green' electricity generation usually being in an area where you don't need it, here is today's hourly cost of constraint report from AESO. Their website doesn't make it easy to do screenshots and that is why the header is missing. Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars paid for nothing.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Meanwhile, market forces roll on despite the puny efforts of governments everywhere to control them.

Truck lives matter!

The Best Selling Vehicle in Every State (visualcapitalist.com)

 

[Halifax Tar]

Meanwhile, market forces roll on despite the puny efforts of governments everywhere to control them.

Truck lives matter!

The Best Selling Vehicle in Every State (visualcapitalist.com)

The modern pick up its the definition of utilitarian. It can pull, haul and carry most things the average family needs. It also gives and excellent ride and visibility while driving and even the mid range trim level models offer some great creature comforts and bells and whistles. All the while being economical for fuel consumption, especially on long drives, when you consider the capability and strength compared to a compact car or sedan.

I really don't understand why everyone doesn't have one. Especially with the range of sizes you can get now.

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile, market forces roll on despite the puny efforts of governments everywhere to control them.

Truck lives matter!

The Best Selling Vehicle in Every State (visualcapitalist.com)

So Blue Staters like their RAV4s do they?

 

[dapaterson]

The modern pick up its the definition of utilitarian. It can pull, haul and carry most things the average family needs. It also gives and excellent ride and visibility while driving and even the mid range trim level models offer some great creature comforts and bells and whistles. All the while being economical for fuel consumption, especially on long drives, when you consider the capability and strength compared to a compact car or sedan.

I really don't understand why everyone doesn't have one. Especially with the range of sizes you can get now.

Because of operating cost.

The need for a pickup bed is intermittent; cheaper to rent as needed than to own.