Wind and solar energy are inherently inefficient ways of generating electricity. They are low density, which means they require vast amounts of capital to produce and transmit the same amount of electricity as traditional power stations. Plus, they are intermittent, so investment and staffing of parallel generating capacity are needed to keep the lights on. Wind and solar might reduce emissions of carbon dioxide – much depends on the parallel capacity running in the background – but this is not cost free. Growing crops to turn into biofuels is also highly inefficient, as is shipping wood pellets across the Atlantic to exploit a carbon accounting loophole that zero-rates their emissions. None of these things boosts productivity and raises living standards. All of them stunt the economy’s growth potential.
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July 16th, 2022 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
 ‘End Of Quote, Repeat The Line’: Biden Reads Teleprompter Instructions Out Loud During Speech With Joe more voicemail than man and Boris only just clinging to the wreckage, at least the Anglosphere is demonstrating that it can get by without anyone in charge. Though we have much to learn before we can challenge the true masters of the art of doing without a government. July 8th, 2022 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
If police were opening fire on protesters in a European nation, we would have heard about it, right? If there was a mass uprising of working people in a European Union country, taking to the streets in their thousands to cause disruption to roads, airports and parliament itself, it would be getting a lot of media coverage in the UK, wouldn’t it? The radical left would surely say something, too, given its claims to support ordinary people against The System. Cops shooting at working men and women whose only crime is that they pounded the streets to demand fairness and justice? There would be solidarity demos in the UK, for sure. Well, all of this is happening, right now, in a nation that’s just an hour’s flight from Britain, and the media coverage here is notable by its absence. As for the left in Britain and elsewhere in Europe – there’s just silence. This is the story of the revolting Dutch farmers. These tractor-riding rebels have risen up against their government and its plans to introduce stringent environmental measures that they say will severely undermine their ability to make a living. July 7th, 2022 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
What is the fundamental difference between church indulgences and emission allowances? Primarily it is that critics of allowances are not burned at the stake. Presumably because it would cause too many emissions. Otherwise, however, it is the same idea. July 6th, 2022 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
The fact that my views are considered controversial is a reflection of how mad society has become: I want maths teachers to teach maths, history teachers to teach history, literature teachers to educate children about the best English writers, poets and playwrights. I want the police to investigate actual crimes like rape, burglary, stabbings and muggings, not paint their cars rainbow colours and police jokes, banter in WhatsApp groups and offensive tweets. I want the media to tell me the facts of what is going on and let me decide what to think about it. If I want a journalist’s opinion, which I mostly don’t, I’ll read opinion columns. Just tell me what’s happening. I want banks to provide bank services, ice cream makers to make ice cream and razor companies to make razors. I want transnational corporations to pay their taxes. I don’t want them to tell me what to think – I don’t need a moral lecture from Mr Burns off the Simpsons. I want doctors to help me *choose* the best treatment for me and my family, not enforce a one-size-fits-all solution on me because of Government diktats. I don’t need scary advertising campaigns that misrepresent the threat to encourage me to look after my health. I want the military to spend every waking moment working to get better at killing people who want to kill me, my family and my fellow citizens. I don’t care how diverse, progressive or inclusive they are. And I am outright hostile to this if it affects performance. /6 I want the legal system to reward productive, lawful behaviour and deter unproductive, unlawful behaviour. I want psychopathic, evil and dangerous people to be kept away from me, my family and my fellow law-abiding citizens. I want politicians to implement the democratic wishes of the people of this country, even when I don’t personally agree with them. If the majority of my fellow citizens vote for something I don’t agree with, I can campaign against this while accepting the democratic outcome. I want Government to interfere in my life as little as possible, while recognising that Government is necessary. I want to pay as little tax as lawfully possible, but enough to fund the things only Government can do. I want an absolute meritocracy. Hard work, dedication and talent must always be rewarded. If you are lazy, don’t apply yourself or aren’t contributing, you don’t deserve to be rewarded as much as people who work their arse off. I want people to be treated equally. Not as inferior OR superior. Just equal. There is no such thing as positive discrimination, just discrimination. – Konstantin Kisin, who would be a truly splendid fellow but for the fact he dislikes Marmite. June 29th, 2022 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Why do people outside USA give a damn about technical legal rulings regarding which tier of American government gets to make certain American laws? Particularly bizarre coming from people in countries with more restrictive abortion laws than Mississippi (France for example). I find that far more noteworthy than the underlying issue of abortion-in-America. Not seen much concern overseas about UK’s horrendous Online Safety Bill, I guess folks too focused on cosplaying Americans and pretending changes in US laws will have any influence on long settled issues elsewhere. – Perry de Havilland June 26th, 2022 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
My Twitter is full of people angry about the insane cost of living increases while my LinkedIn is full of nerdy middle class engineers in safe, white collar jobs excitedly praising net zero policies and their role in building a “sustainable” future. June 23rd, 2022 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The developed world’s response to the global energy crisis has put its hypocritical attitude toward fossil fuels on display. Wealthy countries admonish developing ones to use renewable energy. Last month the Group of Seven went so far as to announce they would no longer fund fossil-fuel development abroad. Meanwhile, Europe and the U.S. are begging Arab nations to expand oil production. Germany is reopening coal power plants, and Spain and Italy are spending big on African gas production. So many European countries have asked Botswana to mine more coal that the nation will more than double its exports.” June 21st, 2022 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Remember that the goal of politicians and civil servants is to get re-elected and to grow the power and budgets of their department. That is what their core goal is, and let’s be clear, they are very, very successful by that measure. The thing that most politicians fear the most is that we realize how little we actually need them. We might, you know, get on with our lives and not think about these self absorbed narcists. June 20th, 2022 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
“While dictators usually lie about everything they do, they are often candid about what they would like to do.” June 19th, 2022 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The facile solutions offered by McKibben and other environmentalists fail to reckon with many things, not least how profoundly the world has changed since Russia’s invasion. Europe’s heavy dependency on Russian oil and gas is just the tip of the iceberg. The world’s renewable energy economy is deeply entangled with geopolitically problematic supply chains. Huge parts of the world’s supplies of silicon, lithium, and rare-earth minerals rely on China, where solar panels are produced by Uyghur slave labor in concentration camps. The idea that the crisis might be resolved by choosing Western dependence on Chinese solar panels and batteries over Western dependence on Russian oil and gas reveals just how unserious the environmental movement’s pretensions to justice, human rights, and democracy really are.” June 6th, 2022 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
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