April 19, 2023

New York Goes Full Central Planning For The Electricity Sector

April 19, 2023/ Francis Menton

Here in New York State, we have an electricity system that, as of this moment, is functioning just fine. Granted, we pay more for the electricity than we should — probably in the range of 50% or more extra — mainly because we have banned the exploitation of our own abundant natural gas resources from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in the upstate areas. And granted also that we just in 2020 and 2021 closed the two big nuclear reactors at Indian Point, about 40 miles north of New York City, which had supplied more than 25% of the City’s power.
It is not news that our existing, functional electricity system grievously offends the sensibilities of environmental activists, particularly due to its high reliance on natural gas to generate the power.
No feasibility study or demonstration project for us! The only option is Full Speed Ahead, without a clue as to whether this will work or not.
We will go Full Central Planning. Has that ever proved to be a problem anywhere in the past? Not that anyone here seems to recognize.

April 11, 2023

Reality Versus The Tesla Energy Report, Part II

April 11, 2023/ Francis Menton

My previous post discussed a few aspects of the just-issued Tesla Report with the title “Sustainable Energy for All of Earth.” Today, I’ll poke around at a couple more.
If you were to try to read this Report (not recommended) you will quickly find your head spinning in a sea of numbers the significance of which is completely unclear.
Was that last number expressed in kilowatts, megawatts, gigawatts, terawatts or petawatts? Is it big or small? Reasonable or completely absurd? It’s quite difficult to tell without some context.
So let me try to provide some of that.

April 09, 2023

April 09, 2023/ Francis Menton

One of the core subjects of this site for several years has been doing reality checks on the schemes of Net Zero central planners. Is there any chance that these zero carbon economy schemes might work? Or are they just dreams that ignore obvious physical obstacles in a religious zeal to reach an imagined future utopia?
My prior writings on this subject are summarized in my December 2022 Report “The Energy Storage Conundrum,” and in my recent posts (here and here) on the work of Bill Ponton regarding the UK.
On April 5 Tesla dropped into the debate a big Report of their own, with the title “Sustainable Energy for All of Earth.” Tesla reaches the exact opposite conclusion from me and the people I have cited in my writings on this subject.
Could that be?

March 20, 2023

March 20, 2023/ Francis Menton

Over the weekend of March 11-12, Silicon Valley Bank got taken over by federal regulators. SVB was the 16th largest bank in the U.S., with total assets of over $200 billion. Depositors were withdrawing their deposits at a rapid pace, and the bank was quickly running out of liquidity to meet the demands.
And then over this most recent weekend, it was Credit Suisse, suddenly forced by Swiss regulators into a shotgun wedding with its larger Swiss rival UBS. CS was a much older and larger player than SVB, founded in 1856, with over $500 billion of assets (down from over $800 billion as recently as 2021), and some 50,000 employees to SVB’s 8,500.
Both institutions fell victim to some combination of the usual financial risks that are endemic to the banking business. But if you had looked at the information they were putting out as recently as a month ago, you would have had to conclude that their corporate focus was entirely on the latest political fads that have little to nothing to do with the real risks facing them.

March 07, 2023

March 07, 2023/ Francis Menton

Often I focus on bureaucratic regulation of energy because the ability to restrict use of energy is the ultimate societal control. Once they have obtained the ability to restrict use of energy, bureaucrats could, if they choose, take away most of our freedom to enjoy life and return us to the income levels of the Stone Age.
Will they stop before going that far, making reasonable tradeoffs to enable the people to flourish economically? Or will they instead pursue environmental purity without concern for the well-being of the populace?
So far all indications are that bureaucracies — and environmental bureaucracies in particular — are utterly incapable of making reasonable tradeoffs. You don’t go into a career as an environmental bureaucrat if you think that your concern for the environment is something that can or should be compromised.

February 26, 2023

February 26, 2023/ Francis Menton

“Stranded assets.” You know what those are. Probably you’ve read a hundred or more articles over the past few years confidently proclaiming that oil and gas fields and coal mines owned by large energy companies will soon become worthless, as production of energy shifts to “cleaner” and “cheaper” things like wind and solar.
The owners of the fossil fuel properties won’t be able to sell them for even a dollar. The assets will thus be “stranded.”
The “stranded assets” predictions unsurprisingly come from the same crowd who are also ordering up the electric car future. For just a tiny sample of recent pieces making the stranded assets point . . .