The Iran War Reveals Who Is Living In A Fantasy World

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  • Whether you like it or hate it, the war in Iran has definitely had the effect of exposing some of the ridiculous fantasies in the world to a serious dose of reality.

  • Consider the UK. After implementing an expansive welfare state in the latter 20th century (e.g., free health care for all!), the UK since 2000 has gone all-in on the idea of an energy system free of hydrocarbon fuels. The 2008 Climate Change Act — passed with an overwhelming majority including support from all major political parties — committed the UK to 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

  • That mandate was then amended in 2019 to make the legally-binding target for 2050 what is known as “net zero” carbon emissions. That change got passed essentially unanimously in Parliament, without even a recorded vote.

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Why Ukraine Wants So Badly To Be Independent Of Russia

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Why Ukraine Wants So Badly To Be Independent Of Russia

  • When Vladimir Putin has been asked to justify his war for control over Ukraine, his answer is typically that Ukraine and Russia have always been one country.

  • And there is some truth to that. The Russian state traces its roots back to something called the Kievan Rus in the 9th century, with its capital at Kyiv. In the period prior to the 20th century, there were times when parts of today’s Ukraine were controlled by other states (like Poland or Lithuania), but never a time when Ukraine was a fully independent country separate from Russia.

  • And yet somehow a tremendous desire for independence from Russia seems to have arisen among the Ukrainians.

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Yet Another Reason Why Wind And Solar Electricity Generation Will Never Work To Run An Economy

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  • If you don’t like fossil fuels — and who does? — our betters in academia and environmental NGOs have the perfect answer: we can just get our energy in the form of electricity from the wind and sun. The fuel is abundant and free for the taking. The New York Times has reported that the cost of electricity generated from wind and sun is now lower than the cost of generation from fossil fuel sources. And even as we save money on electricity, we’ll be saving the planet!

  • All the sociology and gender studies majors agree that we have a moral duty to switch our energy system away from fossil fuels to “clean and green” wind and solar electricity. Who could possibly be such a monster as to stand in the way?

  • At this website, I have devoted considerable attention to documenting major flaws in this narrative. In particular, I have written dozens of posts on the subject of the intermittency problem of wind and solar generation, which leads to a need for either full back-up at all times from another generation source, or alternatively for massive capacity of energy storage, in order to make a fully-functioning electricity system to power a grid without regular blackouts. As demonstrated in my Energy Storage Report of December 2022, providing sufficient energy storage in the form of batteries could multiply the cost of electricity from wind and sun by a factor of ten or more.

  • And it turns out that the intermittency problem is just one of the major issues with wind and solar generation that make those sources completely impractical and unaffordable to run an electrical grid. Another huge problem, which I have previously barely touched on here, is the problem of synchronization and inertia.

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New York Approaches The Green Energy Cliff With Morons In Charge

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The Democratic Socialists Of America Stand Up For Cuba!

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  • Word is that things are a little rough down in Cuba right now. In my post of February 23, I reported that Cuba had become the first nation in the world to achieve the climate activists’ Holy Grail of “Net Zero” carbon emissions.

  • I had looked around for news of the big celebration of Cuba’s achievement, but I couldn’t find any mention of it. If I had understood things correctly — and I think I had — Net Zero was supposed to deliver abundant and much cheaper electricity from the free wind and sun, lowering everybody’s energy costs and saving the planet in the process.

  • And yet, in a February 20 piece, the New York Times had revealed that the process of achieving Net Zero had somehow brought Cuba “to its knees.” Are we missing something here?

  • And then two days ago, March 16, the BBC (and many other sources) reported that the entire island of Cuba had been plunged into a blackout.

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How Bad Is It Living In New York?

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  • New York certainly has its problems, and I write frequently write about many of them. But is it really awful living here?

  • I believe in keeping these things in perspective. New York is actually a pretty great place to live, at least for now. The problem is that we have a class of idiotic politicians (and voters who put them in office) who pursue obviously destructive policies that make things much worse than they could be.

  • However, rather than an imminent collapse, what we face is an ongoing slow relative decline compared to other parts of the country that follow more sensible policies. The problem is not really that things are so bad, but that they could be so much better with so little effort.

  • It is a tremendous missed opportunity. I remain optimistic that things can be turned around, although that could take a long time.

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