whatyareckon

By Ronald Stein ~

There are extensive technical and lengthy discussions and proposed solutions, both pros and cons, about climate change, rising oceans, extreme weather events, the impact of emissions, net-zero, EV mandates, wind and solar mandates, pollution, temperature change, and energy subsidies.

The elephant in the room that is seldom discussed is the simple and easy to understand fact of life that the world is facing shortages of the same products and fuels manufactured from crude oil that were the basis of the planets’ population growth from one to eight billion in less than two hundred years.

A non-technical explanation for these upcoming shortages is that wind turbines and solar panels can only generate electricity but cannot manufacture any products for humanity.

With no backup plan to maintain the supply chain for all the products and fuels supporting the eight billion on this planet, the following should be helpful…

By Joseph Vazquez ~

Harvard Law School’s bonafide leftist Laurence Tribe didn’t see the ethics issue in advising President Joe Biden to ignore standing law on the debt ceiling in order to … uphold the law.

Tribe penned an idiotic May 7 New York Times op-ed pontificating that it is supposedly the “essence of constitutional leadership, not the action of a tyrant” for Biden to ignore the law on the debt ceiling created by Congress. How is using carte blanche authority to cherry-pick which laws to uphold and which to ignore not the actions of a “tyrant?” Tribe piggy-backed off a nutty reading of the 14th Amendment to clamor that “Mr. Biden must tell Congress in no uncertain terms — and as soon as possible, before it’s too late to avert a financial crisis — that the United States will pay all its bills as they come due, even if…

Along with giant batteries and ‘green’ hydrogen, pumped hydro is touted as the solution to wind and solar power’s hopeless intermittency. Five years ago, Australia’s PM, Malcolm Turnbull pitched his very own mega-pumped hydro project, tagged Snowy 2.0.

The numbering was meant to be a nod to computer program upgrades and signal an improvement on the original Snowy scheme – without doubt – the single greatest renewable energy project ever built in Australia – with a mammoth 3,950 MW of capacity, which is available on-demand (unlike the pointless nonsense that is wind power). It cost $1 billion (in today’s money) to build.

Except that five years later the 0 in Snowy 2.0 looks more like a quantification of the amount of power the scheme is likely to deliver.

The plan never stacked up economically – see our posts here and here – and is never likely to.

One of…

By Tim Graham ~

During the presidency of George H.W. Bush, his Saturday Night Live impersonator Dana Carvey joked as Bush that Vice President Dan Quayle was “still gaining acceptance.” Kamala Harris has never received negative press attention like Quayle did. Instead, as she bumbles and falters, the media elites offer reports worrying about the negative perceptions getting cemented in public opinion.

On Sunday, USA Today White House correspondent Francesca Chambers demonstrated the trend in an article titled “Democrats want to fix Kamala Harris’ image problem. Some VP allies fear it’s too late.”

“This is a textbook definition of stenography,” tweeted Tom Bevan, co-founder of Real Clear Politics. Chambers began this way:

WASHINGTON – Republican attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris are taking hold, and the White House is running out of time to reframe the narrative, Democrats say.

At a meeting two days after President Joe Biden…

Nuclear power’s timely renaissance is being led by Canada and the US, with plenty of others following suit. Any country that’s serious about reliable and affordable electricity is getting serious about nuclear power.

Britain is crab-walking away from its offshore wind power disaster, with its government recently announcing plans to pump up nuclear power generation, including by investing heavily in Small Modular Reactor technology.

Nuclear power is the only, stand-alone generation source that can deliver reliable, affordable power without generating CO2 gas, in the process, which means nuclear should be the perfect candidate for those fretting about carbon dioxide gas emissions in the electricity generation sector.

Putting aside worries about the direction the weather might take in future, the self-inflicted wind and solar calamity playing out in Europe has focused attention on the need to have power around-the-clock, whatever the weather.

Australia’s Federal Shadow Minister for Climate Change and…