Professor Hughes is arguably the UK’s pre-eminent energy economist, and he has calculated that Ed Miliband’s Clean Power 2030 plan will add at least £25 billion per year to the cost of the electricity system. This will cause prices to soar, hitting every household in the UK with a cost-of-living increase of over £900.
Net Zero to add £900 to cost of living by 2030
via climate science
March 4, 2025 at 01:55AM
“Just when it seemed hard reality had stamped out the last baseless predictions of a global green energy revolution saving the world from climate change, the WSJ publishes a cringe-worth essay so detached from reality it’s hard to read.” (- D. Sheridan, below)
Doug Sheridan of EnergyPoint Research is part of an intellectual energy brigade that runs circles around learned academics on energy/climate issues. He recently rebutted a Review article in the weekend Wall Street Journal edition, “The Clean Energy Revolution is Unstoppable” by Eric Beinhocker and J. Doyne Farmer of Oxford University, subtitled “The Trump administration is determined to promote fossil fuels, but the economic and technological forces driving solar, wind and other sources are now too powerful to resist.”
Bunk. Such an article is now out of date with the energy ‘transition’ going in reverse. I’ll let Sheridan take it from here, before adding a final comment.
Just when it seemed hard reality had stamped out the last baseless predictions of a global green energy revolution saving the world from climate change, the WSJ publishes a cringe-worth essay so detached from reality it’s hard to read.
The essay’s authors, Eric Beinhocker and J. Doyne Farmer, both professors at the Oxford University, apparently fell into a worm hole that transported them back to Davos 2020. We found these assertions especially ridiculous:
1. “The clean energy revolution is being driven by fundamental technological and economic forces… too strong to stop. Trump’s policies can marginally slow progress in the US… but they cannot halt the fundamental dynamics of technological change or save a fossil fuel industry that will inevitably shrink dramatically in the next two decades.”
Our Take: Really? Care to tell us professors when fossil fuels will fall to below 70% of primary energy consumed globally? Because most self-respecting energy experts we follow say it’s going to be decades into the future.
2. “Solar energy is 10,000 times cheaper today than when it was first used… in 1958. The [IEA] calculates electricity from solar power with battery storage is less expensive today than electricity from new coal-fired plants in India and new gas-fired plants in the US. We project that by 2050 solar energy will cost a tenth of what it does today, making it far cheaper than any other source of energy.”
Our Take: Since 1958… seriously? That’s almost 70 years ago. Not only have the declines been far less, even flat, in recent years, solar panels now comprise too little of the cost of solar installations for further declines to matter much. And the number of places in the world in which solar + batteries is cheaper than gas- + coal-fired generation is so small as to basically be zero. It’s certainly not so in North America.
3. “When a technology is new… it grows exponentially early on. As exponential growth continues, its share suddenly becomes large, making its absolute growth large too… until the market eventually becomes saturated, and growth starts to flatten. The result is an S-shaped adoption curve.”
Our Take: This claim isn’t tethered to reality. Few if any green technologies are on paths to the kinds of high global market shares that constitute “saturation.” Not renewables, not EVs, not heat pumps, not biofuels. So spare us the S-curve claptrap.
4. “The energy transition is a one-way ticket. As the asset base shifts to clean energy technologies, large segments of fossil fuel demand will permanently disappear. Very few consumers who buy an EV will go back to fossil-fuel cars. Once utilities build cheap renewables and storage, they won’t go back to expensive coal plants.”
Our Take: There’s virtually no chance fossil fuel demand declines to such levels in the timeframe envisioned by the authors. Growth in energy demand in non-developed countries virtually guarantees it.
Final Comment
The WSJ article is a blast to an imaginary past where hopes and hyperbole pollute rational analysis. Wind and solar as grid electricity was always a government play, being dilute, intermittent, and fragile. And with the new politics toward energy exceptionalism (free market energies), the stock prices of the rent-seekers are headed south, with regular news of bankruptcies, actual and likely (Sunnova, yesterday, was the latest). [1]
The new reality is exemplified by Daniel Yergin latest. He is polite and late to question the great hoax of ‘energy transformation’. It is now just too obvious, sped up by Trump reversing the Podesta-Biden-Harris ‘all of government’ climate policy.
He recently wrote in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2025) with three coauthors, “The Troubled Energy Transition: How to Find a Pragmatic Path Forward”:
… what has been unfolding is not so much an “energy transition” as an “energy addition.” …. This was not how the energy transition was expected to proceed. Concern about climate change had raised expectations for a rapid shift away from carbon-based fuels. But the realities of the global energy system have confounded those expectations, making clear that the transition—from an energy system based largely on oil, gas, and coal to one based mostly on wind, solar, batteries, hydrogen, and biofuels—will be much more difficult, costly, and complicated than was initially expected.
He ends with a polite, something-for-everyone, all-of-the-above energy forecast:
The scale and variety of the challenges associated with the transition mean that it will not proceed as many expect or in a linear way: it will be multidimensional, proceeding at different rates with a different mix of technologies and different priorities in different regions. That reflects the complexities of the energy system at the foundation of today’s global economy. It also makes clear that the process will unfold over a long period and that continuing investment in conventional energy will be a necessary part of the energy transition. A linear transition is not possible; instead, the transition will involve significant tradeoffs. The importance of also addressing economic growth, energy security, and energy access underscores the need to pursue a more pragmatic path.
Daniel Yergin is half intellectual, half business maximizer. His pronouncements must stay in reality but not dismiss the climate agenda as anti-energy, anti-efficiency. His consultancy (in the old days Cambridge Energy Research Associates, now part of IHS Energy), has had programs for every political energy, and everyone needs to be kept happy. But Trump has changed the game, and the massive shrinkage of solar and wind firms in the new environment will end a huge constituency.
A a separation of government and energy, in fact, will shrink the whole consulting business. Energy majors and trade associations can do their own work, thank you. And maybe the energy future will look back at Yergin/CERA as an artifact of the political energy era.
————–
[1] “The ups and downs of solar installers aren’t new to the industry. In 2024, ADT, Titan Solar, SunPower and Lumio all declared bankruptcy or went out of business, though subsequently, SunPower was acquired by Complete Solar in Chapter 11 proceedings.
With new tariffs on solar manufacturers and many of the US’ closest trading partners, solar installations are likely to become more expensive in 2025. Sunnova may be one of the first companies to face serious challenges to its business model this year, but it’s not likely to be the last.”
– Sunnova Energy: Another Big Solar Installer Teeters on the Edge of Bankruptcy CNET (March 3, 2025).
The post WSJ Energy Feature Errant, Politically Obsolete (Sheridan rebuts) appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
March 4, 2025 at 01:05AM
Stephen D. Haner
The new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission used the Trump Administration’s order to have agency employees report their activities as a chance to show off. Late last week he issued a four-page letter of accomplishments on behalf of his staff, a list that might be a good month, not a good week, at some other agency.
The Chairman of FERC now, of course, is Virginia’s own Mark Christie, previously a member and sometimes chairman of our State Corporation Commission. The letter should also reassure those Americans who are hoping to see the new administration take a new direction in energy policy, accepting of hydrocarbons and focused on energy reliability.
Whether Christie answering on behalf of all his employees and fellow commissioners satisfies the request from the Department of Government Efficiency, time will tell. The substance of the report with its focus on natural gas projects likely would have infuriated many in the previous Biden Administration.
He reports that between February 14 and 24, FERC:
“Issued the following Orders under Sections 3 and 7 of NGA (Natural Gas Act) to ensure that pipeline infrastructure needed to ensure plentiful supplies of natural gas at reasonable prices are in place:
(1) Authorizing Northern Natural Gas Company to abandon, construct, and operate certain pipeline facilities in Minnesota and Wisconsin enabling Northern to provide an additional 46,064 dekatherms per day (Dth/d) of incremental firm transportation service to five natural gas customers.
(2) Authorizing Venture Global Plaquemines LNG, LLC to amend its existing authorization to increase the authorized liquefaction production capacity of LNG export facilities in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana from 24.0 to 27.2 million metric tons per annum to reflect the project’s actual capabilities.
(3) Granting a two-year extension for Iroquois Gas Transmission System, L.P. to construct and operate certain facilities in New York and Connecticut to provide up to 125,000 Dth/d of firm natural gas transportation service to delivery points in New York.”
Then he mentioned FERC’s efforts to defend in court (with briefs and oral arguments) previous permits issued on various natural gas projects. He listed three cases, including one brought against FERC over the Mountain Valley Pipeline by the environmental group Appalachian Voices. The other two cases listed were gas or LNG projects in Puerto Rico or on the border with Mexico.
Next up, construction permits:
“Issued nine notices to proceed with construction of the following natural gas infrastructure including but not limited to:
(1) Granted Woodside Louisiana LNG’s request to construct ISBL Non-Firewater Underground Piping and Cable.
(2) Granted Elba Liquefaction Company L.L.C.’s request to commence certain construction activities on its existing Movable Modular Liquefaction System facilities in Chatham County, Georgia.
(3) Granted Port Arthur LNG, LLC’s request to commence installation of a feed gas pipeline and to set the priority 1 mechanical equipment on the foundations.”
Finally, Christie turned to the longer-term issues of energy reliability and the challenge posed by the massive expansion of electricity demand to serve the data center industry. The Energy Policy Act of 2025 gave FERC a leading role in protecting the reliability and cybersecurity of the national grid.
First up: “a joint workshop with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation on March 20, 2025, to examine supply chain risk management. The workshop will examine potential actions entities may take to validate the completeness and accuracy of information received from vendors during the procurement process.”
And then:
“A Commissioner-led Technical Conference on June 4 and 5, 2025, to explore risks to energy resource adequacy; the efficiency and effectiveness of capacity markets in achieving resource adequacy at just and reasonable rates; design and performance comparisons between capacity markets and alternative resource adequacy constructs; and the roles and interests of states or other entities with legal authority in achieving resource adequacy.”
Finally, citing its authority under the Federal Power Act, FERC:
“Issued two orders approving new reliability standards to improve the reliability of electric service for consumers: the first established new mandatory performance requirements for inverter-based resources; the second approved new reliability standards for planning the bulk electric system during expected extreme heat and cold events.” Note: Inverter-based resources would be mostly solar projects. FERC just set mandatory standards for solar farm performance.
And no, this didn’t just set out the whole letter, which reported several other decisions and actions (one involving an oil pipeline). In fairness, many of the items represented months of work before a decision was made or a court brief filed and simply indicate how busy FERC has been for a while.
But does anyone imagine such a report a year ago would focus on natural gas infrastructure or make it clear that grid reliability is the summum bonum? No report to Biden would go four pages with not one mention of greenhouse gas or climate alarmism. The momentum shift is obvious and welcome.
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via Watts Up With That?
March 4, 2025 at 12:04AM
New research extensively reviews the “pitfalls” of believing the conventional wisdom about modern CO2 concentration variations, as well as the “flaws” in reconstructed CO2 values from ice cores.
The record of annual increases (or decreases) in CO2 (ΔCO2) from the NOAA database indicate that prior to 1958 there were years when CO2 increased by 4 or 5 ppm from one year to the next, or even decreased by 3.5 ppm relative to the previous year.
“[B]efore 1958 there are several years which show an increase of about 5 ppm or a decrease of about 3.5 ppm. … If these reconstructed values are correct, then there have been many years since the Industrial Revolution in which atmospheric CO2 has decreased.”
Problematically for the anthropogenic global warming narrative, it is not possible for human CO2 emissions to have driven either the 4.9 ppm increase from 1872 (286.66 ppm) to 1873 (291.56 ppm), or the 3.5 ppm decrease from 1908 to 1909. Year-to-year changes in human emissions could not have been nearly large enough to produce that much change – in either direction.
“The most impressive value is the of 4.9 ppm in 1873.”
“The year when human emissions exceeded 7.8 gigatons (Gt, equivalent to 1 ppm) was 1913. Before this year, an increase of more than 1 ppm per year is impossible, even when the CO2 increase over the Industrial Era is assumed to be of anthropogenic origin.”
The NOAA record of year-to-year change in the methane (CH4) concentration reveals a similar problem, but this time in the 1980s-to-present data.
Not only are human CH4 emissions not large enough to account for the annual changes, but the changes show a nearly 40-year declining trend, 1984 to 2013, before rising again in the last decade.
“Since atmospheric methane has actually dropped even in present days, when humans are emitting large amounts of the gas [CH4], it cannot be assumed that about 1000 ppb [parts per billion] would have accumulated and risen in previous periods of low emissions.”
There are fatal flaws in assuming we can actually derive accurate estimates of past global atmospheric CO2 concentrations from ice bubbles located at one site on Earth, Antarctica.
The author succinctly summarizes the problems with believing air from hundreds of thousands of years ago is fully sealed, uncontaminated, and never-changing in bubbles within the ice, and at no time in any and all excavation processes does the globally-representative CO2 value fail to deliver the precise measurement.
“There is no experimental evidence to prove the basic assumption of this method [that assumes the ‘composition of the gas at the time of capture will remain the same indefinitely’], that the gases in the upper layers will mix together for several years to thousands of years, and once they are sealed off, they will remain constant and no changes will occur.”
via NoTricksZone
March 3, 2025 at 10:14PM
