In late November of last year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York indicted Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani, founder of one of India’s biggest companies, on securities and wire fraud charges.
via CFACT
February 1, 2025 at 02:16PM
By Paul Homewood
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is off on one of his rants against fossil fuels yet again.
In his latest Telegraph article, “Right-wing wokeism can’t stop green tech winning the global energy war”, he reprises exactly the same arguments he has been using for years:
If green energy is the future, as he claims, then obviously there is no need for renewable subsidies, mandates, bans or all of the other laws and regulations being applied to enforce Net Zero
And simply comparing unit costs of solar power with fossil fuels is not something any competent economist would do. As we know, that does not address the indirect costs associated with wind and solar power.
That is why even DESNZ admit that the UK will need to maintain a full working fleet of gas power stations at immense cost, for use when the wind does not blow.
AEP also still does not seem to understand that solar power in the UK and other northern latitude countries is virtually worthless in winter. It would cost trillions to provide battery storage to store enough electricity to cover for this. That leaves us with wind power, which is also highly intermittent and costs more than gas power.
The world is not galloping towards a green future, as AEP imagines, wind and solar still only accounted for a paltry 6% of the world’s energy in 2023:
BP Energy Review
He uses the example of Pakistan, which he pretends is moving fast to solar power. It is not – solar energy only made up 0.3% of the mix in 2023, while fossil fuels contributed 81.9%:
BP Energy Review
As for China leading the world on renewables, suffice it to say wind and solar only accounted for 8.0% of their energy in 2023, well below the UK figure of 12.9%.
He still does not get the fact that the world cannot run on intermittent renewable alone, no matter how cheap they might appear on future. The rest of the world worked this out a long time ago. It is only dinosaurs like AEP and Miliband who are still living in the world of twenty years ago, when Big Government thought it could dictate how the world ran.
I have great difficulty understanding why the Telegraph keep paying for AEP to write this drivel week after week.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
February 1, 2025 at 12:18PM
It’s finally happening. The Ivanpah Solar Power Plant, the behemoth of bureaucratic blundering and incinerated wildlife, is circling the drain. Once celebrated as a game-changer for renewable energy, it’s now being quietly escorted off the stage with a “nothing to see here, folks” attitude. After just 11 years of struggling to justify its own existence, Ivanpah is headed for closure. Good riddance.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — What was once the world’s largest solar power plant of its type appears headed for closure just 11 years after opening, under pressure from cheaper green energy sources. Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to blame the Mojave Desert plant for killing thousands of birds and tortoises.
Ivanpah opened in 2014, with all the usual pomp and circumstance, hailed as a “breakthrough moment for clean energy.” It sprawled over five square miles of federal land in the Mojave Desert, a shiny testament to the boundless hubris of central planners who thought they could beat the free market with subsidies and a prayer.
The concept was dazzling—350,000 computer-controlled mirrors would reflect sunlight onto boilers atop three massive towers, creating steam to turn turbines. It was supposed to be a triumph of innovation. Instead, it became a cautionary tale about what happens when green energy dreams collide with reality.
The plant has faced problems from the very start. First, it never produced as much electricity as promised. The reason? The sun didn’t shine as much as expected. Yes, you read that correctly. Somehow, the geniuses behind this project failed to account for… clouds.
Another unexpected problem: not enough sun. Weather predictions for the area underestimated the amount of cloud cover that has blanketed Ivanpah since it went into service in 2013.
https://ca.audubon.org/news/ivanpah-fails-deliver-energy-promise
Then there was the minor issue of mass wildlife casualties. Conservationists tried to warn the bright-eyed eco-planners that plopping a giant death ray in the middle of the Mojave might not be the best idea. But they were dismissed—until reports started rolling in of birds bursting into flames mid-flight as they passed through the intense reflected sunlight. The phenomenon was dubbed “streamers” because, well, that’s what happens when a bird spontaneously combusts.
A new study by consultants hired by the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert estimate that the plant killed somewhere between 2,500 and 6,700 birds in its first year. Their best guess is the actual number is around 3,500. The facility got a lot of attention from bird conservationists when observers reported seeing birds actually catch on fire in middair near the intense heat generated by the facility.
And let’s not forget the desert tortoises, another unintended casualty. Environmentalists initially fought the plant’s construction, arguing it would destroy pristine habitat. They were right. But instead of admitting defeat, the Sierra Club and others spun this disaster as a “learning experience” about how not all renewable energy projects are created equal.
Even if Ivanpah hadn’t been a wildlife crematorium, it still couldn’t make the numbers work. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which had agreed to buy power from Ivanpah, has decided to cut its losses. The utility company announced it will terminate its contracts with the plant, stating that keeping them would be a waste of money. In corporate-speak: “PG&E determined that ending the agreements at this time will save customers money”.
Southern California Edison, which buys the remaining power, is also looking for an escape route. When even California utilities, which have bent over backward to subsidize and mandate renewable energy, decide you’re a lost cause, you know the end is near.
The plan is to start shutting down Ivanpah’s operations by 2026, though the original contracts were supposed to last until 2039. That means we get to clean up this mess a full 13 years earlier than expected. The owners, including NRG Energy, are now talking about possibly repurposing the site for photovoltaic solar panels instead. Because that technology, unlike Ivanpah’s glorified magnifying glass, kinda sorta works, sometimes… well better than Ivanpah at least, leading to this awesome quote:
NRG said in a statement that the project was successful, but unable to compete with rival photovoltaic solar technology — such as rooftop panels — which have much lower capital and operating costs.
But the question remains: Who’s going to pay for this transition? The same taxpayers who funded this failed experiment in the first place? That part hasn’t been answered, but if history is any guide, the bill will find its way to the public. Socal Edison is begging the Department of Energy to buy them out. The same DoE that wasted money funding this boondoggle in the first place.
Ivanpah is a shining (literally) example of what happens when ideology replaces sound economic and engineering principles. It was never about producing reliable, cost-effective energy. It was about making a grand, symbolic gesture in the fight against climate change. And as with most grand, symbolic gestures, reality eventually caught up.
So let’s all take a moment to bid farewell to Ivanpah, the multimillion-dollar death trap that killed birds, displaced tortoises, and wasted billions—all for an energy source that couldn’t even compete with rooftop solar.
Goodbye, Ivanpah. You won’t be missed.
H/T Clyde Spencer, doonman, Resouceguy, Yirgach
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via Watts Up With That?
February 1, 2025 at 12:05PM
