In this mailing:

  • Francis Menton: A Mostly Wind- and Solar-Powered U.S. Economy Is a Dangerous Fantasy
  • Yves Mamou: France: Emmanuel Macron Reelected

A Mostly Wind- and Solar-Powered U.S. Economy Is a Dangerous Fantasy

by Francis Menton  •  April 25, 2022 at 5:00 am

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  • When President Biden and other advocates of wind and solar generation speak, they appear to believe that the challenge posed is just a matter of currently having too much fossil fuel generation and not enough wind and solar; and therefore, accomplishing the transition to "net zero" will be a simple matter of building sufficient wind and solar facilities and having those facilities replace the current ones that use the fossil fuels.

  • They are completely wrong about that.

  • The proposed transition to "net zero" via wind and solar power is not only not easy, but is a total fantasy. It likely cannot occur at all without dramatically undermining our economy, lifestyle and security, and it certainly cannot occur at anything remotely approaching reasonable cost. At some point, the ongoing forced transition... will crash and burn.

  • [I]t doesn't matter whether you build a million wind turbines and solar panels, or a billion, or a trillion. On a calm night, they will still produce nothing, and will require full back-up from some other source.

  • If you propose a predominantly wind/solar electricity system, where fossil fuel back-up is banned, you must, repeat must, address the question of energy storage. Without fossil fuel back-up, and with nuclear and hydro constrained, storage is the only remaining option. How much will be needed? How much will it cost? How long will the energy need to remain in storage before it is used?

  • There should be highly-detailed engineering studies of how the transition can be accomplished.... But the opposite is the case. At the current time, the government is paying little to no significant attention to the energy storage problem. There is no detailed engineering plan of how to accomplish the transition. There are no detailed government-supported studies of how much storage will be needed, or of what technology can accomplish the job, or of cost.

  • It gets worse:.... Ken Gregory calculated the cost of such a system as well over $100 trillion, before even getting to the question of whether battery technology exists that can store such amounts of energy for months on end and then discharge the energy over additional months. And even at that enormous cost, that calculation only applied to current levels of electricity consumption.... For purposes of comparison, the entire U.S. GDP is currently around $22 trillion per year.

  • In other words: we have a hundred-trillion-or-so dollar effort that under presidential directive must be fully up and running by 2035, with everybody's light and heat and everything else dependent on success, and not only don't we have any feasibility study or demonstration project, but we haven't started the basic research yet, and the building where the basic research is to be conducted won't be ready until 2025.

  • Meanwhile the country heads down a government-directed and coerced path of massively building wind turbines and solar panels, while forcing the closure of fully-functioning power plants burning coal, oil and natural gas. It is only a question of time before somewhere the system ceases to work.... [I]t is easy to see how the consequences could be dire. Will millions be left without heat in the dead of winter, in which case many will likely die? Will a fully-electrified transportation system get knocked out, stranding millions without ability to get to work? Will our military capabilities get disabled and enable some sort of attack?

  • No sane, let alone competent, government would ever be headed down this path.

The Biden Administration's proposed transition to "net zero" via wind and solar power is not only not easy, but is a total fantasy. It likely cannot occur at all without dramatically undermining our economy, lifestyle and security, and it certainly cannot occur at anything remotely approaching reasonable cost. At some point, the ongoing forced transition will crash and burn. (Photo by VCG via Getty Images)

With or without Congressional support, President Joe Biden has determined to move the U.S. as quickly as possible toward an economy predominantly powered by wind- and solar-sourced electricity. In his earliest days in office, Biden issued multiple Executive Orders directing the federal bureaucracy to bend all efforts to achieve this goal. One of those early Executive Orders, dated January 27, 2021 and titled "Tackling the Climate Crisis At Home and Abroad," stated:

"It is the policy of my Administration to organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis to implement a Government-wide approach that reduces climate pollution in every sector of the economy..."

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France: Emmanuel Macron Reelected
The Nationalists Become a Minority in Their Own Country

by Yves Mamou  •  April 25, 2022 at 4:00 am

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  • This French presidential election is a good illustration of the conflict that runs through all Western societies, namely the fight between the mobile and the rooted, between globalists and nationalists, between progressive elites and common citizens, between those who feel good everywhere and those who feel good where they were born.

  • Since the late 1980s, all French political life has been built on a fiction. In France, anyone who opposes the progressive establishment, anyone who opposes immigration policy, anyone who criticizes, say, the violence -- or the suppression of women and free speech -- in Islam, is considered the equivalent of Adolf Hitler's nephew.

  • During the two weeks preceding the second round of the just-concluded presidential election, all observers had the feeling that in France, a titanic metaphysical battle was taking place between Good and Evil.

  • The public service radio certified every five minutes that Marine Le Pen was "extreme right" (meaning "racist" and "Nazi").

  • [T]he exhibition of voting intentions in favor of Macron "was kind of a farce". All these personalities who express themselves on the vote, do not seek to "share an opinion... but to exhibit their perfect morality". For these people, "to think right is to think well. And to think well means to think like them". — Julia de Funes, author, Le Figaro, April 15, 2022.

  • In France there is "a single party and if you are not part of it, you are a fascist, a racist, a xenophobe!" — Michel Onfray, author, Twitter, April, 21, 2022.

The globalists have won. Emmanuel Macron was re-elected President of the French Republic on April 24, 2022 with an estimated 58% of the votes. Marine Le Pen, his challenger, got only 42% of the votes. Pictured: Macron speaks at a rally during election night, April 24, 2022 in Paris, France. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The globalists have won. Emmanuel Macron was re-elected President of the French Republic on April 24, 2022 with an estimated 58% of the votes. Marine Le Pen, his challenger, got only 42% of the votes.

This French presidential election is a good illustration of the conflict that runs through all Western societies, namely the fight between the mobile and the rooted, between globalists and nationalists, between progressive elites and common citizens, between those who feel good everywhere and those who feel good where they were born.

But in France, this classic conflict between the top and the bottom of society is not perceived as such. Since the late 1980s, all French political life has been built on a fiction. In France, anyone who opposes the progressive establishment, anyone who opposes immigration policy, anyone who criticizes, say, the violence -- or the suppression of women and free speech -- in Islam, is considered the equivalent of Adolf Hitler's nephew.

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