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MORNING ENERGY NEWS  |  11/26/2019
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And in the worst-case scenario, your grandkids are still going to be rich beyond your wildest dreams. 


Forbes (11/25/19) column: "Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of apocalyptic predictions about the impact of climate change. Bill McKibben suggested climate-driven fires in Australia had made koalas '50functionally extinct.' Extinction Rebellion said 'Billions will die' and 'Life on Earth is dying.' Vice claimed the 'collapse of civilization may have already begun'...Australia’s fires are not driving koalas extinct, as Bill McKibben suggested. The main scientific body that tracks the species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, labels the koala 'vulnerable,' which is one level less threatened than 'endangered,' two levels less than 'critically endangered,' and three less than 'extinct' in the wild...Rates of future yield growth depend far more on whether poor nations get access to tractors, irrigation, and fertilizer than on climate change, says FAO. All of this helps explain why IPCC anticipates climate change will have a modest impact on economic growth. By 2100, IPCC projects the global economy will be 300 to 500% larger than it is today. Both IPCC and the Nobel-winning Yale economist, William Nordhaus, predict that warming of 2.5°C and 4°C would reduce GDP by 2% and 5% over that same period."

"The EV tax credit is nothing but regressive cronyism. It redistributes wealth from hard-working families to subsidize a small group of wealthy people who can already afford EVs."

 

– Jason Pye, FreedomWorks

Not a single inch.


Axios (11/25/19) reports: "Climate change is playing a larger — and more polarizing — role than ever before in a presidential election. Why it matters: In the past, the topic barely registered with voters and candidates were less polarized. Today, all Democratic candidates are treating it as a crisis, with detailed plans and funding sources to address it, while President Trump ignores the problem and bashes those plans. Driving the news: In the Nov. 20 Democratic presidential debate, Joe Biden called climate change 'the' existential threat to humanity while Pete Buttigieg championed the notion of a 'carbon-negative' farm. Billionaire Tom Steyer said if elected he would call a state of emergency on his first day in office over climate change...Trump mocks and rejects mainstream climate-change science and is repealing virtually everything predecessor Barack Obama's administration did on the matter. Trump will bash the ultimate Democratic nominee's climate change plan as radical, while that person will bash the president for denying science. Don’t expect an inch of common ground...Climate change is unlikely to be the top issue for most voters in 2020. The complexity and decades-long nature of this problem makes it uniquely ill-suited for politics operating on two to six-year cycles and makes it unlikely to ever be the top priority for any sizable portion of the population. More imminent concerns, like health care and the economy, will almost always win out with most voters.

Californication is spreading like the plague, and promising similar results... 


E&E News (11/25/19) reports: "Cities in California and Massachusetts are advancing what has become the newest trend in the local fight against climate change: bans on natural gas hookups in new buildings. In July, Berkeley, Calif., outlawed them. A handful of other California communities soon followed. Then, last week, Brookline, Mass., took up the cause. In a 200-3 vote at a town meeting — the form of citizen government employed by many New England towns — Brookline residents approved a plan to block gas hookups in new homes and in major renovations. 'We need to do something about climate change,' Werner Lohe, one of the measure's sponsors, told The Boston Globe. 'We need to stop burning fossil fuels inside our buildings. ... This is the first step in Brookline toward an all-electric, all-renewable-energy world.' Berkeley and Brookline have a lot in common. Both are among the most liberal communities in overwhelmingly blue states. Both are well-educated and affluent. Brookline's vote nevertheless signals an important shift in local climate action. Where municipalities previously have focused on reducing emissions in electricity generation, attention is shifting toward the carbon footprint associated with heating and cooling buildings."

There are still some sane voices coming from the old world, not that they get to call the shots.


The Guardian (11/25/19) column: "Germany’s automobile industry is its most important industrial sector. But it is in crisis...The sector is also facing the existential threat of exceedingly strict European Union emissions requirements, which are only seemingly grounded in environmental policy. The EU clearly overstepped the mark with the carbon dioxide regulation that went into effect on 17 April 2019...Even the most gifted engineers will not be able to build internal combustion engines (ICEs) that meet the EU’s prescribed standards (unless they force their customers into soapbox cars). But, apparently, that is precisely the point. The EU wants to reduce fleet emissions by forcing a shift to EVs. After all, in its legally binding formula for calculating fleet emissions, it simply assumes EVs do not emit any CO2 whatsoever...But the EU’s formula is nothing but a huge scam. Evs also emit substantial amounts of CO2, the only difference being that the exhaust is released at a remove – that is, at the power plant. As long as coal- or gas-fired power plants are needed to ensure energy supply during the 'dark doldrums' when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, EVs, like ICE vehicles, run partly on hydrocarbons. And even when they are charged with solar- or wind-generated energy, enormous amounts of fossil fuels are used to produce EV batteries in China and elsewhere, offsetting the supposed emissions reduction." 

Outlawing fossil fuels to reach 100% renewables would spell the end for the batteries needed to support 100% renewables! 


Green Tech Media (11/25/19) reports: "More scrutiny is being placed on the carbon cost of battery manufacturing, in both the automotive and stationary storage sectors. Manufacturing emissions are lower for conventional vehicles than for EVs, where the batteries make up around 30 percent of greenhouse gas output. Cheap batteries are essential to enabling the grid to reach 100 percent renewables...Apart from lithium, there is one material that is currently a fundamental part of all lithium-ion batteries, regardless of cathode chemistry: graphite. Graphite is a strangely unnoticed piece of the lithium-ion battery; it is the weightiest constituent of most installations...Graphite comes in two forms: natural graphite, which is mined, and synthetic graphite, which is produced from petroleum coke or coal tar. Here lies the emissions issue: Graphite is only produced by crushing and then roasting a mined product or as a byproduct of coal mining or oil refining...As electrification and decarbonization transition the world from fossil fuels they will, ironically, threaten the supply of key materials necessary to make these goals reality by reducing fossil fuel refining and thus the opportunity to make graphite. "

Energy Markets

 
WTI Crude Oil: ↑ $58.14
Natural Gas: ↓ $2.46
Gasoline: ↓ $2.58
Diesel: ~ $3.00
Heating Oil: ↑ $195.29
Brent Crude Oil: ↑ $63.77
US Rig Count: ↑ 824

 
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