Accelerate the World's Transition to Sustainable Energy - to fight Anthropogenic Climate Change, page-6387 - HotCopper | ASX Share Prices, Stock Market & Share Trading Forum

Originally posted by Penny Pincher ↑

madam

You raise some valid and interesting points in your post.

I read the following paragraphs that you wrote:

What about the billions of people experiencing acute disruption and dislocation this very moment, because they don't have access to affordable energy? Because energy is a globally fungible good today, and when there is a global shortage of energy the market for it clears where the highest bidder is prepared to pay. And the highest bidders are the citizens of wealthy countries, their bids supported by subsidies and support payments from their governments. But billions of citizens in poorer countries get crowded out and are consigned to energy poverty

Yes, as I have stated many times before, it is therefore the responsibility of the wealthy nations to push ahead at maximum speed to transition to sustainable energy. By doing so, they alleviate a number of different problems at once:

1.) They use their immense wealth to slow man-made climate change, which will affect all of mankind, rich and poor alike, but more likely it will affect the poor orders of magnitude worse than the rich.

2.). By rich nations rapidly reducing their fossil fuel consumption, whatever little fossil fuel budget is still available to mankind will become available to poor developing nations, thus - all else being equal - alleviating some of the pricing pressures experienced at the moment.

3.). Rather than sanctimonious preaching to poor nations to switch off fossil fuels, the rich nations should offer cheap renewable energy solutions to developing nations. The rich must develop the technology for the poor, as they do not have the means to do so themselves.

4.). The rich must also assist the poor in the financing of renewable energy - i.e. the fact that, while renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel generation, it requires an up-front investment, with benefits recouped over the lifetime of the renewable energy generation infrastructure.

You can imagine my frustration, when I then hear people bleat about Australia only contributing 0.00000000000X% to global warming or arguing that really China and India are the real problem, etc.

The irony of you pointing out in your previous post how China dominates the processing market for renewable energy, while others say China is not doing anything on renewable energy, building new coal power stations, etc.

Is China dominating the renewable energy space bay accident or by design I wonder?

You also quoted a few articles in your above post. No doubt you will pivot and say that they are just msm articles and hence not analytically sound. However, I carefully read them, an have a few observations:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/25/...ralia-coal-climate-change-intl-hnk/index.html

In the article, the cause for the current energy crisis is explained as follows:

What's causing the problem?

While each of these countries faces a unique set of circumstances, all have been hit by the twin effects of the coronavirus pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine — two unforeseeable events that have turned on their heads previously reasonable assumptions about supply lines and regional security and in the process plunged the world of economic planning into chaos.

At root, experts say, the problem lies in a growing mismatch between supply and demand.

Over the past couple of years, the pandemic kept demand for energy unusually low, with global electricity consumption dropping by more than 3% in the first quarter of 2020 as lockdowns and other restrictions kept workers at home, cars off the road, and ships stuck in ports.

But now, as nations begin to put the pandemic behind them, demand for fuel is spiking — and the sudden competition is pushing the prices of coal, oil and gas to record highs.

Turbo-charging this trend is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the world's third largest oil producer and second largest crude oil exporter. With the United States and many of its allies sanctioning Russian oil and gas, many countries have been left scrambling to find alternative sources — heating up the competition for limited supplies even further.

"Energy demand has rebounded quite quickly from the coronavirus and more quickly than supply," said Samantha Gross, director of the Brookings Institute's Energy Security and Climate Initiative.

Obviously, there is a mismatch between supply and demand, but the cause for the supply issue is very very different to what you argue it is. Fascist greenies cutting fossil fuel supply vs COVID recovery and Ukraine war. Take your pick!

Then you quote the RepublicWorld article:

https://www.republicworld.com/world...o-obtain-lng-amid-war-report-articleshow.html

Here Pakistan's Minister for Petroleum is quoted as follows:

"Since supply from Russia is suspended due to the war with Ukraine, European countries are also buying gas from everywhere it's available. As a result, LNG, which was priced at USD 4 two-and-a-half years ago, is no longer available for even USD 40. So, Russia's war with Ukraine created a real crisis," Musadik Malik said as per ANI.

So yes, no argument that wealthy nations are buying up scarce fossil fuel supplies instead of relying on renewable energy, as they should. However, I note the very different conclusion about cause and effect of the situation made by Pakistan's Minister for Petroleum compared to the one you so vociferously promote here on HC.

How come Mr Malik does not blame long term underinvestment in fossil fuel exploration and development due to political pressure from fascist greenies for the current crisis I wonder? Given his portfolio responsibility, it is odd that he does not even touch on this possibility.

I also note, that there is only a SINGLE reader comment on the article by someone who I suspect to be a local reader:

Zak Vera: "Establishment of (more) solar and wind farms is overdue."

Who would have thunk?!?

Poor people crying out for renewable energy...

What people in the developing world are crying out for is cheap energy. I cannot tell you what the price of coal, gas or oil will be over the next 2, 5, 10 or 25 years will be, but I can guarantee that the wind will blow and the sun will shine - for free!

Next article:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06...sters-to-russia-for-oil-amid-crisis/101187450

When you actually read this to the end, it does discuss the root cause of the problem:

Mr Wickremesinghe also said last week that the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was US$700 million in debt and, as a result, no country or organisation was willing to provide fuel.

Protesters have occupied the entrance to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office for more than two months demanding his resignation.

Protesters say the primary responsibility for the crisis rests with him and his family, whom they accuse of corruption and mismanagement.

Is this perhaps just the ABC's woke reporting?!? A quick Google search for Sri Lankan protest suggests otherwise. It seems the the locals are not that keen on coal either:

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/sri...esident-rajapaksa-struck-dubious-deal-3072337

So just to be clear, the protesters on the ground in Sri Lanka have a very different opinion about what is the root cause of their situation compared to the pontifications of someone here on HC who is living cosy, warm and affluent in a developed county.

Do I need to go on?

Expand

Bit of a word potpourri from you, but which I think can be distilled into the following points:

1.) Rich countries must help poor countries in the financing of renewable energy.

2.) The global crisis is caused by a rebound in energy demand after Covid and due to Russia's actions in Ukraine

Starting with 1.):

As has been pointed out to you, which you've chosen to ignore, there is more than just dollars of capital involved in developing renewable energy.

There is the not-so-small matter of the principles of physics, geology and mining engineering when it comes to doing so.

Rich countries could tomorrow tax their citizens more to create the money to give to poor countries (or they can print money, as they have been wont to do for the past two decades), but you can't print the physical materials required, or the skills required to deliver renewables to poor countries, in a short enough time frame that diminishes their dependency of fossil fuels for economic development.

Even if you were able to wave a magic wand tomorrow and make US$20 trillion (or heck, US$30 trillion or even US$50 trillion) magically appear -specifically for investment into renewables - it would make no difference to the pace at which renewables are able to get rolled out.

For the simple reason that FINANCE is not the limiting parameter in the renewable investment function; the constraint is governed by PHYSICS, GEOLOGY and ENGINEERING.

Why even the EIA - not exactly known for its resistance to Renewable energy - provides some stark reality checks on the physical world requirements when it comes to renewables, namely that EVs are 6 times more materials-intensive than conventional vehicles, and wind power is 13 times more materials intensive than gas fired power. (Metals-intensity is a direct inverse proxy for ERoEI, unless you chose to conveniently ignore that concept because it doesn't accord with your ideology)

The projected demand increases for various critical metals under the IEA's Sustainable Development Scenario are as follows:

So a 42-fold increase in lithium demand, 25-fold increase in demand for graphite and 21-fold increase in demand for cobalt over the next two decades.

But let's ignore the practical implications of those unprecedented - and simply unattainable - increases and let's look at just nickel, for which the demand growth will be "only" 19 times over the next 20 years.

For context, nickel supply over the past 20 years (2000 to 2020 data) increased by a factor of just 2.8 times (from around 900,000 tonnes in 2000 to 2.5 mt in 2020) [Source: International Nickel Study Group - https://insg.org/index.php/about-nickel/production-usage/]

And remember, that supply increase coincided with the mother of all commodity booms over that period, driven by China, so the nickel industry was hard pressed to deliver that increase.

So during a very strong demand boom, the nickel industry was only able to expand by 2.8 times over two decades.

And now there is an expectation it will need to increase by 19 times over the coming two decades (?!?)

In Excel spreadsheets, perhaps, but not in the real world.

(Oh, and another not-so-small matter to consider is that, like many minerals, the grade of the world's nickel deposits are declining, meaning that over the future decades, disproportionately more ore would need to be mined, moved and processed, per tonne of nickel produced.)

As the IEA itself concedes (and it must take a lot for it do so given its staunchly pro-renewables narrative), a looming mismatch between mineral supply and climate "ambition" exists.

"Looming mismatch"... bit of an understatement:

As for Point 2.), i.e.., your platitudinous position of, "Obviously, there is a mismatch between supply and demand, but the cause for the supply issue is very very different to what you argue it is. Fascist greenies cutting fossil fuel supply vs COVID recovery and Ukraine war. Take your pick!"

My pick is based on the facts.

And the facts are:

1.) The energy crisis started 12 months ago, long before there was even any talk of Russia going into Ukraine, and

2.) Global energy demand in 2021 - when oil, coal and gas prices had already moved up significantly - was still well down on pre-Covid levels and has only just matched 2019 levels.

So "Covid-recovery"is a furphy because it's not like there is now some extraordinary energy demand; all that has happened is that demand has gone back to normalised level.

As for Russian impact, another furphy, because oil is a globally fungible commodity and Russia is today still exporting as much oil as it did before the Ukraine situation; it's just that the barrels that the EU isn't taking from Russia, India and China are taking instead.

But in totality, the world is still seeing the same amount of barrels coming out of China.

"Yes, as I have stated many times before, it is therefore the responsibility of the wealthy nations to push ahead at maximum speed to transition to sustainable energy.

You can state what the responsibility of wealthy nations is until the cows come how; however, as has been demonstrated by none other than the IEA's figures,, maximum speed is determined not by platitudes nor by keyboard warriors typing the words "push ahead at maximum speed", but by the limitations of geological physics.

1.) They use their immense wealth to slow man-made climate change, which will affect all of mankind, rich and poor alike, but more likely it will affect the poor orders of magnitude worse than the rich.

Except that the restrictive policies that limit the development and supply of reliable energy today, i.e,, fossil fuels, is affecting poor people as we speak.

Unlike the people living in rich countries, the billions living in the developing world don't have the safety nets - of their governments giving them handouts to ease the cost of living pain due to a global shortage of the energy type on which they today depend, and will continue to depend for several decades to come.

2.). By rich nations rapidly reducing their fossil fuel consumption, whatever little fossil fuel budget is still available to mankind will become available to poor developing nations, thus - all else being equal - alleviating some of the pricing pressures experienced at the moment.

Expect that, in modern day "Let them eat cake" style, the Great Proponents of Renewable Energy, the glorious EU, are in fact, doing the exact opposite of reducing their fossil fuel consumption; they are increasing their consumption of fossil fuels:

(And remember, those are figures for 2021... even before the Russia-Ukraine situation)

These are the same people not happy about investment in fertilizer capacity in Africa, despite the looming food shortages:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...-poorer-nations-food-crisis-bites-2022-06-20/

The hypocrisy of the affluent, western-centric, EV-driving, Energy Imperialists is eye-popping.

3.). Rather than sanctimonious preaching to poor nations to switch off fossil fuels, the rich nations should offer cheap renewable energy solutions to developing nations. The rich must develop the technology for the poor, as they do not have the means to do so themselves.

As for "sanctimonious preaching to poor nations to switch off fossil fuels", it is the very action of the Greens and other ideological climate fascists which are restricting the global supply of fossil fuels, thereby making them more expensive to poor nations; nations whose people which depend on those fossil fuels to cook their food and heat their homes, schools and hospitals.

And again, rich nations can offer "cheap" renewables all they like, there is not the physical capacity to deliver those renewables in a timely fashion. The geological endowment designed by Mother Nature simply doesn't allow it.

In the meantime, poor countries are being denied cheap energy because the wealthy global Energy Imperialists are outbidding them in the market for it.

Because, rich nations - i.e., Europe - which are short of energy today, are turning back to fossil fuels.
Remember?

So much for the existential crisis presented by climate change, eh? That the mere prospect of a bit of a cold upcoming northern hemisphere winter causes the Europeans to suddenly embrace such evil sources of energy?

But... but... but..... What about the future of the children?

Given the threat of climate change, surely Brussels should issue an urgent edict that - for the sake of the planet - no European country is to import more coal or gas, even if it means a sharp economic downturn?

4.). The rich must also assist the poor in the financing of renewable energy - i.e. the fact that, while renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel generation, it requires an up-front investment, with benefits recouped over the lifetime of the renewable energy generation infrastructure.

You keep thinking that a magic wand - be it financial or technological - is able to be waved and it will all happen.

In doing so you keep ignoring the structural limitations in the rate at which renewable energy systems can be delivered, which no amount of "up-front" investment can bypass.