Newsletter - November 2021

If you have been watching the news you know that many of the world’s leaders went to Europe to meet in Scotland to discuss the global warming crisis and arrive at some solutions to the problem.  Now, for many people, global warming is the most important issue ever faced by the human race.  That means that we must eliminate fossil fuels which includes oil, coal and natural gas.  We are  going to be all electric. 

Question:  Do any of these green advocates understand where we get electricity from? Note:  Electricity is not produced by grabbing lightening.

Electricity is produced by the movement of electrical currents in a turbine or piston.  Most power plants make electricity with a machine called a generator, which has a rotor and stator. The rotor, or turbine, is the part of the generator that rotates and converts heat energy released from burning fossil fuels into electricity, while the stator is the part that remains stationary.  The generator then transports the electrical current along wires strung from power poles or towers to households. 

Fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas are used to generate electricity.  Power plants also use renewable energy sources and nuclear energy to generate electricity.  Statistics indicate that coal produces around 64% of the world’s electricity.  The remaining electricity comes from water, gas, nuclear and green sources.  Most developed countries rely heavily on coal for electricity production.  Several environmentally friendly power plants and energy sources have been developed. 

The big push for energy development currently is wind and solar.  Beyond the cost there are some major problems with these types of energy.  First of all, if there is no wind or sun no energy is generated.  Solar energy is not generated at night.  If there has been enough sun it is stored.  The same problem exists with wind power.  No wind or freezing conditions will stop the generation of energy. 

Tucker Carlson has a very interesting program regarding the damage caused by wind turbines.  They are huge and very difficult to recycle or dismantle cleanly.  There is a noise factor for people who live near the turbines.  They also kill many birds of all sizes.  In fact, people have had jobs consisting of sitting at Altamont Pass and recording how many raptors are killed by the turbines.  And most interesting, wind farms are never built near the homes or lands of the influential and wealthier citizens in the country.  Remember, for example, there once was a plan to place wind turbines in the water around Martha’s Vineyard.  Senator Ten Kennedy saw to it that the wind farm at Martha’s Vineyard did not happen.

Now, let’s look at some results when oil is scarce.  A wind turbine needs 80 gallons of oil as a lubricant which is a synthetic oil based on approximately 12,000 gallons of crude oil.  Every turbine needs to have its oil replaced once a year.  Wind turbines have several lubrication points:  gearbox, open gear, pitch gear, pitch bearing, rotor shaft, yaw gear, hydraulic systems, and generator bearings.

President Biden wants to get rid of crude oil in America.  He stated this very clearly in 2019. Many people may not realize how many products we have that are derivatives for thousands of products and fuels.  One 42 gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline.  The rest is used to make over 6000 items.  Many of those items are made of plastic which makes up so many of the products we use.   Here is a list of some items.  Could we live without them? How expensive could they be?

Solvent, diesel, ink, ballpoint pens, upholstery, bicycle tires, sports car bodies, antiseptics, shoes, cortisone, footballs, rubbing alcohol, hair coloring, roofing, dentures, synthetic rubber, house paint, luggage, detergents,  anesthetics, telephones, glue, electric blankets, upholstery, movie film, artificial limbs, parachutes, fertilizers, heart valves, golf balls and eyeglasses. 

Let’s look at electric cars.  Are there advantages?  Of course.  Now, what does it take to make a battery pack for Electric vehicles?  A key component of electric vehicles is lithium and rare earth minerals.  Lithium deposits are concentrated in a few countries (China, Bolivia, Chile, Afghanistan). Another raw material for electric cars is rare earth minerals.  Two minerals (terbium and dysprosium) are added to neodymium to allow it to remain magnetic at high temperatures.  

The mantra of global warming and climate change is producing draconian policies.  A person might think there are other motives behind blaming the world’s problems on  climate.  

The media is very good at highlighting all kinds of catastrophes.  Facts are often conveniently left out.  For example:  The International Disaster Database which is the biggest disaster data depository in the world attempts to register every catastrophe in the world using reports from sources around the world.  Because it is so much easier to access information today, small natural disasters from 1980 on are being recorded whereas once they were not recorded.  Therefore, it appears that there are more total disasters today.  The disaster database recorded far more U.S. hurricanes after 1980 than before.   However, the record from dozens of peer-reviewed studies shows the number of landfalling U.S. hurricanes has declined slightly since 1900.  Death records are much less pliable.  A hundred years ago, almost half a million people died on average each year from storms, floods, drought, wild fires, and extreme temperatures.  In 2020, these numbers dropped to 14,000.  So far in 2021, 5,500 people have died from climate-related disasters.  Human beings are good at adapting to the environment even at it is changing. 

When we review the appointments that the President has made it is easy to believe his statement in 2019 that he wanted to end the fossil fuel industry.  The President appointed Saule Omarova who grew up in Russia and believes the Russian system is superior to the American system to be the Controller of the Currency which means she would oversee national banks.   She has stated the following:

“for certain troubled industries and firms that are in transitioning, and here what I’m thinking about is     primarily coal industry and oil and gas industry. A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to probably go bankrupt in short order, at least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change, right?"

How is the President dealing with the fuel shortage in the United States?  He is asking OPEC to produce more oil for sale in the United States.  He has shut down pipelines in the United States and is contemplating shutting down more.  Meanwhile the price of gas in California sits at or very close to $5.00 a gallon.  Don’t forget that California has many taxes added to each gallon of gas.

The entire global warming/climate change issue is being used to make radical changes to our society and our system of government.  That is why it is so important that our children get real facts in school and that voters pay attention to who they elect and issues that are up for a vote.  Slogans that are bandied about by the establishment need to be carefully studied.  Methods that control the amount of carbon emissions need to be carefully studied and monitored. Innovation is extremely important.

The Copenhagen Consensus  which consists of 40 climate economists and three Nobel laureates found that spending $100 Billion in public funds globally every year to ramp up investment into the research and development of cheaper low-carbon energy is the best long term climate policy.  That is cheater than the $150 Billion that is estimated the world will spend subsidizing existing, inefficient solar and wind this year.

Economic growth is also crucial  Every problem, including global warming, is easier to deal with when people are more prosperous.