New Year, New Green Reality for 2022

Let's start the New Year off with a bit of news on the climate change front.  2021 was a wild climate year finishing off with 212 inches of snow in December in the Tahoe Basin--breaking a 50 year record.  We may have gotten a modest respite from the megadrought although the press quotes from Water Board officials indicate a wait-and-see position.  It can be difficult to get real insight into what is happening around the world on climate as much of the press filters out "bad news".  The Wall Street Journal often has news that you will not read in the Comicle or our local press.  They did just that last week in a piece titled "Many Climate Ambitions Will End With 2021".    The journalist, Joseph C. Sternberg, had a look around Europe and found a few interesting moves that California officials would benefit from understanding.  Here are a few snippets:

It’s New Year’s resolution season, and don’t be surprised if politicians world-wide settle into the same informal pledge: Talk as little as possible about climate change in 2022.  The biggest, most entertaining and also most telling climb-downs are happening in the U.K.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson in October unveiled an ambitious policy program to get Britain to net-zero carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050.

Sure enough, the backtracks and U-turns began before that document was written. The most controversial component of Mr. Johnson’s net-zero boondoggle concerns an attempt to steer households away from the gas boilers on which 86% of them rely for hot water and central heating.

Mr. Johnson said in October he hopes that by 2035 the government will be able to phase out installation of new natural-gas heating units. That represents a step back from earlier plans to require carbon-efficient heat pumps in new homes as early as 2025, and the extended deadline still faces stiff opposition stemming from the high cost of heat pumps.

Among the smaller reversals, the U.K. Transport Department in November backtracked from a plan to require small businesses with parking lots on their premises to install electric-vehicle charging points. The proposed rules governing other structures such as new housing, residential conversions, and new mixed-use developments are so porous as to resemble a well-aerated Swiss cheese, with cost limitation emerging as the primary concern. This difficulty installing charging stations augurs the collapse, sooner or later, of Mr. Johnson’s announced plan to ban new internal-combustion cars by 2030.

French President Emmanuel Macron faces a campaign for re-election in 2022, and he learned the hard way in 2018 how higher fuel prices can trigger debilitating popular protests.  At Mr. Macron’s behest, the European Commission in Brussels may be on the verge of including both nuclear and natural gas on a list of environmentally friendly energy sources eligible for “green investment” from governments and private investors. 

Even in Germany politicians are starting to change course.  A coal phase-out will happen ideally by 2030—with the newly inserted word “ideally” blunting Green ambitions by marking the whole project as tentative.

We are often asked to emulate our European partners in their efforts, but it appears if we do now then Californians would have to backtrack as well.  Happy 2022.

I enjoy getting input and ideas from readers on the side.  Here's one that came in overnight.

 

Comments

[Spurinna]

“Crétins utiles.” Theses are the people Lenin said would sell the Communists the rope the Communists would use to hang them.

Both China and Russia are using these folks’ “wokeness” to weaken us economically. China has the lithium and Russia the natural gas. Both burn coal on a huge scale compared to the U.S.

When Taiwan falls and the Russian pipeline is fully functional due to us caving on the Ukrainian threat the noose will be dropped on our necks.

[Handle Bard]

A Tesla S battery only is warranted for 100K miles or 8yrs and then you are paying 23K for it to be replaced before labor.

[Everything's Jake]

Spurinna makes an excellent point. Once we cede control over our food supply it's game over.

Also, I have read that the population of the USA is shrinking. If that is so, isn't that the best remedy for "pollution" reduction (yeah, I use the old school vernacular).
Why do we need so much new housing if in fact there are less people?

[Just another sinner]

This article reminded me of this site. Substitute 7.3 earthquake for hurricane and imagine this: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/foreseeable_electric_car_catastrophes_.html

[Paloma Ave]

I just read that a new generator will be installed at our new Community Center.

What will this generator run on, since our city council has BANNED natural gas in all new construction?

[Joe]

The WSJ has a slice of reality for today about new, big solar and wind installations to power the New Green World and how far behind the interconnections (transmission lines) are sinking:

Even as wind and solar has proliferated, the build-out of transmission lines crucial to their growth hasn’t caught up. The number of miles of newly built high-voltage transmission lines has declined from an annual average of 2,000 miles from 2012 to 2016 to an annual average of 700 miles between 2017 and 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Less than a quarter of projects that sought interconnection to the grid from 2000 to 2016 have been built, and the share of those making it to the finish line has declined since 2013, according to the Energy Department.

For years, the declining cost of inputs and capital helped the solar and wind industries reach new heights. Those are both areas that money and policy—especially tax credits—were able to rally behind and provide the means to tackle. Interconnection and transmission line constraints have always been crucial, but the red tape around permits and jurisdiction just isn’t as glamorous a target or one as easily resolved by throwing resources at it.