Intro by Steve Cook

This featured article from The Conservative Woman provides an insightful summary of a new paper from Alexander Stahel of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

It is becoming clear that Western Civilisation is facing an energy shortage of crisis proportions as a direct result of the idiocy of governments heavily infiltrated by subversive factions.

“Idiocy” may be too charitable a word for it. Downright sabotage is probably a more apt term for:

Buying into, furthering and expanding the “climate change” psyop that promoted a dangerously false “climate crisis” narrative.

Pursuant to that false narrative and resultant hysteria hobby-horsing the shutting down of existing energy production (fossil fuels, nuclear and so forth) before adequate replacements could be brought on line in sufficient volume.

Selecting and pushing inadequate replacements in the form of wind and solar that, whilst being ingenious technologies, were unsuited to the task of powering the grids of modern nations.

Steadfastly neglecting or ignoring much more adequate replacements such as nuclear (especially the safer/cleaner thorium reactors) and wave/tidal power.

Concealing the dangerous shortcomings of wind and solar from the public. As a result, by the time they have become evident (now) and can no longer be hidden, we find ourselves with a catastrophe on our hands.

In our view, the foul-ups are so glaring and so catastrophic they cannot be explained away by “mere stupidity” on the part of our politicians and their puppet masters.

This is an act of sabotage, an effort to plunge into poverty and bring down an entire civilisation.

The damage of course can be repaired but it is so extensive the job is going to take a few years. So things are likely to be tough for a while. But if we unite, stand shoulder to shoulder and help one another as a community, we’ll get through it.

It is our view at this time that our government is so heavily infiltrated at the highest levels that it will make the right noises but actually do very little to earnestly and honestly handle the situation and the very real dangers in it.

And of course it will be the nation’s less well off and its working producers who will bear the brunt of the suffering created by the wealthy parasites and dopey utopians at the top.

So the wealthy parasites, dopey utopians and their collaborators will have to be booted out of the way in order to get done what needs to be done.

What is needed, should we find ourselves governed by people who give a crap is:

A crash program to restore oil and gas and perhaps coal power as quickly as possible.

Oil, gas and coal to keep the nation self-sufficient and the show on the road whilst a crash program is engaged to make the country fully and abundantly self sufficient in nuclear and wave/tidal power. The more abundant and thus cheaper we can make energy, the more we open up the possibility of an economic boom and genuine prosperity.

As replacement technologies come on line, then older technologies, should the People so desire, can be phased out in a sensible manner.

Be all that as it may, here is the featured article from the ever-sane Conservative Woman.

The dark continent: How ‘green’ power insanity will black out Europe

by Kathy Gyngell

Countries are closing reliable nuclear and fossil-fuelled power stations while hoping interconnectors – cables linking different grids – will make up the deficit. But they won’t, according to the paper’s author, Alexander Stahel, a Swiss-based commodities expert.

He explains that the European grid has relied on French and German power surpluses for many years. However, with nuclear power in both countries being wound down and the two likely to soon become net power importers – and with fierce international competition for scarce gas supplies – the whole continent is now left hoping for Scandinavian hydro power and occasional surpluses of UK wind to save it.

According to Stahel, the numbers just don’t add up, and he warns that restrictions on fossil fuel investment are making things dramatically worse.

‘Fossil fuels are currently vital for keeping the lights on, but we are undermining the industry’s viability,’ he says. ‘It needs 300billion US dollars of re-investment every year, for oil and gas alone, just to maintain current production levels.

‘However, convinced by policymakers that investments in production will become “stranded”, it is not even investing half this amount.’

Stahel says Europe must simply accept that its decarbonisation targets are not achievable.

The European electricity grid, he writes, is a modern miracle – the largest synchronous electrical grid (by connected power) in the world. It interconnects 520million end consumers in 32 countries, including several that are not EU members, such as Morocco and Turkey. Most importantly, ‘it is built on physics, not ideology’.

The generation of alternating current that flows through the grid must match consumption, because electricity largely cannot be stored. This simple fact is critical, says Stahel, for understanding the problem that faces it.

‘In order to ensure that supply meets demand across Europe, electrical load is constantly being forecast, in blocks as short as 15 minutes long, and thousands of generators bid to meet that demand.

‘The network frequency is the key measure of the health of the grid. Measured locally, but of supra-regional significance, it is the first indicator of an imbalance between supply and demand.

‘It must be kept within very narrow bounds; a failure to do so would lead to damage to infrastructure or even the complete shutdown of the system. Frequency deviations – incidents – happen for many reasons, but have become more common as the share of wind and solar on the grid has increased.

‘Renewables are not dispatchable – their output cannot be increased minute to minute to meet a shortage of supply – so from a grid perspective they are unreliable. The impact of their widespread deployment is clear from the fact that frequency incidents have increased from 33 hours in 2020 to over 52 hours in 2021, an increase of more than 50 per cent in just one year.

‘In 2021 alone, the European grid had two major (Scale 2) incidents, for which final explanatory reports had to be prepared by an expert panel at the grid operator, Entso-e (European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity). The underlying issue is that the European grid is increasingly unable to supply enough power to meet demand.’

A few countries, he notes, are particularly problematic.

Italy is by far the worst offender, having closed its nuclear power stations in the 1990s, building only a few onshore wind farms and none offshore at all, and therefore now having an almost complete reliance on natural gas, for which it has failed to secure a reliable supply.

Austria has a mix of hydro and natural gas, but relies on Germany to balance the books. It appears to have escaped the notice of the country’s leaders that Germany has been engaged on the Energiewende– a shift to renewables and away from nuclear power and fossil fuels – for the last 20 years.

Hungary relies on Russian supplies of natural gas to fuel its electricity grid.

Slovakia and Finland have at least managed to bring some new nuclear power onstream, but it has been hard and expensive and the process is yet to be completed.

The Netherlands relies on natural gas, and the country is sitting on the massive Groningen gas field. But the Dutch have decided to phase out production there, leaving themselves at the mercy of international LNG (liquefied natural gas) markets.

Stahel identifies four major short-term issues, and one gigantic structural long-term problem, all of which should alarm policymakers across the continent.

But the problem is the policymakers themselves – ‘the handful of people in positions of power who have committed us to a dramatic reduction of our carbon dioxide emissions’, and the European Commission, which has transformed these commitments into a legal requirement to reduce emissions by 55 per cent from 1990 levels before 2030 – the so-called ‘Fit for 55’ laws, setting in motion a change to society of a scale that is hard to comprehend.

You can read the full paper here.

Visit People’s Media at Liberty Rising

www.strong-voices.net

••••

The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)

••••

Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.

••••

Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

••••

Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.