COP26 will herald a global energy crisis
Climate change politics will kill more people than CO2
Joe Biden has doubled down on “climate change” rhetoric and is struggling to get support from both houses of Congress to spend trillions fighting climate change. John Kerry joins Biden and Canadian officials including Justin Trudea, Steven Guilbeault and (surprisingly) Gerald Butts at Glasgow to negotiate even more stringent cutbacks in oil & gas production worldwide to limit “global average temperature” rises over the next few decades.
None of the dignitaries pays even lip service to the undeniable fact that no “global average temperature” even exists or could be measured if it did exist. In the words of a renowned physicist:
While the inane policies of Trudeau, Biden and a host of other deluded world leaders have done nothing to alter the course of nature, they have curtailed necessary supplies of fossil fuels to the point where there is an emerging global energy crisis. Even left wing media outlets like Bloomberg now see the problem and predict blackouts and factory closures as likely during the winter months.
One of the best indicators of the depth of the problem is the price of natural gas in key world markets and how quickly it has risen under Biden’s administration, among others. Here is a chart showing the natural gas price increases in key world markets since Biden was elected and Trudeau re-elected - increases of 400% in the UK and well over 500% in Japan and the Netherlands.
For those confused about just how high those prices are, it is useful to convert them to their energy-equivalent price compared to crude oil. A barrel of crude oil producers 6.1 times as much energy (measured in BTU’s) as a thousand cubic of gas. $30 natural gas is the equivalent of oil at $183 US. per barrel. Natural gas prices have very little friction meaning that even small local shortages can drive the spot price in a given market to double or triple overnight or collapse with similar speed if there is a surfeit in supply. The dramatic price changes in February 2020 in Texas when the State experienced a bitter cold snap was a demonstration of how quickly natural gas markets can change, when in some areas the price rose by hundreds of percentage points in hours.
As a reference point, home heating costs in the United Kingdom in 2018 averaged £1,138. This year, at $26.38 per million BTU’s at the wholesale level, the ty;pical UK home could easily cost over £5,000 to heat and that price could easily double if the natural gas shortage persists and Britain experiences a cold winter. The average household income in the U.K. is about £33,000 and the looming U.K. energy crisis could see home heating alone capture 15 to 30% of household income. Many British people live only a few pounds a month away from insolvency, and Boris Johnson is going to a face a disappointed electorate if the man-made energy crisis drives thousands into insolvency courts.
There are few options for the U.K. or Europe to relieve the energy shortage. Coal was an option but ill-thought-through policies have seen coal fired electrical generation plants shuttered and storage stocks of coal depleted. Oil is an option but has more than doubled in price since last year and has to find its way to the various generating plants capable of using oil, a challenge when there is now a shortage of truckers and supply lines are clogged. Nuclear is not capable of short term expansion. The situation is dire.
Readers may wonder why I am critical of Biden and Trudeau for a crisis emerging in Europe, and I admit they are not alone in their culpability. But the fact is that the United States avoided a world energy crisis over the past few decades by expanding their output of oil & gas to records levels now equivalent to that of Saudi Arabia by aggressively using “fracking” technology to unlock vast reserves contained in shale while Canada exploited its oil sands using both mining and in situ technologies. Now Biden is bent on curtailing the American shale source of supply while Trudeau has his thumb on the scale depressing expansion of Canada’s massive oil sands, both of which sources could be suppliers of world energy needs for decades to come.
It seems in North American politics, stupidity is a prequisite to popular support. It is a metaphor for what is wrong with Western democracies that their leaders flew to Stockholm in private jets to attend COP26; their hosts purchased a fleet of EV’s to drive them about but have to rely on non-renewable power to charge them; and the President of COP26 drives a diesel.
Despite the climate rhetoric, the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects no decline in oil demand through 2026. It is virtually certain that the shrill cries of imminent existential threats from rising CO2 levels will hit a crescendo over the next five years as continued use of fossil fuel energy and economic growth will see no decline in atmospheric CO2 levels and the alarmists will be screaming for a global socialist new world order to begin immediately to compel reductions in fossil fuel use with threats of military force. Of course, the world’s largest emitted - China - has a military capable of thumbing its nose at any such threat and the rise of harmless CO2 levels will not offest the expected Grand Solar Minimum which will see global temperatures more likely cool than rise, if they change at all.
For millions of people worldwide who depend on fossil fuels for energy, the attempts to curtail their use means losses of livelihoods and losses of life for millions. Our own democratic governments are a major contributor to the mass harm likely to result, rather than leading the world to an improved economy with narrowing income inequality between rich and poor nations. We Canadians can share in that blame for our stupidity in electing Justin Trudeau as leader and clapping whenever he replaces a policy that works with one that sounds good.
A global energy crisis is upon us and its resolution would require abandonment of the specious AGW claims and a major effort to expand supplies of fossil fuels. I am not optimistic.