The United Nations, awash in greenie ideology, has decided that now would be a good time to horn in on the state of Texas's internal energy production. For its own good, of course:
NEW YORK — The leader of the United Nations says Texas must end its reliance on oil and gas production to remain prosperous in the era of climate change.
At a UN summit next month, world leaders will be asked to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. A vast increase in the production of renewable energy will be required to reach those targets.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says Texas is well-positioned to lead the way in the production of renewables.
"If Texas wants to remain prosperous in 2050 or 2070, Texas will have to diversify its economy and Texas will have to be less dependent on oil and gas," Guterres said. "It has all the conditions to be — because of the weather in Texas — a leading state in renewable energy in the US," he added.
That prompted just the right response from Texas's no-nonsense governor, Greg Abbott:
The man is a gem.
The chutzpah of the United Nations interfering in a state's internal affairs, instead of dealing with doddering Joe Biden or the crazed leftist he's appointed to the ambassadorial slot, is absolutely humongous.
What's more, its advice to Texas about how to be "prosperous" is utterly revolting.
Texas is the world's ninth largest economy and a state that draws thousands of outsiders moving in. The Federal Reserve of Dallas says the state's economy is booming and jobs are being created. Texas doesn't exactly need advice from the United Nations about how to stay prosperous.
But the U.N. insists that moving to greenie energy and scrapping fossil fuel production is the way to remain prosperous.
Actually, it's the road to becoming a third-world hellhole, where energy is always scarce and pricey yet never reliable.
It's also supremely insulting to Texas in particular, which last year went through a freezing winter disaster leaving at least 111 people dead mostly of hypothermia based on the state's reliance on flimsy greenie wind energy over reliable fossil fuels. The state adopted some green energy policies over oil, such as wind and solar, and, in the dead of winter, watched as its wind turbines froze, leaving Texans in the dark and freezing cold, as well as creating supply line disruptions and food shortages.
Today, the U.N.'s favorite pet shop boy, Germany, is going through the same thing, turning to greenie energy over reliable fossil fuels and nuclear energy and now facing an ice-cold winter. Nobody but political cronies with wind and solar subsidies gets rich from green energy. Fact is, everyone goes without once the green energy kicks in and everyone else gets poorer.
For the U.N. to spout this trash about getting richer, after years of telling the West to pay up and do without, is total garbage. They can't stand Texas and don't want to see it grow rich. What's more, these guys haven't created one prosperous person outside themselves. They have no idea how wealth is created. They think money comes from a bank.
Their devotion to green energy is not just a recipe for poverty; it's also a pipe dream.
The most reliable energy source we have, in fact, is Texas's competitive advantage: fossil fuel. Other than nuclear power, which lefties also hate, oil and gas have got the best energy density to ensure that Western civilization can be reliably powered.
The Manhattan Institute, in a 2019 study by Mark Mills, has an excellent piece debunking the stupid and arrogant presumptions of the hipster left about green energy being the wave of the future, on a par with the tech innovators and "disruptors." It begins:
A movement has been growing for decades to replace hydrocarbons, which collectively supply 84% of the world's energy. It began with the fear that we were running out of oil. That fear has since migrated to the belief that, because of climate change and other environmental concerns, society can no longer tolerate burning oil, natural gas, and coal — all of which have turned out to be abundant.
So far, wind, solar, and batteries — the favored alternatives to hydrocarbons — provide about 2% of the world's energy and 3% of America's. Nonetheless, a bold new claim has gained popularity: that we're on the cusp of a tech-driven energy revolution that not only can, but inevitably will, rapidly replace all hydrocarbons.
This "new energy economy" rests on the belief — a centerpiece of the Green New Deal and other similar proposals both here and in Europe — that the technologies of wind and solar power and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences, grounded in physics, between systems that produce energy and those that produce information.
Sound like the U.N. he was talking about? It does to me.
Meanwhile, Power Line's John Hinderaker has two magnificent essays on why green energy can never succeed — one on the grounds of available minerals, the other on the grounds of available space. There isn't enough to go around on either front to give the U.N. and all the lefties all the greenie transformation they want for Texas.
He writes:
Wind and solar are low-intensity energy sources. It takes many acres of wind turbines to produce, on a best-case scenario, what a single power plant can produce. And solar panels are even worse. A single 3 mw wind turbine uses 335 tons of steel, 4.7 tons of copper, 3 tons of aluminum, 2 tons of rare earth elements, and 1,200 tons (2.4 million pounds!) of concrete. If we take seriously the idea of getting all of our electricity from wind and solar, where will all of those materials come from?
He also writes:
[A] paper published last week by Center of the American Experiment argues that land use constraints are the most basic reason why wind and solar are inexorably destined to fail. The paper, titled Not In Our Backyard, is authored by internationally recognized energy expert Robert Bryce, producer of the terrific documentary Juice: How Electricity Explains The World and the book A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations
Robert's paper acknowledges that there are multiple reasons why wind and solar energy will never meet America's energy needs, but focuses on the particular problem of land use:
Of course, other factors, including the incurable intermittency of renewables as well as the massive amounts of materials, including steel, concrete, copper, and rare earth elements, will limit the deployment of wind and solar. But the biggest barrier is the land-use problem. The ferocity and extent of rural land-use conflicts are showing that any attempt to convert the domestic economy to run solely on renewables is destined to fail.
Why is land use such a problem for wind and solar, but not for coal, nuclear or natural gas? Because wind and solar are pathetically low-intensity energy sources, as reflected in this chart from Bryce's paper[.]
The chart, here, is a doozy.
All of this shows that the United Nations is clueless. This information is mere "science," which the United Nations abhors. You could tell them this day and night, and they'd still spew their greenie ideology and concern-trolling for the prosperity of Texas.
What's really edifying here are not just the facts on the ground as well as Texas's experience — it's that Texas has a governor with the cojones to stand up to this petty micromanaging from these claptrap bureaucrats. He sees right through them, and his short, pithy statement about where the U.N. can put it is music to the ears of everyone out there who understands energy production.
Leadership matters, every bit as much as science. Thanks, gov.
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