
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This famous remark is usually attributed to Albert Einstein. While it’s entirely possible that the Mathew effect in science is at work here, this is certainly a clever, memorable line that Einstein often uttered to his interlocutors. On the other hand, this definition of insanity could be the unofficial slogan of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, which takes place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 6-18, 2022. Why?
I gave the first justification for the “Einstein madness” associated with climate conferences under the auspices of the UN last year during COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. In Article
Will COP26 achieve what the previous 25 conferences failed to achieve?” I wrote, among other things:
All 25 COPs aimed to save humanity from the threat of climate asteroids by reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions to keep global warming under control… Even though COPs are held year after year, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is constantly increasing. , from 1995 to today, without burdening ourselves with environmental slogans and media slander…
All these conferences proposed as a single goal the achievement of a planetary agreement to end anthropogenic global warming, respectively, the elimination of fossil fuels, which are considered the main source of increased CO2 emissions. After 25 years of negotiations, the mountains have moved and two mice have been born: one is already dead (the Kyoto Protocol) and the other is not very well (the Paris Agreement).
When a sports team loses 25 games in a row, how much can you believe in them and what is certain? Obviously, a new coach and/or new game tactics are needed. After 25 consecutive years of failures of the series of COP climate conferences, does it make sense to hope for a new one?
Climate “mountains” fell in Glasgow last year and will do the same in Egypt this year. Meanwhile, global CO emissions2 continues to increase (Fig. 1), and despite 26 COP conferences, humanity still has not found adequate mechanisms to curb these emissions.
And then, it is not sheer madness to repeat the same mega-conferences year after year, with the participation of tens of thousands of people – politicians, activists and ordinary believers from the Green Church, more or less alarmist journalists, etc. – Do you expect different results this year? If a player is sent to the floor several times in a boxing match, the match is stopped: either the coach throws in the towel or the referee declares a technical knockout. The UN conferences on climate change were held not once, but 26 times! And yet, neither the coach nor the referee intervened to stop this grotesque competition, the defeated player of which is known a priori.
On the other hand, public interest in climate change has grown over the past decade, fueled by a media bombardment that turns any extreme weather event into a climate apocalypse, by priests and Green Church faithful who, in their zeal for the Taliban, condone vandalism and other criminal acts. , some progressive ideologues who want to force an “ideal climate” that has no CO emissions down people’s throats2 anthropogenic, etc
Ten years, during which a lot of money was spent, a lot of propaganda, a lot of media pressure, and the result was, as I wrote before, a poor political mouse, the Paris Agreement. A grandiose, lavishly funded effort has produced no measurable difference between the expectations of politicians and the reality of ordinary people.
The explanation for these successive failures is simple: the vaunted “green” energy, solar and wind, has failed to live up to expectations due to two main problems.
The first refers to a high degree of land occupation due to low energy density (Fig. 2).
To replace 1 m2 gas power plant requires 140 m2 of solar panels, 370 m2 of land-based wind turbines, about 3,000 m2 reservoir or 6000 m2 biomass
On November 4, 2022, President Biden again promised that the United States would have a zero-carbon economy by 2050 by closing all coal mines in the country and replacing them with wind and solar. His team of scientific advisers probably didn’t draw his attention to a massive report (348 pages) called Net-Zero America published by researchers at Princeton University in 2021.[1] The authors estimate that if fossil fuels and nuclear power were phased out, an additional 6.9 million hectares would be needed for solar energy and 101 million hectares for wind energy, not taking into account the areas of raw material needed to build 2 million additional wind turbines. By comparison, an additional 107.9 million hectares is about 10% of the US, or more than four times the size of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Is there no one in the White House to pull dear President Biden’s sleeve at least a little?!
The second big problem, perhaps even more important socially and economically than the first, is the fact that the two “green” energy companies suffer from intermittent electricity production, that is, they do not ensure the security of the entire national energy system without synchronization, which is what Green politicians and activists dream of. church Solar energy is absent at night and when the sky is covered with clouds. Wind energy requires constant wind of a certain intensity. “Green” apostles claim that two energies, solar and wind, are cheaper than fossil fuels. But the argument is valid only when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. How much is sun and wind on a windless night? I hear?…
No sources backup of fossil energy (gas, diesel), directed by standby mode, ready to intervene at any moment, the two “green” energy companies pose a serious threat to the energy security of the country, region, city, military institution, hospital, etc. The use of reserve energy stored in batteries is illusory. Worldwide, existing batteries only provide 1 minute 15 seconds world electricity consumption. And even in the future, this problem will not improve: in 2030, global batteries will only cover 11 minutes from global electricity consumption.
And since we are talking about batteries, which should also replace fossil fuels in land, sea and air transport, I am reminded again of the fact that electric transport is not a zero-emission activity, as many think.
Building a single wind turbine (such as the Vestas V100-2.0 MW IEC IIB), just one of the 2 million that will need to be commissioned in the U.S. to fulfill President Biden’s “green” dreams, consumes more than 1,000 tons of materials and emits more than 415 tons of CO2.
But the electric battery, one of the 350 million that will be equipped with zero-emission cars in 2030, what kind of consumption will it have? I only provide a simple image with a few shapes attached to the figs. 3.
The device in fig. 3 consumes ~1000 liters of fuel in 12 hours and digs up ~250 tons of earth to extract materials for production 1 (one) Tesla battery. 350 million batteries will be needed in 2030… And there are people who still say that when they drive their electric cars, it’s “zero emissions”. Holy simplicity…
There is also an aspect of climate “madness” in the speeches of politicians who loudly declare that the age of fossil fuels is over and that the future belongs only to CO2-free energy, mainly solar and wind. It is easy to forget that agriculture, industry, construction and transport are energy-intensive sectors of the national economy. Of all, only the last sector is “solved” – we have electric transport, although above I showed what it means to produce 1 (one) Tesla battery). And currently, the issue has been “solved” only with regard to land transport, and only at a level of less than 20% by 2050. It should be remembered that we still do not have electric tractors, heavy trucks, electric planes or ships.
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Source: Hot News RU

Robert is an experienced journalist who has been covering the automobile industry for over a decade. He has a deep understanding of the latest technologies and trends in the industry and is known for his thorough and in-depth reporting.