Post

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Sep 7, 2022 • 30 tweets • 12 min read • Read on X

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Many think we will subsidize our way to renewables, but we won't, for inherently physical reasons. Sunlight & wind are too energy-dilute. Solar/wind projects need ~300x more land, 300% more copper, and 700% more rare earths than fossil fuels, making them prohibitively expensive.

Wind/solar/batteries require: 1,000% more steel, concrete and glass; 300% more copper; and 4,200%, 2,500%, 1,900%, and 700% more lithium, graphite, nickel, and rare earths, respectively, than fossil fuels, to produce the same amount of energy, according to IEA and others.

The capital costs of solar, wind, and batteries have been rising since 2017 and, given the energy crisis, are about to skyrocket, and stay high for a decade. Energy today only uses 10%–20% of total global minerals. There's no way its share will rise to 50-70%, as IEA envisions.

Today, 40 CEOs of European metal companies warned of the “existential threat” to the industry due to energy shortages and the "extra raw materials needed to shift away from fossil fuels...50% of the EU’s aluminium & zinc capacity has already been forced offline due to the crisis”

Policymakers insist that taxpayers will subsidize the transition to renewables, but renewables make electricity more expensive everywhere they are deployed at scale, and higher energy costs will make them prohibitively expensive.

https://twitter.com/SecGranholm/status/1567470874298548225?s=20&t=5Qa6aMZUwEtd1NuBfMIgYg

The proximate cause of the global energy crisis is Europe's over-dependence on Russian fuels, and yet Western elites are on the verge of repeating that mistake by becoming dependent on China for the extraction and processing of the minerals needed to make solar, wind, & batteries

China’s market share of renewables/EV minerals is 2x OPEC’s share of oil. The U.S. is dependent on imports for 100% of 17 renewables/EV-critical minerals; for 28 others, imports account for >50% of domestic demand.

China dominates solar and battery production. Minerals = 60%–70% of the cost to produce solar panels & lithium batteries. And China's solar panel labor costs have been very low to free, considering that they have been covered as part of its genocide.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/ban-chinese-…

There is no tech fix. The underlying problem is physical: the energy-dilute nature of sunlight & wind & their low power densities. There is simply no way that energy's share of minerals consumption will rise from 10%–20% to 50-70%, with or without today's energy shortages.

We've known for 200 years that the industrial revolution was made possible first by coal and then by oil and gas. It simply wasn't possible with wood, water wheels, and wind mills. Scholars have now shown, using physical measures, why this was the case.

amazon.com/Energy-English…

"The availability of free energy... explains why the industrial revolution started in Britain, where coal was readily available & firewood already depleted, or difficult to transport, whereas Germany, with its huge forests next to rivers, was much later."

amazon.com/Subterranean-F…

For a much more exciting, humanistic, and contemporary account of energy transitions, check out this 2020 best-seller 😉

amazon.com/Apocalypse-Nev…

If renewables are doomed for basic physical reasons, why do so many educated people believe we will transition to them?

Most politicians are just ignorant. They have been surrounded by professional ideologues who have deceived them for decades. To wit:

https://twitter.com/SecGranholm/status/1567470874298548225?s=20&t=OmV-7q8bmmYIOuD2PXXNKA

But many others are nihilists who have turned nature into a god and have convinced themselves that civilization is destroying it. They are in the grip of a pathological dogma no different from the dogma that grips cult members. They dream of apocalypse.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/anti-energy-…

In Europe, politicians are either delusional or nihilistic. The delusional ones think they can cap the price of energy, but that will just shift the costs from ratepayers to taxpayers. The nihilistic ones, like the Greens, seek de-industrialization.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

We are headed for recession and Europe may be headed for depression. Western civilization will be rocked to its very core. Most of the politicians in power today won't be in power three years from now. People will learn the physics of energy the hard way.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/biden-and-tr…

Energy is the biggest story the world. Most of what you read about it in the mainstream news media is misinformation. I am traveling the world to get to the bottom of the crisis. Please consider subscribing to my Substack to stay informed.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/anti-energy-…

"Amazon experienced “critical fire” in at least 6 of its 47 sites with solar... By June last year, all of Amazon’s U.S. operations with solar had to be taken offline.... Those details didn’t show up in Amazon’s 100-page sustainability report"

cnbc.com/2022/09/01/ama…

Change is coming

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/end-of-renew…

“Many solar panels are already winding up in landfills, where in some cases, they could contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium…. it costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.”

People say innovation will save renewables, but their underlying problem is physical. The dilute nature of sunlight and wind means they will always require 300x more land, 300% more copper, 700% more rare earths than nuclear or natural gas.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/end-of-renew…

Places with a lot of renewables are reaching their limits. The amount of zero-carbon electricity California generated *declined* 10% over the last decade. In Germany, the total amount of electricity from renewables *declined* in 2021, even as overall electricity consumption rose.

China’s global market share of renewables and EV minerals is 2x OPEC’s share of oil. China already dominates solar and battery production. Minerals are 60%–70% of the cost to produce solar panels and lithium batteries. We can't shift those industries to the US & keep costs low.

Energy today only uses 10%–20% of total global minerals but the International Energy Agency says its share must rise to 50-70% for the world to transition to renewables. That's simply not going to happen. It would make energy and everything else prohibitively expensive.

People say I don't talk about solutions enough, but I do, in nearly every single article, and usually for one-third of the space.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/end-of-renew…

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/anti-energy-…

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/biden-and-tr…

Not to the mention the real world successes we keep racking up

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/how-we-saved…

LFG!

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-elitis…

Solar costs soaring

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More from @shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jul 7

Within minutes of Texas floods killing dozens of girls, the media said it was because of Trump budget cuts and climate change. In truth, the deaths occurred in “one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state,” warnings were issued, and the underlying cause was the failure to install flood warning sirens. Climate journalists are cultists.

These people are shameless

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1806341713826378035

They are professional liars —>

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1806341713826378035

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Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jul 6

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1941616444724346983

Trump cuts to the National Weather Service, and climate change, are to blame for the Texas flood deaths, said the media yesterday. Today, most admit NWS did its job. The real problem was the lack of a flood warning system. Those who blame the climate are trapped in a weird cult.

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1941616444724346983

Per capita flooding deaths in Texas declined dramatically:

"As the population of Texas increased from ~9.2 million in 1958 to ~28.6 million in 2018, overall flood deaths remained fairly constant, meaning that the fatality rate dropped by about two-thirds." @RogerPielkeJr

More Pielke: "The flooding was certainly extreme but it should not have been historically unexpected. The documented record of extreme flooding in “flash flood alley” goes back several centuries, with paleoclimatology records extending that record thousands of years into the past.

"Consider the figure above, from a classic 1940 historical text on U.S. floods, which shows that the same region of Texas that experienced this week’s floods has long been known to be a bullseye for flash flooding. In fact, almost a century before Hoyt and Langbein, Texas experienced one of the greatest losses of life in U.S. history related to extreme weather.

"In 1846, in the months after Texas became a U.S. state, massive flooding compounded the many problems facing thousands of recent immigrants from Germany who had been settled in New Braunfels, Texas, which was significantly impacted by this week’s floods.

"According to a contemporaneous 1846 account, cited in a fantastic 2006 PhD dissertation on flooding in Texas by William Keith Guthrie, at the University of Kansas, 'The Guadalupe [River] would often rise fifteen feet above its normal stand after these heavy rains, carrying with it in its swift torrent a number of large trees, uprooted farther up the hills. Smaller brooks, ordinarily not containing flowing water, became raging torrents which could be crossed only by swimming.'"

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Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jun 29

The website of NYC mayoral frontrunner says he'll "shift the tax burden" to "whiter neighborhoods." When asked about his openly racist agenda, @ZohranKMamdani insists it's not a proposal at all but rather "a description of what we see right now." That's next-level gaslighting.😬

This guy's ability to lie so calmly while smiling should send chills up the spines of every New Yorker.

He could have taken it down and said, "You know, I regret that the website said that and so I deleted it, because it doesn't express what I believe."

Instead, he's just asked millions of New Yorkers to believe his own obviously flagrant lie rather than their own eyes. That's creepy and wrong.

Everyone can see for themselves that he used a gratuitous racial reference regarding a tax proposal. We don't tax people on race. So why use it? Because he and his campaign wanted to introduce race.

And it's not the first time. @ZohranKMamdani should delete his flagrantly racist tweets and web site language, apologize, and promise to never invoke racism in these ways again.

The audacity of @ZohranKMamdani to cite Dr. Martin Luther King should make your skin crawl. King adamantly rejected anti-white racism.

Mamdani’s call for higher taxes on white neighborhoods should shock New Yorkers. If they elect him as Mayor then they will have no excuses. He’s made clear that he will advance a racist agenda and then demand that people believe his lies.

Read 6 tweets

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jun 28

The idea that former Intelligence Community officials are working with European leaders to censor the Internet sounds like a conspiracy theory, but over the last two days, Obama’s CIA Director plotted with UK, EU, and Irish officials in Dublin to do precisely that.

These people are a direct and imminent threat to free speech and democracy worldwide. They are dangerous and out of control:

Former CIA Director John Brennan helped initiate the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. He used foreign spies to help trigger the FBI investigation of of the Trump campaign. And he manipulated the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment to falsely claim the Russians favored Trump over Clinton.

Niamh Hodnett, Ireland’s “Online Safety Commissioner,” leads Ireland’s censorship regime under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act, which mirrors EU and U.S.-backed models shaped by intelligence-linked NGOs.

Aine Kerr, a Former Facebook Policy Manager, helped manage Facebook’s public policy as it partnered with U.S. intelligence agencies post-2016, then co-founded Kinzen, which received support from EU and transatlantic institutions focused on content surveillance. Her work connects platform moderation with state-funded narrative monitoring.

Nóirín O’Sullivan, a Former Garda (Irish police) Commissioner and EUROPOL Official, who went from leading Ireland’s national police to a senior role at EUROPOL, which works closely with intelligence and security services across Europe. She advocates for integrating security principles into online content governance.

Claire Loftus, Ireland’s Former Director of Public Prosecutions, oversaw prosecutions during a period of expanding legal efforts to criminalize online expression and misinformation. Her presence signals an effort to align the judiciary with state-backed censorship.

Robyn Simcox, the UK Commissioner for Countering Extremism,
operates within the UK Home Office, a department with direct ties to MI5 and GCHQ. She frames conspiracy theories and misinformation as forms of radicalization and demands surveillance and preemptive regulation. Her office channels intelligence priorities into speech policing under the banner of counter-extremism.

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1757486508570030462

Brennan triggered the Trump-Russia collusion hoax

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1757486508570030462

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Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jun 27

Brazil has been banning and censoring journalists and politicians for years. But now it is taking steps to ban X entirely. It’s time for @SecRubio to block President Lula, Justice Moraes, and their criminal accomplices from entering the US.