Just saw the film produced by Michael Moore and written by Jeff Gibbs. I saw a lot of people critical of the effort in my Twitter feed. Checking the film, I agree with the critics that the film presents a lot of inaccurate anti-renewable talking points. It is trying hard to show that renewable energyContinue reading ““Planet of the Humans” Review”
Author Archives: kflenz
Government Buying Oil in the Ground
Jennifer A Dlouhy and Sheela Tobben report on plans of the United States government to buy oil that is still in the ground as part of their oil reserves. THe motive for this move is not that the government feels their reserves may be insufficient at the moment. The motive is that they noted theContinue reading “Government Buying Oil in the Ground”
ETS and Corona Crisis
Hans-Josef Fell just published his thoughts on how the corona crisis influences the debate on climate (in German). He mentioned that the price for emission permits under the EU emission trading system (ETS) has gone down, along with everything else. That in turn means that there is less incentive for avoiding emissions. That is correct,Continue reading “ETS and Corona Crisis”
Using Bitcoin as a Better OPEC
One of the consequences of the Coronavirus crisis is that the oil price has gone way down. There was even some talk about the Texas Railroad Commission going into the business of handing out production quotas again and joining the OPEC efforts as a countermeasure. The reason is obvious. With the economy reeling from theContinue reading “Using Bitcoin as a Better OPEC”
Net Zero in European Green Deal
The Commission has published a draft Regulation to implement the European Green Deal. It sets 2050 as a goal for getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions. Having thought about that “net zero” term before, I was wondering how carbon sinks figure into that. Recital 12 of the draft reads: “The Union should aim toContinue reading “Net Zero in European Green Deal”
Desertec Progressing Nicely
Ed Reed at Energy Voice just posted on plans of the MENA region to get a head start into the market for exporting green hydrogen. The idea is to build large scale solar power stations, then use those to generate CO2-free clean hydrogen for the export market. The article contains lots of quotes from PaulContinue reading “Desertec Progressing Nicely”
Congratulations to Jeff Bezos
For being able to spend $10 billion of his own money on the climate emergency, and still having plenty left. That is about 1 percent of the one trillion euros the EU wants to spend on the European Green Deal. And it is almost one percent of the $1.4 trillion the oil and gas industryContinue reading “Congratulations to Jeff Bezos”
European Green Deal and Fossil Fuel Antitrust Exemption
I just wrote an article with that title. Published in my public Dropbox folder here. The European Green Deal is the main policy of the new EU Commission. It wants to make Europe the first climate neutral continent. And there is a sense of urgency. The Commissioner in charge compared the situation with a largeContinue reading “European Green Deal and Fossil Fuel Antitrust Exemption”
Fossil Fuel Overdose
European Union High Representative and Vice President Josep Borrell just apologized for his choice of words when discussing climate. He recently used the term “Greta Syndrome” when talking about this question. If I understood him correctly, he wanted to say something like “people are very much for climate measures until they are actually asked toContinue reading “Fossil Fuel Overdose”
DLD 2020 Bitcoin Energy Panel
There was some informed comment on how bitcoin mining helps with solving the climate emergency, as opposed to being a part of the problem. The conference for this panel was the “DLD Munich”, which means “Digital Life Design”. It was founded in 2005, is backed by a large German media company, and attracts a lotContinue reading “DLD 2020 Bitcoin Energy Panel”
