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25 shelters, 4 wells in Deir al-Balah went out of service due to forced displacement

Palestinian Information Center – August 26, 2024

DEIR AL-BALAH – The Municipality of Deir al-Balah announced that 25 shelters and four water wells went out of service, following the Israeli evacuation of new neighborhoods in Deir al-Balah over the past 72 hours.

The municipality said in a press statement on Monday, “25 shelter centers went out of service after forced displacement of 250,000 citizens within the past 72 hours, including the only government hospital which was still operating in the southern Gaza Strip.”

The municipality further explained that the closure of the four water wells brings the number of disabled wells to 14, noting that the disabled wells were supplying nearly 70% of the people in the city, and their closure would exacerbate the water and food crisis.

The recent Israeli evacuation order in the vicinity of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital threatened the only remaining main water tank in the city, according to official sources.

Deir al-Balah municipality called on the international community to urgently intervene to enable the humanitarian service crews, including municipalities, hospitals and relief associations, to carry out their humanitarian duty to provide service to the displaced and citizens.

On Sunday evening, the Israeli occupation army issued a decision to evacuate new neighborhoods northeast of Deir al-Balah, and some neighborhoods west of Salah al-Din Street.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel expands Netzarim corridor to include ‘permanent outposts’

The Cradle | August 26, 2024

Israeli forces have expanded the Netzarim corridor in the Gaza Strip to include four large “outposts” designed to permanently house troops, according to satellite imagery reviewed by Hebrew news site Ynet.

“The IDF has been working to expand the corridor … Four large outposts were established in the corridor, for the permanent stay of hundreds of fighters,” the Israeli outlet reported on 26 August.

Ynet explains that Israel recently launched an operation in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood, where Israeli troops have operated several times since the start of the war, failing to root out Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.

Four reservist soldiers have been killed in the operation, including one on Sunday by an explosive device planted by the Palestinian resistance. The ongoing operation in Zaytoun was launched specifically “to expand” the Netzarim corridor, which lies in close proximity to the Gaza City neighborhood, the report said.

“In the raid, the forces were required to locate tunnels, terrorist infrastructures and weapons of Hamas. The brigade raid continues, and includes hitting the terrorists and destroying munitions stocks that threaten the forces in Netzarim.”

The Netzarim corridor was established by Israeli forces during the early months of the war on Gaza. The corridor, which runs through the former grounds of the old Netzarim settlement, splits the strip in two and prevents the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.

“The corridor was established … to prevent the return of armed terrorists to the north of the Gaza Strip, and to generally prevent the return of Palestinians to the north of the Gaza Strip. Palestinians can move south – but not in the opposite direction,” Ynet explains, reinforcing the Israeli narrative that displaced Gazans returning to the north as part of any agreement are actually militants.

Israeli forces have set up a “newly constructed operational route … and a drainage point” along the corridor to prevent displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza from returning to their homes in the north, Ynet goes on to say.

The report further confirms Israel’s plan for a permanent presence in the Gaza Strip. Israeli defense officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal in February said the corridor is part of Tel Aviv’s “plans to maintain security control over the enclave for some time.”

Israeli forces stationed at Netzarim have come under numerous attacks by Palestinian resistance factions since the corridor was established.

Satellite imagery analyzed by the Forensic Architecture research group last week revealed that Israeli forces are also working on a new east-to-west land corridor near Gaza City’s Beit Hanoun. Over the past several months, Israeli troops have destroyed Palestinian homes and farmlands to establish this new corridor, according to Forensic Architecture.

A photo that circulated on social media on 25 August shows that Israeli forces have built an asphalt road on the Philadelphi corridor on the Gaza–Egypt border in the southern strip.

The Netzarim corridor, as well as the Philadelphi corridor and Rafah crossing on the Gaza–Egypt border, are two of the main topics that have complicated ceasefire talks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting on keeping troops in these areas despite Hamas’ demands for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Netanyahu insists on a screening and inspection mechanism at the Netzarim corridor to inspect Gazans returning to the north as part of any agreement.

The premier also insists that any captive exchange be followed by a continuation of the war. As a result, ceasefire talks have yielded no results.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian MP claims kidnappers targeted his family over pro-church stance

RT | August 26, 2024

Ukrainian MP Artyom Dmitruk has claimed from exile that he is a victim of political persecution due to his support for the largest Christian church in the country. Kiev has accused him of violent crimes and illegally crossing the country’s border.

Last week, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky signed a bill into law which threatens to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), over allegations that it may be controlled by Moscow. Dmitruk stood out among his fellow lawmakers for his vocal opposition to the legislation. He is now considered a fugitive in Ukraine and says his family is in danger.

”They tried to abduct my family. They tried to kidnap my mother, wife and two small kids from a hotel in Europe,” the MP claimed on his Telegram channel on Monday. Dmitruk said private security had thwarted the plot and that he knows who was behind it.

Last week, Ukrainian authorities announced criminal charges against an unnamed MP. He was accused of assaulting two people – a law enforcement officer and a military service member. Separately, they announced a criminal investigation into alleged illegal crossing of the border by the same person. Dmitruk is understood to be the suspect, according to Ukrainian media.

The lawmaker is a professional powerlifter and entrepreneur who runs fitness clubs in the city of Odessa. He went into politics in 2019 on the wave of Zelensky’s surprise presidential campaign, getting elected as an MP for his Servant of the People party.

Dmitruk dismissed the allegations against him as fabricated for political reasons. One of the charges is apparently related to a conflict he had last year with what he called a scam call center.

The politician claims that Zelensky’s office is after him over his support of the UOC. The church has been subjected to law enforcement raids on its monasteries, arrests of senior bishops and the seizure of property by supporters of the rival Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Last week, armed men showed up at various properties associated with Dmitruk and his family, he told his attorney Robert Amsterdam, who voiced his client’s criticism of Kiev’s infringement of religious freedoms.

Dmitruk has alleged that his foes intended to have him killed while supposedly resisting arrest. His current whereabouts are unclear, with Tatryana Sapyan, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian investigative agency DBR, claiming on Sunday that he had fled the country via Moldova.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Germany: Upcoming state elections to bring major political shift

By Dénes Albert | Remix News | August 26, 2024

On Sept. 1, two key East German states, Saxony and Thuringia, will hold landmark elections: The Alternative for Germany (AfD) looks unstoppable and the popularity of the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is soaring.

The whole of Germany is watching anxiously as local people decide their future on Sept. 1. In the former East Germany, there is a growing discontent with the policies and actions of the federal coalition government, which, according to opinion polls, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now without doubt the strongest party in Saxony and Thuringia, followed by the Christian Democrats (CDU), while the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which was formed in the winter, is in third place and starting to catch up with 15 to 20 percent.

The right-wing AfD, which is calling for more action against illegal immigration, and the similarly oppositional but left-wing BSW are not only united by a general dissatisfaction with the CDU; both parties are opposed to further support for Ukraine and call for peace as soon as possible.

A poll in January this year already showed that if the elections in Saxony had taken place then, the radical anti-immigration AfD would almost certainly have won the most votes, 37 percent, followed by the CDU with around 30 percent, while the Social Democrats would not even have been elected to the state parliament.

The latest figures show a slight difference, but this does not mean that Michael Kretschmer, who currently leads the CDU-SPD-Green coalition in Saxony, can sit back comfortably. Opinion polls show them with a lead of just 4 percent, while the AfD is a close second with 30 percent.

And the serious terrorist attack in Solingen on Friday and the steady increase in other migrant-related crimes are probably not a reflection on the Kretschmer’s side either.

In Thuringia, where the CDU is in government with the Greens, the AfD is confidently in the lead with 30 percent, with only 21 percent supporting the CDU and 3 percent the Greens.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | | 1 Comment

Trump Is Lying about Releasing the JFK Records

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | August 26, 2024

To honor Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (after Kennedy was rebuffed by Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris), Trump announced that if Americans elect him president again, this time around he will order a release of the CIA’s long-secret JFK-assassination-related records.

What a crock. What amazes me is that Trumpsters believe anything and everything this guy says, despite his proven track record of failing to tell the truth.

Remember: Trump was president for four long years. During any of that period of time, he could have issued a simple order to the National Archives: Release the CIA’s 50-year-old Kennedy-assassination-related records to the public immediately.

Trump didn’t do that, even though he promised to do it, just as he is now promising to do it if American voters will give him another chance. After repeatedly promising to release those records when he was president, Trump buckled and granted the CIA’s demand for secrecy for several more years. When that new deadline came due, President Biden granted a new request for secrecy by the CIA and ultimately extended the secrecy into perpetuity.

There is also what has to be a lie that Trump told Judge Andrew Napolitano regarding the CIA’s secret records. According to Napolitano, in a conversation he had with Trump, he asked Trump why he had not ordered the release of the CIA’s JFK-assassination-related records. Trump responded with “Judge, if they showed you what they showed me, you wouldn’t have released them either.”

If Trump was suggesting that there was some sort of big smoking-gun matter in those records, it’s got to be a lie because there is no chance whatsoever that the CIA would have turned over such a record to the Assassination Records Review Board or the National Archives instead of simply destroying it. Moreover, ever since the CIA was established, it has been standard practice to never put anything regarding a state-sponsored assassination in writing. What are the chances that the CIA would make an exception to that rule with respect to its assassination of a U.S. president? None!

Moreover, if Trump is really going to order a release of the records if he is again elected president, as he is now promising again that he will, then why not reveal publicly what he supposedly saw that motivated him to make that statement to Napolitano? If he is going to release them anyway, why does he need to wait until he’s elected president to reveal that particular part of the records to the American people?

So, the question naturally arises: Why would Trump lie about why he broke his promise to release the CIA’s secret records when he was president for four long years? Because he can’t admit the real reason for his broken promise: The CIA would not permit him to release the records. He knows what President Biden, Harris, and everyone in Washington, D.C., knows: The CIA, along with the Pentagon and the CIA, are in charge.

Oh sure, Trump talks big again about “draining the swamp,” taking on the deep state, and making America great again, but let’s not forget that he talked the same way before he was elected president. He broke all those promises also. Immediately upon being elected president, he surrounded himself with generals and foreign interventionist John Bolton, traveled to CIA headquarters obviously to bend the knee and kiss the ring, kept U.S. troops killing and dying in Afghanistan for nothing, and refused to pardon Edward Snowden for revealing the NSA’s illegal secret surveillance scheme. If Trump did all that the first time, he’ll do it again, especially given that he has never expressed any regret or remorse for doing it the first time.

The fact is that the CIA’s JFK-assassination related records will never be released, unless the CIA authorizes a president to order their release. That’s not likely to happen, not because there is some sort of huge smoking-gun confession within the records but instead because the records undoubtedly contain small bits of incriminating circumstantial evidence that further fill out, even in very small ways, the overall mosaic establishing criminal culpability of the U.S. national-security state in Kennedy’s assassination.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , | 8 Comments

Durov’s arrest represents a new level of desperation from western elites

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 26, 2024

The arrest of Pavel Durov marks a new low point on the scumline of the side of the bath – the tub being western democracies and the line being their desperation to stay in power at the costs of controlling social media. Durov, who owns Telegram and lives in Dubai, could be in jail for months and possibly years on the trumped-up charges which the French state has conjured up simply because he refuses to allow any government to have a back door into Telegram. He has fought this tooth and nail for years with the west, in particular the U.S., playing every dirty trick in the book to get access to the platform for its own nefarious purposes – to destroy opposition figures, their strategies etc. – rather than what it is dressed up to be, identifying terrorists and international criminals.

As the UK ponders how its own state has sunk to a new totalitarian level in recent days with the arrest of its citizens who merely like a posting on a social media platform, the West has arrested this French Russian dual national genius who is charged with the crimes of those criminals active on Telegram. And so charges of terrorism and trafficking in minors, drugs and whatever else they can find on the platform will be made against him as someone abetting in the crimes. Of course, the same rules will not be levelled against Elon Musk who surely has criminals on his platform or for that matter any of the other social media platforms.

But how many of these platforms are also taking the same stand as Durov? We are led to believe that most of them aren’t but in light of his arrest we should assume that many of them have already allowed some sort of access to them for the deep state. Elon Musk likes to brag about his refusal to comply with the EU’s demands that he “moderates” who he allows onto X, adding that other social media platforms accepted the deal offered to him by Brussels: comply with our requests and we grant you some leniency on future antitrust fines. This offer, which he claims was happily accepted by other platforms is as close as you can get to the EU offering a brown envelope stuffed full of cash to a man in a pub. It’s a bribe and gives a clue as to how anti-democratic the EU is and how it operates in the shadows.

The French arrest however goes deeper in that we can assume that it was not France operating alone to nab Durov. We can assume that the FBI and CIA had probably pushed Macron to do this appalling dirty work but perhaps also Israel had a hand in it. Just recently, Netanyahu complained that data which was stolen from the government was being exchanged on Telegram and asked Durov to step in and retrieve it. He got no reply. Did Mossad have a hand in the arrest of Telegram’s boss? It seems credible given that it is hard to believe that Durov would fly into French airspace eyes wide open. Was it a kidnapping operation to get his plane and his pilot to land in Paris? French TV channel TF1 said Dubai-based Durov had been travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Saturday 24th of August but did not state whether the plane’s ultimate destination had been France.

The details around the arrest are very sketchy, but according to Reuters, Durov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments had sought to pressure him but the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”.

Another question which arises from the arrest is whether it is an international effort by western countries led by the U.S. – with Israel very much part of it – to test the waters for other arrests. Pundits have been dismissed as conspiracy theorists for weeks now suggesting Elon Musk will be arrested at some point, or charged in his absence, by UK authorities for some of the more controversial posts he has made about the political situation in the UK, or even by the EU which appears to have started a legal battle with him after he refused to respond to two letters sent to him by a French European Commissioner. Perhaps even the Democrats in the U.S. might play the same card given that Musk has lost all credibility as a neutral player in U.S. politics after he has so openly supported Trump who has promised him a position in a new government if he were to enter the Oval Office. There is no such thing really as free speech. It comes at a very high price for those who want to protect and cherish it and now France will test the political landscape to see how the arrest of Durov will affect Macron’s ratings. The French president has used outstandingly poor judgment in the past in calling for parliamentary elections immediately after EU ones which gave so much power to far-right groups, so he seems to be good at falling on his own sword. He may well have factored that Durov does not have the popularity of say Assange who didn’t stir so much political anger when he was banged up for years in a filthy, dank cell in the UK on trumped up charges from the U.S.

What is especially worrying is that locking up powerful people who have huge followings on the internet is becoming a trend which people are getting used to. The war between those who want to control the perceived truth and those who hold the actual one is hotting up. Scott Ritter, Andrew Tate, Richard Medhurst all arrested within days of one another, while Musk himself shuts down Egyptian comedian Bassem Youseff who had 10m followers on X. What we are witnessing is a new level of desperation that western elites are more afraid than ever after wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in Ukraine and starting a world war in the Middle East that voters have no confidence any more in their decision-making, as they, the public, struggle more and more to pay for groceries or even heat their houses. It’s a new milestone in the blind dogma of elites to resort to tactics which we would have scorned China or North Korea for using just a few years ago. It’s a new level of panic which we haven’t seen before.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Telegram comments on founder’s arrest

RT | August 25, 2024

Telegram abides by EU laws and its founder, Pavel Durov, “has nothing to hide,” the company said after Durov was arrested in Paris. Telegram said that it is “awaiting a prompt resolution” of the situation.

Durov was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday, immediately after arriving from Azerbaijan by private jet. According to French media, prosecutors in Paris plan to charge the 39-year-old with complicity in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses, and fraud, arguing that Telegram’s insufficient content moderation, its strong encryption tools, and its alleged lack of cooperation with police allow criminals to flourish on the app.

Telegram dismissed these arguments on Sunday, stating that the company follows EU laws and that its content-moderation policies are “within industry standards.”

“Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” the statement continued, calling it “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

“Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information,” the company concluded. “We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation.”

Telegram is headquartered in Dubai, although the company appointed a Belgian legal representative earlier this year to manage its compliance with EU law. Telegram has also complied with the bloc’s anti-Russian sanctions by blocking access to Russian news outlets, including RT.

However, Durov has consistently refused to hand over user data to law enforcement agencies, or to install so-called ‘backdoors’ so that these agencies can surveil conversations on the app. Speaking to RT on Sunday, Durov’s former spokesman suggested that French authorities could have made the arrest on behalf of the US, after Durov publicly accused American intelligence agencies of pressuring him into giving them access to Telegram user data.

August 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 1 Comment

The IDF Uses Palestinian Civilians As Human Shields to Inspect Gaza’s Tunnels

Richard Medhurst | August 24, 2024

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Richard Thomas Medhurst (1992) is an independent journalist, political commentator, and analyst from the United Kingdom with a focus on international affairs, US politics, and the Middle East.

Medhurst is known for his coverage of the Julian Assange extradition case in London, as one of the only journalists to report on the trial of the WikiLeaks founder from inside the court.

He has also covered the Iran nuclear deal talks on the ground in Vienna. Medhurst was born in Damascus, Syria.

His father is English and mother is Syrian. Both his parents served in United Nations Peacekeeping and Observer missions and were among the UN Peacekeepers awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. Owing to his parents’ professional mobility, he has lived in Syria, Pakistan, Switzerland, and Austria.

He speaks four languages fluently: English, Arabic, French, and German. As an independent journalist, Medhurst regularly hosts live broadcasts and video reports on his YouTube channel.

Previous guests include the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, the Dep Foreign Minister of Iran; the Palestinian, Russian and Cuban ambassadors to the United Nations in Vienna; the former British Ambassador to Syria; and various UN officials, journalists, and more.

Medhurst’s reports and analysis on Yemen, Ukraine, Syria, Niger, Lebanon, Iran, the Israeli occupation in Palestine and its genocide in Gaza have gone viral countless times, racking up millions of views.

Richard Medhurst has a combined following of roughly one million people online, and appears regularly on international news outlets including Al Jazeera, WikiLeaks, Black Agenda Report, Al Mayadeen, The Times, LBC, and others.

Richard Medhurst on Twitter:   / richimedhurst  

Richard Medhurst on Instagram:   / richardtmedhurst  

Richard Medhurst on Substack: https://richardmedhurst.substack.com/

August 25, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Debate: Is A Demonstration Project Really Necessary?

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | August 17, 2024

My repeated calls for a Demonstration Project of a zero-emissions electrical grid have led to a spirited debate among knowledgeable commenters. While most back my position, some say that a Demonstration Project is really not necessary and would be a waste of effort.

The gist of the argument of those disputing the necessity of a Demonstration Project is that it is so obvious that a zero-emissions grid powered predominantly by wind and solar generation cannot be achieved that the expense and effort of building an actual physical facility cannot be justified. Before the building of a physical demonstration project there would inevitably be an engineering feasibility study, and such a feasibility study would not get through its first day before everybody involved realized that this could never work. All it would take would be a few back-of-the-envelope calculations using basic arithmetic and the whole endeavor would be sunk.

Regular commenter Richard Greene leads the forces arguing against a demonstration project. From a comment by Richard on my August 10 post:

A good demonstration project that included manufacturing and farming is very likely not needed. A real local utility Nut Zero grid engineering plan on paper would have grid engineers laughing hysterically. The money allocated for backup batteries would be nowhere close to paying for the battery GWh capacity needed. Backup natural gas power plants could do the job, but gas backup is not wanted. . . . 100% wind and solar can never work due to compound energy droughts, wind drought and solar droughts (batteries are far too expensive).

Representative of the pro-demonstration project side is a comment from “dm” on the August 13 post. Excerpt:

Because many people doubt paper analyses, lived experience is a necessary teacher. Thus, demonstration projects are NEEDED to prove the folly of “sustainable” electricity grids. Furthermore, the demonstration projects MUST be in regions heavily populated with nut zero enthusiasts, and ALL costs MUST be paid SOLELY by households, businesses, institutions … located within the demonstration areas.

My natural sympathies here would lie with Richard’s side of this debate. How can spending what would likely be billions of dollars of public money be justified when calculations that I have made or verified myself show that the project will never come close to success?

But then we must look at what is happening in large states and countries that are proceeding toward the stated goal of a zero-emissions grid without ever having had a working demonstration project. In some of these cases (Germany, UK) the wasted resources are now into the trillions, not billions. And at some point the whole effort will inevitably be ended with some kind of hard-to-predict catastrophe (long blackouts? multiplication of consumer costs by a factor of ten or more?). By then, many of the working resources that have made the grid function will have been destroyed and will have to be re-created, at a cost of further trillions.

Consider the case of Germany. Germany is a very substantial country (80+ million people, making it twice the size of California and four times the size of New York), with the world’s fourth largest GDP at over $4 trillion annually. Germany was one of the first to start down the road to a zero-emissions grid back in the 1990s, and formally adopted its “Energiewende” fourteen years ago in 2010. Germany has proceeded farther than any other large country in converting its electricity generation to wind and solar.

And yet, as I look around for information on Germany’s progress toward zero-emissions electricity, I can’t find any concern or recognition that this might not be doable in the end. Perhaps that exists in German language sources that I can’t read. But from anything I can find, it looks like Germany is forging ahead in the blind faith that if only they build enough wind turbines and solar panels at some point they will have the zero-emissions electricity that they crave.

Go to the website of the Umweltbundesamt (Federal Environmental Agency) for the latest information. At least on the electricity front, you will not find any indication that there may be problems in achieving the zero-emissions utopian future:

The “Energiewende” – Germany’s transition towards a secure, environmentally friendly, and economically successful energy future – includes a large-scale restructuring of the energy supply system towards the use of renewable energy in all sectors. . . . [T]he switch towards renewables in the electricity sector has been very successful so far. . . . While in the year 2000 renewables accounted for 6.3 percent of electricity demand only, its [sic] share has been growing significantly over the past years, exceeding 10 percent in the year 2005 and 25 per cent in the year 2013. In 2023 renewable energy sources provided 272 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and account for 51.8 percent of German electricity demand. With wind power being by far the most important energy source in the German electricity mix.

Some 30+ years into this process, and they’re only up to barely over 50% of their electricity from “renewables.” And while they may claim that “wind power [is] by far the most important source in the German electricity mix,” in fact when you get a breakdown you find that wind and solar together provided well less than 50%. According to solar advocates Fraunhofer Institute here, in 2023 “biomass” provided some 42.3 TWh of Germany’s electricity (about 8%), hydro provided 19.5 TWh (about 4%), and “waste non-renewable” (I think that means burning garbage) provided 4.5 TWh (about 1%). That leaves under 40% for wind and solar.

If they keep building solar and wind facilities, and expect batteries to be the backup, has anybody calculated how much battery storage they will need? Not that I can find. Here is a website of a company called Fluence, which is an affiliate of German industrial giant Siemens. They excitedly predict a rapid expansion of grid storage in Germany:

Storage capacity will grow 40-fold to 57 GWh by 2030.

Wow, a 40-fold increase! It may sound like a lot. But Germany’s average electricity demand is about 50 GW, so the 57 GWh of battery storage in 2030 will come to about 1 hour’s worth. Competent calculations of the amount of energy storage needed to back up a predominantly wind/solar grid run in the range of around 500 to 1000 hours.

Here from another website is a chart of the growth of energy storage in Germany up to this year.

Look at that acceleration! But the 10 GWh of storage that they currently have will last no more than about 10 minutes when the wind and sun quit producing on a calm night.

In short, this large and seemingly sophisticated country is completely delusional, with no sane voices anywhere to be heard. A demonstration project that fails spectacularly is the only thing with any hope of saving them.

August 25, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

No one saw this car crash coming?

Australia is running out of electricity to charge electric cars, and they’re only 0.9% of cars on the road

By Jo Nova | August 22, 2024

EV’s represent just 0.9% of all cars on the road in Australia but plans to install fast chargers are already grinding to a crawl. Last year, Ampol was planning to build 180 EV charging bays by the end of the year. Instead it’s proved difficult to even reach half that target. Eight months after they were supposed to have 180 in action they’ve reached 92.

Just throw money…

A mere 3 weeks ago Ampol announced that thanks to a $100 million dollar grant from the Australian government they would install more than 200 new fast chargers at Ampol’s national network of petrol stations this year. But presumably after making a few phone calls they’ve realized it’s not going to happen. (You’d think they might have made the calls before putting out the press release? Or the Minister might have phoned a friend before tossing $100 million to the wind?)

Power grid foils Ampol’s big EV charger plans

Ben Potter and Simon Evans, Australian Financial Review

Ampol, one of the country’s largest petrol retailers, has dialled back plans to triple the number of electric vehicle chargers because of power grid limitations in a blow to government hopes of pushing motorists towards cleaner cars in big numbers by 2030.

The company’s chief executive, Matt Halliday, said it would not be possible to expand the number of charging bays from 92 to 300 by the end of this year because of difficulties connecting chargers to the grid which is already struggling to cope with an influx of renewable energy generation.

In March, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the government would spend $60 million helping car dealerships install chargers on sales lots.

[As] much as we spend a lot of time talking about generation, firming and transmission infrastructure, the last mile distribution grid is not really built for large-scale electrification, despite the best will that the players have to try and make it happen,” Mr Halliday added. “There are a lot of constraints that need to be worked through.”

These people are not good with numbers. A fast charger needs 300 kilowatts, and if there are three car charging spaces in a row, that’s a major load that our low voltage lines simply can’t bear. In order to get the local distribution networks upgraded the wait times to connect these fast chargers can be as long as two years.

Not to mention that we’re supposedly aiming to make all new cars electric in a mere five years or so, while we also try to shut down our largest coal plant.

At the moment most EVs charging overnight are probably burning more fossil fuels than petrol cars do. The EV revolution in Australia (should it happen) would rampantly increase our carbon dioxide emissions. But who cares, right? It was never about CO2.

It’s not like engineers haven’t been warning us this was going to happen for ten years.

August 25, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 1 Comment

The Energy Transition Ain’t Happening: “Clean Fuels”

By Francis Menton | The Manhattan Contrarian | August 19, 2024

Come here for the latest news on how the so-called “energy transition” is grinding to a halt. No amount of government handouts can make this ridiculously uneconomic fantasy work. My last post on the subject, on July 20, reported on the collapse of a large “green hydrogen” project in Australia, with the stated loss of an investment of about $2 billion (Australian) (equivalent to about $1.3 billion U.S.).

It seems that that one was just the tip of the iceberg. Today’s Wall Street Journal has a substantial roundup of the financial status of a half-dozen or so so-called “clean fuel” projects. The headlines from the print and online versions tell you what you need to know. In the print edition (page B3) it’s “Clean-Fuel Startups Begin to Fizzle Out.” Online, it’s “Clean Fuel Startups Were Supposed to Be the Next Big Thing. Now They Are Collapsing.” As the headlines indicate, pretty much all of these “clean fuels” ventures are failing. Who could have guessed?

The Journal’s label of “clean fuels” is used to cover two different categories, one being biofuels, and the other being so-called “green hydrogen” (the stuff produced by electrolysis of water using electricity produced by wind or sun). The biofuels category appears to include such genius ideas as making fuel for airplanes or ships out of used cooking grease. Whatever you might think of that idea, these are still carbon-based fuels, and it’s not clear to me at all why they are supposedly “cleaner” than other carbon-based fuels like petroleum or natural gas.

Hydrogen, on the other hand, offers the promise of providing energy for planes, trains, ships and automobiles free of the dreaded “carbon emissions.” Just hook up some solar panels or wind turbines to big electrolyzers and watch the stuff bubble out of the water virtually for free! The badly misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” made billions upon billions of dollars of subsidies available for these kinds of projects. Surely the successes should be rolling forth one after the other by this time.

It turns out that no matter how many subsidies the government doles out, nobody can make this “green” hydrogen stuff as cheaply as natural gas can be produced by drilling into rock.

One of the big green hydrogen startups is called Plug Power. The Journal quotes its CEO, Andy Marsh:

“The excitement of the early days has not lived up to the hype,” said Andy Marsh, chief executive of Plug Power, a startup that recently opened one of the country’s first plants making green hydrogen, a potential replacement for fossil fuels in industries such as steel making and chemical production. Shares of Plug Power have tumbled more than 90% since the passage of the U.S. climate law two years ago.

Well, at least they’re not bankrupt — yet. You do have to wonder how Mr. Marsh could qualify to be a CEO of such a company and raise hundreds of millions of investor dollars without ever crunching the numbers to realize that green hydrogen could never be economical. Could it be that his business plan all along was to pay himself a big salary out of the investors’ funds and then walk away when the inevitable bankruptcy came?

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the Journal summarizing the overall state of the industry:

Many clean-fuel projects have become money pits, in part because of the great amounts of power they need. High interest rates, supply-chain disruptions and expensive power-grid upgrades have driven up electricity prices. . . . “The only way to fix it is by lowering the cost of green electricity,” said Andrew Forrest, one of the most vocal advocates of hydrogen.

Wait a minute. Andrew Forrest — where have we heard that name? Oh, he is the Australian tycoon who goes by the name “Twiggy.” He’s the head of the company Fortescue, and was the subject of my July 20 post as a result of the collapse of his big Australian green hydrogen project. The Journal goes on to some detail about “Twiggy’s” ongoing green hydrogen plans:

Forrest, the billionaire founder of Australian iron-ore giant Fortescue, said his company’s 2030 hydrogen production target now looks unrealistic. Fortescue is planning to produce its own clean power to make hydrogen in Australia and is considering doing the same in Arizona.

But somehow the Journal fails to mention the failure of Forrest’s big Australian project. Could it be that they interviewed him a month ago, before that happened?

So the odds are that nobody will ever be able to make these “clean fuels” economically. The consequence:

Without clean fuels, emissions at many companies are expected to keep climbing, threatening U.S. and global climate targets. Industries including aviation and shipping are counting on the new fuels because wind and solar power and batteries can’t meet their huge energy needs.

When are we allowed to declare that this whole charade is over?

UPDATE, August 20: Commenter Pablo Honey suggests that it might be interesting to look at the financials for one of these “clean fuels” companies. Here is the 2Q 24 earnings release for Plug Power, just out on August 8. Some key figures: revenue — $143.4 million; “earnings” — net loss of $262.3 million.

Margins: “The Georgia plant’s increased production capacity and strategic price increases across the hydrogen product portfolio have significantly improved hydrogen margins.” So they are increasing prices from levels that were already a multiple of the price of natural gas for equivalent energy content. Good for them if they can get someone to pay, but that inherently means that their market is limited to buyers who either need hydrogen for its non-energy properties (i.e., fertilizer) or ones who are willing to forego profit out of religious devotion to “decarbonization.”

Government handouts: “Plug Power became one of the first companies to leverage the PTC [Production Tax Credit] for its liquid hydrogen plant in Georgia, optimizing financial performance and enhancing shareholder value. . . . Plug Power is progressing with the DOE loan, which aims to support the expansion of its green hydrogen initiatives and infrastructure for up to six sites.” Great — it’s another Solyndra in the works.

August 25, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Hezbollah carries out ‘first phase’ of retaliation, Israel imposes strict censorship

The Cradle | August 25, 2024

Hezbollah launched a major drone and rocket attack at over 10 Israeli targets early on 25 August in what it called the “first phase” of its response to the assassination of top military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut’s southern suburb on 30 July.

An undisclosed “vital military target,” was the main objective of this operation, according to the Lebanese resistance.

“All the attack drones were launched at the times specified for them and from all their [predetermined] positions and crossed the Lebanese-Palestinian borders towards the desired target and from multiple paths, and thus our military operation for today has been completed and accomplished, praise be to Allah Almighty,” a statement issued by the Lebanese resistance movement said.

The movement said it fired over 320 rockets at sites in the Galilee, which served as a diversion to prevent Israel’s Iron Dome system from shooting down the attack drones.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military claimed it carried out pre-emptive strikes that successfully thwarted a massive attack by Hezbollah after identifying overnight preparations for a major attack.

“Approximately 100 IAF fighter jets struck and destroyed thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels, aimed for fire toward northern and central Israel.”

The Lebanese resistance movement addressed Israel’s announcements in one of its statements, calling them “empty claims” that “contradict the facts on the ground and will be refuted in a speech” by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

Following the operation, Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an order banning press interviews with Likud ministers until further notice.

Additionally, BBC journalist Nafiseh Kohnavard reported on X that the Israeli government “issued a series of new censorship regulations for media that includes the damage caused by rocket attacks to ‘strategic national infrastructure or to military bases.’”

The Israeli military said some 210 rockets and some 20 drones were launched from Lebanon at northern Israel in Hezbollah’s attack this morning.

Some of the projectiles were intercepted, while others impacted, causing damage and injuries. Many rockets also struck open areas, the military said.

Palestinian journalist Qassem Qassem noted that “The Hebrew media is currently exaggerating the size of the enemy army’s ‘preventive’ strike, and the talk about destroying 1,000 missiles directed at Tel Aviv is ridiculous.”

Al-Mayadeen noted that “Hezbollah hit its targets despite the occupation’s reliance on significant American intelligence and operational support. The resistance’s response to the assassination of martyr Fouad Shukr succeeded despite Israel’s full state of alert for over a month.”

Israel’s allies have been scrambling to prevent Iran and Hezbollah from retaliating to the Israeli attacks on their capitals last month. The assassination of top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut on 30 July killed several civilians, including children.

Washington has expressed hope that reaching an agreement to end the war in Gaza could stymie an incoming response and avoid a larger-scale regional war. Yet ceasefire talks continue to yield no results.

Hezbollah has repeatedly vowed that it will not stop operations until the war in Gaza ends and promised a harsh retaliation to Shukr’s assassination in the Lebanese capital. It has also refused any discussion on Lebanon’s border situation until an end to the war is achieved.

“Our borders with Lebanon will change and will not return to what they were before the war,” an Israeli military source told Sky News Arabia on 21 August, echoing months of Israeli threats to launch an expanded war on Lebanon.

August 25, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | 2 Comments

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