Global food crisis a result of policy mistakes by US and EU: Putin aide
Samizdat | June 3, 2022
The looming global food crisis that could result from skyrocketing food prices was enabled by a series of policy mistakes by Washington and Brussels, Maksim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told RT.
The conflict in Ukraine alone could not have caused the crisis on such a massive scale, Oreshkin said.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s international food price index shows that between April 2020 and April 2022, global food prices rose by more than 60%. The increase occurred for the most part before February 2022, when Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine.
In the four years from 2016 to 2020, the index grew by less than 7 points, but it increased by a whopping 27 points, from 98.1 to 125.7, in 2020-21. After the second year of the pandemic, the index stood at 141.1.
Since Russia’s military operation began, the index has risen by a further 17 points.
“Swings like that, with such huge increases in prices, are not happening due to one reason. It’s always a combination of a number of reasons which is leading to such a result,” Oreshkin, Russia’s economic development minister from 2016 to 2020, said.
He points to America’s overreaction to the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the first major factors that triggered the food price hikes. Since February 2020, the US “increased the money supply by almost 40%,” he said, adding that the $6 trillion the US printed to support its economy ended up flooding global markets, and led to the rise in food, commodity and energy prices.
Europe’s over-reliance on renewable energy, which drew resources away from food production, and on short-term gas contracts that led to gas price hikes in late 2021, are also significant factors, according to Oreshkin.
In early May, German Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Svenja Schulze said that the focus of some nations on green energy contributed to the food shortage. According to Schulze, up to 4% of biofuel in Germany is made from food and animal feed. “It needs to be reduced to zero, and not just in Germany but potentially internationally,” she told Bild at the time.
Oreshkin said these factors also led to a decrease in fertilizer production, which in turn hit harvests and drove up food prices. The waves of sanctions unleashed by the US and its allies on Moscow after the start of the military operation in Ukraine significantly exacerbated the crisis.
“It’s about a lot of sanctions imposed on the different fertilizer producers in Belarus, in Russia, it’s sanctions on ships, it’s sanctions on payments which halted trade,” he said, adding that Russia and Belarus both want “to export more food … more fertilizers,” but the “sanctions are blocking access to the global market and, of course, limit supply.”
According to Oreshkin, the 20 million tons of wheat supposedly blocked in Ukraine, which has become a hot topic among Western politicians and media, account for 2.5% of global wheat production. He also stated that Russia is prepared to partially substitute potential losses of Ukrainian wheat by exporting 13 million more tons this year than in 2021.
He also pointed to global food inequality as a root cause. “In reality, there is enough food on this planet,” but developed nations such as the US are simply consuming much more food than the others, he said, adding that people in the US consume on average “more than 50% calories per day more” than people around the world.
“They’re printing the money, they’re taking all the food, and of course they are taking the food from those who cannot afford it.”
He added: “if countries like the United States consume less, there will be enough food for everyone.”
Political West ‘shocked’ by polls indicating most of world population likes Russia
By Drago Bosnic | June 3, 2022
Russophobia is defined as a racist or supremacist attitude towards Russia, its people, culture, etc. It most certainly isn’t a new phenomenon and it has intermittently been spiking or subsiding at various historical stages. This is especially true for the political West and their client states, particularly those with predominantly (neo)liberal views. In the last several months, especially since the start of Russia’s special military operation, this hatred has reached levels which can only be described as borderline mass psychoneurosis. Oftentimes, it’s so extreme, that it should be treated by highly trained medical specialists such as psychiatrists and studied thoroughly by clinical psychologists.
There were some claims that anti-Russian sanctions and generally anti-Russian actions of various Western institutions, governments and supranational organizations were not aimed against the Russian people, Russian culture, language, etc. And yet, this is precisely what has been happening. Sanctions imposed on Russia were designed specifically to target and bring down the Russian economy. And it’s not even a conspiracy theory, as most Western leaders openly stated this was their primary goal.
This attempt didn’t only fail miserably, but it even backfired, sending Western markets into a frenzy of high inflation and economic stagnation (or even recession), otherwise known as stagflation, a dreadful and volatile mix for anyone’s economy. And yet, the political West didn’t only fail to address the mounting issues resulting from their own actions, but they also decided to capitalize on these exact problems to push for more Russophobia by blaming Russia for literally everything.
That’s precisely how we got the mythical “Putin’s price hike” in the US, which started over a full year before Russia’s special military operation. However, even in the atmosphere of raging, media-incited hatred, people affected by the so-called “Putin’s price hike” are well aware this has nothing to do with Russia’s president. And yet, the hatred not only needs to be kept alive, but also fanned up to new extremes.
The latest trend is to blame Russia for global food shortages, including the shortages of baby food in the US. Some Western officials went as far as to blame Russia for the widespread man-made famine which has been ravaging Yemen for the last 7 years. One problem with this, however, is the involvement of the political West and its regional allies and clients, which have been keeping Yemen in a state of perpetual siege, blocking food imports and bombing the country daily. The sheer amount of hypocrisy and mental gymnastics necessary for one to blame Russia for the war crimes committed by the political West requires a thorough analysis in itself. Some of it medical.
When it comes to global food shortages, they can only be explained as entirely man-made. Russia expects a record harvest this year, as do many other countries. So, how come there is a shortage announced months in advance? Well, we should ask those announcing it. The statements about coming food shortages also drive up the prices, but the actual reason behind it can only be explained by Western sanctions which are preventing normal trade between Russia and other countries which need Russian food. The political West is also using this to capitalize on Russophobia, by blaming the Russian counteroffensive in Ukraine as the reason behind food shortages. A portion of the accusations is heavily focused on the nonexistent Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports. But the crews of ships stranded in Odessa, Nikolayev and Kherson tell a very different story. It was the Kiev regime’s placement of thousands of sea mines that makes sea transit from Ukraine virtually impossible.
But, it’s all Russia’s fault in the minds of clinical Russophobes. And no matter how much evidence is presented to disprove this false narrative (just one of many), they will find ways to spin it to their advantage. Still, the vast majority of the world simply doesn’t believe any of it. And the fact that the world doesn’t fall for Russophobia and anti-Russian propaganda is what truly “shocks” the political West. The ever-belligerent, (neo)colonialist block cannot comprehend why the world doesn’t share their views. Well, maybe because much, if not most of that same world has suffered tremendously under the jackboot of global (neo)liberalism for decades, centuries even. The most recent polls confirm this. The Guardian published the “shocking” statistics on 30 May.
“The sharp polarisation between mainly Western liberal democracies and the rest of the world in perceptions of Russia has been laid bare in an annual global poll of attitudes towards democracy. The annual Democracy Perception Index covers 52 countries in Asia, Latin America, the US and Europe. Majorities in Greece, Kenya, Turkey, China, Israel, Egypt, Nigeria, Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam, Algeria, the Philippines, Hungary, Mexico, Thailand, Morocco, Malaysia, Peru, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Colombia thought economic ties with Russia should not be cut. Also, positive views of Russia have been retained in China, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. By contrast, among the 31 countries that favoured cutting ties, 20 were in Europe. The countries with a widely held most negative view of Russia included Poland (87%), Ukraine (80%), Portugal (79%), Italy (65%), UK (65%), Sweden (77%), US (62%) and Germany (62%). Thus, negative views of Russia are largely confined to Europe and other liberal democracies,” the report says.
Statistics such as this should always be taken with a grain of salt, as they could easily be rigged to further an agenda, if not through data manipulation, then through ambiguous questions which result in (intentionally) confusing or unclear answers. And yet, the results must be highly disappointing, with the massive trillion-dollar propaganda machine exposed as largely impotent outside of the political West. Long gone are the days when entire nations, such as Serbs, Iraqis or Syrians, among many others, could be demonized and then killed en masse with impunity.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
The REAL agenda behind the created food crisis
By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | June 1, 2022
We’re in the early stages of a food crisis.
The press has been predicting this for years, but up until now it always appeared to be nothing more than fearmongering, designed to worry or distract people, but the signs are there that this time, to quote Joe Biden, it “is going to be real”.
Nobody knows how bad it could get, except the people who are creating it.
Because the evidence is pretty clear, it is being deliberately & cold-bloodedly created. We’ve been documenting it for months.
We have Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine driving up the price of staple foods, wheat and sunflower oil, as well as fertiliser.
We have the sudden “bird flu outbreak” driving up the price of poultry and eggs.
The soaring price of oil is driving up the cost of food distribution.
The inflation caused by huge influxes of fiat currency means families are spending more money on less food.
And as all this is happening, the US and UK (and maybe others, we don’t know) are literally paying farmers not to farm.
It’s pretty clear this is The Great Reset: Food Edition. The lockdown melody with slightly different lyrics. A process of breaking down the structures already in place so we can “build back better” with a more controlled and more corporatised food system
Just as the Covid “pandemic” was said to highlight “weaknesses in the multilateral system”, so this food crisis will show that our “unstable food systems are in need of reform” and we need to ensure our “food security”…or a thousand variations on that theme.
That’s not supposition. They already started, over a year ago.
The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Developments published a paper in February 2021 titled:
Dismantling and rebuilding the food system after COVID-19: Ten principles for redistribution and regeneration
In an interview from July last year, Ruth Richardson the Executive Director of the NGO Global Alliance for the Future of Food literally said:
Our Dominant Food System Needs to Be Dismantled and Rebuilt”
Later, in September 2021, the UN convened the first-ever “Food Systems Summit”, whose mission statement included the line:
Rebuilding the food systems of the world will also enable us to answer the UN Secretary-General’s call to “build back better” from COVID-19.
Writing in the Guardian two weeks ago, George Monbiot, weathervane for every deep state agenda, states with his trademark lack of subtlety:
The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same… The system has to change.
But what does “change” and “rebuilt” actually mean in this context?
Well, that’s no mystery, they’ve been talking it up for years.
- It will mean press and politicians alike pushing the WEF’s “planetary health diet”.
- It will mean conditioning children to eat bugs and seaweed.
- It will mean increased pushing of “gene-edited” or genetically modified foods.
- It will mean stigmatising meat-eaters whilst perpetually fluffing veganism.
- It will mean promoting lab-grown “meat” and bacterial slime mixed in giant vats over natural food.
- It will mean “carbon taxes” on red meat and imported food of all kinds.
- It will mean “obesity” taxes on foods high in sugar or fat.
- It will mean propaganda efforts to rebrand staple foods as “luxuries”.
Almost all of these are stories from just the past month or so, many of them talking points at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Conference.
As is almost always the case, the problem to which they’re currently “reacting” already has a series of pre-ordained solutions.
Just as we saw lockdowns break the economy to pieces whilst the billionaire class land record profits whilst corporate megaliths expanded their monopolies, so too will any proposed food security policies end up benefiting the already mega-rich or installing infrastructure for corporate control.
They just announced the building of the largest “cultured meat factory” in the world. Fake meat, of course, can’t be raised at home and is subject to patented processes of creation. Genetically edited or modified plants and animals are likewise subject to patents.
Supranational companies, with profits larger than the budget of some nations, are developing carbon footprint tracker apps which reward people for making the “right decisions”. That could easily be applied to food.
Bill Gates has quietly become the largest owner of agricultural land in the United States. Land on which he can grow new Frankencrops, or which the US government will pay him not to use.
The play is clear: Right now they’re getting ready to tear all our old food systems down, with the stated aim of building them back better.
But better for them, not us.
Four UK primary schools to feed youngsters insects
Free West Media | June 1, 2022
Insects are supposed to be nutritious and have a lower carbon footprint than regular meat, scientists have claimed. Young children will soon be eating insects to encourage a new generation to switch from meat to insects – and to convince their parents to follow their lead.
Pupils at four primary schools in Wales will be fed “alternative proteins” such as crickets, grasshoppers, silkworms, grasshoppers and mealworms. The project to change people’s diets starts this week.
The researchers hope their findings will provide information on how to make British children – and by extension, their parents – believe in the environmental and nutritional benefits of edible insects.
Surveys, workshops, interviews and focus groups will give feed-back on the experiences of alternative proteins. Researchers have teamed up with teachers in the hope to convince five- to 11-year-old participants to give up meat and dairy.
“We want children to think about alternative proteins as real things for now and not just foods for the future, so sampling some of these foods is a key part of the research,” said Christopher Bear of Cardiff University.
“Although edible insects are not – yet – sold on a large scale in the UK, they are part of the diet of around 2 billion people worldwide. A large proportion of these live in parts of the world where they are part of a long-standing culinary tradition. And they’re becoming popular elsewhere, too,” he added.
A 2020 study estimated that around 9 million European consumers ate insects in 2019 and predicted a rise to 390 million by 2030, according to the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF), an insect producer.
Carl Evans, Head of School at Roch Community Primary School in Pembrokeshire, which is participating in the project, said that this was an “important link” to “wider global issues around sustainable development” even if it is “often confusing for them”.
Verity Jones of the University of the West of England in Bristol, said young children could “play a big role in family dietary changes”. According to Jones, most of us are already unwittingly eating insects: “Everyone eats insects every day – there are more than 30 parts of bugs in 100g of chocolate… Bread, fruit juices, hops… whatever you eat, you eat insects.”
Jones has tried to reassure children in this way that they would not get sick from eating insects because “all research, both in adults and children, showed that the notion of whole insects were unpleasant, “but crushed insects in food are very acceptable”.
“My research has found that, as with adults, boys are more willing to try new foods first,” she said.
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) is expected to allow insects to be temporarily sold in supermarkets and other retailers, with full approval expected next year.
But insects can compromise the nutritional value of many foods, especially those made from plants (like rice or flour). Some common anti-nutrients contained in them are phytic acid, tannins, and lectins. The exoskeleton, or “chitin,” of an insect has been found to contain these anti-nutrients.
Insects could have the same capacity to trigger allergic reactions as do crustaceans (like shrimp and lobster). Also, many insects feed on decaying matter: rotting food, animal corpses, human waste which are full of bacteria and is a common danger associated with wild insects. They can carry parasites which are harmful, or even deadly.
Notably vegans were significantly more determined than meat eaters that they would not eat foods of insect origin, even if they were nutritious, safe, affordable, and convenient. Insects are technically animals (they belong to largest phylum of the animal kingdom, arthropods) and are therefore not considered as a food source by vegans.
EU plotting to force Hungary to pay more for oil
Samizdat | June 1, 2022
The EU is reportedly considering imposing import tariffs on Russian crude if any members of the bloc refuse to implement the terms of the newly announced embargo on oil from the country, the FT reported on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, EU member states reached an agreement on a partial ban of Russian crude from the bloc’s market. The cushioned embargo will affect about 75% of Russian oil imports, with that percentage growing to 90% by the end of the year.
However, the measure allows a temporary exemption for pipeline supplies, which was introduced to win the support of Hungary and other landlocked countries that had been blocking the proposal for about a month. The exemption reportedly didn’t come with any agreed timeframe, raising concerns that Budapest may continue importing Russian crude for as long as it wishes.
To avoid this scenario, the EU is seeking tariffs on Russian oil imports if Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban doesn’t ultimately commit to a cut-off date, according to a senior European Commission official, as quoted by media.
The proposal of tariffs would reportedly require a qualified majority vote among the 27 member states, rather than the unanimity that is needed for normal sanctions, so Hungary could not veto the measure.
“The preferred option is the import ban,” the senior commission official told the FT, adding that tariffs are an “alternative possibility we can look into”.
If imposed, the tariffs are expected to make Russian oil less competitive, potentially forcing Moscow to discount its crude or Hungary and other nations to pay more.
Russian crude delivered through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, is reportedly 20% cheaper than the alternatives other member states have to use.
Britons warned of winter blackouts
Samizdat | May 30, 2022
As many as six million British households could be subjected to power cuts this winter if Russian gas supplies to Europe stop, The Times reported Sunday, citing a Whitehall document.
It said that imports of natural gas from Norway could halve next winter amid surging EU demand. Britain buys around half of its total supplies from the Nordic country.
Shipments of liquified natural gas from major producers such as the United States and Qatar could also halve this winter, the UK government warned, pointing to fierce global competition for supplies of the fuel.
Meanwhile, interconnectors from the Netherlands and Belgium could also be cut off in winter, as the two countries struggle meeting their own demand.
The UK, which has vowed to end the importation of Russian oil by the end of the year, is now seeking to bolster electricity supply by extending the life of its coal and aging nuclear power stations.
Thus, the lifespan of Somerset nuclear power plant Hinkley Point B could be extended by 18 months, despite plans to decommission the 50-year-old facility this summer.
According to the report, heavy industrial facilities could be told to stop using gas, while UK gas-fired power plants could be closed in order to preserve limited supplies.
That could reportedly result in shortages of electricity, with British households subjected to blackouts during peak times on weekday mornings and evenings.
If Russia cuts supplies of natural gas to the EU entirely, blackouts could last for three months, starting in December, and occur on both weekdays and weekends, the report said.
Irina Slav: “From arrogance to insanity: the EU path”
By Robert Bradley Jr. | Master Resource | May 26, 2022
Irina Slav is a voice speaking truth to power. Her posts and opinion pieces at OilPrice.com deserve reading and study.
One of her recent posts called out the perilous double-down-on-failure approach of the EU (and UK) on energy policy. It says much about the sorry state of energy thinking that environmentalists greenwash and complain about energy companies greenwashing. Climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists treat good news as bad in their religious compunction to rail against modern living and prosperity.
Her article follows.
The feeling of being right about something should be a pleasant one. Unless you’re right about something rather unpleasant. I tend to have the latter kind of experiences and the latest instance was this week, when media reported that the EU was planning to substantially facilitate the construction of more wind and solar farms, to the point of removing the requirement for an environmental impact assessment for projects.
This unleashed a flood of images that to some might be illustrations of our species’ progress but to me are images of environmental devastation. In case anyone thinks I’m being melodramatic, here’s a fact: you can’t build solar installations just anywhere. Land needs to be cleared and flattened for them, including forests, should they happen to be in the way. Same for wind mills but on a much, I believe, smaller scale.
Of course, the EU has tied its pants with the stipulation that only projects proposed for designated “go-to” areas will be spared the trouble of environmental impact assessments. It’s a completely worthless stipulation, however, since governments would rush to designate go-to area after go-to area whether out of a genuine if misplaced belief that renewables will save the world or pure, primal greed.
Here’s an FT quote I instantly fell in love with: ““Lengthy and complex administrative procedures are a key barrier for investments in renewables and their related infrastructure,” according to the draft. The plans could “result in the occasional killing or disturbance of birds and other protected species”, it added.”
It might also result in the disturbance of agricultural land and sensitive ecosystems because all ecosystems are sensitive and if you really get going building gigawatts of solar power, you will disturb them because, quite simply, everywhere is an ecosystem. And this plan comes from the same EU that has been fining Bulgaria (with reason, I’m sure and I’m not being sarcastic for a change) for violating environmental protection regulations.
So, the EU has since last September been suffering the consequences of a too fast buildout in renewable capacity, rooted in the arrogant assumption that it only takes a few million solar panels and wind turbines to save the planet from the effects of centuries of human activity.
Now, the bloc plans to accelerate this buildout even more because, of course, it never acknowledged the role that too-fast buildout had on its energy troubles. On the contrary, the overwhelming sentiment appears to be that European countries are not building wind and solar capacity fast enough.
The EU will also accelerate the acceleration even further because now Brussels has set its sights on completely quitting all sorts of fossil fuel imports from Russia by 2027. This would cost the bloc the modest sum of 195 billion euro, or 32.5 billion euro per year until 2027, on top of all other investments in renewable energy. The goal: to source 45% of its energy from renewable installations by 2030. Given the track record of wind and solar, this is, of course, totally feasible.
Meanwhile, European economies are panting under growing inflation weight, dumped on them by the same people who are now urging the accelerated ramp-up of wind and solar. At a time when all commodity prices are soaring. At a time of various material and equipment shortages.
Doing the same thing and expecting different results has been said to be the definition of insanity and the EU is acting like an excellent example of this definition. It refuses to acknowledge that the results of its actions in energy so far have been less than positive, so to speak. Except on the level of emissions. Those are falling, so that’s a win for the EU narrative (and for our lungs, if we’re talking about fine particulate matter). On the security and affordability front, however, things couldn’t be different-er.
In the UK, the FT reported this week, some households are being forced to take out loans in order to be able to pay their electricity bills. Meanwhile, the government is raising its 2030 renewable capacity target to 50 GW for offshore wind alone while Chancellor Sunak is berating the oil industry for not investing enough at home. As one reader would say, this reads like a soap opera script, and a bad one, at that.
The UK is not the EU but the energy policies of the two are remarkably identical. In the EU, as in the UK, member states are providing direct financial support to their citizens and businesses to help them cope with higher electricity prices. Those would be the same prices that are high precisely because of these governments’ energy policies. And even with that help, a lot of people are struggling with their bills.
At the same time, these same governments are providing direct financial support to wind and solar developers, while charging their citizens extra for the renewable power in their supply mix (Note: This is an extrapolation, based on the existence of renewable power surcharges in Bulgaria and Germany.). And they are planning to build more of the renewable power capacity that citizens pay more for the privilege of using to heat their homes and cook their food.
In other words, EU governments are paying aid to their citizens for excessive electricity prices while at the same time charging these same citizens more for the renewable electricity they want to produce more of. The aid will end, sooner rather than later. The surcharges are not going anywhere.
The outlook for European energy prices meanwhile remains quite grim. According to economists polled by the Wall Street Journal, energy prices in the EU will remain high and even rise further in the coming months thanks to Western sanctions on Russia that are reducing the availability of Russian oil for Europe.
The sanctions have also started reducing the availability of gas for Europe, first because of Poland’s and Bulgaria’s refusal to pay in rubles for gas deliveries and as of this week because the Ukraine decided to move the entry point of Russian gas into the country from one place to another, because the first one is controlled by Russian forces.
Gazprom said that was technologically impossible (for capacity reasons), so the Ukraine is turning the tap — which is one of the taps for Europe — off. According to the Ukrainian side, that channel accounts for a third of all Russian gas transited through the Ukraine to Europe. For context, in 2021, the total amount of Russian gas shipped to Europe via its eastern neighbour totalled 41.6 billion cu m.
Soon after this, Moscow sanctioned a host of Gazprom subsidiaries in Europe, cutting off their access to gas, in response to EU sanctions. Gas prices jumped further, as usual, and Brussels’ resolve to shake off the hydrocarbon chains tying it to Russia probably hardened. We might be about to hear about another revision of renewable targets for 2030, with the appropriate price tag, of course.
In all fairness, in this particular context of energy insecurity, the argument for local energy production from whatever you have handy, be it coal, nuclear, or wind and solar, makes a lot of sense. In fact, the “local supply = energy security” argument has always been the strongest pragmatic one in favour of wind and solar.
The problem is in details such as costs, energy density and, as always, reliability. But nobody in Brussels and national capitals seems to care about petty details. The political EU is firmly in “Whatever it takes” mode and we’re all footing the bill.
The “green energy world” is in a pickle. Only government intervention and deficit spending is holding the artificial boom afloat. And just imagine all of the good things that the same dedication of resources could have created if they had gone for goods and services that consumers wanted. That is a story for another day.
MIT Weighs In On Energy Storage
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | May 26, 2022
As I’ve been pointing out now for a couple of years, the obvious gap in the plans of our betters for a carbon-free “net zero” energy future is the problem of massive-scale energy storage. How exactly is New York City (for example) going to provide its citizens with power for a long and dark full-week period in the winter, with calm winds, long nights, and overcast days, after everyone has been required to change over to electric heat and electric cars — and all the electricity is supposed to come from the wind and sun, which are neither blowing nor shining for these extended periods? Can someone please calculate how much energy storage will be needed to cover a worst-case solar/wind drought, what it will consist of, how long it has to last, how much it will cost, and whether it is economically feasible? Nearly all descriptions by advocates of the supposed path to “net zero” — including the ambitious plans of the states of New York and California — completely gloss over this issue and/or deal with it in a way demonstrating total incompetence and failure to comprehend the problem.
And then suddenly appeared in my inbox a couple of weeks ago a large Report with the title “The Future of Energy Storage: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study.” MIT — that’s America’s premier university for matters of science and technology. The Report is 378 pages long, full of lots of detail, charts and graphs, mathematical equations, and technical jargon. It lists as authors some 18 members of the MIT faculty. Surely, if anyone can address this “net zero” energy storage problem competently, these will be the people.
Sorry. This is a product of modern American academia. MIT is as extreme left as any of them.
Having now spent about a week trying to wade through this morass, I am not impressed. The Report is an exercise by genius would-be central planners concocting enormously complex models that just happen to come to the results that the authors are hoping for, while at the same time they avoid ever directly addressing the critical question, namely what is the plan to get through that worst case sun/wind drought. Implicit in every page of the Report is that it is an advocacy document for the proposition that the U.S. should embark full speed ahead on crash “net zero” plans for our multi-tens-of-trillions-of-dollars economy without ever doing any kind of demonstration project to show it can work on any scale no matter how small.
You start to get an idea where this is going at the very beginning, when you come on page romanette v to a list of members of an “Advisory Committee” that appears to have given direction to the project. Members include John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, someone from the Environmental Defense Fund, an “Alternative Energy Research” guy from the Bank of America, an ex-World Bank guy (the World Bank being an organization dedicated to keeping poor countries from having access to energy that works), an environmental bureaucrat from the Massachusetts state government, several people from other alternative energy investors and environmental advocacy groups, and so forth. Clearly, this Report had to come to a pre-determined conclusion that energy storage issues do not pose any major impediment to net zero ambitions.
This being a product of left-wing academia, you can expect the usual touching faith in the ability of the federal government to solve all problems, no matter how intractable, by the magic of spending money out of the infinite federal pile. Thus, early in the Executive Summary, we find a recognition that the only battery storage technology currently being deployed in large amounts in commercial applications — namely Lithium Ion — cannot provide backup for periods longer than about 12 hours:
Li-ion batteries will continue to be a leading technology for EVs and for short-duration storage, but their storage capacity costs are unlikely to fall low enough to enable widespread adoption for long-duration (> 12 hours) electricity system applications.
OK then, what is the technology that will step up for the periods of a week or two that may need to be covered in a world without fossil fuels. From page xv:
To enable economical long-duration energy storage (> 12 hours), the DOE should support research, development, and demonstration to advance alternative electrochemical storage technologies that rely on earth-abundant materials. Cost, lifetime, and manufacturing scale requirements for long-duration energy storage favor the exploration of novel electro-chemical technologies, such as redox-flow and metal-air batteries that use inexpensive charge-storage materials and battery designs that are better suited for long-duration applications. (Emphasis in original).
The feds will “support research” into “novel technologies,” of course using the infinite money pile, and the technology will magically appear. And what exactly is the technology that will then emerge to rescue us? They have no idea:
While several novel electrochemical technologies have shown promise, remaining knowledge gaps with respect to key scientific, engineering, and manufacturing challenges suggest high value for concerted government support. Innovation in these technologies is being actively pursued in other countries, notably China.
You’ve got to hate those “knowledge gaps,” but clearly all that is needed to fill them is enough federal funding. And you can’t let those Chinese beat us!
Well, how about just using that ubiquitous element hydrogen, easily available through the electrolysis of water? They discuss that too:
[H]ydrogen produced via electrolysis can serve as a low-carbon fuel for industry as well as for electricity generation during periods when VRE [variable renewable energy] generation is low. . . . We support the effort that the DOE is leading to create a national strategy that addresses hydrogen production, transportation, and storage. In particular, the ability of existing natural gas transmission pipelines to carry hydrogen without suffering embrittlement, either at reduced pressures or if hydrogen is blended with natural gas or other compounds, remains an open question that deserves government-supported study by the DOE and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Funny that private investors aren’t putting any real money into this “hydrogen economy” thing. That’s because to get hydrogen out of water is extremely costly, and once you have it, it is inferior to natural gas in every way as a source of energy for the people. It’s less dense, more dangerous, and more difficult to transport and store. But again, throw in some of the infinite pile of federal money and it will all magically work.
Many of the charts and graphs are very complicated and technical, but if you spend some time with them, you start to realize that they are an insult to your intelligence. I’ll give you just one of my favorites, this one from page 191. Here we are considering what the electricity generation system will look like for two regions, the Northeast (New York and New England) and Texas, in various low and no-carbon scenarios. The cutoffs of 0g, 5g, 10g and No Limit at the left refer to how much carbon emissions are allowed per kWh of electricity generated.
Thus at the top right we see what a zero-carbon scenario will look like for Texas. Supposedly, with about a 3 to 4 times overbuild of a system having only wind and solar generation, then we will only need battery storage for about 50% of capacity and about 11 hours duration. Really? Does anybody remember February 2021? Texas’s wind and solar generators produced at less than 10% capacity for days on end. Can a three times overbuild of wind capacity and 12 hours of battery storage solve that? The answer is no. Not even close. And you could get a wind/solar drought of a full week. If you have no fossil fuel backup, you had better have enough storage to cover that.
And if you take some time to study this chart (not saying that I would recommend that) you can find multiple other equally implausible assertions.
Bottom line: I’m not trusting anybody’s so-called “model” to prove that this gigantic energy transformation is going to work. Show me the demonstration project that actually works.
They won’t. Indeed, there is not even an attempt to put such a thing together, even as we hurtle down the road to “net zero” without any idea how it is going to work.
German Farmers Set To Lose Up to 3 Million Tonnes of Harvest Due to EU Ukraine-Related Sanctions
Samizdat – 29.05.2022
The European Union is currently working on a new wave of sanctions that might further limit fertiliser imports from Russia and Belarus despite the looming agricultural crisis that may affect millions.
German farmers are sounding the alarm over a potential contraction in their output and further price increases this year caused by the EU’s sanctions against Russia and Belarus, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten has reported.
EU sanctions imposed in the context of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine limit fertiliser imports, namely potassium chloride and potash fertilisers, which many European farmers rely upon.
German farmers expect that this year’s output may be 3 million tonnes less than previous years as a result of current measures. The fertiliser shortage will hit grain crops particularly heavily as countries already fear shortages in their global supplies due to the conflict in Ukraine and difficulties in maritime trading routes.
Another aftermath of the EU’s Ukraine-related sanctions targeting fertilisers may be the growth of consumer food prices, the German news outlet warned. In 2021, Europe imported 4.6 million tonnes of a total 13 million of fertilisers from Belarus and Russia. With shipments from these countries limited by April’s sanctions package, the supply shortage is set to raise already high fertiliser prices – and as such consumer prices – even more, farmers warned.
Boosting local fertiliser production in the EU and elsewhere in hopes of reducing prices is also scheduled to confront challenges posed by western sanctions, as manufacturing requires large power consumption and cheap energy sources, both areas which have been impacted by the Ukraine-related measures.
Despite these difficulties, EU countries continue to seek to do away with Russian gas even amid prospects of surging energy prices and unemployment. For his part, Germany’s Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil has gone on the record as stating that an immediate ban on Russian gas will lead to a notable reduction of jobs in Germany. Heil has called to avoid such an outcome.
EU countries are currently discussing their sixth package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus. With many member-states already experiencing negative economic results from earlier packages, the EU is struggling to negotiate conditions on banning or limiting oil imports from Russia due to the opposition of several countries within the bloc. The new sanctions package also reportedly includes proposals on further limiting fertiliser imports from Russian and Belarusian chemical companies, even as the threat of global hunger and the lack of grain and crops looms.
What Really Happened in the Pandemic
By Justin Hart | Rational Ground | May 26, 2022
Every year humans endures a “flu season” – a period denoting the high-water mark of that year’s wave of respiratory viral pathogens. Believe it or not we still have strains of the 1889 Russian flu, the 1918 Spanish flu, the 1957 Asian flu, the 1968 Hong Kong Flu, the 2009 H1N1 virus – all these various strains of nasty bugs rear their head every single year.
In late 2019, a new “novel” pathogen appeared on the scene – a bug from the “Coronavirus” family (“corona” describing the spike-like structure of the particles.) The official title was SARS-CoV-2. SARS = “severe acute respiratory syndrome”; CoV-2 = “Coronavirus 2.” This particular virus can cause a disease called COVID-19 (“Coronavirus Disease 2019”). The disease is thought to have originated in China and found significant human-to-human transmission. It is thought to be “novel” because prior infections of other pathogens do not seem to create anti-bodies to tackle this newfound disease within the human body.
Officials raised alarms about the potential mortality witnessed from COVID-19. Governments across the world scrambled to address and protect their populations from what quickly became a pandemic. Efforts ranged from stringent to downright authoritarian. Results were mixed to say the least. In early 2022, it was thought that SARS-Cov-2 and COVID-19 would join the panoply of viruses and diseases we experience during the annual ebb and flow of life.
That’s the short sterile version of what transpired.
Here’s what actually happened:
- Global elites had ramped up significant efforts to reshape the world to address a host of inequalities and imagined boogeymen like climate change.
- These global elites were bolstered by a host of corrupt institutions which included the WHO (“World Health Organization”), big pharmaceutical companies, and world wealth and health players like Bill Gates.
- With the emergence of a new virus these groups pounced at the vulnerable moment to put their plans into action and retool the world with a host of proposals – this was known as The Great Reset. The Coronavirus response was just the first sortie in this plan.
- Governments across the world, under the threat of serious mortality (real or imagined), caved to the plan of action which utilized never-before imagined cram downs on individual rights, massive financial expenses, and enhanced authority overhauls to set the stage for a shift of power.
- Free speech, right to assembly, right to bodily autonomy, representative government all fell within months of the first COVID-19 cases announced in almost every country.
- This newfound power and framework allowed this movement to latch on the decaying carcass of fragile democracies, societal empathies, and eggshell-walking politicos anxious about upcoming elections.
- Unprecedented global lockdowns of populations disrupted the entire flow of commerce and relationships.
- Trillions of tax dollars flowed into the coffers of every connected and corrupt institution under the guise of “protecting” the global populace from this apocalyptic pathogen.
- Disrupted businesses were “bought” off with zero-cost loans and grants to keep employees onboard and keep the money flowing so as not to destroy the economies all at once.
- A massive global testing regime was set up to catch the widest number of COVID-19 infections possible. The chosen test array (the PCR test) could pick up remnants of a virus at 5 days after infection or even 75 days.
- Hospitals were designated as the first point of care ensuring a massive wave of anxiety and alarming centralization of power still felt today.
- Deaths were counted with the widest-possible latitude ensuring a prominent psychological impact at every turn prompting policies mirroring population concerns.
- Governments bought and paid off new entities to ensure compliance. Threats of fines and operational shutdowns were made if new agencies failed to meet expectations.
- A global deterrence was crafted to ward off any pre-hospitalization treatments. The endgame was focused on the ultimate prize: a “revolutionary” vaccination framework thought to be the next generation in global medicine and health.
- An unprecedented wave of funding and government collusion was established to roll out a vaccine across the world.
- Government mandates ranged from coercive inconvenience to full-on house arrest. You could lose your job, your bank account, and your freedom in one fell swoop.
- Simplistic mechanisms of mask wearing were instituted as an outward sign of faith in the “new normal.” Politicians could then wipe their hands of outcomes by pointing to lack-of-use of such procedures.
- Children were targeted for ripe propagandist approaches ensuring that most vulnerable parts of our society were utilized as a bludgeon against anyone going against the grain.
- Wave after wave of virus variants proved a great excuse when vaccines didn’t perform as expected.
- Strategic gaslighting was employed by health officials to distract from their massive failures.
- War followed to cover up the disaster.
All of this was designed to latch onto a virus that many assert has unnatural origins. The ramifications of a man-made virus set loose upon the world by accident or on purpose should frighten us more than the virus itself. Someone was playing god and it appears they are just getting started.
My book, Gone Viral: How Covid Drove the World Insane comes out in September.
Swiss Daily: Wind Park Destruction Of 1000-Year Old Untouched German Forest Exposes “Absurdity Of Green Energies”
Unsustainability in the name of “sustainability”
By P Gosselin – No Tricks Zone – 28. May 2022
Lately we’ve been reporting on what many people are calling one of the greatest environmental felonies in Europe: the deforestation of the 1000-year old Reinhardswald, known as the “fairy tale forest”, in order to make way for largescale industrial wind parks to produce “green” energy. Proponents claim the wind parks will save our environment and climate. Clearing the forests has already commenced.
We reported on this environmental crime here, here and here.
Only wind parks count
At the Swiss NZZ daily, Christian Saehrendt writes on the “absurdity” of clearing one of Europe’s last remaining intact forests to make way for monster wind parks.
In the Reinhardswald, which covers an area of around 200 square kilometers, there are centuries-old oak trees, a highly developed natural biodiversity that is home for example to rare wild cats and populations of white red deer – a balance which has taken 1000 years to establish. But now it’s all being industrially raped, gangbang-style, by crony, greedy bastards under the guise of environmental virtue. It’s a grand swindle that in normal times would have everyone enraged.
But these are not normal sane times. The NZZ reports: ” Yesterday, trees were planted as climate savers; today, only plastic rotor blades count.”
“To free Germany from Russian energy imports”
The Swiss daily adds: “This spring, the authorities in northern Hesse approved the construction of a wind farm with at least eighteen 240-meter-high wind turbines in the middle of this forest area, causing widespread consternation.”
The densely wooded and rural region around Kassel, where the Documenta world art exhibition is being held again this year, has actually traditionally relied on tourist marketing as “fairy tale country” and is served by the “German Fairy Tale Route,” In the past, this has also gone down well with overseas tourists, especially Asians,” writes the NZZ. ”
Wind park proponents defend the deforestation of one of Europe’s remaining virgin forests by claiming that only sick areas of the forest are being cleared away and that the turbines will “free Germany from the clinging grip of Russian energy imports”….and save our climate for generations to come.
“The Federal German Ministry of the Environment recently permitted the construction of wind turbines in natural reserve areas. In addition, species protection is to be weakened,” the NZZ accurately reports. “The initiative ‘Windpark-Reinhardswald-dagegen’ declared: ‘The so-called treasure house of European forests – is ruined for decades. We are horrified.’”
Not to worry… let them go to fake forests
“While the real, historically grown fairytale forest outside the city is being cut down, artificial substitutes are being created within the city. For example, Kassel’s civic society has been fighting for months over the redesign of the Brothers Grimm Square, which is conceived in the form of a “fairy tale forest” of pine trees and shrubbery – whereby at best a light miniature forest on a traffic island can emerge.”
The NZZ adds: “In Kassel’s Grimm Museum – the ‘Grimmwelt’ – which will again be a Documenta site in the summer, an artificial forest has already been built in, its thorn hedge atmosphere created by those green and vertically arranged brushes familiar from car washes. Even in these local events, a mega-trend of our time becomes visible: the desensualization and media filtering of our experience. Nature is increasingly staged and unreal. City groves instead of primeval forests, artificial worlds instead of nature, while the landscape outside becomes more and more inhospitable and loses its face.”
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The Dirty Little Secret behind the “Global Terrorism Index”
The Omission of Israeli Terrorism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Karin Brothers | Global Research | December 6, 2014
… The Israeli settlements — all of which are illegal – have been identified as a major impediment to peace. The refusal of a major “global” terrorism report to name the Israeli settlers as one of the groups most responsible for terrorism not only misrepresents a major source of regional violence but exposes the Global Terrorism Index as a propaganda tool that supports a U.S. agenda.
In recent years, governments have been attempting to thwart terrorism by blocking supportive fund-raising. When it comes to Israeli settlements, however, the US and Canada actually encourage fund-raising by giving organizations (such as Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC) and the Jewish National Fund) financial support in the form of donor tax-deductions.
Charities which provide funds for the Israeli settlements should be regarded as terror-financing organizations. They should not only lose their tax-deductible status, but they should be banned because they support the violation of international humanitarian law. The terror-financing laws that are being strictly enforced for Muslim charities should be applied to Christian and Jewish charities as well. … Read full article
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Aletho News- Trump Administration Moves To Automate U.S. Military Draft Registration
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- Iran restricts Hormuz access to 15 vessels per day under ceasefire terms: Report
- The ‘Opposition Party’ Has Done Nothing to Stop the Iran War and Much to Goad Trump Into Continuing It
- Moscow backs Tehran on status of Lebanon in US-Iran deal
- How UK Regulator Ofcom Quietly Bypassed International Law to Police American Speech
- The Black Cube Files: How Former Mossad Operatives Flipped a Nation
- Laith Marouf: Hezbollah’s position on US-Iran ceasefire: What you’re not being told
- Israel’s priority lies in destroying chances of peace between Iran, US: Ex-UN nuclear chief
- If Americans Knew
- Amnesty: Urgent – Protect Lebanese civilians from brutal escalation in Israeli attacks
- Is The War Against Iran Over?
- Inside the Israeli army’s propaganda wing
- Hundreds of Gaza Amputees Stranded in Legal Limbo
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- Tucker Carlson: The Path to Peace requires ending ‘special alliance’ with Israel
- This is ceasefire? Israel’s biggest massacre yet in Lebanon, another journalist killed in Gaza – Daily Update
- Tucker Carlson on Israel: This Is the Behavior of an Ally? Really?
- Gazans face a triple crisis: severe shortages of water and bread, healthcare in tatters
- NY Times reports how Netanyahu took the US into Iran War
- No Tricks Zone
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
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