America has the largest coal reserves in the world, about 22% of the world’s coal. America also has all the uranium needed to fuel our nuclear plants and enough oil and gas to provide the primary energy America needs for decades. So, why have we allowed a minority of people and leaders to smear and demonize the conventional fuels that we depend on every day? Worse yet, allow them to weaken our country.

Introduction

Are Blackouts and Gas Lines Inevitable? Is that what it will take for American Voters to Wake up and Elect Leaders to Reverse the Atrocious Policies of the Green New Deal? (aka “The ridiculously named, “Inflation Reduction Act”)

Last week I was having a conversation with a friend who is developing a proprietary process to reduce the CO₂ emissions of coal and with a goal to make coal combustion as clean or cleaner burning, than natural gas. My friend Steven asked me, “If we reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70%, reduce all other pollutants to near zero and basically make coal as clean or cleaner than natural gas, Do you think we could get public acceptance?” I thought about my answer and paused. As I recall, my answer went like this. “That will be hard to do, because there has been 50 years of indoctrination and demonization of first coal and now all fossil fuels, including gas. However, as people experience energy shortages, gas lines, food shortages, inflation and Blackouts, their perceptions should change”. Energy provides Life as we have come to know and enjoy it!

Energy shortages and energy poverty is the path our government has set us on, unless, somehow, we change the perceptions of the sources of energy that America has within our borders. Sustainable living, by my definition, is to sustain the 21st Century life-style that science and technology has made possible over the last 100 years. We enjoy very high quality of lives, including reasonable cost food production for us to share with less fortunate countries. Our quality of life and existence depends on energy. Think about how you missed energy during the last hurricane or winter storm when you might have been without adequate energy for a day or two. That does not happen very often in the U.S., but if current climate policies which demonize and restrict conventional forms or energy are continued, then energy shortages could become the new normal.

Perceptions Matter

On the topic of clean coal combustion I remembered a presentation to the American Coal Council membership that I presented in 2008. The title of the presentation is “Enhancing the Perceptions of Coal”. The purpose of the presentation was to stimulate interest amongst the members of the American Coal Council to encourage ACC members to become more engaged in public energy education. This has been a concern and passion for me since the 1990’s when the “War on Coal” was accelerated by the EPA of the Clinton Administration. Back then, we thought “New Source Review” was as bad as it would get for coal power. (EPA-NSR info here. Check this list of 31 Utilities that were wrongly forced to pay enormous cash settlements and/or shut down coal plants).

How Did We Get Into This Mess?

I was mistaken on the power of government to proceed with such un-American policies and I along with many others underestimated the harm to public perceptions that Obama, the Environmental Extremist/Activists, Liberal Democrats, NGO’s, the World Economic Forum, the Main Stream Media and “Woke corporations could cause. My blog post on my view of the history of the U.S. War on Coal is here and David Blackmon’s sub stack post “Carbon Fascism, Where it Came From” here. The “Shale Gas Revolution” came to fruition after 2008 and abundant gas supplies provided reasonable cost electricity generation from quickly built gas turbine combined cycle power plants. Here is a chart of natural gas prices over a five year period 2006-2011 leading up to the Shale Gas Revolution in electric power generation.

The cheap Shale Gas ( I hate the word Cheap, but feel this is an appropriate place to use it) created a domestically available, abundant Primary energy fuel that electric Utilities could and did burn instead of coal and at no increase in production cost to be passed on to the consumer. When gas prices dropped below about $2.25/million Btu.

The production cost component of electricity from the primary energy source, natural gas is about 90% fuel cost. Also, gas turbine combined cycle plants could be permitted easily and rapidly built for much less cost than a clean coal plant. About $1,000/kWh capacity vs. about $3,000/kWh capacity for coal. Of course, permitting a coal plant was and remains nearly impossible with strangling Federal Regulations. Therefore, as gas prices tumbled due to an enormous supply increase, gas became less cost than coal as a power generation fuel. Many GTCC plants were built during this time.

Therefore, the Shale Gas Revolution provided cover for the Green Policies that became very extreme during the “Reign” of Gina McCarthy, The EPA Administrator, During the Obama Regime

Here is a graphic from one of my OLLI courses on power generation by fuels, 2004 and 2019.

Five points of my ACC 2008 presentation: This presentation summarized the timeline of Perceptions of energy 1950-2008 and suggested actions to change the perceptions of the public on coal.

Have We Passed the Tipping Point? Are We Doomed to Energy Poverty and Unreliable Electric Power Generation, Blackouts & Brownouts? Can Politicians Fix the Flawed Policies? Will They?

I read the Hill article criticizing Donald Trump’s speeches where Trump stated that if elected, “I will end green new deal atrocities the first day”. At first I was encouraged at the headline but then reading the article it went on to explain that the “Green New Deal” is codified as public law, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Biden as the so called, “Inflation Reduction Act”. Therefore, according to the Hill and my rudimentary understanding of how laws are created or changed, it will take both Congress and the President to shut down what President Trump refers to as “Green New Deal Atrocities”. I agree with Trump, but getting Congress to take action seems like a tall order.

The Consequences of Continuing the Net-Zero Carbon Path

Frequent disruptive energy shortage events such as Blackouts, gas lines, loss of industrial productive capacity, deindustrialization,

food shortages and massive job losses. These are All possible with a shortage of energy.

When these occur, Congress may wake up? It should not take energy shortage emergencies to engage Congress. This time, energy shortages are likely to be worse than the 1973 and 1978 Oil Embargoes. In my lifetime I remember the 1973 Oil Embargo and Congress providing a clear path for the Alyeska pipeline to be built in record time of two years 1975-1977.

A coming energy crisis worse than 1973 is likely and it is not just me saying that. Fatih Birol head of the IEA, Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Associates and others have stated this warning.

If we do have energy shortages worse than the mid 1970’s, then Congress may reign in the EPA and other government Bureaucrats? But with Biden as President, it will be hard. I have written other posts on the importance of energy here and here. America has been moving forward on energy policy like a Train Wreck in slow motion. Michele Bloodworth of America’s Power wrote in her Commentary “Are We Headed for A Reliability Train Wreck” in POWER Magazine.

Happening In Plain Sight!

Watching this is frustrating, painful and wrong. America is the strongest nation in the world with millions of smart technically trained engineers, it is not necessary for our great country to experience energy shortages. Yet, that seems to be the path that the government has chose.

The high quality of living that we have been accustomed to requires a lot of primary energy. About 300-330 million Btu’s per capita/year. Previous posts here and here cover my thoughts on the energy we use and depend on. All totaled this is about 100 Quadrillion Btus/annum for the entire population of the U.S.A. This has been steady for about the last 25 years. Note the chart below from the EIA:

The fuels that provide this needed energy are about 93% conventional fuels, natural gas, nuclear, gasoline, Diesel, Jet Fuel, Nuclear and Coal. These fuels and their importance is described in my posts here and here.

Self-Sabotaging America’s Energy Infrastructure, Specifics

Some of the specific actions by the government as part of the misguided War on Carbon:

• In 2008 I was worried about the “Perceptions of the Public on Coal. The harm done by indoctrinating the public and literally demonizing carbon has now put America on a path of energy poverty as we had in 1973 and 1978 with the oil embargoes.
• Electric Vehicle Mandate (BTW This started in 2012 with the Obama Administration and the impossible to achieve Fleet Mileage mandate of autos required to achieve 54.5 mpg by 2030)

• EPA Rules to Shut Down Coal Plants
• Formation and expansion of RTO’s which have destroyed accountability for generation reserves from Regional Utilities. Such as PJM, ERCOT & MISO
• BLM Rules to Restrict Mining
• Biden Order to Shut down Keystone Pipeline
• U.S. Refining Capacity is Reduced 5%, yet demand has been increasing
• Federal ESG guidelines to restrict investments in fossil fuels
• EPA Rule is proposed (in spite of SCOTUS past ruling) to Require CO₂ Capture of Gas Power Generation Plants by 2040
• Biden rescinded Trump era reductions in Federal Regulations on American energy production
• Biden Executive Order to Reduce Fossil Fuel Production on Federal lands and increase Green energy to tackle the Climate Cris. Full EO here.
• EPA aggressive enforcement of “New Source Review” (NSR) to penalize coal plants
• Sweetheart deals between NSR settlements and EPA Lawsuits brought against coal plant operators, to fund NGOs that continue to influence further Self-Sabotaging Regulations. Example of one of last clean coal plants built in U.S. here.
• Many more…..

The American Energy Alliance published a list of 100 ways the Democrats and Biden have made producing energy in America more difficult. The is as of May 2022 and the war on carbon continues. The AEA list is here.

So, what are we going to do about it?

To be perfectly honest with you, I am frustrated that our government is controlled by elected, appointed and career Bureaucrats, many who believe believe in the misguided green energy myth. To put the number in perspective, there are about 19.23 million state and Federal government employees, according to Statista.

Back to my ACC presentation in 2008. One slide I used is copied below. This quote, was used by President Kennedy in one of his famous speeches and he attributed it to Edmund Burke:

Yes, it is a small minority of leaders that have waged a very effective war on carbon. It is not only a matter of demonizing carbon, their goal is to control our lives and to de-industrialize, de-populate and downsize the energy use to lead to a smaller population on the planet. Donn Dears, Dr. Tim Ball, myself and many others have written about the U.N. Agenda 21 and the U.N.-IPCC. My blog with references for further reading is here. The small number of “leaders” have influenced electric utilities, the Entertainment Industry, the MSM and many “Woke” businesses and corporations to promote Green Propaganda. Again referring to David Blackmon’s excellent piece, “Carbon Fascisim, Where it Came From” here, Blackmon enumerates the small number of people who have initiated the ludicrous (some would say, evil) policies on the Free World. The frightening aspect of Federal rules and laws is that only 435 members of Congress plus nine Supreme Court Justices can codify anti-American energy policies that will be very hard to reverse. Congress, in my view, has been negligent in delegating full authority for the protection of public health to the EPA. It started out well in 1970. However, since then the EPA employs, about 15,000 and like other government agencies, have been weaponized against the best interests of America by Biden and Democrats in Congress. The war on conventional energy began with Clinton, continued with Obama and now has reached criticality with the Biden Administration.

It is this reality that concerns me to ask the question, “Are we doomed to face Energy Poverty?” What about the 3 Billion souls in Developing countries that use less electricity a year than we use to power our refrigerators for a year and cook over open fires fueled by cow dung or firewood? Then there is the concern of fertilizer production which is crucial for food production. Dr. Samuele Furfari has written an excellent article in European Science here. Another Blog on Substack, “Carbon Myopia” by Robert Bryce is here and Liberty Energy’s report on “Bettering Human Lives” is here.

Dr. Furfari’s article is entitled “Agriculture: Who Wants to Replace 22 Billion Human Equivalents?” The basic message from Dr. Furfari is, “energy has replaced muscle power over the last 120 years and the simple math to arrive at the muscle power of 22 Billion people is: A steam horse is worth 736 watts and an average man is worth 100 watts, so we have 30 million tractors x 100 horsepower x 7.36 = 22 billion“

Furfari’s article is worth reading for some excellent background on the importance of energy to produce food for the world. More articles and books by Dr. Furfari are included in the references below.

What are the Western World leaders thinking?

They Certainly do not understand the basics pf energy and electricity generation. Check these Blogs of Robert Bryce (Carbon Myopia) here and David Blackmon’s (Carbon Fascism) here. Also, as noted above, the books and articles by Samuel Furfari, Donn Dears and Vaclav Smil are all very well researched and well written.

So Why Am I Worried?

Even my conservative red state of S.C. is headed for a path of electricity shortages. I wrote about this on my blog here. The Federal laws that have been enacted by Congress and approved by President Biden plus extreme anti-carbon based rules by EPA Regulations, in my view, these are simply un-American. Why? To be polite, I chalk it up to our leaders being ignorant in the fundamentals of physics and energy. A darker reason is if a number of the elected officials and NGOs that influence the EPA and government officials may have been influenced by NGO’s and including foreign Dark money. The next post on this blog will be an Appendix to include references for further reading to support my assertions.

In Our Republic, The Citizens Get The Leaders They Deserve! (Really, Do we?)

About 25 years ago when Bill Clinton was President, I remember working at a Canadian Utility. I made the mistake of commenting on my views of the EPA anti-coal policies of Carol Brower, who was then the head of the EPA in the Clinton Administration. My Canadian friends remarked, “In a Democracy you get the leaders you deserve”. I was humbled, embarrassed and thought, that was dumb of me to complain of U.S. politics amongst Canadians. My mistake and I attribute the gaff to just feeling at home with friendly folks that just happened to be Canadian citizens, only a two hour flight away. The point is, the remark, “In a Democracy We Get What We Deserve” has stuck with me. In our Republic, “Do We Get the Leaders We Deserve?” Let’s take a look at some reasons to be concerned. All of my energy engineer friends know how foolish and wrong the “Green New Deal” is. One friend, Donn Dears, told me privately, “This is a battle America must win!” Dears has written about a dozen books and is an acknowledged expert on energy and energy policies. Other energy and environmental science experts have also written extensively. Amongst them are Dr.’s Vaclav Smil, Judith Curry, Richard Lindzen, Steve Koonin, the NASA Right Stuff Team, CO2 Coalition, Heartland Institute, CFACT, American Energy Alliance and dozens of others that have written on energy and climate policy. My previous blogs have outlined the flawed science and reasons for destroying the energy infrastructure that powers America. However, the elected officials of the political party that favors these un-American, anti-conventional fuels policies are in power now and may in fact, win again in 2024. Some of the major influencers are mentioned in my post here. Why am I concerned? Because the carbon haters have done a very effective indoctrination (Scare Mongering) of millions of voters. Please read on…

Elections Matter and Here are Some Reasons of Why I am Concerned

Energy illiteracy in America is widespread. The indoctrination and demonization of carbon and nuclear energy has created a perception that many reasonably well educated people favor the “Myth of Green Energy”. I say this based on the successful indoctrination/Demonization of carbon by the U.N. , the World Economic Forum, The Sierra Club, The Natural Resources Defense Council, many other Environmental NGOs. Here is a figure I created for a presentation to the ENERUM, energy forum in Columbus and a couple other public meetings. A short review of “Demystifying Energy” is here.

Planned parenthood which is over 40% funded by Taxpayer dollars, the MSM, Entertainment and the entire Democrat Party which is strongly supported by all of the above. From what I have read about the 2020 voting patterns of suburban women, many voted on the single issue of abortion, based on the recommendations of “Planned Parenthood”. In my previous post, I showed publications that connected Planned Parenthood with the Sierra Club and other “Green Energy” supporting organizations. If you are curious, check the previous post here. Ken Braun of the Capital Research Center provides documentation of the sources of funding for the war on fuels. Names of Foundations from such well known wealthy donors such as Bloomberg, Bezos, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation and others. One Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood alliance letter is here.

The anti conventional energy activists are funded with Billions and Billions of dollars. Check the links to the Capital Research Center’s Ken Braun article here. Then there is this report of the great American name “Ford” Foundation and how they have cooperated with the CCP, here. Henry Ford would not approve as this is against everything he stood for. So much for Donor Intent.

My point is, public indoctrination on green energy is widespread and well funded. The mis-perceptions are fueled by a distorted & fake science that carbon and nuclear are harmful. The gullible public with a general energy ignorance has accepted the 50 year indoctrination.

Next time you are in a social setting, just gently ask the average, educated persons you are with, how many Btus are there in a kWh? (3412.6), or how many Btus are there in a gallon of gasoline (about 125,000). Harder yet, how many foot pounds of energy at 100% efficiency is one BTU equivalent to? (778). More simply, “What is the difference between Primary and Secondary Energy? See what I mean. Now take a look at the U.S. Demographics to elect new leaders.

The 2020 election outcome by counties. The figure below was/is reported in the U.S.A. Today after the 2020 election. Here

The majority of the people in most of American counties favored the policies of Donald Trump. Thus the vast amount of red counties that are shown on the map above. However, land and counties do not vote, people do. Therefore the people of the cities with the minority of land area has the majority of voters. Many of these voters are strongly indoctrinated with propaganda from NGOs, Planned Parenthood amongst them and have been traditionally Democrat strongholds. Over 50% of Americans live in cities and although cities use enormous amounts of energy, the (D) voters not being energy savvy, tend to vote for Democrat candidates, regardless of the foolish and un-American policies they stand for. This is one reason I wrote on the importance of Energy Education here.

If the popular vote determined the outcome of a national election, it would be controlled by just three or four large Metropolitan areas such as NYC, LA, Chicago and Atlanta. Ironically, on an energy use basis, these cities use much more electricity than Rural areas. But the voters in these large Metropolitan areas have typically chosen Democrat candidates that are against conventional energy and they are for the most part, trained in Political Science, no in energy and electricity generation. Most do not know the difference between Primary and Secondary energy, yet they will proclaim as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has implied…., “Electrify Everything”. Here is the unauthorized Biography of Jennifer Granholm’s by Ken Braun. Granholm, trained as a lawyer is typical of the creators of American energy policy.

My Conclusion: We have a lot of work to do to Educate the Public on the True Facts of Energy and Electricity Generation

I urge my friends and associates to get involved in educating your neighbors, friends and every person you can on the true facts. I know it is hard for anyone employed full-time to do extra curricular presentations to civic clubs, schools, Colleges and any gatherings of more than 25 people who will listen. But if not those of us that understand energy and electricity generation, then who will do it?

We must change the “Perceptions of Conventional Energy”, not only coal. Also, oil, gas and nuclear.

Respectfully and very truly yours,

Dick Storm, July 30, 2023

Green Energy Crisis, Part 4 – Appendix Will be uploaded as a separate post at a later date. This will include extensive Reference Links, Books and Information for those who are interested in further Research

An excellent testimony by CFACT’s Bonner Cohen in 2014 on the EPA’s Rules to Sabotage America’s Electric Power Supply. Prescient remarks and his warning should have been taken seriously then: https://papundits.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/cfact-to-epa-proposed-power-plant-regulations-nothing-less-than-industrial-sabotage/