Western Standard - June 21, 2022


CORY'S RANT: Fossil fuels aren’t going away any time soon


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

193.8448

Word Count

886

Sentence Count

52

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

For years, Germany was held up as an example of how green a nation could be. They had ambitious plans, and they were investing massive amounts of money into renewable energy forms such as solar, wind, and biofuels. Germany was apparently well-positioned to reach the still-mythical status of being a net zero nation with their emissions. We were told we have to follow Germany s example if we wanted to save the world from dreaded climate change. Well, Germany just quietly and pretty sheepishly announced their returning to coal-fired electricity generation.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 For years, Germany was held up as an example of how green a nation could be.
00:00:05.260 They had ambitious plans, and they were investing massive amounts of money into renewable energy forms such as solar, wind, and biofuels.
00:00:13.320 Germany was apparently well-placed to reach the still-mythical status of being a net-zero nation with their emissions.
00:00:20.240 We were told we have to follow Germany's example if we wanted to save the world from dreaded climate change.
00:00:25.220 I mean, otherwise oceans would rise, polar bears would die, and the world would run out of fluffy bunnies.
00:00:30.000 If one was to question Germany's energy path, of course, they'd be labeled as climate heretics, and surely these are people who want the world to burn.
00:00:38.060 Well, Germany just quietly and pretty sheepishly announced their returning-to-coal-fired electricity generation.
00:00:45.300 Coal is arguably the most emissions-incentive form of electricity generation of them all.
00:00:50.600 When the only alternative, though, is to bankrupt your nation while citizens freeze in the dark, coal suddenly doesn't look so bad anymore.
00:00:57.120 Now, this hasn't stopped German Formula One driver Sebastian Vettel from committing an astounding act of hypocrisy
00:01:04.600 as he arrived in Canada after having shipped an entire race car here along with his crew,
00:01:09.220 only to wear a shirt criticizing Canadian oil production.
00:01:12.940 Climate change cultists, like him, live in a world of denial.
00:01:16.340 Vettel was just one of the most visible and hypocritical of those examples.
00:01:19.480 The world is dependent upon fossil fuels, and they're going to remain so for many decades to come,
00:01:24.960 no matter how loudly green activists scream or how much governments pump into unrealistic renewable energy projects.
00:01:32.260 Germany can't blame Russia, the Russia-Ukraine war for their woes, by the way.
00:01:36.020 Their energy crisis was coming to a peak months before that broke out.
00:01:39.540 It shut down too many forms of energy generation, and renewable sources couldn't keep up with the demand.
00:01:44.300 Simple as that. Ideology is dandy, but reality will trump it every time.
00:01:49.720 Germany wasn't alone. The U.K. had been hitting energy shortages,
00:01:52.740 and in California there have been brownouts in power provision for years,
00:01:56.100 despite them being awash with oil and gas.
00:01:59.620 Now, Canada's been trying to move down the same path.
00:02:01.720 We've shut down and regulated countless energy projects to death.
00:02:05.160 New oil and gas infrastructure projects are impossible to complete,
00:02:09.020 even if they manage to somehow get approved.
00:02:11.400 We indulge in endless delays caused by extreme environmentalists,
00:02:15.200 as we've been watching with the CGL line in B.C.
00:02:18.160 Speaking of the most ethical, clean-burning natural gas on Earth, by the way,
00:02:21.460 Canada has deposits of it that could last centuries.
00:02:24.140 The world's screaming for it, yet we won't let ourselves produce it.
00:02:27.280 Quebec has shut down a pending LNG terminal that was slated for export,
00:02:31.980 and has banned development of gas fields in their province.
00:02:34.680 Canada's Arctic has huge natural gas deposits,
00:02:37.120 and thousands of capped wells just waiting to come into production.
00:02:40.580 We regulated the McKenzie Valley pipeline to death, though,
00:02:43.260 so we can't get the gas to market,
00:02:45.240 while government handouts remain the prime form of income in communities
00:02:48.200 such as Tuktuk and Nuvik.
00:02:50.600 Canada's drained billions of conventional energy companies
00:02:53.400 through fees and taxes over the years,
00:02:54.920 and it's been pouring that money into electric cars for over a decade.
00:02:57.940 And how's that worked out?
00:02:59.340 Fewer than 5% of Canadians drive electric vehicles.
00:03:02.140 So all this for what?
00:03:03.400 So countries can return to burning coal?
00:03:05.180 Well, let's not forget the countries that never stop burning coal,
00:03:09.180 and have always been expanding the use of it, by the way.
00:03:11.020 China, Russia, India, they don't care about our climate virtue signaling over here.
00:03:15.540 If we do want China and India to consider switching to better forms of energy,
00:03:18.460 we'd best start sending them natural gas.
00:03:20.460 Windmills aren't going to cut it.
00:03:22.320 The world needs to cut back on the irrational climate idealism
00:03:26.000 and embrace practical realism.
00:03:27.960 We can mitigate emissions through cleaner production of existing petrochemical products.
00:03:32.200 The oil and gas sector has made huge strides in emission reduction,
00:03:35.560 yet they get little to no credit for it.
00:03:37.620 Love or hate natural gas, it's abundant, reliable, and cleaner than other forms of generation.
00:03:42.000 Let's expand it.
00:03:43.180 I mean, maybe breakthroughs are going to happen that are going to allow us to wean ourselves
00:03:45.980 from fossil fuels one day, but we're nowhere close to that point yet.
00:03:49.640 Windmills are expensive, limited in what they can generate, and they're unreliable.
00:03:53.740 Solar, it's expensive, takes up huge tracts of land,
00:03:56.720 uses loads of rare metals, and is unreliable as well.
00:03:59.500 If the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, you're shit out of luck.
00:04:03.120 The world is trying to put the cart before the horse,
00:04:05.800 but trying to shut down viable energy sources until the alternative is here.
00:04:10.340 Trying to force the issue is only leading to world energy insecurity,
00:04:13.560 human suffering, and is contributing to inflation.
00:04:16.880 Germany can still serve as an example for the world,
00:04:19.920 not as a nation saving us from climate change, though,
00:04:22.140 but as an example of what happens when a nation lets hopes and dreams
00:04:24.960 overtake their sense of reality.
00:04:27.140 Let's learn from them rather than emulate them.
00:04:29.500 Canada can power the world,
00:04:31.320 but we have to stop indulging the climate extremists first.