Climate Action Scams

If coal fired power can no longer compete on price, then why is China building two new coal power plants per week? Is China somehow able to use coal fired electricity to gain a competitive advantage against western manufacturing which increasingly relies on "clean green" but more expensive energy, with the result that emissions and jobs are simply transferred to China? The current politics of climate agreements encourage rich countries to offshore some emissions to those countries often forced to be more reliant coal and with higher emissions. Could we fix the problem of China syndrome emissions if there was the political will?

Full sequestration of carbon is the reverse of burning fossil fuels. Full sequestration does work and is part of the process of producing E-Fuels and the process of photosynthesis in plants. But full sequestration requires at least as much energy as can be extracted from the forms of previously sequestrated carbon that we call "fossil fuels". What can't work, is the illusion of using energy from fossil fuels to reverse the process of burning those same fossil fuels, and then still having a form energy left to sell as a product. Yet that is exactly the "blue hydrogen" proposition.

Reports from COP27 seems indicate the key initiative this year to make wealthy nations cover the cost of the damages poor nations will incur as a result of emissions that have main originated from those wealthy nations. The proposal as it stands has a missing an essential piece, and trying to cover for that essential piece, appears most to likely to increase emissions, and move COP away from a focus on solving the climate crisis and instead toward just fighting over the cost. This is a troubled look at the key flaw in what has been put forward and the real solution that should be in place.

From "the biggest corruption scandal ever" in Brazil, problems in Venezuela, human rights in Saudi Arabia and Iran, to the problems caused by lobbyists against action on climate change, an abundance of fossil fuels is a source of political power, yet rarely force for good, and Australia, with a wealth of coal and gas, is not spared. The current crisis in Ukraine not only drives up energy prices globally, but it also creates a dilemma for gas producing nations.

After friend told me "I am not interesting in electric cars, because I will wait for hydrogen cars", I did the research, and found that such a future would make no sense, and will never happen. It turns out that hydrogen cars were never "the ultimate", are now worse at times or range problem, and they were only ever expensive to build and operate, higher emissions, limited interim stop gaps, for the time until we solved limitations of battery EVs.

After a long history resisting action on climate change, the Australian government finally 'committed' to net zero by 2050, and then did an about face from their previous 'anti-EV' stance and announced support for electric vehicles. Or did they?

If you were 'big oil', and you were trying to delay action on climate change impacting the fossil fuel industry, what would be your strategy? Would you point the finger elsewhere to create maximum division? This is a questioning look as to whether there is misdirection to create a distraction on for climate change, and just maybe, it is working.

The race to stop CO2, has led to many 'scam' projects involving hydrogen, but it is not always clear who is being scammed: the public, or the proponents of hydrogen projects. What is the attraction behind the obsession with hydrogen? This is a look at the motives, the myths and the facts around hydrogen projects. Spoiler: There are some valid roles for hydrogen, but hydrogen has no remaining role as an energy source, and even any potential role as an energy carrier is highly questionable.