Historian Ferdinand Braudel and the long ages of ‘Climate Change’.

As Braudel states, a naturally changing climate has always impacted everything. These cyclical patterns have nothing to do with human activity, but certainly impact and inform human civilisation.

Saturday, January 27, 2024 by StFerdIII
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Purpose

The purpose of this post is to put ‘climate’ in a historical perspective by citing one of Western Civ’s greatest historians – Ferdinand Braudel.  In the frenzied false science of ‘Climate Change’ funded by endless billions in propaganda, fake studies, temperature rewriting, and Winston Smith ‘newspeak’ where the past is cut out and replaced by a corrupt present-day rendering of mendacious falsity, reading real unvarnished history and truth is not only a delight, but an anodyne.  Braudel in his assessment of our civilisation discusses the natural and normal cycles of history, anathema to the religious within the Church of Climate.

As previous posts have articulated, there is no ‘Climate Crisis’ and the imposition of grotesque and deforming technologies such as Solar, EV’s and the infamous Bird Choppers do the opposite of what the billionaire global class claims.  They are not cheaper, more productive, nor are they Gaia friendly.  Based on this reality we know that Net Zero and all associated climate policies are a fraud premised on the false claims that plant food at 400 parts per million controls climate and that ‘climate’ has never changed or been disrupted in the past. 

The risible idiocy of these claims is painful to those with balanced perspectives and a knowledgeable intelligence.  No matter how inane they are, these fantasies, fuelled by endless streams of money, and now accepted as religious orthodoxy, must be fought, overturned, and burned.  The only true crisis we have is the deconstruction of Western Civilisation along every vector, and the creation of a Federated New World Order tyranny.  Climate fascism is a part of that process.

A real historian

Ferdinand Braudel (1902-1985) is one of the most remarkable historians in Western history but is rarely if ever taught in university.  His name is largely unknown.  There is a reason for this.  Today he would be labelled a ‘conservative’, a ‘denier’ of some rewritten historical truth as defined by modern academia, an ‘extremist’ in that he defended the attributes and medieval heritage and foundations of Western Civilisation. 

Braudel eschewed the deranged anti-Western Marxist rewriting of history with its slavish fascination with communalism, totalitarianism; and a-scientific cults posing as religions-of-truth.  He had the unfortunate character trait of being honest and assessing facts in a direct and straightforward manner.  He possessed the derided capacity to identify the innumerable minutia which led to the creation of modern civilization, a complexity lost on the modern world with its 5-minute attention span and Braudel had the rather the unique capability of weaving such details into a story.  Not only was he a clear headed realist historian, he wrote history as a novel – compelling, structured, with organised and lucid themes. 

In today’s Orwellian dystopian view and virtual reality, Braudel is simply a thought-criminal and purposefully ignored by the gatekeepers in education and the media.  Given that Braudel is the greatest historian of the 20^th century we can classify this censorship as criminal.   For those who desire a real record of history this is precisely why he should be studied (a list of Braudel’s books are provided at the end of the post)

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Braudel and Climate

Though ostracized by the liberal-socialist educational system, the Frenchman Braudel, with his ‘longue-durée’ [long view] concept of historical processes is a remarkably thorough, accessible, and relevant narrator.  In one of his masterpieces, ‘The Structures of Everyday Life’, Braudel recounts how climactic cycles and a naturally changing climate has impacted the development of modern capitalism and our civilisation.  He would never dare to introduce the satanic fraud of Co2 as a toxin, or the fictitious ‘greenhouse effect’ (the Earth is an open, not a closed system). 

The Structures of Everyday Life is the first volume of three in Braudel’s opus on modern capitalism.  He paints a portrait of society at the common, everyday level.  How did people live?  What tools did they use?  Where did the tools come from?  How and where were they invented?  What metals, agriculture, industry and manufactures were in evidence during the period? How did they develop from past periods?  What were the houses, water, and food quality like?  How open was trade and the exchange of ideas?  What requirements and factors driving innovation led to ‘revolutionary’ irruptions in agriculture, business, and war?

There is no ante- or neo- Marxian analysis in Braudel’s work.  He does not apologize for capitalism, trade, prosperity, the conflicts of culture, or the preoccupations of war and enterprise.  He simply discusses how events transpired, what processes and inputs were evident in the creation of the modern world economy, and why certain results were achieved.  He puzzles for example on the Mongol capture of Russia and parts of Eastern Europe which forever changed the course of Russian history; how and why the English in the 17th century created coke smelting and not the Chinese who knew of coal and furnace blasts 18 centuries earlier; or the impact on European development between 1400 and 1700 from a greatly cooling global climate.  

The original human sin of issuing emissions from carbon products does not make an entrance into Braudel’s analysis, because such faux-religious ideals have no place in real history. 

1400-1700 and the Climate

On page 48 Braudel asks a key question in trying to understand why, between 1400 and 1700, human developments across the globe seemed to move together in many ways.  From China to North America changes in society, culture, warring, economics, exploration, and trade can be seen as moving essentially in the same direction.

‘The real question is: why did these phenomena occur at the same time throughout the world when the space [he means land] had always been available? The simultaneity is the problem. The international economy, effective but so fragile, cannot assume sole responsibility for such a general and powerful movement. It too is as much consequence as cause.’

Indeed.  What forced political-economic development in the early modern capitalist period between 1400 and 1700 was as Braudel states, due in part to natural cycles of climate change.

‘One can only imagine one single general answer to this almost complete coincidence: changes in climate.’

The change in the world’s climate over this three-hundred-year period affected everything from rainfall to agricultural output, to the levels of rivers and seas, to the migrations of people, to the opening and closing of trade routes.  As the earth noticeably cooled during this period the term ‘the little ice age’ was coined.  It was a global phenomenon and probably lasted longer than 300 years stretching in many locations into the 19^th century.  Co2 emissions were apparently not a factor in this climate transformation.

In an epoch where 90% of the population was agricultural peasantry, a shift in climate provoked wide ranging societal change.  Harvests and social rhythms depended on a stable climate.  In the 14th century there began a general cooling of the world’s temperature. Glaciers and ice sheets advanced.  The Vikings were cut off from Greenland by large ice floes.  Corn, needing longer to grow than wheat, could not be harvested leading to yearly famines across much of Europe.  Peasant uprisings in the 16th and 17th centuries became common as harvests failed.  Droughts brought on plagues, locusts and more famines in China and Asia.  Mankind was under siege from nature.

Climate’s impact on foodstuffs had enormous consequences on the rest of society.  The prices of various products, and society’s general wealth were quite dependent on the cycles of nature in the early modern period.  Until the late 18th century, man was still a slave to the calendar and to nature’s whims.

Writing in the 1980s Braudel cautioned that climate cycles are incredibly complicated and cannot be oversimplified.

‘But we would also do well not to forget the damage inflicted by the drought of 1976 in France and Western Europe, or the abnormal change in wind patterns which caused catastrophic drought east of the Rocky Mountains…in 1964.’

Certainly.  We can add snow in London in July of 1976, or in Moscow in July of 2003, or in North Africa in 2006, or the worst winter on record in 2003 in Eastern Europe, or the highest snowfall on record during 2007 in parts of Canada and the US, early and severe winters in 2023 and 2024 in various parts of Europe and Asia, the impact of El Nino (a process we don’t understand) and undersea volcanic activity to induce some above average warmth in parts of the globe during the summer of 2023, along with an inexhaustible list of climatic and weather events in the past 150 years which are delinked from mankind’s activities.  Were the record hot temperatures of the 1880s and 1930s induced by mankind’s industrial output to be followed by the cooling scare of 1945-1975, or were they simply natural cycles?  Braudel rightly emphasises nature’s sudden and dramatic shift in climate and temperature.

Impacts of Natural Cycles

In the early modern period, there was a rush of activity in addition to the usual list of famines, uprisings and plagues.  Between 1400 and 1700 agricultural reforms, the improved use of husbandry and new techniques in labour division, production, and capital formation presaged the English industrial revolution of the mid-18th century.  Trade increased, ideas were exchanged and innovations in shipping and transport started the formation of the modern form of globalization in trade and commerce we recognize today.  The Dutch, through the creation of limited companies, began the process of modern capital formation so important to the modern political economy.  As Braudel states there is a deliberate pattern of change before a so-called revolution is allowed to appear.

But climate was vital.  All sorts of empires and epochs have been affected by climate change in times past as remarked upon by Braudel.  The Bronze Age empires of 1200 BC including the Mycenaean, Minoan and Hittite literally disappeared over night most likely due to a global catastrophe, perhaps induced by a cosmic incident.  Drought, famine, destroyed water supply and emptied the large Hittite centers of their populations.  The Roman empire experienced climate upheaval many times, which impacted agriculture, taxation, and ultimately the ability to sustain large enough armies to protect its ever-expanding borders.

 Climate is not stable, linear, nor is it predictable (the heretics Velikovsky and Cuvier provided extensive proofs of natural climate catastrophe).  Climate change is natural and it can be vicious and unkind. 

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns

(Link - the above graph shows the Alley et al reconstruction of the GISP2 Greenland ice core temperature record. There is no ‘warming’ of anything in Greenland when viewed in Braudel’s long duration of history)

This is a most important lesson from reading Braudel’s work.  Climatic patterns, which seem to us so personal and close today, have been of course the centre of human experience forever and they impact civilisation’s development in every sphere of activity.  We don’t understand natural climate patterns, nor can we explain why between 1400 and 1700 (or 1800 in many regions), we had a little ice age, and why between 1945 and 1975 we experienced cooling temperatures.  We can’t explain what caused the devastation of the Hittites, nor why ancient Rome went through climactic upheavals which shook the foundations of the state and changed the very nature of the Roman system including which colonies were won or lost.

But historical perspective and endless repeating climate cycles seem irrelevant in a world of sound bites.  The maudlin predations of today’s eco-prophets are predictably premised on power, regulatory control and money.  The ravings and fraud of the eco-cult have however, little basis in anything other than stupidity.  Climate change has always existed and Co2 emissions have nothing to do with natural cycles and climatic derangement.  Given that Gaia emits 95% of the trace chemical plant food, logic dictates that Co2 levels must follow natural climatic patterns and shifts.  Claiming otherwise violates real science including Planck’s laws, how light wave infrared radiation operates, and the cycles of climate and element production and recycling. 

Bottom Line

The eternal narcissism and corruption of humans, along with the insatiable lust for power and control, makes debating a topic such as climate change problematic.  It is never about facts or reality.  It is always an emotive ejaculation with the cult of ‘science’ who have demanded since 1988 to ‘act now!’ to save Mother Earth or propitiate this and that demand of the earth goddess.  It is hardly an intelligent way to carry on.  Maybe taking a long view of history, processes and issues might help society restore some sanity.  

The cleanest societies in the world, are the richest, the most technologically advanced and the most democratic.  If you don’t believe that, then take a tour of the former Soviet Union, Latin America, China, or Africa.  Why anyone would want to impair modern development to satiate a Globalist-Marxist cult is truly unfathomable but entirely expected in a world where a woman cannot be defined, the shrew became you, and Corona fascism is applauded as health and safety.

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Related material

Wesseling, H. (1981). ‘Fernand Braudel, Historian Of The ‘Longue Durée’.  Itinerario, 5(2), 15-29. https://cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/fernand-braudel-historian-of-the-longue-duree/110770082a744b2713db4e3bd74e2bcb

Easterbrook, Don J. Professor of Geology, Western Washington Univ, Bellingham, WA, The past is the key to the future: Temperature history of the past 10,000 years  Link

The works of Braudel. 

The first three listed below are really ‘must reads’, though they are long and dense.  A definitive and accessible one-volume summary of Braudel’s extensive writing awaits an ambitious student of history. 

Civilization and Capitalism, 15^th–18^th Century, 3 vols. (1979, translated by Siân Reynolds)

vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday Life

vol. 2: The Wheels of Commerce

vol. 3: The Perspective of the World

The Mediterranean in the Ancient World (UK) / Memory and the Mediterranean (US; both 2001, translated by Siân Reynolds)

A History of Civilizations (1995, translated by Richard Mayne)

Out of Italy, 1450–1650 (1991, translated by Siân Reynolds)

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. 2 vols. (1972 and 1973, translated by Siân Reynolds)

On History (1980, translated by Sarah Matthews)

The Identity of France, 2 vols. (1988–1990, translated by Siân Reynolds)

vol. 1: History and Environment

vol. 2: People and Production

$cientism and the Solar farming fraud. Destructive in every way imaginable.

No science supports the wholesale adoption of solar and the replacement of clean burning, renewable hydrocarbon energy. None.

Saturday, January 20, 2024 by StFerdIII
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Abstract

This post is aligned to the proofs presented about wind turbines (bird choppers) and electric vehicles (lithium batteries), namely their non-green, costly and destructive realities. The unHoly Trinity of eco-energy fanaticism includes solar farms of course. As with the wind turbines and EVs, very little of the industry’s propaganda matches reality. You cannot power a modern economy on this trinity of destructive and financially ruinous set of technologies, not now, not ever.

The Scientism markets a grotesque falsity as a truism, namely that industrialised nations should de-industrialise and focus the energy needs of a modern economy on unreliable solar and wind power, which of course, provide very poor value in output for the roughly US$500 million to $1 Trillion, per annum investments which feed the ‘climate change’ industry. 

The claim that digging up tonnes of Earth to find materials for solar panels (eg copper, cadmium), and the related manufacturing, shipping and distribution of said panels, is ‘green’, better for Gaia, or at a lower cost and price than coal, natural gas or nuclear (more below) is a howling mendacity. These lies offered as ‘science’ are disrobed when you analyse in the naked light, how solar panels are made, their materials, the land usage, the outrageous real costs in their output, and their eco-destructive nature.

It must be emphasised that anthropogenic, human plant food created ‘climate change’ is a fraud and simply a political program to reduce civilisation and our standard of living and usher in a Federated-Global government.

1. The materials and weight

Solar panels contain a wide variety of materials. They are hefty, cumbersome, operationally intensive with a life span of less than 10 years. Replacement costs and maintenance are usually left out of the ‘green’ calculations. They are complex to source and make as given below.

Main components

·       Silicon: Sand is the primary material used to manufacture photovoltaic cells. Sand is supposedly the second most abundant element on the planet after water, and is widely as silicon wafers

·       Silver: Used in the electrical contacts on solar cells (not limited but difficult to mine and extract, and reliant on hydrocarbon processes and technologies)

·       Aluminium: Used for the frames of solar panels (this is a manufacturing process using hydrocarbon energy)

·       Copper: Used in the wiring and conductive elements of solar cells (difficult to mine and extract, you need hydrocarbon-based energy systems and vehicles to do large scale mining)

·       Cadmium: Materials used in some types of thin-film solar cells, such as cadmium telluride (CdTe) cells (extracted from lead and zinc ores)

All of the above core materials rely on hydrocarbon energy to mine, extract, process, manufacture and distribute. There is plenty of plastic and polymers in a solar panel as well with the attendant costs of pollution and eco-damage. Yet you won’t find these ‘carbon costs’ in the ‘green calculations’ for solar panels. An example is the cost of cadmium management.

Critical cadmium

Cadmium is a heavy metal and a toxin. Producing cadmium from zinc ores is hydro-carbon intensive and has deleterious effects on the environment, food and water supplies. Costly processes around management, sequestring, recycling and destruction must be implemented and these are never accounted for in solar ‘accounting’.

Global cadmium reserves total some 500.000 tonnes with 25.000 tonnes being consumed annually, meaning that we have a 20 year known supply. Cadmium supply is thus a signficant restraint on future solar farm deployments. To develop further supplies will necessitate complex mining, zinc ore transformation, refining, processing and distribution. These costs will also never find their way into solar ‘accounting’ calculations.

The size and weight

Solars farms can be massive (200.000 or more panels). They must be sourced, created, brought to the site and emplaced. They also contain a tonne of material. None of this is easy to create or deploy and will have an effect on the environment.

The per MW acreage consumption by a solar farm, is about 10 acres or 40.000 square metres. For every square metre a solar farm will have at least 500 pounds of materials. For an average size solar farm, with 30 MW output, this means that over 1500 pounds or a tonne of material has been deployed on top of largely flat, arable land. This is an incredible concentration of minerals and materials in a condensed area which must be operated and replenished over a life cycle of usage.

• Solar Panels: On average, traditional silicon-based solar panels weigh around 15-20 kilograms (33-44 pounds) per square meter.

• Mounting Structures: The mounting structures, including frames and support systems, add additional weight. This can range from 5 to 15 kilograms (11 to 33 pounds) per square meter, depending on the design and materials used.

• Inverters: Inverters are used to convert the direct current (DC) generated by the solar panels into alternating current (AC) for use in the electrical grid. The weight of inverters varies based on their capacity and type, but usually constitute several hundred kilograms (500 pounds).

• Cabling and Wiring: Copper wiring, commonly used in solar installations, has a weight of about 8.9 kilograms (approximately 20 pounds) per meter for a 10 AWG wire.

• Transformers and Other Electrical Components: Transformer size varies but the weight would not be less than that of inverters.

• Racking and Foundations: The weight of racking systems and foundations for ground-mounted solar farms do vary based on the design and the soil conditions at the site, and run to about 50 pounds per square meter.

How is the above emplacement of a tonne of material ‘better’ for Gaia than farmland, meadows or forests? Natural flora is a ‘carbon sink’ recycling the trace chemical plant food and enhancing the eco-system whilst producing oxygen. Not only is the ‘landing zone’ for solar farms pillaged and disfigured, Gaia must be ripped open and gigatonnes of Earth displaced to provide the materials necessary for the solar farm estate. This is apparently ‘green friendly’ and ‘greener’ than just leaving the land fallow or natural.

2. Solar Farm costs

(Australia, world’s largest solar array, must be eco-friendly eh?)

Setting up a Solar Farm costs roughly U$115.000 per 5 MW of produced energy.  That is just the setup.  The total costs are in the region of $1 million per 1 MW of produced energy including operations, replacement costs and upgrades.  1 MW of energy supports 500-1000 households. 

To produce 1 MW of energy these solar farms will consist of roughly 72 solar cells linked over 6-10 acres, comprising some 1000 or more panels.  The total costs do not include soil degradation, ecological devastation, or the loss of farmland or other productive uses, which is called an ‘opportunity cost’ in accounting.  You will never see ‘opportunity costs’ included in the total cost of solar farm deployments.  Just as rare are the calculated costs for on-going maintenance, both material and human.

By contrast a single coal plant costs less than US$ 1 billion to setup with maintenance costs of about $100 million per annum and produces 4.000 MW of energy. Coal stations provide 40% of the world’s electricity and are far more efficient than solar.  We can do a simple comparison of coal versus solar energy. 

 

• Total costs over 10 years for a coal plant:  U$ 2 billion.
• Energy produced over 10 years from a coal plant:  40.000 MW
• Cost per MW produced over 10 years:  U$50.000
• Total costs of a solar farm, over 6-10 acres, for 10 years:  U$ 10 million
• Energy produced over 10 years: 10 MW
• Cost per MW produced: U$ 1 million

So in reality, coal plants are 20 times more efficient per MW than a solar farm.

There is no possiblity that solar, wind and EVs are ‘better’, cheaper, more eco-friendly, or less costly than clean burning, renewable and abiotic hydrocarbon energy.

Example, the disUnited States of Biden

David Craig wrote a very good book There is No Climate Crisis.  In the Daily Sceptic he takes the latest solar propaganda to the woodshed: “New Wind and Solar Are Cheaper Than the Costs to Operate All But One Coal-Fired Power Plant in the United States.“

Craig notes the massive government subsidies which are omitted from the costs of the beloved solar panels. Solar energy subsidies equal the total spend of Americans on their energy bills. No one hears much about this.

 

“Here’s a U.S. Treasury ‘Factsheet‘ about the Inflation Reduction Act. In it we read that: The U.S. Department of the Treasury will be at the forefront of implementation, delivering $270 billion in tax incentives as part of the $369 billion the Inflation Reduction Act dedicates to combating climate change.”  U.S. consumers spend about $1 trillion on energy each year including transport. I did a quick ‘back-of-a-fag-packet’ calculation. If the USA’s 123 million or so households spend around $4,000 a year each on energy (excluding transport) then that’s about $400 billion. Yet the inflation Reduction Act is spending a massive $369 billion subsidising supposed ‘renewables’, which are just a minor part of the USA’s energy use. In fact, wind and solar make up only about 3% of USA energy use:

 

Yet these almost negligible energy sources are getting $369 billion in subsidies –that’s almost as much as the $400 billion U.S. households pay for in total for energy each year.”

There is no logical financial case in promoting solar panel farms. They are economic losers with unreliable, variable output using technology that is not recycled.

3. Land usage

Solar panels are land and material intensive. The size of the solar farm depends on its output capacity. A ‘Utility-Scale Solar Farm’ or one that is ‘Ground-Mounted’ can range in size from several megawatts (MW) to hundreds of MW. On average, a utility-scale solar farm might have around 1,000 to 2,000 solar panels per megawatt. A single MW of output needs about 10 acres. Therefore, a 100 MW solar farm might have roughly 100,000 to 200,000 solar panels and consume 1000 acres or 1.5 square miles.

In most northern climes you might be lucky to get 50% capacity with a solar farm based on the number of sun filled hours and days. Storage batteries are nowhere good enough to capture ‘excess’ sunlight for later usage. Solar farming is thereby an inefficient and unreliable exercise.

The disUnited Kingdom and land hunger

Many states like the UK are land poor and densely populated. There are 75 millions in the UK mostly residing on about 1/3 of the land space of 90.000 square miles, with about 25 million or 1/3 in the ‘south’ of the country. Given that 1/3 of the country is off limits to development and reserved as parkland or greenland, and given that about 20% is simply uninhabitable as well as being inhospitable to solar farm deployments, there is a land scarcity at work which is always ignored.

The UK produces about 200 GW of electricity generation, each year.  Solar panels contribute a tepid and meagre 16-18 GW in total, or 8% of what the UK consumes. You will never satisfy UK electricity demand from solar farms or wind turbines.  This tawdry solar output is after almost £ 60 billion in funding by government, during the past 13 years. These costs are never included in the solar ‘accounting’.

Then there is the massive increase in electricity and utility bills for consumers. In the past 20 years electricity prices in most modern states has doubled - a cost borne by the taxpayer. We the taxpayers are thereby burdened by a very poor return on investment technology, expressed in massive increases in our energy and utility costs. Higher electricity costs are never calculated in solar ‘accounting’ with industry paid studies saying the solar farms pay back within 10 years. These false studies don’t count the subsidies nor the higher costs borne by consumers due to the installation of solar farms and other non-green technology.

Carpeting the land

In the UK there exists 500-600 industrial-size solar farms in the country producing an installed capacity (not the real output capacity) of roughly 16 GW or 16.000 MW. This gives us roughly, a 30 MW size per solar farm or roughly 300 acres per solar farm. In total, the UK has committed some 160.000 acreas or 250 square miles to solar farming or almost half of one southern county, West Sussex.

Real solar output is dependent of course on hours of sunshine and in the UK this varies between 30-50% of total daytime hours available. Why does anyone belive it is a good idea to efface natural land areas with solar farms in a country, where sunny daylight hours is a rarity for much of the year?

Basic maths tell us that if solar output targets of total energy production were say trebled (which is the plan), the UK would need to allocate another 750 square miles for solar farms or completely cover the county of West Sussex with solar farms. To satisfy the entire hydroelectric needs of the UK (some 200 GW), you would need to put at least 4000 square miles under solar farming, or 2.6 million acres, equivalent to the entire south-east of the country stretching from Kent to the Devon border. Given the real capacity utilisation rates of 50%, the UK would need to allocate 5 million acres to solar farming, or most of the southern area of the country.

Many eco-fantatics would be more than happy to displace 10-25 million people and put verdant, arable and productive land under solar farming creating an ecological and social catastrophe. Given the population and infrastucture density of nations like the UK, the only land truly available for solar farming is farmland, woodland and national parks. In other words the solar fanatics will need to destroy Gaia to save her.

4. Eco-Devastation

Not only are governments subsiding solar panels far above their productive output capacity and role within a well-balanced energy grid, the costs of ecological destruction are never accounted for. 

Harvard Business Review and the dark side of solar panels

The industry’s current circular capacity is woefully unprepared for the deluge of waste that is likely to come. The financial incentive to invest in recycling has never been very strong in solar. While panels contain small amounts of valuable materials such as silver, they are mostly made of glass, an extremely low-value material. The long life span of solar panels also serves to disincentivize innovation in this area.

IEEE, solar is not as green as you think

This report cites huge energy usage in panel manufacture, vast consumption of water, a lack of recycling and toxic waste issues as serious matters of concern which debase the ‘green’ image of the industry.

 

Solar panel farms change regional weather conditions

The model revealed that when the size of the solar farm reaches 20% of the total area of the Sahara, it triggers a feedback loop. Heat emitted by the darker solar panels (compared to the highly reflective desert soil) creates a steep temperature difference between the land and the surrounding oceans that ultimately lowers surface air pressure and causes moist air to rise and condense into raindrops. With more monsoon rainfall, plants grow and the desert reflects less of the sun’s energy, since vegetation absorbs light better than sand and soil. With more plants present, more water is evaporated, creating a more humid environment that causes vegetation to spread.

 

Many solar farms violate national and local laws

This report states that a more environmentally conscious process is needed from start to finish. Sand should be legally and ethically mined….. Developers also need to consider how to build sustainable  solar arrays that minimize the impacts on the local habitat. Better recycling plans should be in place for the solar panels once they reach the end of their lives. And like with any other major construction project, renewable energy companies should take heed of state and federal environmental regulations.

Solar panels affect local widlife, conservation areas, and interrupt and often destroy local eco-systems including those that thrive in meadows (BBC Report). They eat up prime farmland and reduce food output. Yet these real environmental costs are never assessed within solar ‘accounting’ Neither is the opportunity cost of building a solar farm, in lieu of other more productive use cases such as farming, conservation or meadow restoration.

Bottom Line

There is too much hypocrisy and fake ‘science’ with solar panels. The numbers simply don’t add up no matter how you slice them. Neither does the Gaia piety hold up to analysis. The solar ‘accounting’ dismisses the life cycle costs of solar power, its waste, its toxicity, its rape of Gaia, its ‘carbon footprint’ during its life cycle from sourcing to landfilling, and the massive increase in prices for consumers and state subsidies.

As with any other inane idea pushed by corrupt governments, we the peasantry are thus millstoned with a technology that has a ridiculously low level of output and productivity when compared to coal or natural gas and does nothing to help support a modern economy. The eco destruction wrought by solar farming is just as great as any process sourcing renewable hydrocarbons and the impact on land usage and patterns within a country and region is enormous and never assessed nor quantified.

Solar farms may play a very minor role in energy production, but that role should be defined, limited and scaled back to reduce the destructive consquences on society and ecology by putting too much unwarranted faith in an immature and largely invalidated technology.

As with all Scientisms the rush to solar energy is about money - vast oceans of it which can buy anyone and anything. Follow the money to find ‘the science’ including the money used in bribes, payoffs, and graft - another ‘cost’ never ‘accounted’ for by the solar zealots.

Scientism and Electric Vehicles. Not much is 'green', eco-friendly, or rational about EVs.

Not a single major industrial country can power its national fleet of vehicles on EVs to say nothing of the eco-calamity that is going to transpire in pursing EVs.

Sunday, January 7, 2024 by StFerdIII
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Abstract

‘Green’ energy is not ‘green’ but destructive of Gaia and nature.  The destruction takes many forms but includes massive and devastating mining, the destruction of ecology and ecosystems, the slaughtering of fauna including birds and fowl, and the exhaustion of non-renewable minerals and materials.  EV’s, wind turbines and solar panels are completely dependent upon hydrocarbons for their creation, distribution and maintenance.  ‘Net zero’ standards mean nothing when you view the reality that without hydrocarbons, there won’t be any of the purported ‘green’ technologies available to use.  Without hydrocarbons none of these ‘saviour-technologies’ can be built or maintained. 

This medium-length post focuses on Electric Vehicle batteries and their non-green, Gaia unfriendly reality.  The next two posts will analyse the Bird chopping Wind Turbines and the rather useless solar panels. 

Besides the fact that there is no ‘climate crisis’, there are 3 myths that the ‘Science’ pushes about EVs or Electric Vehicles.

Myth 1:  EVs ‘emit’ less ‘carbon’ than combustion engines.  This is unlikely to be true (depending on what powers the grid) but in essence who cares?  These calculations are probably fraudulent (Corona, Climate modelling anyone?), and don’t include the life cycle of building, transporting, replacing and disposing of EVs.  Petrol and diesel cars emit trace particles of various elements as will an EV.  It is however a ‘red herring’.  It is a meaningless statistic. 

To wit - combustion engine vehicles emit traces of carbon monoxide, nitrogen and about 17.000 pounds of Co2 over their lifetime.  In total less than 8 billion tonnes of Co2 is released from petrol and diesel engines annually – a rounding error against the one trillion tonnes or more of Co2 in the atmosphere.  Co2 is largely recycled so its impact is minimal.  Even if EVs emit less, it is hardly going to ‘save the planet’ given there is no impact whatsoever on weather, or climate, from our collection of 10 billion or so vehicles globally. 

Myth 2:  EVs are Gaia friendly.  This is a ridiculous assertion when you look at the extraction and strip mining used (using hydrocarbon energy), the vast seas of water needed in extraction, the pollution, chemical leeching and the lack of EV reuse and recycling.  EV materials (more below) are not ‘renewable’ in that there is limited supply and mining and manufacturing these minerals relies on hydrocarbon usage. 

Myth 3:  EVs are cheaper.  This is an absurdity.  If you strip out all tax breaks, subsidies, grants and retail tax holidays and add look at real energy costs of charging, maintenance, battery replacements and insurance, EVs are probably 2x more expensive than petrol and diesel cars, fake ‘studies’ and ‘fact checks’ notwithstanding.  Reality is more factual than paid-for-research by a criminal cabal. 

Electric Vehicles (EV) are not ‘Green’

There is not much that is ‘Green’ about the EVs.  A 60 kwH EV battery weighs between 60-80 pounds on average, which is roughly double the weight of the average petrol car battery.  In an average sized EV, there exists 45 pounds of lithium and more than 10 pounds of cobalt, nickel and manganese.  Copper, aluminium, and polymer plastics are other key components in an EV.  None of these materials comes cheaply or at ‘net zero’ cost to Gaia.

With the exception of child slave labour which procures cobalt and other rare minerals, these components are largely processed, distributed and manufactured with hydro-carbon technology.  Total reserves do not indicate the ability to mine, or the quality of the minerals.  Many reserves may not be economically accessible or of high enough quality to be mined.  If governments keep pushing EV usage which is now <15% of new car sales to completely replace combustion engines (called zero emissions by ‘the science’), the world will simply run out of minable minerals to feed into EV production. 

About 60 pounds of batteries are needed to store the energy equivalent in one pound of fossil fuels. For every one pound of batteries produced, 50 to 100 pounds of lithium, copper, nickel, graphite, rare earths, and cobalt are mined and processed. Thus, a future of batteries for electric vehicles and back-up energy for the grid would require mining gigatons more materials as well as gigatons of materials needed to manufacture wind turbines and solar panels.

How is moving gigatons of earth, Gaia-friendly?  The vast majority of the massive 200 plus tonne mining trucks excavating salt flats for lithium are hydro-carbon powered, with a few firms developing hybrids, EVs or hydrogen fuel cell engines to great and extensive mass media applause.  The reality is that these huge vehicles depend on diesel for performance, duration and reliability.  Renewable diesel can also be used to reduce costs and ‘emissions’ and seems to be a more practical alternative than hydrogen fuel cells, or 1000 kwh batteries which will need a reliable grid to recharge.    

(Anglo American 1000 kWh battery powered mining truck, imagine the reliable grid needed to service a fleet of these monsters. Looking forward to seeing these massive batteries at the end of their useful life, dumped in a landfill leeching pollutants into the ground soil.)

For the record ‘Fossils’ don’t make fuels.  Neither do rocks.  Hydrocarbon energy is abiotic, self-regenerating energy made at the mantle and core.  Hydrocarbons are renewable - naturally.  ‘Green energy’ minerals are not renewable.  How ironic.

Not Renewable

The main components and minerals needed in an EV are below, and the issues are obvious.Lithium:

• The lightweight metal plays a key role in the cathodes of all types of lithium-ion batteries that power EVs.  

• Worldwide reserves total some 80 million tonnes.  Global output is 120.000 tonnes per annum. 

• Australia produces 61.000 tonnes per annum, followed by Chile at 39.000.

• The largest lithium reserves are found in Bolivia (21 million tonnes), Argentina (17 million tonnes), Chile (9 million), US (7 million), Australia (6 million and the largest current producer), China (5 million). 

• Massive amounts of earth are moved to access lithium (including salt lakes, a list of key lithium mines here).  The ratio might be as high as 50 tonnes of raw earth is mined or moved, to produce 1 tonne of usable lithium. 

• There is anywhere from 20-200 years of lithium reserves identified based on current usage depending on your source.

• However, maybe 1/3 of total reserves can be mined and it takes years to get a lithium mine operational and productive, so actual reserves are probably 30-50 years of supply at 2035 estimated demand levels. 

2. Cobalt: 

• Cobalt is essential in EV batteries and a high supply risk.  Costs are $70.000 per tonne or more, making it a high cost component for EVs.  

• Cobalt is also used in mobile phone manufacturing and other industries. 

• There are 7 million tonnes of cobalt reserves worldwide, with some 170.000 tonnes are mined every year.

• Global Reserves: The Congo (DRC) has 50% of the world’s known supply or 3.6 million tonnes and Australia possesses some 1.6 million tonnes.  Much of Congolese cobalt output is accomplished with child labour. 

• There might be 30-40 years of available supply which can be mined.

3. Manganese:

• A global reserve of 800 million tonnes has been identified.

• Annually about 25 million tonnes are produced and consumed, with the steel industry accounting for 80% or more of manganese consumption. 

• There might be 40 years supply left based on what can be mined.

• South Africa produces 7.2 million tonnes per annum, Gabon some 4.6 million Australia 3.3 million tonnes, and Ukraine 400.000.

• Ukraine has almost 20% of the world’s manganese reserve supply.

4. Graphite:  

• Graphite (pencil lead) is a naturally occurring form of carbon and is a critical component in various industrial applications, including the production of batteries, lubricants, and other high-tech products.

• Graphite is used as an anode material in lithium-ion batteries.

• Approximately 1.5 million tonnes are mined and manufactured every year, with China accounting for 850.000 tonnes.  India, Brazil and Mozambique are other notable graphite producers.

• Graphite is expensive to mine with an average price of $550 per metric tonne, but many projects needing almost double that price to be economical.

• Graphite shortages due to increased EV demand are expected to start in 2030, substantially elevating prices which may allow some graphite mining projects to proceed.

5. Nickel:

• A global supply of 80-100 million tonnes exist, with 3 million tonnes being mined annually.

• There may be 700 million tonnes of recoverable nickel resources yet to be fully investigated and discovered (e.g. oceanic floor, New Caledonia deposits).

• Australia and Indonesia have the world’s largest nickel supplies at around 21 million tonnes each. 

• Existing nickel supplies probably won’t be exhausted for a long while (estimates range from 100 years to 1000). 

• However, with increasing EV usage, nickel consumption will increase by at least 30% by 2030, putting pressure on reserves and pricing. 

6. Copper:

• Global reserves of 870 million tonnes exist with an annual usage of 28 million tonnes, there is roughly 200 years of copper reserves identified.

• Chile produces about 5.5 million tonnes per year, Peru 2.5 million and China 1.5 million tonnes.

Problems with non-renewable ‘EV’ technology

(Lithium mine layout - strip mining at its finest with all the attendant ecological damage.)

There are many issues with EVs besides government coercion, massive subsidisation, rising costs and batteries catching on fire.  Some key issues are listed below. 

No advantages over hydrocarbons

1.     Producing EVs with hydrocarbon energy and related ‘carbon emissions’, negates any ‘non carbon advantage’ from using the end product.

2.     EV production uses 3 times more energy than a combustion engine.

3.     EV’s must be replaced every 5-10 years at an enormous consumer cost (U$10.000 or more per EV). 

4.     Heavier electric vehicles will lead to road damage and increased usage of tarmac and asphalt, which are composed of carbon (tar, bitumen). 

5.     Insurance costs are 2-10 times higher for EVs and unaffordable for many. 

6.     Even with subsidies comprising some 20% of the vehicles price tag (in many countries no retail tax is applied to an EV sale, and there are direct state grants to buy one), EVs are still roughly 2x more expensive per unit than petrol or diesel vehicles. 

7.     EVs are far more expensive to run and maintain, regardless of mass media propaganda, especially when future electricity prices (and likely taxes) are increased to compensate for increasing demand against a limited supply. 

8.     EVs don’t operate well in cold climates and have limited range. 

Not Gaia friendly

9.     To extract one tonne of lithium requires about 500,000 litres of water, and can result in the poisoning of reservoirs and related health problems.

10.  To extract 60.000 tonnes of lithium or about 6 months of supply, entails moving about 20-30 million tonnes of earth, more than the US coal industry moves in one year. 

11.  Less than 5% of EVs are recycled and the rest are dumped into landfills, where the various chemicals leech into the ground and groundwater.  Landfill fires from disposed EVs are not uncommon.

12.  By 2030 some 200 million EVs might be on the road globally leading to enormous ecological damage from the dumping of batteries as more than 250.000 tonnes of scrap waste, every year, are casually tossed into Gaia.  

13.  EV cars release more toxic tyre particles into the air than their petrol equivalents.

14.  It is impossible to replace our large transport fleets and cargo ships with EVs.  The batteries cost, weight, storage capability and the lack of infrastructure make the mass media claim that long road or oceanic haulage will be ‘electrified’ a baseless lie. 

15.  There is not enough national grid capacity, charging capacity or hydro-electric distribution capacity, to replace our combustion engines with EV fleets.  Not now, not anytime in the future, especially if nuclear, coal and natural gas networks are declared illegal and taken offline. More here