Climate Confessions

Shuffling through the mini-mountain of utility dreck that greets me from my email each morning is a task best performed with a large pot of coffee.  Most of it is so dry and boring that it spontaneously combusts on its way to the cyber trash.  But every once in a while you come across a tasty nugget, like this admission from an investment analyst panning American Electric Power.

Please note that the future cash flows from these assets are supported by long-term power purchase agreements (“PPAs”) and in the case of the Santa Rita East Wind Project, virtual power purchase agreements (“VPPAs”), better enabling these assets to pad American Electric Power’s future net operating cash flows. One of the driving forces behind those PPAs and VPPAs is a growing corporate need to appear to be “green” and that involves acquiring the rights to the electricity produced from renewable power plants (even if those corporate entities aren’t directly consuming the electricity produced). Another reason involves the ever-growing demand from utilities all across America to source a growing percentage of their electricity (meaning total electricity sold to end consumers) from renewable sources (whether for long-term corporate planning purposes or for regulatory reasons).

So, going green is nothing but a scam?  Of course it is!  Corporations aren't actually using "green" electricity to power their businesses, they're just pretending they are because millennials want to believe the actions of others are making up for their own carbon footprint.

NBC got seriously mocked recently for its "Confess Your Climate Sins" project.  The self-proclaimed "climate warriors" apparently don't practice what they preach, despite a growing (and profitable) greenwashing epidemic that attempts to control society.  Eating meat?  That's bad all of a sudden, and not for the health reasons your doctor has been warning you about for decades.  Eating meat is bad for the climate.  Ditto plastic straws and single-service eating utensils.  Save the planet, catch a hideous disease from poorly washed restaurant ware.  Air conditioning is bad.  Sweat away your carbon guilt instead.  Honestly, how much of this is an actual problem, and how much is sheep-controlling propaganda pushing a political agenda?

There's only so far it can go before it jumps the shark.  And as it speeds up, we're getting closer and closer to waking up to bullshit in your cup.

The dishonest "greening" of corporate America mentioned in the AEP analysis is also on the same trajectory.  Do people really choose products from companies pretending to be "green," even if they're more expensive?  Maybe only the climate sheep who secretly eat bacon locked in their closet at 2 a.m. and absolve themselves of their climate sins by anonymous online confession.  The rest of us don't care.   Corporations aren't using green energy!  They're making guilt payments to renewable energy producers so they can pretend to use green energy.  The analyst recognizes the scam of renewable energy credits, or RECs, which are "the social attributes of renewable energy."  What's a social attribute anyhow?  It's a completely manufactured concept that an electron of energy generated has two revenue streams.  The first is the sale of the actual energy produced.  An electron is generated and someone buys and uses it.  It's the only real attribute.  The second assigns a fake "social attribute" REC to the electricity generated and bought by someone else.  You can purchase this "social attribute"  even though someone else has actually purchased the electron that created it.  Corporations purchasing RECs are purchasing nothing at all, engaging in a gigantic scam that allows them to claim they use renewable energy even when they don't.  It's nothing more than corporate virtue signalling used as a marketing ploy to sell more product at a higher price to the greenwashed masses who think they're absolving their climate sins by using their favorite shampoo "made by green energy" so that they can offset that sin and get their Starbucks in a disposable cup and grill a steak on Saturday night.  And it's only going to work for so long.  In fact, the hypocrisy of the climate change religion is actually starting to leak out.  At some point, the hungry, diseased, dirty, and sweaty masses are going to revolt completely.  It's inevitable.

Hey, guess what?  Rich east coast communities don't want to be burdened by offshore wind, although they profess to love green energy.  I wonder how many of them confessed to NBC?

Dear Liberal Media Climate Change Gods, hear my confession and absolve me of my sins.  Although I preach to others in order to shame them about their carbon footprint, I don't want an electric cable buried under MY beach. Can't we find some downtrodden serfs in a red state and force them to host renewable energy infrastructure to power our waterfront McMansions?  Pass the bacon, but do it quietly.  In wind energy's name I pray, Amen.

Clean energy is great, as long as it's in someone else's backyard. 

Big wind is busy repowering all their taxpayer funded wind turbines so they can lock in production tax credits for another 10 years before the tax credit goes away entirely.  And it's generating literally tons of landfill waste!  The fiberglass blades cannot be recycled and must be crushed and landfilled.  I couldn't use enough plastic straws in my lifetime to equal just one obsolete wind turbine blade, so quit preaching about the straws already.

And then there's the SF6 thing recently making news.  Apparently it's worse for the climate than CO2, and it's mainly used by the electrical industry.  So, as we increase transmission and substations to serve renewable generators in order to save the climate, we're actually destroying it faster.

The electrical industry continues to be the largest user of SF6 because of its superior properties as a gaseous dielectric insulating medium to prevent high voltage electrical breakdown and electrical explosion hazards. Advantages resulting from its high dielectric strength, compared to air, nitrogen, oil and fluorinated ketones, include size reduction of electrical equipment, superior arc-quenching protection in circuit breakers, self-healing of arcing products, large current interruption, noise-free operation, minimal moisture problems, lower fire risk, absence of carbon deposition, and low maintenance cost.
Currently, electrical utilities and equipment are responsible for consuming 80% of the 10 000 tons of SF6produced every year, an amount which is growing with the increasing global production and demand for renewable forms of energy, such as wind and solar. As a result, there has been an increase in the number of connections to the electricity grid compared with the traditional fossil power stations, with the consequential rise in the use of switchgear to deal with arcing and to stop short circuits.

Climate religion is expensive.  And the money it generates is all going into the pockets of corporations, so naturally they have a pecuniary interest in promoting it.  The "green" movement started decades ago by environmental groups has been completely co-opted by corporate America because it increases their profits.  And this is why American Electric Power wants to buy renewable generators and build new transmission lines to serve them.  It's about profit, not climate religion.  Does Nick Akins eat bacon?  Google couldn't help me, but I bet he loves bacon.

But I do know he loves chicken wings.  Chicken wings are meat.  I wonder if he confessed to NBC?

I only love green energy because it increases my company's dividend and ultimately my bonus.  I'm sitting here with a beer (not that cheap, weak, wind-powered Budweiser yellow beer, but a full-bodied, expertly crafted Arrogant Bastard Ale) and I've got chicken wing sauce all over my face.  What time's the game?

Keep building "clean" energy infrastructure near the rich and powerful.  Take away their bacon, and their air conditioning.  Revolt is brewing because the majority aren't buying into the green religion.  One day very soon these folks are going to wake up and realize their cup is full of crap and they've been had.  And then the popes and bishops of climate religion are going to cry big crocodile tears.  Boo.  Hoo.