Top Tweets for #NETZEROscam

Gathering energy from unpredictable winds or shifting sunlight was never going to be cheap. They were never going to become energy-productive at scale, nor ultimately successful in replacing energy-dense hydrocarbon fuels. They simply do not produce baseload power—the bedrock of the industrial world. A vast structural overbuild was required: hundreds of thousands (1.3 million equivalents) of large-scale turbine structures built from reinforced steel, concrete, plastics, and composite resins like fibreglass. Alongside them sit millions of solar panels—amalgams of silicon, glass, aluminium, copper, silver, and polymer backsheets. This has led to scattering these effigies of a failed concept across some of the most picturesque wild areas on Earth. Yet this transition has a cost estimate of $275 trillion by 2050 (McKinsey, 2022)—enough cash to build an estimated 27,500 nuclear power plants, or equivalent to 2.5 times global GDP. Today, renewable-generated energy remains unviable as a standalone primary source without constant backup from hydrocarbons. Yet we possess more than a century of known reserves of coal, oil, and gas at current consumption rates—without accounting for vast, untapped reserves yet to be discovered. The raw materials required for this world-war-style industrial effort have placed catastrophic demand on global metal reserves, driving up costs. Wind and solar present a glaring paradox: they cannot be mined, manufactured, transported or installed without the heavy grunt of diesel power. Once installed, the reality hits: intermittent power is fundamentally incompatible with existing global electricity grids. Managing it means building a completely redundant second grid at an estimated cost of $21 trillion. This building spree has been kept afloat only through massive public subsidies, enabled by compliant governments drawn into the vortex by ideological guilt. The fallout is real: many Western nations face late-stage economic decline, hollowed-out industries and vanishing manufacturing jobs. China, on the other hand, has become the world’s manufacturing superpower, producing roughly 90% of all panels, turbines, and components. To power this industrial titan, China continues to build coal-fired power stations at a rate of up to two new plants a week. The supreme irony is that while the West dismantles its reliable power base, it finances China's coal-powered boom to buy back green hardware. Wind and solar were a boutique alternative energy concept based on the naive premise that sunlight and wind are 'free'. They work fine for an off-grid cabin, but fail dramatically when forced to power modern industrial civilisation. After nearly four decades of this narrative, hydrocarbon fuels still provide roughly 81% of the world's primary energy. We inflated a draft rowboat into an aircraft carrier, only to realise it cannot navigate the open seas. We found out.

China emits as much CO2 in 16 days as Canada emits in an entire year. Australia's annual total takes China just 12 days to emit. Britain's takes barely 9 days. Combined, Canada, Australia and the UK emit about 1.23 billion tonnes a year. China emits that much in roughly 37 days. So, even if all three countries eliminated every tonne of CO2--closing every factory, power station and banning every gas vehicle--China would replace the entire annual reduction in little more than five weeks. Yet, Western governments are deliberately making energy scarcer and more expensive, by dismantling dependable sources, restricting oil and gas exploration and loading industry with carbon taxes and net zero mandates. Steel, chemicals, fertilizers, refining and manufacturing are driven overseas -- often to countries burning more coal. So the emissions do not disappear. Only the jobs, tax revenues and energy security do. The West impoverishes itself. China profits.

One gigawatt of wind capacity requires about 2,900 tons of copper. At a standard ore grade of 0.6%, 99.4% of the ore is not copper. Producing those 2,900 tons therefore requires processing roughly 480,000 tons of ore. That is about 1,200 full loads in a 400-ton-class mining truck. And it excludes the waste rock, overburden and processing losses. Count those and the total material moved can exceed 1 to 2 million tons. And that's before adding the steel, concrete, fiberglass and other materials required by the wind project. The "green" turbine does not begin with the wind. It begins with a mountain being blasted, hauled and crushed.