[tomder55]

Flashback 1957 China . Mao wanted his country to become a great industrial giant ;and he was getting impatient with the lack of progress.

So he embarked on a 'Great Leap Forward ' . He forced peasants off of the farms and imposed artificial quotas on each village to produce steel. Whole villages were mobilized towards this effort ,including woman and children. Not knowing the process of making steel ;they started to melt down everything metal including farm equipment . But that did not make steel. At best they got pig iron from their efforts .Steel smelting is a sophisticated process that cannot be done on your back yard fire pit.

This campaign diverted manpower and resources away from the important agriculture needed to feed the people. But the Chicoms persisted and set unrealistic agriculture quotas . To attempt to meet these quotas farmers started to adopt unproven and unproductive methods of farming . This further reduced the yields. To make quota farmers would surrender first the grain they needed for their own sustenance ;and later to surrender the seeds for the next year's harvest .
The predictable results was mass starvation. From 1959 through 1961, 30 million to 40 million Chinese people died from hunger. ...... which the government blamed on natural forces beyond their control. They went so far as blaming sparrows for eating the grain and mandated that the peasants 'smash sparrows'.

In 1958 Mao Zedong ordered all the sparrows to be killed because they ate too much grain. This caused one of the worst environmental disasters in history (thevintagenews.com)

Fast forward to today

Western governments have decided to take a similar suicidal path to achieve a green energy future. Like Mao they are tired of the slow progress of their goals and have decided to mandate a collective move away from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Years of subsidies have not done the trick. So with the use of a pen they have decided to make it so.

They don't have the power that Mao had to force his will on the people. But they have their own bureaucratic dictatorial methods .

By decree Clueless has decided that America will make an over 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 . By decree the unelected bureaucrats of the EU have decided to cut Europe's emissions by 55% by 2030 .

It is early to say .But based on things like California power outages ;Texans freezing in the winter because the windmills don't turn in the cold; ,Sri Lanka food shortages ,do not give much hope for the future.
So like Mao's industrial 'Great Leap Forward ' I expect that the Green new deal great leap forward will be a humanitarian disaster .

[jlisenbe]

a collective move away from fossil fuels

Probably necessary and can be done if given enough time.

and nuclear power.

Sheer insanity since this is, at present, the only logical alternative to fossil fuels.

[tomder55]

We did not go from whale oil to gas street lamps to electric street lamps by making a proclamation. First the technology and the means had to be developed .

I have no doubt we will move to a next generation power source . I do not believe wind and solar and other renewables can power the needs of our future .

I for one would like to see fusion power . If I had the total power to mandate it happen ;it would not happen any sooner than when scientists and engineers can make it happen.

[jlisenbe]

Wind is probably a more likely candidate to be a consistent, minor contributor than solar, but I'd agree that neither one will ever be a major player. Too many questions surround fusion. That's several decades away. The only reliable, affordable alternative right now is nuclear. It's just beyond belief that our fed government has not, over the past few decades, developed a number of hyper-safe and reliable plant designs that are already certified and ready to go for development.

[tomder55]

. Too many questions surround fusion. That's several decades away.

yes thus killing the natural gas industry is nutty and utopian and will lead to misery .

Historic winter storm freezes Texas wind turbines (statesman.com)ds
I believe we are closer than you think . Breakthroughs are coming at a more rapid pace. No one anticipated the breakthroughs that Tesla and Edison made . But when they made them the technology advanced rapidly .

One Fusion company predicts commercialization by the end of the decade . That is also a belief of one of the scientists ;Professor Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, at a White House summit on fusion energy in March ;and a Senate Committee hearing last week .

Barrasso: We May Be Turning the Corner on Fusion Energy - U.S. Senate Committee...

Steven Cowley, Director, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, spoke about the recent developments in fusion, saying “2021 was an amazing year for fusion. I don’t think we have had a year like this ever in the history of fusion. On August 8^th, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reached 1.3 megajoules of output, with just under 2 megajoules going in. It was the first time where we got to see a fusion burn, when fusion energy provides the energy to keep the fuel at about 100 million degrees. And on the 21^st of December, the Joint European Torus in the UK reached an average of over 10 million watts of fusion power for more than 5 seconds.” Dr. Cowley talked about how we got to a point where fusion appeared doable, and said, “We got here through a program at the Department of Energy that has sustained the scientific inquiry over decades to get to a point, which I think has only really happened in the last 10 years, where we can really predict the behavior of these systems and calculate it on those enormous computers that the Department of Energy runs.” Dr. Cowley added, “If we don’t choose to do fusion, somebody else will. There are very well-funded programs in China, in Europe, in Korea, doing marvelous things. We don’t want somebody else to be the Saudi Arabia of fusion. We want to be it.”

Readout of the White House Summit on Developing a Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy - The White House




Claiming a landmark in fusion energy, TAE Technologies sees commercialization by 2030 | TechCrunch

TAE Technologies Exceeds Fusion Reactor Performance Goals By 250% As Company Closes $250 Million Financing Round, Totaling $1.2 Billion To Date (prnewswire.com)

Nuclear Fusion Energy Breakthrough: Ignition Confirmed in Record 1.3 Megajoule Shot (scitechdaily.com)

[jlisenbe]

Agree completely, and especially considering that NG is the cleanest burning fossil fuel as regards CO2. We have enough to last many decades. A reasonable solution would be to use NG for electrical generation until we can get a reasonable alternative up and going. However, that would take some people who actually know how to think unlike the AOC's and others that now run the democrat party.

[tomder55]

Gruesome Newsom prefers this

EV charging station line up in California - YouTube

[tomder55]

As winter approaches there is not one forecaster who is not predicting soaring energy prices. Clueless blaming small retail gas stations warned them to reduce prices .

But this is exactly what the Democrats said they wanted .....soaring energy prices so their utopian vision of powering the nation on solar panels and Cecil and Beanie windmill hats could be realized . The emperor told us that years ago .The Dems want energy prices to ' necessary skyrocket ' .

Obama Promises Skyrocketing Energy Costs - YouTube

President Biden says high gas prices are just part of "incredible transition" - YouTube


The chickens are coming home to roost.

[jlisenbe]

So much of this is completely detached from reality. Soaring fuel prices will raise the prices of everything and thus further injure the very poor people that liberal dems claim to love so much.

[jlisenbe]

"Wokeness gives people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue."
- Elon Musk

[tomder55]

btw due to Clueless Joe and the progressive coalition we now have less than a month's worth of diesel fuel before we run out .

Column: U.S. diesel shortage increasingly likely until economy slows | Reuters



"such low levels are alarming because diesel is the workhorse of the global economy. It powers trucks and vans, excavators, freight trains and ships. A shortage would mean higher costs for everything from trucking to farming to construction."

Diesel Price Over $200 a Barrel, Leaving Biden With Ugly Choices - Bloomberg


All the Fed tinkering of interest rates will not tame inflation if product cannot move to markets .

The issue is refining . Refining in this country is knee capped by regulations that range from pipelines to silly Green New Deal mandates .Operators are required to integrate new green technology devices to meet EPA mandates. This delays the refineries from going back into full production and the building of new refineries . Clueless is going to deplete emergency reserve supplies like he is doing to emergency crude oil supplies.