The New York Times had an interesting article on January 8th detailing how the Chinese solar industry is tied to “forced labor,” which is also known as slavery....
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Liberal environmentalists are swooning over the fact that China has recently announced that it will be "climate neutral" by 2060. State Representative Jamie Long (DFL) who authored a bill that would require Minnesota to get 100 percent of its electricity from wind, solar, and battery storage by 2050 said China's announcement meant the U.S. was out of excuses and needs to act now. [embed]https://twitter.com/Jamiemlong/status/1308768044148088833?s=20[/embed] Michael Noble, who is the Exective Director at Fresh Energy called it a BFD (Google it). [embed]https://twitter.com/NobleIdeas/status/1308567447780364288?s=20[/embed] However, if liberal wind and solar advocates believe China will actually be carbon neutral by 2060, I've got a whole slew of bridges...
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Xcel Energy bombards the airwaves to inform us that they plan to generate 100 percent of their electricity with carbon free resources by 2050. To accomplish this goal, Xcel plans to prematurely retire their coal-fired power plants and replace them with weather-dependent resources like solar and wind. American Experiment's modeling has concluded this plan will cost each Minnesota household more than $1,200 per year, every year, through 2050. For such enormous costs, one would hope that closing our coal plants would have a significant environmental benefit, but a look at coal consumption data from China, the United States as a whole,...
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Last week, the Star Tribune ran a story about how the Coronavirus has disrupted the global solar panel supply chain, potentially causing the delay of two large solar installations in Wisconsin. The supply-chain interruptions have occurred because of factory shutdowns and travel restrictions in China, highlighting the major role that China has plays in the solar supply chain. According to the article: "Asia, and particularly China, is the globe’s primary supplier of solar cells and panels, and is also a major source of inverters and racking system components. Racks hold solar panels in place; inverters convert panels’ DC current into AC. Also, about...
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According to an article in The Financial Times, China is set to add new coal-fired power plants equivalent to the EU’s entire capacity. as the world’s biggest energy consumer ignores global pressure to rein in carbon emissions in its bid to boost a slowing economy. The article states that China is building 148 gigawatts, or 148,000 megawatts, of coal. For context, Minnesota has 4,309 MW of coal, meaning China will build 34 times more coal-fired power plants in the coming years than currently exist in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. In fact, these coal additions mean will nearly eclipse the entire...
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The following article was written by me, and it originally appeared in the Duluth News Tribune. Xcel Energy recently made headlines by announcing it wished to close down its coal-fired power plants 10 years before they were previously scheduled to retire. However, it would be nothing short of a disaster for Minnesota’s mining industry, both present and future, if Minnesota Power pursued a similar path by closing the coal-fired Boswell Energy Center at a time when China and India are greatly expanding their use of coal. Mining requires an enormous amount of energy. In fact, the MinnTac mine in Mountain Iron reportedly...
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During the legislative session, we heard Governor Walz, House DFL members, and liberal environmentalists call climate change an "existential crisis," several times (give or take a million). This so-called crisis was used as justification for trying to pass radical Green New Deal-style legislation in Minnesota in an attempt to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Absent from these discussions, however, was any context for global carbon dioxide emissions and the impact they will have on future temperatures. This seems like a massive oversight. It's called global warming, after all. The most likely reason this discussion never occurred is because it would undermine the Governor's case...
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Solar advocates often emphasize the fact that the cost of solar panels has fallen about 80 percent in the last ten years, and use this cost decline to project even steeper cost declines in the future. However, this is a problematic assumption because the recent decrease is only partially due to improvements in the solar panels. The other reason the cost of solar panels fell is because China became a major producer of solar panels, lowering the cost of production. One reason why China became a major producer of solar panels is because it subsidizes many of its industries, including steel...
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The Iron Range of Minnesota is set to benefit from emerging trends in the way steel mills in China purchase iron ore. ...
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