Joe Biden’s plan to carpet America wall-to-wall with 60,000 wind turbines and millions of solar panels comes with a staggering cost, and it’s America’s poor that will pay the heaviest price for the Democrat’s delusional energy policy.
The only thing guaranteed about subsidising wind and solar is rocketing power prices and unreliable electricity. Ask a German, Dane or South Australian.
In a country still reeling from the economic havoc caused by political responses to the coronavirus, the last thing Americans need is to increase the cost of living and doing business.
But that’s precisely what’s coming, as Brian Leyland and Tom Harris contend below.
Bryan Leyland MSc, DistFEngNZ, FIMechE, FIEE (rtd), MRSNZ, is a Power Systems engineer with more than 60 years’ experience in New Zealand and overseas. Tom Harris, M. Eng, is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.
Biden’s Energy Plans Are Expensive—and Dangerous
PJ Media
Brian Leyland and Tom Harris
19 December 2020
Joe Biden wants the electric grid of the United States to be powered solely by energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide by 2035. In the Unity Task Force plan that the former vice-president released with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the commitment is made that:
Within five years, we will install 500 million solar panels, including eight million solar roofs and community solar energy systems, and 60,000 made-in-America wind turbines.
Overhauling the entire electric grid, which some call the world’s largest machine, and converting much of it to wind and solar power, is not just a momentous task. It is both dangerous and unbelievably expensive. The only reason Biden has been able to get away with such a preposterous plan is that many people actually believe that wind and solar power are cheaper than fossil fuel-powered generation. They conclude that a transition to a system supplied by wind and solar power will reduce consumer costs. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Instead of blindly accepting the Biden/Sanders energy fantasy, the public should ask the obvious question: “If wind and solar are so cheap, then why do they still need direct and indirect subsidies?”
The fact is that they are not cheap at all once all the costs that they impose on the power system are taken into account. Let’s examine this more closely.
Wind and solar power are intermittent and unpredictable and must be backed up by existing or new power stations or storage facilities that can rapidly change output to compensate for the fluctuating supplies from wind and solar power. That usually means natural gas back-up stations. Even environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the 2010 annual conference of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association:
For all of these big utility scale power plants, whether it’s wind or solar, everybody is looking at gas as the supplementary fuel. The plants that we’re building, the wind plants and the solar plants are [supported by] gas plants.
Other problems are the need for inertia (flywheel effect) that is required to stabilize the system frequency and for voltage support to stop the lights going dim. Both of these are provided by conventional generators but not by wind and solar power.
For various reasons, 1,000 kilowatts (kW) of wind or solar power seldom produces more than 800 kW. On average, wind produces about one-third of its theoretical energy output (measured in kilowatt-hours – kWh) and solar power less than one-sixth. As a result, much more installed capacity plus energy storage facilities are needed to match the output of a conventional 1,000 kW station. It is the cost of this extra capacity and energy storage that kills the economics of wind and solar power.
One way of establishing the real cost of wind and solar power is to compare the cost of supplying all the electricity needed by a system with no connections to other power systems. Let’s consider the cost of supplying all the electricity needed by a power system with a peak demand of 4,000 megawatts (MW) and an energy demand of 19,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh), which is typical of most power systems.
We start by assuming that five days of storage would be needed to cover a series of cloudy days in winter or five days of little wind. So, we need to calculate the costs associated with storage by batteries or by hydro-pumped storage (in which excess power is used to pump water into a reservoir which then drains through hydraulic turbines producing electricity when the primary system lacks sufficient power to supply the grid). One then discovers that the solar power option would need 16,000 MW of solar capacity + 9,000 MW of battery capacity and the all-in cost would be 38 US¢/kWh. The wind power option would need 7,000 MW of wind and 2,250 MW of storage capacity to give a final cost of 34¢/kWh.
For comparison, the typical North American cost for combined-cycle natural gas generation is 5¢/kWh.
The solar option would occupy about 650 square miles of land and the wind option would occupy over 1,600 square miles. The environmental effects cannot be ignored. In many countries, the pumped storage option is likely to be opposed by environmentalists and it may not be feasible anyway because of the lack of sites that can accommodate two large storage lakes a short distance apart with one several hundred meters above the other.
The reality is that Biden’s ambitions for large-scale, low-cost solar or wind power cannot possibly be achieved by 2035, or even 2050, because of the huge numbers of wind turbines and solar farms and new transmission capacity that would be needed, and the very high cost and the associated technical and environmental problems. At the moment, and after the expenditure of billions of dollars in subsidies, solar and wind power provide only 8% of U.S. electricity.
If governments persist, the inevitable result will be skyrocketing prices and regular blackouts. Hospitals, industry, and commerce would need to install hundreds of diesel generators to maintain operations.
The assumptions made to derive the real cost of supplying 4,000 MW of demand from wind or solar power are as follows:
- A 1,000 watt ‘W’ solar cell has an average output of about 150 W, so 16,000 MW of solar power is needed to supply all the energy required by the 4,000 MW load and to compensate for the 25% losses in the energy storage system.
- As a 1,000 W solar cell seldom produces more than 800 W, the effective maximum output of 16,000 MW of solar is 13,000 MW.
- As the load on the power system can only absorb 4,000 MW, the storage system must be able to absorb the remaining 9,000 MW.
The storage capacity has to be able to provide 264 GWh needed in wintertime when there are likely to be five days of cloudy weather and the solar output is negligible. At the current $US200/kWh this amounts to over $US 50 billion. By way of comparison, the largest battery in the world at Hornsdale in Australia can store 130 MWh. Two thousand of them would be needed to store the 264,000 MWh needed for a reliable supply to the 4,000 MW load. This battery capacity is equivalent to all the batteries in all the electric cars in the world.
The conclusion is that about 25,000 MW of solar plus storage capacity is needed to supply the 4,000 MW demand! If batteries are used to provide five days of storage, the total cost is in the region of $70 billion, which explains the very high cost of providing a reliable supply from solar power.
Wind power that has an average output of 35% of its installed capacity is better but does not lead to a large reduction in price because the battery cost dominates.
Solar power with hydro-pumped storage is less expensive—an overall cost of 23¢/kWh, but still almost five-times the cost in the U.S. for combined-cycle natural gas generation. But hydro-pumped storage is impractical in most areas for the reason cited above.
From a greenhouse gas point of view, wind and solar power are horribly expensive. Carbon dioxide emissions are currently valued at about $30/tonne while calculations show that the carbon dioxide avoided by policy focused on wind and solar power would cost more than $1,400 per tonne.
When all the options are examined, the conclusion is that the best way to eliminate emissions of carbon dioxide from power generation is safe and reliable nuclear power supplemented by a relatively small amount of pumped storage. So, at least Biden’s support for nuclear and hydropower makes sense. But don’t expect ant-nuclear activists in the extreme left of the Democratic Party to allow this to happen.
The power disaster unfolding in California gives a good preview of what is in store for America as a whole if Biden succeeds in his goal of sweeping away fossil fuel-generated power and replacing it with wind and solar. Power outages are now commonplace in the Golden State, which suffered its first rolling blackouts in nearly 20 years last summer. Indeed, with 4,297 power outages between 2008 and 2017, California led the nation in this category (Texas was a distant second with 1,603).
Governor Newsom admitted that there was not enough wind power to compensate for the drop in solar power due to cloud cover and nightfall. The Los Angeles Times reported:
… gas-burning power plants that can fire up when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing have been shutting down in recent years, and California has largely failed to replace them …
The result is that California has fallen thousands of megawatts behind its needs.
Joe Biden said in his climate change plan:
Getting to a 100% clean energy economy is not only an obligation, it’s an opportunity. We should fully adopt a clean energy future, not just for all of us today, but for our children and grandchildren, so their tomorrow is healthier, safer, and more just.
If Biden actually does what he tells us he plans to do, life will be dismal indeed for our children and grandchildren. It will be a highly unjust future in which all those except the wealthy will lack the energy to be healthy and safe and will simply be left freezing in the dark.
The technical report and data to support our computations are available on the website of the senior author of this article at http://www.bryanleyland.co.nz/cost-of-wind-and-solar-power.html
PJ Media
STOP THESE THINGS 
Human deforestation activities link bats to Ebola outbreaks – CIFOR Forests News All we can do now is wait for Going Green to Spread Ebola and Virus X in Europe America Asia from Going Green on 98% BIOMASS BIOFUELS Land Sea Air GOODFUELS.COM at 150% higher CO2 to even Coal!
https://forestsnews.cifor.org/63478/human-deforestation-activities-link-bats-to-ebola-outbreaks?fnl=
The fact it’s so obvious 98% of the NEW GREEN DEAL or GOING GREEN is nothing but deadly BIOENERGY A to Z?
look at the data?
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/World-1-total-primary-energy-supply-TPES-from-1971-to-2014-by-fuel-Mtoe-1-World_fig2_328024940
Her COVID -19 it’s clearly shown in the graphics BIOMASS smack in the middle
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7526655/
The Chinese lab COVID-19 story?
No the Catastrophic deforestation from Going Green?
https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/deforestation-and-covid-19
The stop flying story?
When Going Green has already increased Global CO2 by at least 9 times higher to even flying at only 2.2% of Global CO2?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.mongabay.com/2014/08/biomass-burning-accounts-for-18-of-co2-emissions-kills-a-quarter-of-a-million-people-annually/amp/
Is that really true dose Going Greens Energy itself at barley 1.5% of global energy consumption only kill 250.000 a year, no it’s cheery picking of data, Going Green kills at least 4 million people every single year
https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/research/centres-and-units/impala/cooking-and-pneumonia-study-caps-2013-2016/biomass-fuels-the
The facts about Going Green on TV?
And the actual Going Green are so horrific?
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/3/4/18216045/renewable-energy-wood-pellets-biomass
All one can say about Going Green?
Is imagen the unthinkable?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.mongabay.com/2020/12/eu-renewable-energy-policy-subsidizes-surge-in-logging-of-estonias-protected-areas-commentary/amp/?espv=1
Here you see Ebola and Virus X In Europe America Asia in the next 5 years’ or it could happen at any moment in the investment of -+$50 trillion in deadly BIOENERGY by 2025 which is what COP26 is all about for Going Green!
https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/bioenergy
All we can do is for wait for the pictures on TV with people with Bleading Noses from Going Green the mortality rate of Ebola is up to 90% and Virus X?
If one thinks the catastrophic deforestation is bad today, you can see it on TV Going Green Just Got the Green light, they will now cut so deep into all rainforest, the question to ask is what comes after Ebola spreading all over the world from Going Green?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02341-1
I known these people from Going Green they are not going to stop as the people from Going Green talking 24/7 about protecting the forests are the once burning them deliberately 24/7 as fast as they humanly possible can?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ecowatch.com/amp/human-society-collapse-deforestation-2646869167?espv=1
As mentioned again today the entire world is brainwashed by by Going Green & Co on 98% BIOMASS BIOFUELS COVID -19 PANDEMIC BIOENERGY land Sea Air!
From here to China noting but corrupt Going Green 98% COVID-19 BIOENERGY at 150% higher CO2 to even Coal?
Do note they are trying to say it was a mistake it was not banned at COP25?
The question to ask?
What happens to Going Green?
If the 98% BIOMASS BIOFUELS GOODFUELS.com COVID-19 BIOENERGY in Going Green land Sea Air is banned?
0). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_yzrJleyGE&feature=youtu.be
Stop Denmark’s biomass adventure: It has nothing to do with ‘renewable energy’
1) .🇩🇰 https://politiken.dk/debat/debatindlaeg/art7377902/Det-har-intet-med-vedvärd-energi-at-g%C3%B8re
The climate gain from a large part of Denmark’s green energy is uncertain
2) .🇩🇰 https://politiken.dk/klima/art7792361/Klimagevinsten-fra-en-stor-del-af-Danmarks-gr%C3%B8nne-energi-er-uvis
Mercosur deal opens door to South American biofuels while palm oil biodiesel use reaches record high
A new EU trade deal with the South American Mercosur trade bloc will open the European market to more imports of ethanol and crops that are used to make high-emitting biofuels. It means that crops and ethanol produced in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay could be used to meet the EU’s green transport fuel targets.
3) .🇩🇰 https://www.transportenvironment.org/news/mercosur-deal-opens-door-south-american-biofuels-while-palm-oil-biodiesel-use-reaches-record
Copenhagen burns wood from the Amazon to help the climate
4) .🇩🇰 https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2020-02-23-koebenhavn-braender-trae-fra-amazonas-for-at-hjaelpe-klimaet
Mette Maersk maritime biofuel-pilot a resounding success
5) .🇩🇰 https://bioenergyinternational.com/storage-logistics/mette-maersk-maritime-biofuel-pilot-a-resounding-success
Biodiesel production
6).🇩🇰 https://www.alfalaval.co.uk/industries/energy-and-utilities/biofuels/biodiesel-production/
Amazon fires increase by 84% in one year – space agency Published
7). .🇩🇰 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49415973#:~:text
Denmark produces a record amount of energy from biomass – and more of it comes from imported wood
8) .🇩🇰 https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/bagtal/2019/2019-11-14-Danmark-producerer-rekordmeget-biomasse-og-mere-af-det-kommer-fra-importeret-trae
Majority in Danish defends lucrative terms for biomass
9) .🇩🇰 https://ing.dk/artikel/flertal-forsvarer-lukrative-vilkaar-biomasse-213952
Denmark’s climate accounts are ‘scams’, according to criticism from international researchers
10) .🇩🇰 https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2019-09-06-danmarks-klimaregnskab-er-svindel-lyder-kritik-fra-internationale-forskere
A tree is not a tree
11) .🇩🇰 https://www.weekendavisen.dk/2020-36/samfund/et-trae-er-ikke-et-trae
NEWS 19 May 2020 Brussels
State aid: Commission approves €550 million Danish scheme to support electricity production from biomass installations
12). 🇩🇰 https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/state-aid-commission-approves-eu550-million-danish-scheme-support-electricity-production-biomass-installations-2020-may-19_en
We have painted our green renewable energy green, but on paper it is black as coal
The trade in green certificates means that Danish electricity customers’ environmental accounts are among the worst in Europe. The ordinary Dane has a climate buck, says the professor.
13). 🇩🇰 The higher they fly the harder they fall how Denmark the IPCC favorite, painted the entire world black as Coal with green renewable energy:
https://politiken.dk/klima/art7964022/Vi-har-malet-vores-str%C3%B8m-gr%C3%B8n-men-p%C3%A5-papiret-er-den-sort-som-kul
How deforestation helps deadly viruses jump from animals to humans
14).The higher they fly the harder they fall when everyone can read how Going Green by the deliberate burning of global rainforests Going Green and the transportation of millions and millions of tons of wood products the 98% BIOMASS BIOFUELS all over the world a year for GOODFUELS.com land Sea Air?
While Going Green delicately cut burned -+200 million football fields of forests dCOP1-COP25
which everyone can read in fact caused the biggest virus financial catastrophe driving billions of people into bankruptcy, possibly sending the entire global economy nose diving into a horrific global depression, which will undoubtedly hit America and especially European even harder no matter what!
https://theconversation.com/how-deforestation-helps-deadly-viruses-jump-from-animals-to-humans-139645
15). COVID-19 from Going Green, Ebola from Going Green, and Virus X from Going Green is the brutal reality!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/12/22/africa/drc-forest-new-virus-intl/index.html?espv=1
Anyone can say to Google virus deforestation?
Anyone can say to Google Biomass Biofuels deforestation?
Anyone can see it’s all about Going Green who will never make as much as a cup of tea without burning a tree?
Global problem Number 1 nobody dares to admit, people just look the other way because they are betrayed by people they blindly trust!
Go to Google say Virus Deforestation: https://www.google.com/search?q=virus+deforestation&oq=vi&aqs=chrome.0.69i59l3j69i57j69i60.1860j0j9&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Go to Google say Biomass Biofuels Deforestation: https://www.google.com/search?ei=bNwDYJmLBYecgQaivoGACA&q=biomass+biofuel+deforestation&oq=Biomass+Biofudeforestation&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAEYADIECB4QCjoECAAQRzoHCAAQsQMQQzoFCAAQkQI6BAgAEEM6BggAEAcQHjoHCAAQsQMQDToECAAQDToICAAQBxAKEB46CAgAEAgQBxAeOggIABAIEA0QHjoCCAA6CAgAEAcQBRAeOgYIABAFEB46BggAEAgQHjoICAAQDRAFEB5Q3pwIWJXbC2Do9QtoFXABeAKAAYgDiAGXMpIBCDAuMjEuOC4zmAEAoAEByAEDwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
Go to Google watch Planetofthehumans.com!
There are only RED FLAGS!
The corrupt Green Politician’s are the VIRUS!
The corrupt Green Economy is the VIRUS!
The corrupt Green New Deal is the VIRUS!
The corrupt IPCC is the VIRUS!
The corrupt Paris Agreement is the VIRUS!
The corrupt COP26 is the VIRUS!
The corrupt Goodfuels.com are the VIRUS!
The corrupt Net 0 CO2 Carbon Neutral 2050 is the VIRUS!
The on 98% Biomass & Biofuels🌳🔥🔇 is 100% responsible for the COVID virus🆘
How deforestation helps deadly viruses jump from animals to humans
June 25, 2020 1.35pm BST
https://theconversation.com/how-deforestation-helps-deadly-viruses-jump-from-animals-to-humans-139645
George Monbiot Monster Makers Posted on18th November 2020″ Wake up let’s agree🆘 The Corrupt criminal💸Joe Biden in the Whitehouse🇺🇸 The Corrupt criminals 💸In EU the commission🇪🇺The Corrupt Paris Agreement 🗼💸 and it’s corrupt Green energy on 98% Biomass & Biofuels🌳🔥🔇 is 100% responsible for the COVID virus🆘
What connects deforestation and COVID-19?
Explore the link between the destruction of forests and natural ecosystems and the emergence of new diseases in humans.
Fl214 Blog Deforestation Banner
There have been many widely publicised factors behind the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: the use of live animal markets, government policy to contain the spread once the virus arrived, global air travel, to name a few.
However, one key factor that may also have contributed to the emergence of the virus has been somewhat overlooked – deforestation and the destruction of natural ecosystems.
futurelearn.com/info/blog/deforestation-and-covid-19
What connects deforestation and COVID-19?
May 15th, 2020 by FutureLearn
Category: Coronavirus, Current Issues
Explore the link between the destruction of forests and natural ecosystems and the emergence of new diseases in humans.
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There have been many widely publicised factors behind the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: the use of live animal markets, government policy to contain the spread once the virus arrived, global air travel, to name a few.
However, one key factor that may also have contributed to the emergence of the virus has been somewhat overlooked – deforestation and the destruction of natural ecosystems.
What is deforestation?
It might seem strange to link the destruction of natural habitats with the spread of natural life forms, but there is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that deforestation – the destruction of forest for logging or agriculture – can lead to viruses spreading in humans.
The loss of forest is an issue that predominantly affects tropical areas, regions with the highest biodiversity on Earth.
In 2018 alone, 30 million acres of tropical rainforest were destroyed, with more than a third of the Earth’s land now being used for agriculture, a process that involves the clearing of woodland to create pasture.
Where is deforestation happening?
Much of this loss has been focussed around the Amazon, a rate of destruction that has only increased in recent years with policy shifts in Brazilian government – 3,769 square miles of Amazonian forest cover was lost between 2018 and 2019.
However, it is Southeast Asia that has seen the greatest rate of forest loss of anywhere in the world, losing 30% of its forest surface in the last 40 years.
Coupled with huge population growth – with the region’s population forecast to rise by almost 250 million by 2030 – human settlements are increasingly coming into contact with animals that had previously been naturally contained in woodland habitats.
What are the effects of deforestation?
This isn’t just a case of creatures being forced to ‘flee’ destruction. The ‘borders’ that demarcate human settlements with newly-destroyed forest are actually attractive to animal life.
For example, the mosquitos that carry malaria (Anopheles darlingi) thrive in the puddles and pools in by the roads that are cut into woodland during deforestation.
The malaria infection rate in Brazil has been shown to be linked to logging in the Amazon; control efforts brought annual malaria numbers down from 6 million in the 1940s to just 50,000 by the 1960s, with the numbers rising ever since. Bats, meanwhile, like to live near human habitation because electric lights attract the insects they feed on.
Destruction encourages disease
The increase of disease linked to deforestation and increased contact between humans and tropical animals speaks to the risks involved when ancient natural ecosystems are disrupted.
HIV – which has killed 40 million people worldwide – was started by humans eating bush meat (likely chimpanzee) after encroaching on the Cameroonian jungle. Ebola virus jumped into humans from fruit bats attracted to human fruit fields, while the Zika virus spread across the world after finding a host mosquito that thrived in urban areas.
Moreover, in these ‘disturbed’ new environments created by deforestation – where normal ecological rules have broken down – animals can come into contact with each other that have never previously met.
Viruses can spread from one creature to another, finding an intermediate host that lets them mutate, before jumping to humans. This was the case with Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) – which lept from bats, to camels, and then humans.
How did coronavirus start?
There are scientific theories that propose that SARS‑CoV‑2 spread from bats to pangolins – the world’s most trafficked mammal – before settling on humans; although it isn’t currently clear what the intermediary animal was – or if there was one at all.
Prof Stanley Perlman, an immunologist at the University of Iowa, told the Guardian that pangolins are “are not proven to be the key intermediary”, although he does believe there was one.
Although we are too early into the coronavirus pandemic to say exactly how the virus started, we do know it very likely originated in bats and spread to humans somewhere in China.
Bats are ‘reservoirs’ of viruses, possessing strong immune systems that let them harbour multiple coronaviruses without displaying symptoms. Some estimates suggest that bats may carry as many as 3,000 coronaviruses.
The need to protect ecosystems
This mixture of circumstances – deforestation of natural habitats, human population growth, and inter-species animal contact – is a grave health risk for human society.
Even before COVID-19 wreaked havoc with the global economy and national health systems, scientists were warning of the risks posed by deforestation. A group of European scientists cautioned in 2018 that, “the probability of occurrence of the risk [of pandemic] is increasing owing to environmental change and higher environmental pressure.”
There are many lessons that can be learnt from the spread of COVID-19. However, if this is to be the last virus to jump from animals to humans, ensuring the protection of natural ecosystems is key to possibly preventing the pandemics of tomorrow.
If you’d like to learn more about the importance of ecosystems, join Deakin University’s new short course ‘IUCN Red List of Ecosystems: The Global Standard for Assessing Risks to Ecosystems’, or explore our wide range of ecology courses.🔥🌳
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French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation
The French government, with the support of President Emmanuel Macron, appears eager to approve legislation that would bypass French environmental law banning large scale deforestation to build several soy-fired biofuel power plants in French Guiana — a French overseas department on the northeast coast of South America.
Currently, 98% of this region is still covered in Amazon rainforest and mangrove forest. The largest of the proposed biofuel plants — Larivot in Cayenne, the French Guiana capital — would require between 84,000 and 140,000 metric tons of soy per year to generate enough liquid biofuel to power the 120-megawatt plant.
Growing that much soy would require a large amount of rainforest clearing, totaling between 536 square miles and 892 square miles (nearly three times larger than the land area of New York City). Environmentalists are very concerned over the loss in forest carbon sequestration and harm to French Guiana’s Amazon biodiversity.
“The fact that France is pushing for policy deviations in French Guiana from European Union sustainability standards is incredibly alarming.… There will be an impact on forests if they change the laws and it could be pretty massive,” said Almuth Ernsting, a biomass researcher with Biofuelwatch, an environmental NGO.
The heavily forested port of Larivot in Cayenne, French Guiana, where a 120-megawatt soy liquid biofuels energy station is planned. Image courtesy of Francois Kuseni.
French Guiana, an overseas department of France on the northeast coast of South America, lies mostly within Amazonia. Bordered by Suriname and Brazil, 98% of this Indiana-sized area is covered by dense rainforests and mangrove — ecosystems chockful of biodiversity, critical to climate change mitigation, and now in the crosshairs of France’s long-term energy policy.
The French government launched a multiyear plan in 2018 to convert French Guiana’s aging energy infrastructure to power stations that will mostly burn biofuels — with major negative implications for the region’s wildlife, rainforests, carbon emissions, and by extension, global climate change mitigation.
“A local government representative has authorized the establishment of an oil-fired power station in a mangrove forest two miles from the edge of the Amazon forest,” says Francois Kuseni, an environmental activist and member of French Guiana’s Ecology Party from Cayenne, French Guiana’s capital city. In addition, “The government has promised a study of two years to supply the power station with bio oil. The representative said explicitly that they want to grow the soy plants [to be made into biofuel] locally.”
The overarching concern: French Guiana has limited available farmland (the region imports 80% of its food), so growing soy as a biofuel could lead to massive deforestation in a part of Amazonia already suffering widespread ecological devastation: French Guiana borders on the Brazilian Amazon where rapidly worsening annual wildfires, expanded ranching, agribusiness and illegal mining are causing widespread deforestation.
French Guiana historical vegetation map. In 2007, France conserved a large portion of the southern part of the region, but much of the coastal area lacks similar strong protections. Image courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection University of Texas Austin.
According to EDF, the French-owned energy utility, the largest of the proposed energy plants — Larivot in Cayenne — would require between 84,000 and 140,000 metric tons of soy per year to generate enough liquid biofuel to power a 120-megawatt plant. Growing that much soy would require a staggering amount of rainforest clearing, between 536 square miles (larger than Phoenix, Arizona) and 892 square miles (nearly three times the land area of New York City), according to estimates provided by Biofuelwatch in Scotland, an NGO that monitors the biomass industry globally.
It is important to note that those deforestation estimates could be low, according to Biofuelwatch.
Kuseni lives on the rainforest’s edge; so close to the jungle in fact, that monkeys sometimes sneak into his home in search of bananas. With tropical birds chirping in the background of our WhatsApp connection, he added, “I do not want them to cut our trees.”
A colorful tropical tree frog in French Guiana. This French overseas department is known for its extraordinary Amazon biodiversity. Photo credit: Stephan Roletto on VisualHunt / CC BY-NC
A trans-Atlantic conflict
French Guiana, a part of France since the 18th Century, is beset today by rising crime and a 22% unemployment rate. Now, it also finds itself in the throes of a trans-Atlantic energy confrontation.
French authorities argue that the region’s antiquated power generation system — mostly decades-old diesel-fired power stations and aging hydroelectric plants — is inadequate to support French Guiana’s small but growing population, pressing upwards toward 300,000, and the need for updated and expanded energy production along the coast where most communities are concentrated.
Elected leaders say the proposed biofuel power plants, and the soy production required to support them, will generate much-needed employment, especially among young people — the fastest growing segment of French Guiana’s population.
But environmentalists counter that with Brazil, Peru and Bolivia losing thousands of hectares of Amazon rainforest annually to deforestation and wildfires, the intact and pristine rainforest of French Guiana — most of it classified as old-growth — become ever-more important for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation.
An aerial view of a section of the proposed Laviot biofuels station location in Cayenne. The power plant would impact wetlands, mangroves and rainforest now teeming with wildlife. Image courtesy Francois Kuseni.
How green is France?
Green Party candidates swept local elections in France last spring, as they espoused an aggressive climate-action platform largely embraced by French President Emmanuel Macron. This radical platform includes a proposed national referendum that would make “ecocide” — intentional largescale harm done to the environment — a crime.
However, Macron, who visited French Guiana in 2017, has reportedly thrown his support behind the major biofuel energy transition in the region. While small solar installations would be part of Macron’s energy mix, most new power generation would come from biomass fired power plants. Some of that biomass would come from chipped wood and lumber waste, but most would be provided by liquid biofuels from local soy, grown where rainforest now stands.
“This is not green at all,” Kuseni said of the soy biofuel plan. “Most people in French Guiana say they do not want these kinds of power stations.”
Marine Calmet, a Paris-based environmental attorney with the NGO Wild Legal, is fighting to protect French Guiana’s rainforests, and she monitors the French Parliament for new legislation that could alter environmental protections in the South American department.
“We have problems with the green energy transition in [French Guiana],” Calmet said in a Mongabay interview. “We have all we need in terms of sun to provide solar energy there. But for now, we have a lot of new projects proposed for biomass. Our biggest challenge is not wood [as a biofuel resource], it is [soy] farming. They need large surfaces to do agriculture for biofuels and it would mean largescale destruction of primary forests in the Amazon.”
Current French law prohibits widespread deforestation in France and French Guiana. But that could change. On October 4, it almost did. An amendment tucked into a proposed law would have allowed requests for unlimited land leases in French Guiana to increase from 150 hectares to 5,000 hectares — thus, enabling industrial-scale land clearance for farming or mining. A source in Parliament alerted Calmet, and she helped rally opposition to defeat the legislation.
“We are struggling to keep our forests safe from these kinds of industries,” Calmet said. “It’s not only biomass, it’s mining and other predatory industries that want access to French Guiana and have been stopped for now by our environmental policies. But the government wants to change the law, so we know they will try again.”
Kuseni, noted that the French parliamentary majority rejected the October 4 legislation “so I think we are safe until 2022 — the date of the future presidential election. Nevertheless, we remain vigilant.”
Ironically, France has recently been seen as a leader in the battle to prevent significant deforestation from entering its food production supply chain — especially as related to soy grown in Brazil for animal feed, or used as an ingredient in food products sold by French grocery chains. However, environmental critics claim that this government policy contains loopholes, even though eight French supermarket chains now require their suppliers to obtain soybeans that were not grown on deforested land, as recently reported by Mongabay. Soy is associated with more deforestation than any other crop globally according to World Wildlife Fund, especially in the Brazilian Amazon.
An iguana common to French Guiana. Photo credit: Stephan Roletto on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC
The battle over biofuels
In all, five new biofuel-fired energy stations are proposed along the coast of French Guiana. Four are tiny — 5 megawatts or smaller — as compared to the 120-megawatt Larivot plant.
The French government, like the entire European Union, classifies biofuels as a renewable energy source on par with zero-carbon wind and solar energy. This zero-carbon classification (now hotly contested by science) was first approved by the United Nations as part of the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, then grandfathered into the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, and it helps explain the push for biofuels in French Guiana.
In regard to its Voltalia biofuel power plant under construction in Cacao, French Guiana, for example, the government’s Agence Française de Développement (AFD) claims the 5.1-megawatt facility will reduce carbon emissions by 28,500 tons per year compared to current diesel-fired plants. However, this optimistic calculation is likely based on what scientists have dubbed as a United Nations carbon accounting loophole, thus not counting the emissions from biomass or biofuels because they are deemed a renewable energy source.
“Guiana is firmly committed to reconciling local energy needs with the environmental challenges of the 21st century as demonstrated by the new biomass plant slated to open in Cacao,” the ADF wrote. “Developing renewable energy sources, which already make up 50% of the Guyanese energy mix, is a crucial solution to meet this growing [energy] demand while also meeting the climate challenge.”
But critics challenge the assertion that biofuels are so climate-friendly. Massive Amazon deforestation will be required to create largescale soy farms — resulting in a significant loss in forest carbon sequestration. And despite the UN zero carbon designation, biofuels do produce carbon emissions, even though France has promised to install advanced pollution-control technology at its French Guiana biofuel plants.
Under EU law, emissions from biomass and biofuels are not presently counted toward Paris Agreement carbon reduction targets because organic materials such as trees and oil crops — including palm, soy or rapeseed — are listed as renewable energy sources, a legal designation European climate scientists have thus far unsuccessfully fought to change with research-based petitions to the EU Parliament.
A 2008 study published in Industrial Biotechnology compared the carbon footprints of biofuels and fossil fuels. The study’s authors emphasized: “It’s about the land.” There are circumstances, the authors stated, where biofuels from soy could be a better environmental choice than fossil fuels in terms of overall carbon emissions. But, they stressed, “Land use is absolutely a central issue… Greenhouse gas emissions [for example] are reduced more by [burning] gasoline and preserving the Brazilian rainforest, than knocking it down to grow sugarcane for bioethanol.”
Almuth Ernsting, a biomass researcher with Biofuelwatch in Scotland, is closely following developments in France and French Guiana. She said she is most concerned by the French government’s apparent eagerness to change forest protection laws in its South American overseas department — while not altering regulations in France and within the EU.
“The fact that France is pushing for policy deviations in French Guiana from European Union sustainability standards is incredibly alarming,” she said. “There will be an impact on forests if they change the laws and it could be pretty massive.”
French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation
by Justin Catanoso on 2 December 2020
google.com/amp/s/news.mongabay.com/2020/12/french-guiana-soy-biofuel-power-plants-risk-massive-amazon-deforestation/amp
Go to Google say Virus Deforestation: https://www.google.com/search?q=virus+deforestation&oq=vi&aqs=chrome.0.69i59l3j69i57j69i60.1860j0j9&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Go to Google say Biomass Biofuels Deforestation: https://www.google.com/search?ei=bNwDYJmLBYecgQaivoGACA&q=biomass+biofuel+deforestation&oq=Biomass+Biofudeforestation&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAEYADIECB4QCjoECAAQRzoHCAAQsQMQQzoFCAAQkQI6BAgAEEM6BggAEAcQHjoHCAAQsQMQDToECAAQDToICAAQBxAKEB46CAgAEAgQBxAeOggIABAIEA0QHjoCCAA6CAgAEAcQBRAeOgYIABAFEB46BggAEAgQHjoICAAQDRAFEB5Q3pwIWJXbC2Do9QtoFXABeAKAAYgDiAGXMpIBCDAuMjEuOC4zmAEAoAEByAEDwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
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How deforestation helps deadly viruses jump from animals to humans
June 25, 2020 1.35pm BST
https://theconversation.com/how-deforestation-helps-deadly-viruses-jump-from-animals-to-humans-139645
George Monbiot Monster Makers Posted on18th November 2020″ Wake up let’s agree🆘 The Corrupt criminal💸Joe Biden in the Whitehouse🇺🇸 The Corrupt criminals 💸In EU the commission🇪🇺The Corrupt Paris Agreement 🗼💸 and it’s corrupt Green energy on 98% Biomass & Biofuels🌳🔥🔇 is 100% responsible for the COVID virus🆘
What connects deforestation and COVID-19?
Explore the link between the destruction of forests and natural ecosystems and the emergence of new diseases in humans.
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There have been many widely publicised factors behind the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: the use of live animal markets, government policy to contain the spread once the virus arrived, global air travel, to name a few.
However, one key factor that may also have contributed to the emergence of the virus has been somewhat overlooked – deforestation and the destruction of natural ecosystems.
futurelearn.com/info/blog/deforestation-and-covid-19
What connects deforestation and COVID-19?
May 15th, 2020 by FutureLearn
Category: Coronavirus, Current Issues
Explore the link between the destruction of forests and natural ecosystems and the emergence of new diseases in humans.
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There have been many widely publicised factors behind the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: the use of live animal markets, government policy to contain the spread once the virus arrived, global air travel, to name a few.
However, one key factor that may also have contributed to the emergence of the virus has been somewhat overlooked – deforestation and the destruction of natural ecosystems.
What is deforestation?
It might seem strange to link the destruction of natural habitats with the spread of natural life forms, but there is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that deforestation – the destruction of forest for logging or agriculture – can lead to viruses spreading in humans.
The loss of forest is an issue that predominantly affects tropical areas, regions with the highest biodiversity on Earth.
In 2018 alone, 30 million acres of tropical rainforest were destroyed, with more than a third of the Earth’s land now being used for agriculture, a process that involves the clearing of woodland to create pasture.
Where is deforestation happening?
Much of this loss has been focussed around the Amazon, a rate of destruction that has only increased in recent years with policy shifts in Brazilian government – 3,769 square miles of Amazonian forest cover was lost between 2018 and 2019.
However, it is Southeast Asia that has seen the greatest rate of forest loss of anywhere in the world, losing 30% of its forest surface in the last 40 years.
Coupled with huge population growth – with the region’s population forecast to rise by almost 250 million by 2030 – human settlements are increasingly coming into contact with animals that had previously been naturally contained in woodland habitats.
What are the effects of deforestation?
This isn’t just a case of creatures being forced to ‘flee’ destruction. The ‘borders’ that demarcate human settlements with newly-destroyed forest are actually attractive to animal life.
For example, the mosquitos that carry malaria (Anopheles darlingi) thrive in the puddles and pools in by the roads that are cut into woodland during deforestation.
The malaria infection rate in Brazil has been shown to be linked to logging in the Amazon; control efforts brought annual malaria numbers down from 6 million in the 1940s to just 50,000 by the 1960s, with the numbers rising ever since. Bats, meanwhile, like to live near human habitation because electric lights attract the insects they feed on.
Destruction encourages disease
The increase of disease linked to deforestation and increased contact between humans and tropical animals speaks to the risks involved when ancient natural ecosystems are disrupted.
HIV – which has killed 40 million people worldwide – was started by humans eating bush meat (likely chimpanzee) after encroaching on the Cameroonian jungle. Ebola virus jumped into humans from fruit bats attracted to human fruit fields, while the Zika virus spread across the world after finding a host mosquito that thrived in urban areas.
Moreover, in these ‘disturbed’ new environments created by deforestation – where normal ecological rules have broken down – animals can come into contact with each other that have never previously met.
Viruses can spread from one creature to another, finding an intermediate host that lets them mutate, before jumping to humans. This was the case with Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) – which lept from bats, to camels, and then humans.
How did coronavirus start?
There are scientific theories that propose that SARS‑CoV‑2 spread from bats to pangolins – the world’s most trafficked mammal – before settling on humans; although it isn’t currently clear what the intermediary animal was – or if there was one at all.
Prof Stanley Perlman, an immunologist at the University of Iowa, told the Guardian that pangolins are “are not proven to be the key intermediary”, although he does believe there was one.
Although we are too early into the coronavirus pandemic to say exactly how the virus started, we do know it very likely originated in bats and spread to humans somewhere in China.
Bats are ‘reservoirs’ of viruses, possessing strong immune systems that let them harbour multiple coronaviruses without displaying symptoms. Some estimates suggest that bats may carry as many as 3,000 coronaviruses.
The need to protect ecosystems
This mixture of circumstances – deforestation of natural habitats, human population growth, and inter-species animal contact – is a grave health risk for human society.
Even before COVID-19 wreaked havoc with the global economy and national health systems, scientists were warning of the risks posed by deforestation. A group of European scientists cautioned in 2018 that, “the probability of occurrence of the risk [of pandemic] is increasing owing to environmental change and higher environmental pressure.”
There are many lessons that can be learnt from the spread of COVID-19. However, if this is to be the last virus to jump from animals to humans, ensuring the protection of natural ecosystems is key to possibly preventing the pandemics of tomorrow.
If you’d like to learn more about the importance of ecosystems, join Deakin University’s new short course ‘IUCN Red List of Ecosystems: The Global Standard for Assessing Risks to Ecosystems’, or explore our wide range of ecology courses.🔥🌳
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French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation
The French government, with the support of President Emmanuel Macron, appears eager to approve legislation that would bypass French environmental law banning large scale deforestation to build several soy-fired biofuel power plants in French Guiana — a French overseas department on the northeast coast of South America.
Currently, 98% of this region is still covered in Amazon rainforest and mangrove forest. The largest of the proposed biofuel plants — Larivot in Cayenne, the French Guiana capital — would require between 84,000 and 140,000 metric tons of soy per year to generate enough liquid biofuel to power the 120-megawatt plant.
Growing that much soy would require a large amount of rainforest clearing, totaling between 536 square miles and 892 square miles (nearly three times larger than the land area of New York City). Environmentalists are very concerned over the loss in forest carbon sequestration and harm to French Guiana’s Amazon biodiversity.
“The fact that France is pushing for policy deviations in French Guiana from European Union sustainability standards is incredibly alarming.… There will be an impact on forests if they change the laws and it could be pretty massive,” said Almuth Ernsting, a biomass researcher with Biofuelwatch, an environmental NGO.
The heavily forested port of Larivot in Cayenne, French Guiana, where a 120-megawatt soy liquid biofuels energy station is planned. Image courtesy of Francois Kuseni.
French Guiana, an overseas department of France on the northeast coast of South America, lies mostly within Amazonia. Bordered by Suriname and Brazil, 98% of this Indiana-sized area is covered by dense rainforests and mangrove — ecosystems chockful of biodiversity, critical to climate change mitigation, and now in the crosshairs of France’s long-term energy policy.
The French government launched a multiyear plan in 2018 to convert French Guiana’s aging energy infrastructure to power stations that will mostly burn biofuels — with major negative implications for the region’s wildlife, rainforests, carbon emissions, and by extension, global climate change mitigation.
“A local government representative has authorized the establishment of an oil-fired power station in a mangrove forest two miles from the edge of the Amazon forest,” says Francois Kuseni, an environmental activist and member of French Guiana’s Ecology Party from Cayenne, French Guiana’s capital city. In addition, “The government has promised a study of two years to supply the power station with bio oil. The representative said explicitly that they want to grow the soy plants [to be made into biofuel] locally.”
The overarching concern: French Guiana has limited available farmland (the region imports 80% of its food), so growing soy as a biofuel could lead to massive deforestation in a part of Amazonia already suffering widespread ecological devastation: French Guiana borders on the Brazilian Amazon where rapidly worsening annual wildfires, expanded ranching, agribusiness and illegal mining are causing widespread deforestation.
French Guiana historical vegetation map. In 2007, France conserved a large portion of the southern part of the region, but much of the coastal area lacks similar strong protections. Image courtesy of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection University of Texas Austin.
According to EDF, the French-owned energy utility, the largest of the proposed energy plants — Larivot in Cayenne — would require between 84,000 and 140,000 metric tons of soy per year to generate enough liquid biofuel to power a 120-megawatt plant. Growing that much soy would require a staggering amount of rainforest clearing, between 536 square miles (larger than Phoenix, Arizona) and 892 square miles (nearly three times the land area of New York City), according to estimates provided by Biofuelwatch in Scotland, an NGO that monitors the biomass industry globally.
It is important to note that those deforestation estimates could be low, according to Biofuelwatch.
Kuseni lives on the rainforest’s edge; so close to the jungle in fact, that monkeys sometimes sneak into his home in search of bananas. With tropical birds chirping in the background of our WhatsApp connection, he added, “I do not want them to cut our trees.”
A colorful tropical tree frog in French Guiana. This French overseas department is known for its extraordinary Amazon biodiversity. Photo credit: Stephan Roletto on VisualHunt / CC BY-NC
A trans-Atlantic conflict
French Guiana, a part of France since the 18th Century, is beset today by rising crime and a 22% unemployment rate. Now, it also finds itself in the throes of a trans-Atlantic energy confrontation.
French authorities argue that the region’s antiquated power generation system — mostly decades-old diesel-fired power stations and aging hydroelectric plants — is inadequate to support French Guiana’s small but growing population, pressing upwards toward 300,000, and the need for updated and expanded energy production along the coast where most communities are concentrated.
Elected leaders say the proposed biofuel power plants, and the soy production required to support them, will generate much-needed employment, especially among young people — the fastest growing segment of French Guiana’s population.
But environmentalists counter that with Brazil, Peru and Bolivia losing thousands of hectares of Amazon rainforest annually to deforestation and wildfires, the intact and pristine rainforest of French Guiana — most of it classified as old-growth — become ever-more important for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation.
An aerial view of a section of the proposed Laviot biofuels station location in Cayenne. The power plant would impact wetlands, mangroves and rainforest now teeming with wildlife. Image courtesy Francois Kuseni.
How green is France?
Green Party candidates swept local elections in France last spring, as they espoused an aggressive climate-action platform largely embraced by French President Emmanuel Macron. This radical platform includes a proposed national referendum that would make “ecocide” — intentional largescale harm done to the environment — a crime.
However, Macron, who visited French Guiana in 2017, has reportedly thrown his support behind the major biofuel energy transition in the region. While small solar installations would be part of Macron’s energy mix, most new power generation would come from biomass fired power plants. Some of that biomass would come from chipped wood and lumber waste, but most would be provided by liquid biofuels from local soy, grown where rainforest now stands.
“This is not green at all,” Kuseni said of the soy biofuel plan. “Most people in French Guiana say they do not want these kinds of power stations.”
Marine Calmet, a Paris-based environmental attorney with the NGO Wild Legal, is fighting to protect French Guiana’s rainforests, and she monitors the French Parliament for new legislation that could alter environmental protections in the South American department.
“We have problems with the green energy transition in [French Guiana],” Calmet said in a Mongabay interview. “We have all we need in terms of sun to provide solar energy there. But for now, we have a lot of new projects proposed for biomass. Our biggest challenge is not wood [as a biofuel resource], it is [soy] farming. They need large surfaces to do agriculture for biofuels and it would mean largescale destruction of primary forests in the Amazon.”
Current French law prohibits widespread deforestation in France and French Guiana. But that could change. On October 4, it almost did. An amendment tucked into a proposed law would have allowed requests for unlimited land leases in French Guiana to increase from 150 hectares to 5,000 hectares — thus, enabling industrial-scale land clearance for farming or mining. A source in Parliament alerted Calmet, and she helped rally opposition to defeat the legislation.
“We are struggling to keep our forests safe from these kinds of industries,” Calmet said. “It’s not only biomass, it’s mining and other predatory industries that want access to French Guiana and have been stopped for now by our environmental policies. But the government wants to change the law, so we know they will try again.”
Kuseni, noted that the French parliamentary majority rejected the October 4 legislation “so I think we are safe until 2022 — the date of the future presidential election. Nevertheless, we remain vigilant.”
Ironically, France has recently been seen as a leader in the battle to prevent significant deforestation from entering its food production supply chain — especially as related to soy grown in Brazil for animal feed, or used as an ingredient in food products sold by French grocery chains. However, environmental critics claim that this government policy contains loopholes, even though eight French supermarket chains now require their suppliers to obtain soybeans that were not grown on deforested land, as recently reported by Mongabay. Soy is associated with more deforestation than any other crop globally according to World Wildlife Fund, especially in the Brazilian Amazon.
An iguana common to French Guiana. Photo credit: Stephan Roletto on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC
The battle over biofuels
In all, five new biofuel-fired energy stations are proposed along the coast of French Guiana. Four are tiny — 5 megawatts or smaller — as compared to the 120-megawatt Larivot plant.
The French government, like the entire European Union, classifies biofuels as a renewable energy source on par with zero-carbon wind and solar energy. This zero-carbon classification (now hotly contested by science) was first approved by the United Nations as part of the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, then grandfathered into the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, and it helps explain the push for biofuels in French Guiana.
In regard to its Voltalia biofuel power plant under construction in Cacao, French Guiana, for example, the government’s Agence Française de Développement (AFD) claims the 5.1-megawatt facility will reduce carbon emissions by 28,500 tons per year compared to current diesel-fired plants. However, this optimistic calculation is likely based on what scientists have dubbed as a United Nations carbon accounting loophole, thus not counting the emissions from biomass or biofuels because they are deemed a renewable energy source.
“Guiana is firmly committed to reconciling local energy needs with the environmental challenges of the 21st century as demonstrated by the new biomass plant slated to open in Cacao,” the ADF wrote. “Developing renewable energy sources, which already make up 50% of the Guyanese energy mix, is a crucial solution to meet this growing [energy] demand while also meeting the climate challenge.”
But critics challenge the assertion that biofuels are so climate-friendly. Massive Amazon deforestation will be required to create largescale soy farms — resulting in a significant loss in forest carbon sequestration. And despite the UN zero carbon designation, biofuels do produce carbon emissions, even though France has promised to install advanced pollution-control technology at its French Guiana biofuel plants.
Under EU law, emissions from biomass and biofuels are not presently counted toward Paris Agreement carbon reduction targets because organic materials such as trees and oil crops — including palm, soy or rapeseed — are listed as renewable energy sources, a legal designation European climate scientists have thus far unsuccessfully fought to change with research-based petitions to the EU Parliament.
A 2008 study published in Industrial Biotechnology compared the carbon footprints of biofuels and fossil fuels. The study’s authors emphasized: “It’s about the land.” There are circumstances, the authors stated, where biofuels from soy could be a better environmental choice than fossil fuels in terms of overall carbon emissions. But, they stressed, “Land use is absolutely a central issue… Greenhouse gas emissions [for example] are reduced more by [burning] gasoline and preserving the Brazilian rainforest, than knocking it down to grow sugarcane for bioethanol.”
Almuth Ernsting, a biomass researcher with Biofuelwatch in Scotland, is closely following developments in France and French Guiana. She said she is most concerned by the French government’s apparent eagerness to change forest protection laws in its South American overseas department — while not altering regulations in France and within the EU.
“The fact that France is pushing for policy deviations in French Guiana from European Union sustainability standards is incredibly alarming,” she said. “There will be an impact on forests if they change the laws and it could be pretty massive.”
French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation
by Justin Catanoso on 2 December 2020
google.com/amp/s/news.mongabay.com/2020/12/french-guiana-soy-biofuel-power-plants-risk-massive-amazon-deforestation/amp
Mongabay Series: Indonesian Forests, Indonesian Palm Oil, Land rights and extractives
Papua tribe moves to block clearing of its ancestral forest for palm oil
by The Gecko Project and Mongabay on 21 January 2021
Members of the Auyu tribe of Papua, Indonesia, are demanding a halt to the operations of palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari (IAL), which appears to be gearing up to clear their ancestral forests.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/papua-tribe-moves-to-block-clearing-of-its-ancestral-forest-for-palm-oil/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1CQJiJQp21oerGh4oGxnyWZYRKO6J2lemqwrYziBOEz1GKIsflDJBjRcM#Echobox=1611246978
Let’s get our facts straight, all the people saying Net 0 Carbon Neutral 2050 are all nothing but corrupt criminals Plastic Pollution In The Ocean Set To Triple By 2025 End of story! The amount of plastic in the ocean could triple by the year 2025, according to a new report on the future of the seas. Considering there’s already over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic trash in the world’s oceans, this is seriously bad news.
Plastic Pollution In The Ocean Set To Triple By 2025
Plastic-Pollution-Ocean.jpg
Plastic-Pollution-Ocean2.jpg
Plastic Pollution In The Ocean Set To Triple By 2025
The amount of plastic in the ocean could triple by the year 2025, according to a new report on the future of the seas. Considering there’s already over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic trash in the world’s oceans, this is seriously bad news.
A new report by the UK Government Office for Science, titled Foresight Future of the Sea, has taken a look at the health of the world’s ocean and how it could affect the UK’s role in future scientific research, technology, and trade.
With levels of plastic ocean pollution set to triple between 2015 and 2025, the report warns that the current health of the oceans could have some damning implications for biodiversity, noting that there was already a 49 percent decline in marine vertebrate populations between 1970 and 2012.
Plastic litter remains one of the biggest problems facing the world’s seas, along with rising sea levels, climate change, and human-made chemical pollution, such as runoff from pesticides and fertilizers from farms, industrial waste, and pharmaceuticals.
“The ocean is out of sight, out of mind,” Ian Boyd, one of the study’s authors and chief scientist for the UK government’s environment department, told BBC News.
“We invest a lot of money and enthusiasm for missions to space – but there’s nothing living out there. The seabed is teeming with life. We really need a mission to planet ocean – it’s the last frontier,” added study author Professor Edward Hill from the UK National Oceanography Centre.
Governments, industry, and the public are waking up to the grim reality that’s facing our oceans, however, the report warns that crunch time is quickly approaching. One of its authors’ primary recommendations is to reduce plastic pollution in the sea through the development of new biodegradable plastics and public awareness campaigns. They note that the UK, and indeed the wider world, needs to seriously reassess the way it manages the ocean.
Despite these staggering statistics, the UK government’s official press release remains remarkably chirpy with no mention of the word plastic or pollution, instead focusing on the “great opportunities” the UK could gain from the seas.
Just last week, a separate report claimed that “93 percent of the bottled water tested showed some sign of microplastic contamination,” featuring polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate. Once again, this is a direct result of plastic pollution and serves as a stark reminder that this problem affects us all, not just seabirds and fish.
https://freedomandsafety.com/en/content/blog/plastic-pollution-ocean-set-triple-2025#:~:text=The%20amount%20of%20plastic%20in,this%20is%20seriously%20bad%20news.
The impact of all these projects is covered by the term “energy sprawl” and it’s got little to do with respecting nature. Mixing social justice with environmentalism is also a farce, as the downtrodden are very destructive in large numbers. The homeless are some of the worst litterers and stream foulers.
People need to realize that Mark Jacobson’s “100% Renewable Energy” plan has been technically debunked, and not just on his failure to account for unrealistic hydroelectric dam capacity. His plan is still what gives the Green New Deal its momentum. It needs a lot more media scrutiny.
Biden should help clean up the developing world’s exotic mining tragedy. The enormous amounts of money being allocated for solar and wind — and the never-ending extensions of the tax credits for them — shows that energy policies in Washington and California continues to support the environmental degradation and humanity atrocities in the foreign countries that are supplying the exotic minerals and metals to support wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries.
https://www.cfact.org/2021/01/09/biden-should-help-clean-up-the-developing-worlds-exotic-mining-tragedy/
Controllers of first world countries are not in the least interested in helping third world countries (all lower classes are 3rd world now). Read Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad 2020 & his earlier book The Darker Nations 2007, along with The Wealth of Some Nations: Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer by Zak Cope 2019.
A control example is Haiti that years ago was self-sufficient in rice, but having been manipulated, now imports it all. Port-au-Prince was NGO central after the 2010 earthquake, but along with the media they all ran after the next shiny story; miners trapped in South America, leaving tent city to dysentery & Chikungunya; it’s still being rebuilt. Even in 1969 it catered to high end tourism with its cheap labour; not a public toilet in town, the memory of such down-trodden people has stayed with me.
The UN is powerless to do anything as its rules have not changed since more countries have joined. Besides, a spreadsheet of members, those under the World Bank, IMF, FSB EU and NATO, shows how biased the UN, ICC and others are, just as STT has presented evidence against IPCC and the RE industry that is nothing more than wealth transfer from wage slavery.
One of the few positives to come out of the US Election ‘Fix’, in my opinion, is how Trump has exposed the left wing bias of the Silicon Valley big tech giants. They are quite simply censoring free speech on a MASSIVE scale! But they have forgotten how ‘it looks’ from the outside, as indeed have the Democratic Party. And it doesn’t ‘look’ good! I will most certainly NOT be joining Twitter, or Facebook. But thanks to Trump, my questions as to whether there are more Conservative social media sites online are now being answered. I didn’t even know about the likes of Parler or Gab.com until Trump got banned! So thank you Donald. But there is much research still to do. I think the days of media dominance by the likes of Twitter and Facebook are now well and truly numbered.
Has the big tech push back now begun?
In addition to Malthusian philosophy, consider this quote from adherent Lord Bertrand Russell (among others, & STT comment 2020/07/13): he wrote in a 1931 book, The Scientific Outlook, where he had a chapter devoted to education in a scientific society. He said, “The scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women (that would apply to most), and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities, probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the remedies of psychoanalysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play. All the boys and girls will learn from an early age to be what is called ‘cooperative’; i.e., to do exactly what everybody is doing. Initiative will be discouraged in these children; insubordination without punishment will be scientifically trained out of them.”
Professor Carroll Quigley addressed western consolidation in his book The Anglo-American Establishment 2013. So many organisations are interlinked. The World Bank is USA’s and the IMF is Britain’s, France and Germany’s, but like the BIS and FSB they all work toward the same end.
Historically, successful political revolutions have resulted in the bourgeoisie changing the political balance to protect their own interests and it starts all over again. These days, due to the above, and international financial control, there are only superficial changes. Social media has done more to fragment society than unite it in a common cause – A coincidence?
The only good Trump did was get out of the carbon accord.
I disagree Peter Pronczak. There are some good people in politics, and the media. I know. I’ve met some of them, and have even worked in media myself. There is pushback. Google are currently threatening to pull out of Australia for starters, because the government are standing up to them. Things are changing before our eyes. As to the eventual outcome, only time will tell. But there is good change and there is bad change.
Welcome to nufeudalism, after 30 years of earnest progress. Joe Biden as President will be working for Elon Musk and his ilk – capitalist democracy; making the rich richer at the expense of the majority, was designed to hide the lies and manipulation, eg., At the Senate inquiry into the Financial Crisis Management (and other measures) Bill 2018, enacted 2019 & backdated as an Act 2018, as are all after royal assent. APRA chair Wayne Byers went to lengths avoiding a direct answer to the question; Under Definitions, Section 11CAA (b) any other instrument, does it mean bank deposit bail-in? Byers, “It is not the intention of the legislation.” Meaning the possibility exists. Bail-in was first practiced in Cyprus 2013. Byers was at the Bank of International Settlements in the same building as the Financial Stability Board (controls Reserve Bank financial policy). Both BIS and FSB were designing the Act since about 2009 (after avoidable ongoing GFC) and it is common to Commonwealth Countries (& Western) except India who refused it. Under the Act, it is at APRA’s discretion if the $250K deposit guarantee is activated. There are also severe penalties for anyone disclosing a failing Authorised Deposit taking Institute (bank, etc) has been taken over by APRA – being locked out of deposits or automatic payments will be found out soon enough.
At the end of the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission Final report: Standing offer prices for the supply of electricity to small customers from 1 July 2017 (valid to 2020), after a lengthy complex formula, in Appendix 4, Derivation of the hedging cost, is the following explanation: “That is, the cost of hedging in dollars per MWh is equal to the forward price multiplied by an uplift factor, the term in the square brackets. The uplift factor is a weighted average of the load ratio and the load shape, where the weight on the load ratio is equal to the forward premium and the weight on the load shape is equal to 1 minus the forward premium. The load shape component can be interpreted as capturing the effect of load on spot prices which in turn increases the cost of hedging. The load ratio component can be interpreted as allowing for an extreme effect and its impact will depend on the choice of the LR for the calculation.”
If you got all that you can check you bill is correct, otherwise, trust government.
A given is that ‘independent’ means privately run.
But look on the bright side, all unclaimed superannuation (a deserved deferred pay rise) goes into Government coffers to pay for other things.