Covid-19 crisis will wipe out demand for fossil
fuels, says IEA
Renewable electricity may be only source to withstand
biggest shock in 70 years
Thu 30 Apr
2020 05.00 BSTLast modified on Thu 30 Apr 2020 05.04 BST
Renewable
electricity will be the only source resilient to the biggest global energy
shock in 70 years triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, according to the
world’s energy watchdog.
The
International Energy Agency said the outbreak of Covid-19 would wipe out demand
for fossil fuels by prompting a collapse in energy demand seven times greater
than the slump caused by the global financial crisis.
In a
report, the IEA said the most severe plunge in energy demand since the second
world war would trigger multi-decade lows for the world’s consumption of oil,
gas and coal while renewable energy continued to grow.
The steady
rise of renewable energy combined with the collapse in demand for fossil fuels
means clean electricity will play its largest ever role in the global energy
system this year, and help erase a decade’s growth of global carbon emissions.
Fatih
Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said: “The plunge in demand for nearly all
major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas. Only renewables
are holding up during the previously unheard of slump in electricity use.”
Renewable
energy is expected to grow by 5% this year, to make up almost 30% of the
world’s shrinking demand for electricity. The growth of renewables despite a
global crisis could spur fossil fuel companies towards their goals to generate
more clean energy, according to Birol, but governments should also include
clean energy at the heart of economic stimulus packages to ensure a green
recovery.
“It is
still too early to determine the longer-term impacts,” said Birol. “But the
energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different
from the one that came before.”
The impact
of the coronavirus has triggered a crisis for fossil fuel commodities,
including the collapse of oil market prices, which turned negative for the
first time in the US earlier this month.
Global
efforts to curb the spread of Covid-19 have led to severe restrictions on
travel and the global economy that will cause the biggest drop in global oil
demand in 25 years.
Demand for
gas is expected to fall by 5%, after a decade of uninterrupted growth. It is
the steepest drop since gas became widely used as an energy source in the
second half of the previous century.
Coal demand
is forecast to fall by 8% compared with 2019, its largest decline since the end
of the second world war.
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Climate experts call for 'dangerous' Michael
Moore film to be taken down
Planet of the Humans, which takes aim at the green
movement, is ‘full of misinformation’ says one distributor / GUARDIAN
Michael Moore turns on climate left with film
skewering green energy
'Planet of
the Humans' released on Moore's YouTube channel for Earth Day
By Valerie
Richardson - The Washington Times - Friday, April 24, 2020
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/24/michael-moore-turns-climate-left-film-skewering-gr/
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore is under attack from
his putative climate allies with a newly released documentary taking on one of
the sacred cows of the environmental movement: green energy.
“Planet of
the Humans,” released this week free of charge on YouTube to coincide with
Earth Day, argues that replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy is not only
a pipe dream, but that solar arrays, wind farms and biomass are doing enormous
damage of their own to the environment.
The
blowback from the left was immediate. Josh Fox, director of the anti-fracking
films “Gasland” and “Gasland Part II,” called on activists, scientists and
others to sign a letter “demanding an apology and an immediate retraction by
the [film’s] producers, director and other advocates.”
“It was very difficult to write this letter, because
Michael Moore has always been a hero of mine,” Mr. Fox said, but argued that
the latest documentary was “a blatant affront to science, renewable energy,
environmental activism and truth itself.”
Written,
directed and narrated by veteran environmentalist Jeff Gibbs, the film also
accuses the green movement of selling out to corporate America, taking shots at
leading figures such as former Vice President Al Gore, 350.org’s Bill McKibben,
former Obama green-jobs adviser Van Jones, the Sierra Club, Virgin’s Richard
Branson, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The only
reason we’ve been force-fed the story ‘climate change plus renewables equals
we’re saved’ is because billionaires, bankers and corporations profit from it,”
Mr. Gibbs said in the 100-minute film.
Mr. Moore,
the film’s executive producer, has admitted in interviews that he “thought
solar panels lasted forever” and “didn’t know what went into the making of
them,” referring to rare-earth minerals like quartz and the fossil fuels used
in production.
He told
Reuters that he used to support electric vehicles, but “I didn’t really think
about, where is the electricity coming from?” More than 62% of the U.S.
utility-scale power grid is run on natural gas and coal.
“[W]e are
not going to be able to solar-panel and windmill our way out of this,” Mr.
Moore said on CBS’s “Late Night with Stephen Colbert.” “We need a serious new
direction.”
Free-marketers
are unlikely to endorse the film’s proposed solutions — population control and
drastic reductions in consumption — but that doesn’t mean they haven’t enjoyed
seeing Mr. Moore reiterate their talking points on green energy’s drawbacks.
Quipped the
Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell: “‘Planet of the Humans’ should
really be titled, ‘The Luddite Left Eats the Climate Industrial Complex.’”
“If global warming is really a problem, the solution
can’t possibly be windmills, solar panels, burning biomass, and battery
storage,” said Mr. Ebell, director of the CEI Center for Energy and
Environment. “Climate and energy realists like CEI have been making these
points for years, but now that leaders of the extreme anti-human,
anti-industrial environmental fringe have reached the same conclusions, perhaps
more people will start to pay attention.”
Heartland
Institute senior fellow Anthony Watts, who runs the skeptical Watts Up With
That website, hailed the film as an “epic take-down of the left’s love-affair
with renewables by one of the left’s most known public figures.”
Meanwhile,
there was plenty of outrage on the left over Mr. Moore’s betrayal.
Penn State
climatologist Michael E. Mann, creator of the much-debated “hockey stick” graph
of global warming, called it “another polemic from Moore, but this time
attacking climate action rather than the misdeeds of the right.”
“Michael Moore’s prescription (shunning renewable
energy) will insure a far LESS healthy planet,” tweeted Mr. Mann, who holds a
Ph.D. in geology and geophysics. “It’s a travesty for people to be viewing his
error-riddled polemic at a time when we need to focus on REAL climate
solutions.”
Others on social media blasted Mr. Moore as a
“blowhard,” “rich white guy,” “misinformed” and “dishonest.”
“Michael
Moore bringing together the white male small-population racists and the white
male ecomodernist ultra-growth bros to attack solar and wind on Earth Day is
just such a pure 2020 story,” tweeted science writer Ketan Joshi.
Bowling for
biomass
No Michael
Moore film would be complete without gotcha moments, and “Planet of the Humans”
has its share, including details on Mr. Gore’s financial ties to green energy,
Mr. McKibben waffling on 350.org’s funding sources, and Mr. Jones, Mr. Kennedy
and Mr. McKibben skirting questions on biomass.
Mr.
McKibben issued a statement Thursday emphasizing that he changed his mind years
ago about “large-scale biomass,” a renewable-energy source that involves
logging and burning vast swaths of trees at power plants to produce
electricity.
“I am used
to ceaseless harassment and attack from the fossil fuel industry, and I’ve done
my best to ignore a lifetime of death threats from right-wing extremists,” said
Mr. McKibben. “It does hurt more to be attacked by others who think of
themselves as environmentalists.”
The film
slams the Koch brothers, who are invested in renewables, but most of the
criticism is devoted to bursting the left’s green-energy bubble. A concert
billed as running on renewables is actually plugged into the grid. Acres of desert
brush and trees are leveled for gigantic solar projects.
In a scene
at the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in the Mojave Desert, co-producer Ozzie
Zehner says that while solar energy is renewable, the array itself was built
using fossil-fuel infrastructure.
“You use
more fossil fuels to do this than you’re getting benefit from,” said Mr.
Zehner, a visiting scholar at Northwestern and author of 2012’s “Green
Illusions.” “You would have been better off burning the fossil fuels in the
first place instead of playing pretend.”
In his
letter, Mr. Fox called the assertion “patently untrue and ridiculous,” accusing
the film of using outdated information and making unfair, misleading attacks on
“movement leaders” and “important local campaigners.”
The
Oscar-winning producer of films such as “Bowling for Columbine,” “Fahrenheit
9/11,” and “Roger and Me,” Mr. Moore said he decided to release the film online
because of the uncertainty about when theaters would reopen following the
coronavirus closures.
“[W]e are not
going to be able to solar-panel and windmill our way out of this,” Mr. Moore
said on CBS’s “Late Night with Stephen Colbert.” “We need a serious new
direction.”
Whether Mr.
Moore’s conversion changes any minds on the left remains to be seen, but Power
the Future Western states director Larry Behrens said he doubted it.
“The fact
that the problems of the green agenda are so plain that even Michael Moore can
figure it out is little comfort to those who support our workers and a strong
economy,” Mr. Behrens said. “Sadly, even if Moore can plead temporary sanity,
advocates of the socialist green agenda are still moving forward trying to
destroy energy jobs across our country.”
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