Trump's wind energy assault sinks permitting reform - Senate Environment & Public Works Committee

[NNadir]

11. Really? Is this just sloganeering or is there any evidence to support these absurd claims?

Here's some evidence that the so called "renewable energy" has not a fucking thing to do with climate change or addressing climate change or addressing fossil fuels:

It's called a "reference." The reference is to the World Energy Outlook, published annually by the International Energy Agency, usually in November, in this case November of 2025. In this edition it can be found on page 426.



For the record, I have been following the WEO for decades. I have in my files PDF copies of every issue in the current century, and several from the previous century. Because I've been following it so long, I have learned to distinguish between the two portions always present, the data and the soothsaying. The former is historical and based on measurement and the collection of data. The latter is crystal ball reading and is essentially meaningless.

For convenience, I have assembled the data from relatively recent editions of the WEO (comparing data from 2000), converting the energy units historically used (MTOE) to the SI unit, Exajoule.



What does the data say for the most recent edition, the 2025 edition? Well for one thing it says that the multitrillion dollar solar and wind scam is trivial compared to any of the three dangerous fossil fuels, that it has never kept pace with the growth in the use of dangerous fossil fuels, about which advocates of this expensive and useless scam, again, couldn't care less.

Combined, solar and wind have never, not once at any point in history, despite wild eyed cheering, and the absorption of sums of money greater than the GDP of India, a nation with more than 1 billion people in it, produced as much energy nuclear energy has been producing for decades in an atmosphere of contempt driven by fear and ignorance.

In the "percent talk" that the apologists for tearing the shit out of the planet's surface for wind and solar junk that doesn't last two decades before becoming landfill, wind or solar produces about 5% as much energy as dangerous coal, about which said apologists, again, couldn't care less, less than 5% as energy as is produced by oil, about which said apologists, again, couldn't care less, and about 6% as much energy as dangerous natural gas, about which said apologists, again, couldn't care less.

Combined, solar and wind, at 18 EJ combined total produce 3.5% as much energy as combined coal, oil and gas, 519 EJ.

Now let's be clear. Apologists for so called "renewable energy" - which by the way, because of it's land and mass requirements and short life times is not, despite the marketing term for it, "renewable," are only interested in bad mouthing nuclear energy. I've been here for 23 years listening to this set of benighted uninformed people who I regard as, despite their self descriptions, as uninterested in the environment, tell me all about how "renewable energy" will save the world, all the time attacking nuclear energy while ignoring (or at best paying delusional lip service to) fossil fuels.

The results are in: The planet is burning.

I joined DU in November of 2002, now over 23 years ago. In the week beginning November 17, 2002, the week I joined, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide - about which apologists for so called "renewable energy" couldn't care less - was 367.89 ppm. For the week beginning 12/28/2025, the last full week recorded at the Mauna Loa CO₂ observatory (to be updated tomorrow) that concentration was 428.78 ppm. The concentration has grown by 55.58 ppm while I've been here listening to poster after poster after poster tell me all about so called "renewable energy."

The data can be found here: Trends in CO2 NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory.

(This too, is called a "reference." )

I'm an atheist, for the record. I'm unimpressed by chanted slogans. I look at data and something called "reality."

Here's a reality: The planet, again, is burning, and the same damned slogans I've been hearing here for 23 year have not done a damned thing to change that outcome. I am thus extremely unimpressed with this series of delusional commentaries about "renewable energy." They played out. They didn't work. They made things get worse faster.

Do I make myself clear?

May I make a suggestion? It is not a "crime" to think. Thinking, however, involves interpretation of data, acting on the world as it is, as opposed to relying on a kind mysticism involved with the recitation and chanting of dogma.

I trust you're having the happiest of New Years.