Month: March 2025

“One way or another.”
I can’t believe we are subjecting the world to this shit.

AP:

 Greenland’s prime minister has a message for President Donald Trump: “Greenland is ours.”

Múte Bourup Egede made the statement on Facebook Wednesday, just hours after Trump declared in his speech to a joint session of Congress that he intends to gain control of Greenland “one way or the other.”

“Kalaallit Nunaat is ours,” Egede said in the post, using the Greenlandic name for his country.

“We don’t want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland,” he said. The post ended with a clenched fist emoji and a Greenlandic flag.

On the streets of Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, where the temperature was 4 degrees blow zero (minus 20 Celsius) at midday Wednesday and the bright sunshine reflected blindingly off a layer of fresh-fallen snow, people are taking Trump’s designs on their country seriously.

Since taking office six weeks ago, Trump has repeatedly expressed his interest in Greenland, a huge mineral-rich island that sits along strategic sea lanes in the North Atlantic. Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark with a population of about 56,000 people, lies off the northeastern coast of Canada, closer to Washington, D.C., than to Copenhagen.

Continue reading ““We’ve Always Been at War with Greenland” and Other Tales from Our Orwellian Timeline”

If Democrats had, in the name of climate, rolled out the kind of price increases on fossil fuels and autos that the Trump Administration is currently, they would have been pilloried.
But branding it “Canada is our Enemy and has been cheating us and should be the 51st state”, has gotten big buy-in from MAGA yahoos.

More demonstrations that all paths lead to a renewable transition, as the Wall Street Journal recently admitted.

Heatmap:

Environmentalists have struggled to figure out how to deal with Americans’ affinity for these big cars. But you, Mr. Trump, you knew just what needed to be done. You slapped giant tariffs on cars and trucks and auto parts, which could spike new car prices by $4,000 to $10,000, according to Anderson Economic Group.

There’s even a good chance that price hike could hit internal combustion cars worse than it hits EVs — in part because the internal-combustion car supply chain has existed for longer and has had more time to ooze across North America. This widespread damage could prompt layoffs at Ford and GM — but you didn’t hesitate for the climate’s sake, comrade! You were ruthless.

But Mr. Trump, you didn’t stop there. As you surely know, roughly a third of America’s greenhouse gas emissions come from natural gas. It is the prize jewel of fossil fuels, and it’s absolutely core to the U.S. energy system — and Mr. Trump, you did not hesitate to tax it directly. Thanks to your new 10% tariff on Canadian energy imports, American consumers can now expect to pay an extra $1.1 billion a year for natural gas, according to the American Gas Association. Those higher costs will be concentrated in western states and New England.

Continue reading “Trump’s Hidden Green Agenda”

The hate is real, and its having real effects in the marketplace, and on stocks.

Atlantic Council:

Import taxes on Mexico risk planting the seeds for another serious power crisis in Texas. US tariffs, slated to take force on March 4, could limit access to essential electrical components, making it more difficult for Texas to construct the resilient power grid it needs.

Take transformers, which are used to step up generation voltage for long-distance transmission, or step down voltage for distribution. There is a nationwide—and global—shortage of transformers, as lead times have surgedfrom fifty weeks in 2021 to 120 weeks in early 2024. But US production of transformers meets only 20 percent of domestic demand.

Before US President Donald Trump paused Mexico-related tariffs on February 4, Mexican-produced transformers—and other electrical components—were on the list of imports that were going to be slammed by a 25 percent tariff, which would have significantly impacted new electricity generation and transmission.

Tariffs could theoretically push prices of finished goods above 25 percent due to “pancaking” taxes on cross-border shipments of intermediate goods, where each border crossing incurs a fee. Furthermore, across-the-board25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum will raise prices of a specialized steel product called grain-oriented electrical steel, which is used in transformers, elevating the price of transformers made in the United States.

Higher prices for transformers, especially transformers imported from Mexico, because of tariffs will raise project-development costs and delay infrastructure upgrades, hitting Texas hardest. As the top US importer of transformer units, Texas relies heavily on Mexico, which supplies nearly half of all high-voltage transformer imports through the Laredo Census District. Not all of these transformers are ultimately installed in Texas, of course—but many are.

Continue reading “Mexico Tariffs Threaten Grid Reliability”

This is Matt Randolph – known as “Mr. Global” on TikTok and other social media. He is vice president and principal partner of oil/gas company, Sentinel Energy, based in Oklahoma.

His analysis of our situation with natural gas is the same as mine.
As we have increased exports of Liquified Natural gas,
Americans have to compete with customers in Europe and Asia
willing to pay much higher prices.
Hint: the New Secretary of Energy is a fracking millionaire. Guess what he has in mind for you?

Continue reading “Explaining Fossil Gas’ Effect on Prices”

If you set out to draw a blueprint for how to surgically dismember the United State’s industrial competitiveness, you could hardly do worse.
Above, hatred of Elon Musk inspires vandalism at Tesla chargers.

Carscoops:

President Donald Trump is putting the brakes on electric vehicles in government fleets, ordering thousands to be sold and shutting down their charging stations at federal buildings. Framed as a cost-cutting measure, the decision could ironically end up costing the administration $1 billion.

The General Services Administration (GSA), which oversees about two-thirds of the federal government’s 650,000 vehicles, currently manages around 8,000 EV chargers across government buildings. These stations serve both federally owned and personal EVs driven by government employees. But according to recently leaked emails, those charging contracts are being canceled, and the stations will be “turned off at the breaker.”

Aluminum, steel, lumber, zinc, potash – a critical fertilizer for farmers, uranium.
“Plants will close down in Michigan within a week.”
—
A new chapter in 1984 – “We have always been at war with Canada..”

Newsweek:

The U.S. imposed tariffs of 25 percent of Canadian goods—except for energy products, which face a 10 percent tariff. It also put a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and an additional 10 percent on Chinese goods.

According to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Canada is by some margin the largest source of American energy imports, with 59 percent of all crude oil imported into the U.S. in 2019 coming from the country. So energy imports give Canada a powerful lever to hit back at the Trump administration in a way that is likely to raise prices and stoke inflation in the U.S.

“I don’t start a tariff war, but we’re going to win this tariff war,” he said, adding, “If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything—including cut off their energy with a smile on my face, and I’m encouraging every other province to do the same.”

Ford added: “They rely on our energy. They need to feel the pain.”

In an NBC interview on Monday, Ford said Canadian energy kept “the lights on for 1.5 million homes and manufacturing [facilities] in New York, in Michigan and in Minnesota.”

Trump said the tariffs were being introduced in response to Mexico and Canada failing to stem the tide of fentanyl and illegal migrants across their respective borders. He also argued that Mexico and Canada, which had trade surpluses with the U.S., had been taking advantage of the country.

Continue reading “Canada Threatens US Electricity Supplies”

Got a heads up on this from a senior scientist who emailed today:

“If this happens, weather forecasting as we know it will end.”

Further underlined by Daniel Swain, well known to readers here.

Axios:

The Trump administration has informed NOAA that two pivotal centers for weather forecastingwill soon have their leases canceled, sources told Axios. 

Why it matters: One of the buildings is the nerve center for generating national weather forecasts. 

• It was designed to integrate multiple forecasting centers in one building to improve operating efficiency. It houses telecommunications equipment to send weather data and forecasts across the U.S. and abroad.

Driving the news: The NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction is on the lease cancellation list, according to a NOAA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. 

• Two ex-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials also confirmed the list.
• The building houses the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction, or NCEP, which includes the Environmental Modeling Center. It opened in 2012and has about 268,000 square feet of space.
• The modeling center runs the computer models used in day-to-day weather forecasting, and ensures that weather data correctly goes into these models and that they are operating correctly. 

Continue reading “The End of Weather Forecasting”

Matt Randolph, aka “Mr Global” is a YouTuber with a long background in the Oil and Gas Industry.

Texas Public Radio:

Is the U.S. really energy independent? Why does gas cost what it does, and who or what controls the price? 

Matt Randolph is vice president and principal partner of Sentinel Energy, based in Oklahoma. He’s better known as “Mr. Global” on TikTok and other social media. He is a globally recognized oil and gas expert, and he spends much of his time debunking misinformation about the oil and gas industry.
—

Clayton: I’m looking for a simple answer to what’s a very complicated question. And that’s what drives gas prices in the United States? A lot of folks want to say that it’s the current administration that controls gas prices. But what is the actual driving force behind what we pay at the gas pump?

Randolph: Well, you have to keep in mind, gas is a commodity. It’s sold just like oil. It’s sold on an open market. And the price of oil really drives the price of gasoline. And over the last few years, OPEC plus has continually cut production as we increase production to keep oil prices at their [current level]. They’re trying to get an $80 floor. That’s the lowest they want it to be. 

So that’s the biggest driver of gas prices in the United States, is that OPEC plus is producing 4 million barrels a day of oil less than they were a few years ago. That, and we lost some refining capacity during COVID. And those two things together, are a real sticking point for gas prices. And it’s going to be very, very difficult to really ever bring them back down to where they used to be.

Clayton: You mentioned that the U.S. is energy independent and has been for quite a while. What does oil production look like today in the United States?

Randolph: We’re currently producing 13.3 million barrels of oil a day. For 2023, we averaged 12.9. And that was a record year. So, we will set another record in 2024. But I don’t expect us to increase oil production much more this year because as we increase it, OPEC just continues to decrease. It’s hard to say what the benefit is for us to continue increasing oil production if they’re just going to maintain high prices.

Continue reading “Pipelines Have Never Lowered Gasoline Prices. Not Once.”

We all get it that this is a Kremlin lead project to utterly destroy America’s Science and Technology leadership, right? See today’s posting on the firing of NOAA Hurricane hunters.

Get very clear on that.

Andrew Dessler in The Climate Brink:

Dear America:

On behalf of the People’s Republic of China, I would like to deeply thank the current U.S. administration for implementing policies that threaten to dismantle America’s university research enterprise, thereby helping China become the preeminent global power of the 21st century.

For decades, we have watched with envy as the United States built the world’s most powerful innovation engine through its university system. The formula was brilliant in its simplicity: substantial federal funding for basic research combined with a visa system that allowed the smartest people from around the world to contribute to American innovation. Silicon Valley, biotechnology, artificial intelligence — all grew from seeds planted in American university laboratories.

This system created a remarkable virtuous cycle: federal research funding led to breakthrough discoveries, which spawned new industries, which generated economic growth, which supported more research funding. From the internet to GPS, from genetic engineering to computer chips, university laboratories have been the birthplace of innovations that drove 85% of our economic growth.

More than half of America’s billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants, many of whom began as international students in university labs.

While we in China have made tremendous strides in building our own research capabilities, particularly in strategic areas like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, we still trail the United States in many critical fields. But, thanks to your new policies, not for long.

NPR:

Darby Saxbe is worried her research funding might get canceled.

People’s brains change when they become parents. She studies fathers’ brains, in particular, to understand which changes might underlie better parenting. And she wants to study a variety of brains.

“If you want to understand the brain and biology changes of fathers, you don’t necessarily want to only look at white affluent fathers who are hanging out around a university, which is what a convenient sample might be composed of,” says the University of Southern California neuroendocrinologist. “That just makes for a better, more impactful research project.”

Continue reading “Teardown of American Science has Begun”