November 2025 – Page 5 – This is Not Cool

China Takes World Climate Leadership as US Leaves Vacuum

The United States did not send “even a note taker” to this year’s COP meeting, an annual gathering of nations focused on climate change, this year being convened in Brazil.
Another opportunity for China to demonstrate and flex its emerging global leadership.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a potential Presidential candidate in 2028, and a sharp critic of the current administration, did appear, representing, as he likes to remind us, “the world’s 4th largest economy”.

Carbon Brief:

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were unchanged from a year earlier in the third quarter of 2025, extending a flat or falling trend that started in March 2024.

The rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) saw CO2 emissions from transport fuel drop by 5% year-on-year, while there were also declines from cement and steel production.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that while emissions from the power sector were flat year-on-year, a big rise in the chemical industry’s CO2 output offset reductions elsewhere.

Other key findings include:

Power-sector CO2 emissions were flat in the third quarter, even as electricity demand growth accelerated to 6.1%, from 3.7% in the first half of the year.
This was achieved thanks to electricity generation from solar growing by 46% and wind by 11% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2025.
In the first nine months of the year, China completed 240 gigawatts (GW) of solar and 61GW of wind capacity, putting it on track for a new renewable record in 2025.
Oil demand and emissions in the transport sector fell by 5% in the third quarter, but grew elsewhere by 10%, as the production of plastics and other chemicals surged.

After the first three quarters of the year, China’s CO2 emissions in 2025 are now finely balanced between a small fall or rise, depending on what happens in the last quarter.

Financial Times (paywall):

The absence of the US administration at the two-week-long COP30 summit at the Amazonian port city of Belém in Brazil, which kicked off on Monday, has put the spotlight on China as well as the world’s other big emitters, such as India, which has not yet submitted its updated climate plan.
Almost 50,000 people had registered to attend the conference, according to the UN. China, alongside the UK and Brazil, hosted talks on tackling methane and other non-CO₂ gases on the weekend.
It was attended by Huang Runqiu, China’s minister of ecology and environment, who said that addressing climate change “requires concerted efforts from the entire world.”

Canada Mulls Opening to Chinese EVs

Long way from a done deal, but a remarkable accomplishment of the Trump administration, and its Fossil fueled agenda, is to make enemies out of America’s longest standing and most reliable friends.

Above, CBC call in show discusses whether Chinese EV manufacturers should be invited in to Canada, or at least have tariffs lowered, so as to make up for losses Canada expects as the US administration bullies automakers to move production out of the country. I’ve included only the intro and the first caller.
Complete program here.

Below, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says of US/Canada relations, “this is not a transition, it is a rupture”.

Below, eye popping view of new Chinese EV manufacturing site.

Column: MAGA Works to Destroy American Industry, Security

Midland Daily News:

The recently announced terminations of battery manufacturing facilities in Midland and Big Rapids (Michigan), are part of a disturbing retreat for American technology and manufacturing, in part orchestrated by anti-science MAGA ideologues.

Director of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, wrote last week that batteries are the “crucial technology for the 21st century”, pointing to a “worrying dependency” on a single country — China, which currently dominates that space.

In Michigan, Republican politicians attacked a proposed cooperative venture with the Chinese company Gotion, making chest pounding claims about National security concerns, tapped out on their Chinese made keyboards.
But hobbling America’s capabilities in a crucial technology hardly seems productive.

It’s a paradox that the key enabling technologies of the defining industrial transition of this century, – solar cells, advanced wind turbines, and lithium based batteries, were all invented in the United States, with taxpayer funded research, but have since been commercialized successfully by our most serious global competitors.
The Chinese obtained these technologies by inviting and incentivizing western manufacturers to locate there, then mastering and building on the engineering themselves.

Joe Rogan’s War on Reason and Climate Science

“X” is an absolute sewer of climate disinformation, putting to lie Elon Musk’s assertion that good information should always drive out bad. Indeed, everything we know about social media shows that the exact opposite is true.
I’m finding more and more of my time is spent responding to climate denial talking points that I debunked thoroughly 14 years ago.
And then, there is the endless creativity of climate deniers, coming up with entirely new ways to remain ignorant.

A few weeks ago, Joe Rogan proved again he does not Grok climate science, and once again used his platform to deliver pure, long-ago-debunked drivel from always-reliable cranks Richard Lindzen and William Happer.
It’s just one indicator that since the re-election of Donald Trump, we are in a new age of climate denial, where the undead, long debunked zombie climate denial shibboleths rise again to walk among us.

Dana Nucitelli in Yale Climate Connections:

Rogan’s podcast tends to invite fringe, unqualified climate contrarians who dispute the expert consensus. Happer is a retired physicist with a scant publication record in the field of climate science. Lindzen has an extensive list of climate publications, but his contrarian claims have been consistently proven wrong. In other words, they have not withstood scientific scrutiny or the test of time.

For example, on the podcast, Lindzen referenced a 2001 paper in which he published his “adaptive iris” hypothesis. It suggested that as the atmosphere warms, the area covered by high-elevation clouds will contract like the iris of an eye to allow more heat to escape into space, thus dampening global warming.

Numerous subsequent papers identified flaws in Lindzen’s iris hypothesis. The body of scientific research now indicates that clouds will most likely slightly amplify global warming. Yet Lindzen continues to peddle this debunked myth decades later.

Data Centers Don’t Have to be a Burden on Rates

But states, utilities, and communities need to give guidance.
Above, a report from PBS Newshour (send them a contribution if you have not yet) on new research that shows data centers, if properly managed, can be a net positive for grids, by using capacity that normally goes untapped during most days of the year.

Electric grids are sized to meet the extreme peak demands that only come around a few hours of a few days every year. The rest of the time there is a lot of slack capacity in the system, that ratepayers still have to pay for.
But if big users like data Centers can come in and use that excess capacity during most of the year, but will agree to flex during the peak demand times, and make extra capacity available when it is needed – so called “demand response” – then that’s like having a virtual power plant on your system that costs nothing.
Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation Energy, describes here.

Would the US Military Follow Illegal Orders to Attack Greenland?

Above, good conversation between former George Bush speechwriter, now well known public intellectual and Atlantic writer David Frum, and Tom Nichols, also an Atlantic writer, former Professor at the US Naval War College, and, new to me, a 5 time Jeopardy champion – on what happens if the Trump administration orders its military to take over Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark – bearing in mind that treaties are US law, and will military leaders carry out a manifestly illegal order?

Below, recent statement by the US President-in-waiting JD Vance on US intentions around Greenland, not substantially different from Donald Trump’s morally vacant land grab mentality.

JD Vance: “Denmark not doing its job, not being a good ally…if that means we need to take more territorial interest in greenland that is what president trump is going to do.”pic.twitter.com/nqcNW6FODU
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) November 7, 2025

Chinese EVs Hurdling Trade, Technical Barriers in Europe and Elsewhere

As I mentioned yesterday, Western economic barriers to Chinese EVs are rapidly crumbling, and they just keep coming, and bringing on better technology.

Inside EVs:

At Europe’s biggest auto show this week, the home team was clearly playing defense.

While Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Renault and others showed off bold new plans for electric vehicles, autonomous driving and advanced software, it was no secret they’re all catching up to things China’s automakers are already doing. And arguably, the one playing offense the hardest is BYD.

The Chinese giant has been making inroads in Europe for a while now—go to any major European city these days, and you’re sure to see lot of its cars. It’s even outselling Tesla across the continent. But at IAA Munich, BYD made clear that it’s in Europe to stay.
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The Great White (Hydrogen) Hope

Regular readers will be aware that one of the wildest of energy wild cards is so-called “White” Hydrogen – hydrogen that is naturally produced in the earth’s crust, and occasionally finds its way to the surface, or collects in reservoirs at accessible depths.
Deutshe Welle has a nice primer above on what we know now.

World Economic Forum:

Like oil and gas, white hydrogen is naturally occurring. Generated by continuous geochemical reactions in hard rock, white hydrogen’s characteristics differ from hydrocarbon molecules in that they are small and light and more likely to escape cap rocks.

More research is still required, with practical field experience and data collection needed to establish the key components of a hydrogen play.

The world needs low-carbon hydrogen to decarbonize. Global low-carbon hydrogen demand is forecast to reach almost 200 Mtpa (million tonnes per annum) by 2050, up from 1 Mtpa today in WoodMac’s base case, with green hydrogen supply meeting the bulk of this future demand.

Green hydrogen’s production costs, though, remain stubbornly high, with a range as wide as US$6/kg to US$12/kg. This is driven by green hydrogen’s need for high availability of renewable power for electrolysis. It will also depend for years on substantial subsidies to work towards a commercial threshold in the range of US$3/kg.

White hydrogen offers a much cheaper alternative resource. Without the need for inefficient energy conversion or manufacturing processes, white hydrogen produced at scale from reservoirs sited close to end-user markets could be delivered well below US$1/kg. The co-existence of helium may also offer a valuable commercial lever for white hydrogen exploitation.

Gaslighting on Gas Turbines

You can’t “magic up” new gas turbines. Supply chains are tight, and they're not easing soon.

With Nat Bullard of Halcyon on The Energy Capital Podcast, I unpacked some of the reasons for that and what's happening in response.

This isn’t about a single manufacturer or factory.… pic.twitter.com/xQz0RMGgke
— Doug Lewin (@douglewinenergy) November 6, 2025

If you’ve been following the story so far, with the rise of the second Trump administration, renewable energy is out, fossil fuels are back, in particular fossil gas, personified by the selection of fracking millionaire Chris Wright as Secretary of Energy.
The demands of new data centers and AI, we are told, make “reliable” gas turbines the only choice in the near term, followed by “new” modular nuclear in the 2030s.
Possible glitch in the Matrix is that, gas turbines are hard to build, and the supply chain is backed up quite a bit. There has been some pushback on that narrative lately, but a little history and perspective help.

Bloomberg:

Gas executives faced the ire of climate activists when they called gas a “bridge” from coal to clean power. With the rapidly growing demand for power, these executives now think gas will be central to the future.

The turbine shortage risks exacerbating a major divergence in climate efforts between poor and rich nations. Without gas, developing economies may be forced to keep using coal for longer, threatening plans to reduce emissions. Meanwhile, developed countries may be pushed to more quickly adopt solar and wind farms backed up with expensive batteries.

John Ketchum, chief executive officer of NextEra Energy Inc., the biggest US solar and wind developer, said clean energy should be a “critical bridge” until gas plants can be built.

You May be Seeing Chinese EVs Sooner Than you Thought

Inside EVs:

We’ve finally got an answer to what happens when the world’s largest car market, China, builds more EVs than it can sell at home: It exports them. Breaking news, I know, but that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The story isn’t just that Chinese automakers are exporting cars, but that they’re exporting controversial zero-mile “used” EVs.

The whole concept here is a bit bonkers. If you haven’t been keeping up, Chinese automakers were recently called out for registering brand-new EVs with zero miles on the odometer just to be able to count them as sales. Government incentives are then passed around and the ministries in Beijing are happy that automakers are “selling” tons of cars.

But, it turns out that despite these “used” EVs being a great value, automakers are having trouble offloading them to locals. According to Reuters, brands have figured out that they can quickly dispose of these cars simply by exporting them to other countries via a government-backed grey market.

Let’s dig into how it goes down.