Cynthia Chung
Either you go along with the green program (that ignores nuclear as green) or you don't get credit. Which is a policy that will, and is, quite predictably driving up energy prices.
There is a bit of panic flapping about over the number of heads of state who will not be attending, in person, the COP26 Conference that will be held starting on All Hallows' Eve and lasting till November 12th.
The reason for the panic is because, in case you have been living in some bunker underground, we are in the midst of a very serious energy crisis along with hyperinflation, and there are growing murmurings that the very policies that COP26 wants to maximize to full throttle at this conference, are at the very source of what is causing this energy crisis.
It is no secret that there will be the very vigorous attempt to strong arm the heads of state that do end up attending this conference into signing onto these fully maximized COP26 policies which are likely to only exacerbate the problem, with the projection that citizens across Europe are expected to spend a very cold and dark winter this year....during what we are told is an ongoing pandemic....and this apparently an acceptable thing.
Goldman Sachs has recently released a report confirming these fears, and warning that there is a blackout risk for European industry this winter. This is most certainly highly likely, however, the reason for why this is likely to occur is where the truth of the matter is getting very muddied. The thing is, such outright lies are rather easily verifiable, if one takes the time to look into things past your favourite echo chamber of MSM parroting mouthpieces.
Presently, the popular line is once again to blame Russia. Yes I know, they should really fire the writers for this season's epic drama series, season 2 looks awfully like season 1. With the money they are being paid you'd expect a little more panache. Instead what we get is the repetitive and boring tone-deafness of CNBC anchor Hadley Gamble who acted as the plenary session moderator for Russia's Energy Week International Forum which was held just a week ago.
The best Hadley Gamble could seemingly come up with was to simply pretend she was not hearing the answers she was hearing from President Putin, it was quite something to behold, and not only called into question her level of competence and professionalism but also lost a lot of valuable time where a larger range of very important subjects could have been discussed. I highly recommend people read the entire transcript of the Q&A period for themselves, instead of the gossip column version that CNBC and others will undoubtedly report, spliced in between the subliminal Coca-Cola commercials.
During the Q&A, one of the details President Putin had to repeat multiple times, since it fell upon deaf ears, was that contrary to the accusation that Russia has decreased its gas supply to Europe, it has in fact, increased its supply of gas to Europe, President Putin states:
"Gazprom has upped supplies by 10 percent, and in general, Russia has increased supplies to Europe by 15 percent. Pipeline gas is up by 10 percent, and LNG, up to 13 percent. We are increasing, not reducing deliveries. But other suppliers have cut deliveries by 14 billion cubic metres. US suppliers account for half of the cuts...We have not denied a single request, not a single one, and we are increasing supplies to Turkey, via Blue Stream and TurkStream; we are increasing supplies to the Balkans - they have been redirected through TurkStream now, but we are increasing deliveries via the existing routes as well. We have even increased supplies through the Ukrainian gas transportation system." Despite the GTS equipment being 80% obsolete, and at risk to burst if pressure exceeds the present flow rate.
Yes you heard right, Russia has been actually increasing its gas supplies since the beginning of this year. It is not Russia that has cut down on its supply to Europe. This is easily verifiable information, it is open to the public for anyone who wants to verify this. Even outgoing Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel has confirmed this, as well as European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans.
So where is the shortage coming from? Well for starters there was an inadequate amount of energy stored by wind and solar energy over the summer. Typically, the summer is when energy is stored for use during winter (since wind and solar are not effective energy producers during the cold season). Since the amount of energy gathered over the summer by wind and solar will not be enough to cover the energy needs during the winter, there has been an increased demand for gas supplies to cover this loss.
Many countries within Europe, but I would say most notably Germany, have cut down on their ability to generate energy other than from wind and solar.
In the case of Germany, its nuclear generation has decreased from 29.5% in 2000 to 11.4% in 2020 with the plan to shutdown all of their nuclear power plants by 2022.
It is presently Germany who risks suffering from the coldest and darkest winter this year.
The absurdity of the situation, is that countries who have shutdown their alternative energy sources, are no longer self-sustaining but rather are now reliant on other countries supplying their energy needs, using the very energy forms that they have banned in their own countries.
This is why Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are literally a matter of life and death for the German people. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of self-contradiction going on presently in the midst of this energy crisis. Only a few months ago, the US was sanctioning the go-ahead for Nord Stream 2. Then the US decided to waive it sanctions this past May, however, after only three months decided to sanction a Russian ship and two companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in an attempt to halt the project. This by the way, was against Chancellor Merkel's wishes, the US was intervening on Germany's ability to meet its energy demands and decide for itself.
Now Germany is headed for a very cold and dark winter and what are the MSM parrots squawking? That it is Russia's fault that Germany and other European nations are not meeting their energy needs!
Hadley Gamble appeared to be suffering from multiple personality since in one breath she let off a critical tone over Putin and Merkel's agreement on Nord Stream 2, and then in the next breath she was inquiring if Nord Stream 2 would be coming online soon to "assuage the gas crisis".
President Putin answered that this was not up to Russia, that Nord Stream 2 could have been online a long time ago but presently there are still administrative barriers that are holding this up, stating:
"The German regulator must take the corresponding decision, but has not done so yet. Of course, if we could increase deliveries through this route, this would substantially ease tension on the European energy market. I am 100 percent sure about this. Of course, this would affect prices on the European gas market. This is obvious. However, we cannot do this so far because of the administrative barriers."
Incredibly, President Putin also had to make the point that countries need to tell Russia whether they want the gas supply to be increased, that Russia is meeting the present contractual demands and that if there is a demand to increase the supply, Russia can do it, but it needs to be a contract. Russia is not simply going to increase its supply to European nations without their official request for such a thing.
So, thus far we have found out that Russia has increased its supply of gas to Europe since the beginning of the year, that the US accounts for half of the cuts to the supply to Europe, that the energy shortage in Europe was caused by an over-reliance on wind and solar energy and that Nord Stream 2 (which has been strongly opposed by the US and Green Energy advocates) has the capability to restabilize gas prices and meet supply demands, that Russia is willing to do this, but that there are ongoing European restrictions that are preventing this from happening.
In other words, what has occurred (and very predictably I might add) is an artificial shortage due to policy decisions and not from any lack of resources. It is a shortage that has been predictably created by the choice to go with one policy over another. COP26 wants to exacerbate this by calling for all countries to follow the German model of stripping themselves of all forms of energy production other than wind and solar.
I will further address the inflation of gas price in a little bit, but before that I want to address this push to cut down nuclear power. This is where the intention of COP26 is exposed for the hypocrisy that it is.
Nuclear energy is a Atomic Physics and Macrophysics: How Breakthroughs in the Atom affords us Freedom to Explore SpaceAtomic Physics and Macrophysics: How Breakthroughs in the Atom affords us Freedom to Explore Space . It does not make any sense that countries are being told that they need to dismantle their nuclear plants in order to be considered "green."
As reported by Nuclear Newswire:
"According to Kirsty Gogan, cofounder of TerraPraxis and a senior climate and energy advisor to the U.K. government, 'All three Green Zone applications by nuclear groups were rejected'... this example is just another inconsistency in the fight against climate change from governments and nongovernmental organizations around the globe, considering that a recent U.N. report shows that international climate objectives will not be met without nuclear power. Given that nuclear power currently produces 20 percent of the energy (and 43 percent of the zero-carbon energy) in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) geographical scope, it is clear that it should be a big part of the global economy's drive to net zero. Yet, nuclear advocates will be frustratingly left on the sidelines of the green zone at the upcoming COP26 megaconference."
COP26 has shown a clear intention to continue to push out nuclear power as an acceptable green energy producer.
So, if we want to know one of the major reasons why China, Russia, India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and Mexico have all had their heads of state opt out of attending COP26 in person, this is a likely reason as to why. South Korea has not confirmed yet whether their head of state will be attending.
All of these countries are pro-nuclear energy. Iran is by no means going to go along with shutting down their nuclear energy after their long fight to acquire that very thing to uplift the standard of living for their people.
Brazil and South Korea are no different, they too have had to fight for their acquiring of nuclear energy.
During the Carter Administration, American Vice President Walter Mondale was sent to France and West Germany to "inform" them that the U.S. would henceforth oppose the sale of nuclear energy technology to the Third World...and thus they should do so as well. This was in addition to the US attempts to sabotage West Germany's nuclear deal with Brazil and France's promise to sell nuclear technology to South Korea.
The fight for nuclear energy has always been about the fight for the right to develop one's nation.
As President Putin stressed the point at the recent " Russia Energy Week International Forum":
"To reiterate, the rise in natural gas prices in Europe stemmed from shortages of electricity, not the other way around... Systemic flaws have been gradually introduced in European energy over the past decade, which led to a major market crisis in Europe.
As a reminder, when nuclear and natural gas-based generation were the leading energy sources, there were no such crises, and there were no grounds for them... Few people are aware of this, but the nuclear energy's carbon footprint is lower than that of solar energy. I think even the specialists here are, perhaps, hearing this for the first time."
So why the opposition to nuclear? Why indeed...
Let us now address the situation of increased gas prices.
As President Putin made the point in the above quote, part of the reason why gas prices have increased is because of the shortage of supply, which as I have already discussed is an artificially created shortage. Another reason he gave was that there is the manipulation of speculators on the spot market which are driving up the prices.
However, that is not the only reason why prices have been increasing.
Mark Carney, former director of the Bank of England has called for a "net zero banking alliance" in which banks have agreed not to lend to producers but only to put funds into the green bubble, the carbon bubble and so on. As a result, future energy production will drop even though there are ample resources available, creating further artificial scarcity.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Mark Carney stated that private banks in the financial sector must produce a change in the plumbing of the financial system in order to push liquidity into the speculative bubble while cutting investments to the productive economy. Carney said climate change must become the "fundamental driver of every investment decision or lending decision."
In other words, either you go along with the green program (that ignores nuclear as green) or you don't get credit. Which is a policy that will, and is, quite predictably driving up energy prices.
This is where the Great Reset agenda comes in, which will cause a further centralisation of how finance is already coordinated, into the hands of fewer and fewer controllers, giving increasing liquidity to the banking sector but no money for the productive sector.
This policy of Mark Carney has already caused the bankruptcy of several energy companies across Europe, and there has been no correction to this policy despite Europe being in an energy crisis.
According to a Zerohedge article "Bailout? Or No Bailout? UK Gov't Officials Offer Conflicting Views On Energy Crisis", of the 55 companies that supply electricity in the UK, it is likely that the majority will be forced to declare bankruptcy in the very near future, "Five suppliers have already gone bust since the start of August as surging wholesale prices have left companies insufficiently hedged. Out of the 55 suppliers, only six to ten could be left after the smoke clears. Millions of Britons brace for natural gas and electricity inflation, soaring food prices, and possibly electricity shortages this winter."
In addition, Wall Street on Parade has reported that they have reason to believe that the hyperinflation we are presently observing started back in Sept 2019 when a derivatives blow out occurred and to which the Federal Reserve stepped in through the repo markets to provide massive liquidity to banks such as Deutsche Bank, BNP, JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America etc.
This hyperinflationary money pumping did not just go to what is claimed to be solely for the covering of short-term corporate loans. The hypothesis of Wall Street on Parade is that the bulk of this money really went to covering up the derivatives blowout that they believe started in Sept 2019.
This is what is truly causing the hyperinflation and is being covered up by labeling it as a supply chain problem of raw material shortages and so on, when in fact it is due to the hyperinflationary money printing, combined with the green new deal policies, which are artificially driving up the prices of gas and coal.
You could keep all of this in mind and judge accordingly. Or perhaps it is best that we listen to the wisdom of Greta Thunberg, who is hailed as a genius by some, and whose most recent quote that is making the rounds consists of "Blah, blah, blah" give or take a "blah."
I think it a rather apt quote to be representing the thoughts and direction of Miss Greta Thunberg presently.
[The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com/]