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Hey! I got AIR-15 in ESE 2019 in Mechanical Discipline while working with ONGC in Drilling Department! As my Preparation was along with Job hence I will share my strategy accordingly!Brief about me and my attempts:-I passed out from NIT Jaipur in year 2016, joined a private firm (resigned within 10 days), came back to home in August end and started preparing for GATE/IES exams for year 2017! (Forgot to mention I screwed my GATE 2016 very badly and was not eligible for IES 2016 due to age factor)GATE 2017: Rank 393 (OBC creamy Layer i.e. General)Got final selection IOCL/HPCL/BEML/ONGC and M.tech at various IIT'sPlus 3–4 more interview calls for PSU's which I didn't attended!ESE 2017: Scored around 255 marks in Prelims as far as I can recall ( 231 was cutoff ) ! As it was the 1st ESE exam with changed syllabus hence Mains was in May 1st week! I didn't managed my time and at last got inclined towards PSU's interviews and hence final Mains exam was a disaster 😅Hence Joined Indian oil on 18 Sept 2017, completed my training (The Leela Ambience Hotel, Delhi) (Golden Period❤️) then joined as a Sales Officer at Basti in Uttar Pradesh!ESE 2018: Although Job was very Dynamic and had a lot to offer plus it was near my home! Hence many suggested to leave ESE preparation as Indian oil itself is a one of the best organization to work for in our country that to in Sales Profile which is a major Domain! But still I decided to prepare for it as “There is a thing called as Final Goal and there is a thing called as Milestone”! Those were the hectic days which I have ever seen in my life, preparing along with Job is believe me very difficult, it requires utmost Dedication and Hard work and managing work and study is not easy! During the last week of Exam , a training of (Mentor-Mentees) was scheduled at Delhi at Northern Region Office! As my preparation was also not complete hence I realized that I am not gonna make it hence will attempt next year with a full dedication😅!Attended Training, then went on to home, bought my 1st car (Thanks Indian Oil for the loan amount❤️) just 2 days before exams!( Tata Tiago XZ+ )For the 1st time in my life, gave an exam without any fear and tension 😂, I was like Jo hoga so hoga Indian Oil mein toh hai hi apan😬! Prelims result came, Scored around 283 ( cutoff was 256 )! I was shocked, but later we got to know that seats were more for Open category in 2018!Now Mains was scheduled to be in June end and meanwhile Work pressure was immense as Extended Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojna scheme started! And we were receiving close to 100–150 calls in a day plus Field inspection was also increasing! Then Gram swaraj Abhiyan was also scheduled in May Month! Later on I also had an issue with my Controlling officer! Things got so much heated up that I developed a feeling of hate with my current assignments and just wanted to leave at any cost!Meanwhile my waiting got cleared in ONGC for 14 days ON/OFF drilling profile! And I decided within a fraction of second that it I am switching to it!The reasons of switching my job were :-In sales I was not getting sufficient time to prepareHad an issue with my Controlling OfficerWas getting an ON/OFF pattern which I thought was a blessing as I thought for 14 days I will study and for 14 days I will work!So I switched on 25 May 2018, and joined ONGC, and I have no shame in admitting that It was the one of the worst decision I have taken in my life ( I realized it on the very 1st day when I stepped at Drilling rig field)!P.s. Guys with weak heart don't you join it😂P.P.s. In between these resignation from Indian oil and Joining at ONGC ESE 2018 also got screwed 😂! But again I enjoyed giving Mains paper without any preparation😝ESE 2019: So I started preparing for 2019 exams in ON/OF pattern and it was going well! Out of No where ONGC Training schedule was released and my name was there in it and I realized “Gaya Ye Wala attempt bhi” Training was Scheduled to start in Aug and was ending in November mid! Prelims was scheduled in January!With a 22.5 kg suitcase (Having more notes/books and less Formal shirts/pants) and paying a decent amount of money everytime at Airport check-ins for extra baggage! I completed my training at Dehradun & Ankleshwar!P.s You may be thinking that I studied during my training time and may have spoiled all the “Training fun part” 😅 but no it was not like that! The Training days of ONGC has a special place in my heart, it was perhaps one of the best time which I had in 2018 and I can't even write it in much detail as purpose of answer will change!So long story cut short, I again joined at my place of posting on 14 days on/off pattern in November mid! Was still drooling over training memories, playing PUBG with training mates! The entire dedication for UPSC was gone as life was good at that time, salary was good, was getting 14 days holiday period after 14 days of working, used to chit-chat at WhatsApp a lot that time! Those were the good days!So at last decided, that ONGC is final stop for me, no need to go for UPSC now (already failed 2 times)! But I had already filled the form for ESE 2019! So I decided to appear with whatever preparation I had ( in bits and pieces)ESE 2019 (Prelims): There are two types of paper, An easy paper and A difficult Paper! The Mechanical paper set by UPSC for year 2019 gave birth to the 3rd type “An easy paper which will be difficult for everyone to solve” ( People who have given ESE-2019 in Mechanical will relate to this 😝)After giving my paper I talked to myself that its a God wish I should stop attempting for ESE further and should focus on “How to live a happy Life at ONGC”😅Prelims result came on 28th Feb 2019, out of nowhere my Roll no. was there, plus in between these 2 months things were changed now ! That 14 days On/Off seemed like a trap instead of a blessing, PUBG was no longer a fun, Chit Chats was no longer encouraging! All of a sudden The entire dedication for UPSC was back!I did two things on that day:-Uninstalled WhatsApp and Facebook but I still don't no why I left Instagram😅! ( This was not because ki I am against an idea of using Social media during Preparation Phase but it was personal and was very much needed at that time)I prepared a road map for the preparation of Mains exam along with Job!(So the real answer starts here😂)( See that Heading “Mains is Main this time” thanks to Prelims paper 😝)( I always have an habit of writing Approx. AIR when I make my study plans)A simple plan I prepared, if u will see it clearly then u will find that mostly its combination of (PYQs+Test Series+Standard Textbooks)! This is all required for Mains (Test series answer writing and analysis is very important)! I joined two test series, I used to give it on my OFF duty period at home!As ON period at Job was more stressfull, I used to utilize my time during field by revising what I already studied through Photos in my phone!( I have this habit of clicking selfies while studying, I don't no if its a common habit or not among aspirants😆)Generally site distance from my accommodation was at 1 hr. Distance, which we used to cover by a bus journey! For some days, I tried to study in Bus but later I realized it was neither fruitful nor good for eyes! Hence what I did was I used to record some theory answers of important questions ( Mainly of Material science/Manufacturing engg etc. ) and used to listen it with earphones while sitting in Bus! And trust me as compared to “reading exercise” in a travelling Bus, this “listening exercise” is more fruitful!I finished my syllabus somewhat in June 1st week and then revised accordingly from Short Notes/Formulae copy and most important Test Series Copy! I will write some key points further in bullet points:-Test Series is most important! And I hope I am neither the last nor the 1st one to say this! Properly analyze it and rectify your mistakes and make a note of that in a copy!You don't need to read a textbook for Exam! As per my understanding its a myth, most of the questions in test series and even in UPSC are coming from textbooks! But the thing is you need to have selective reading from Standard Textbooks ( For eg:- Welded Joint problems from VB Bhandari/ Available energy questions from PK nag/ Steam Turbine solved examples from PK nag Powerplant & etc) ! You don't need to open a book from its acknowledgement and preface page and then cover it point by point till the last Glossary page😂PYQ's are very important as you get an idea from them ki what is demand of PaperBut still I think my final result which I have got at the end, is not just because of this 4 Months Preparation, My preparation phase of 2016 when I quitted my private job and started to prepare for GATE 2017 and ESE 2017 also played a major role in it!Some people still say if I would have made some sensible decision in 2017 i.e. Would have seriously prepared for ESE 2017 Mains instead of Giving different PSU's interview then I would have been an IES officer in 2017 only! Some say if I would have not switched to ONGC in 2018 and would have prepared for Mains Exam along with Indian oil sales profile only then would have cracked it and would have become IES officer in 2018 only!And I couldn't agree more with them, Maybe they are right, Maybe If I would have done those things than maybe I would have cracked this exam at the age of 22 rather than 24! Because if you will look closely then there was always an solution for the previous problems:-2017 attempt :- Problem was Less time for Mains Exam and changed syllabus with new subjects plus lots of PSU interviews which were harming mains preparation and was breaking the preparation flow!What I did??? I chose PSU’s at that time, Gave only 2–3 test series for IES Mains Exam and focused on Interview of Indian oil and ONGC in which I scored good marks (13.5/15) and (14/15) respectively. My Father told me, you will regret it later and will carry books in you suitcase in their training programme for IES preparation later on! (And the exact thing happened 😅)!What I may have done??? Instead of giving so much interviews, could have easily skipped few ones like of BEML ( Interview was in Bangalore 3 days before Mains exam, and I went there spending 18k to and fro journey for that 10 min interview 😅)2018 attempt:- Problem was hectic work due to Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala camps and issues with Boss and no time to study!What I did? Resigned straightaway😂What I may have done? I never realized that this hectic work in a job is dependent upon you only, It's upto you how do you manage your hectic schedule and life balance and also I already cleared Prelims exam of 2018 along with this so called “Hectic” profile so maybe, maybe I would have cleared mains also! And the another thing of having issues with controlling officer, I never gave a thought that he was having his transfer in coming month, after 2–3 months He would join a new location and I will no longer have to see him! But no instead of taking decision carefully I took a decision emotionally! And have paid for it for next 1.5 yr.So, hence some guys have told me that maybe I have wasted approx 2 yrs. Of my life by working in Indian Oil and ONGC as by switching in one from other I wasted Promotion years! Plus I got Sales profile at the age of 22 yr. in Indian oil, according to some people if I would have stayed I would have became Director or CMD😂!But here I think they are not correct, I may have taken some wrong decision previously ( I am not quite sure on this also😝) but in no manner I have wasted 2 yr. of my life by working in these two organizations!If I compare myself with that guy who just got graduated from NIT Jaipur in 2016 and now a Sales officer cum Driller cum IES officer in 2019 there is a wide gap in terms of Experience/ Decision making ability/ Attitude towards problems etc. With every job assignments I took in both of these, I have learned something not just about Job but about life! With every single person I met during this two yr. from different educational background, I learned new things !Along with that, This UPSC journey has shown me that you should not take things for granted!Serving in Indian oil sales profile ( I Lived as officer Babu Wala job, worked in AC, was having no. of people under me) and by switching to ONGC Drilling Profile ( I have painted Drilling rigs, have greased mechanical parts and have worked along with people instead of ordering them)! So I consider it as a lesson, lots of wisdom has come and I feel I have changed a lot! Have become more mature, more carefree and have realized that all of these things are temporary!You clear an exam with a good Rank, you become a hero or a source of motivation for aspirants, Your family is proud of you, in your friends eyes you become “Sarkari Afsar” they are like “Waiting Clear krwa Dena" “Railway Pass dilwa dena" and in your best friends eyes “ You are same douchebag”! And with time everything fades away!So just enjoy your journey ( it doesn't matter if its of UPSC or GATE or any Training phase of a PSU )! Just enjoy it because its temporary its not permanent, neither your current Struggling phase nor your after Result Happy/Sad phase!

1 Introduction In my view this question is wrongly framed. When major countries de-industrialise, they do not “fall out of the developed world” but they lose the leadership capability, the mimetic magic of attracting followers to their economic and social policies, and their manufacturing strength and political, social and economic place in the world order.No countries during the last 50 years have “fallen out of the developed world.” Reality is not like that. But there are two Chinese Empires and two Western Empires (the British Empire and the American hegemony) as listed in Section 13 of this answer where the people have lost their previous prosperity plus countless Washington Consensus camp-followers where the people have failed to become prosperous. These issues deserve a detailed response and an appropriate timescale.In order adequately to identify the previously highly industrialised countries which have lost out during recent years we need a longer time perspective than half a century. About 280 years - from 1735 to 2015, or the last four 70-year periods of Kondratiev hegemonic ascendancy - is perhaps the best time frame within which to identify the biggest modern cultural losers of all time, the rise and fall of the British Empire (1735–1945) and the more recent fall of the American hegemony (1945–2015).These kind of declines have happened before, most notably to the Chinese Dynasties of the Northern Song Empire (960–1279) and to the Yongle Emperor (1402–1424) within the Dynastic era of the Great Ming Empire. The circumstances surrounding the declines of these Empires throw an interesting and relevant light on modern events.1.1 Caveat The sheer historical scale of this Question is immense and I know I cannot possibly cover all aspects of these mainly manufacturing declines, but there are many books and articles which refer to the process of relative economic decline and the interested reader is invited to dig into the subject as deeply as their time and interest permits. I will refer to a few of these books but there are thousands, often smug and usually wrong because Western economic thought does not generally include the role of finance in stimulating economic development.I once found that amusing, but it is now deadly. The Shimomuran remedy to many of the ills of the world is available and urgently needs to be implemented.This reply has potentially such a large scale that I have “Submitted” it despite its inevitable incompleteness. It is easier to illustrate the general case by identifying individual de-industrialisations than to list all the major withdrawals from previous manufacturing superiority.2 Background In all local, historical and recent economic development, the role of finance in stimulating economic development is a key factor not only in explaining the first industrial development in the world of the Northern Song Empire but also in explaining all industrial economic miracles since, including the latest ongoing Chinese Economic Miracle (1975-now).The generally accepted major and academically dominant strand of Western economic thinking - Washington Consensus Macroeconomics - in its various forms of Monetarism, privatisation, neoclassical or neoliberal economics, financialisation, and Austerity, does not include banks in its generally accepted economic models. Consequently the understanding of nearly all Western economists [including their Nobel Laureates!] is quite inadequate to explain, describe or illustrate rapid economic development.I have written seven books and over 350 articles since 6 November 1971 on this topic and continue to hope that one day the West will brighten up. But there is no sign of that so far.3 The Decline and Fall of Empires Is Not An Immediate Process When a previous hegemonic leader declines in their relative economic importance, they do that by the diminishing role or shutdown of their major growth-producing services and industries. Eventually that occurs on an immense and widespread scale. The removal of previous bank support to SMEs and industry is a key factor in producing economic decline. The lack of political support for key industries and for manufacturing industry (which is generally due to the total absence of an industrial policy) is again a major factor in generating long term industrial decline. These issues can be amply illustrated by reference to historical trends and to government economic policies, in the usual tradition of the German Historical School of observation of linking historical political policies to economic consequences.3.1 The British Shutdown of about 800 SME-Supporting Banks, 1840–1940 The shutdown of about a third (or about 260) and takeover of about 540 local SME-supporting banks banks by the London Clearing Banks removed the major factor which had made Britain the workshop of the world, but it took about a century to happen (from about 1840 to about 1940) and the last such SME-supporting Scottish bank, the Airdrie Savings Bank (1835–2017) defied the local bank closure trend for another 77 years but closed its doors on 28 April 2017. See Airdrie Savings Bank - Wikipedia and see the 3-volume book by Margaret Dawes and C.N. Ward-Perkins The Provincial Banks of England and Wales, Private Provincial Banks and Bankers, 1688–1953, ©The Chartered Institute of Bankers, and ©Margaret Dawes, William Clowes, Beccles, Suffolk, 2000 where this issue is fully laid out. And also see Charles W Munn’s “The Scottish Provincial Banking Companies”, John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1981)3.2 US Steel Production 1900–2016The bankruptcy of Bethlehem Steel in 2001 in the USA, for example, and the cessation of steel production and shipbuilding by that company did not immediately produce US economic decline, but contributed to it, requiring some steel and sea vessel imports instead of domestic production. The graph of American production of pig iron and steel looks like this:Source: Graph of US iron and steel production, 1900-2014, data from USGS website: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/iron_&_steel/Between 1932 and 1944 (the years encompassing FDR’s economic miracle 1938–44) US steel production climbed from about 16 tons to over 80 tons, an amount similar to the 78 tons produced in the US in 2016. So US Steel production in 2016 was less than it was in 1944 and in the 1950s. SeeFDR’s American Economic Miracle 1938-44, or the First Economic Bomb - The USA from 1938 to 1944 (Part 1)The stagnancy of production of US steel and pig iron after the 1980 new policy of Reaganomics, when compared to the rising trends of steel and pig iron production from 1900 to 1978, is particularly impressive in the above graph.The Republican party knew very well that American industry was rapidly de-industrialising. The difficulties in the economic driver of the US economy - in the motor car industry - and the almost complete loss of US car industry market share of light vehicles (down to 3% in 2017!) along with the US Government restructuring of GM and Chrysler illustrated the problems. See The Decline Of The American Auto Industry In 4 Charts3.3 UK Production of Steel 2016With regard to the United Kingdom, one sentence from a recent report puts the issue into perspective“In 2016, the UK produced 8 million tonnes of steel. China produced 808 million tonnes in the same year.”And a House of Commons Briefing Paper Number 07317, authored by Chris Rhodes, dated 2 January 2018 contains in Section 8 the following illustration:As that report remarks “In 1995, China accounted for 13% of the world’s steel production. This had risen to 50% in 2016.”A flourishing steel industry is one major requirement for a successful manufacturing economy. That key precondition no longer exists either in the US or in the UK.4.1 British and American De-industrialisation Neither Britain nor the United States have “fallen out of the developed world” but they have both de-industrialised their economies at a startling rate, and their economic positions in the world are now much less than than they would have been, if they had continued to champion their inventors, innovators and manufacturing industries. Only an industrial economy can provide the jobs and continually upskill the workers to provide the widespread prosperity upon which continual rising living standards depend. [The dot com economy clearly cannot.] It is undeniable that the previously leading economies of the UK and USA now have large numbers of recently impoverished workers and their families mainly located in or around the rustbelt cities where manufacturing industry has declined enormously and has sometimes been completely shut down.4.2 The Kondratiev Hegemonic CycleNikolai Kondratiev (1982–1938) was the Russian economist who“was a proponent of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which promoted small private, free market enterprises in the Soviet Union. He is best known for proposing the theory that Western capitalist economies have long term (50 to 60 years) cycles of boom followed by depression. These business cycles are now called "Kondratiev waves".[1] “There is one interpretation of the Kondratieff wave that I am most interested in propounding here, the hegemonic cycle of development, for which there is some limited evidence.4.3 The Central Role Of Economic Understanding In Creating Recent Economic MiraclesThe role of governments and the economic understanding they possess and practice (and otherwise) is a key factor in producing both high-growth economic miracles and economic decline. If the United Kingdom governments after 1945 had understood no-cost investment credit creation then Britain could have grown the nations of the British Empire as Japan did in the colony of the South Manchurian Railway Company. If the United States governments after 1945 had understood the procedures practised in FDR’s 1938–44 economic miracle, then the postwar world led by America could have introduced no-cost FED-originated investment credit creation economics throughout the US-led world. High growth could have been the norm. Widespread prosperity would have been the result. Poverty would not have been completely abolished in the less developed countries but it would have been greatly reduced.Instead after 1980 the UK introduced Thatcherism, with its cumulative shutdown of most manufacturing industry, its attacks on the living standards of the working class, its attempted destruction of the post-war social contract allegedly supported by the theories of neoclassical economics, privatisation, Austerity for the workers and tax cuts for the rich, and the shrinkage of UK invention and innovation as the London-based Clearing Banks distanced themselves from British industry and SME financial support. I tried and failed to change that by lobbying parliament through the Grylls group but the British Clearing Banks had bought the votes of many MPs who often did not understand economics or the UK position but voted in Committee for the continuity of British economic decline. Which accelerated.It was interesting in 1981 to meet with Mrs Thatcher in 10 Downing Street but very disappointing to discover that neither she nor her cabinet understood the crucial importance of providing bank funding at local level for the inventive and innovative British SMEs that are the source of future employment and new industries. Chancellor Howe turned down the Grylls Group proposals (of which I was the major author) in his budget speech of March 1982 with the comment that other methods were available to achieve the same objectives. None emerged and I do not believe that any such policies exist.And after 1980, the USA practised the economics of President Reagan (or Reaganomics). and consequently the previous policy legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - the legal status of the unions, the right to form trade associations and the right to strike, as set out in Roosevelt’s National Labor Relations Law - was increasingly abated. The Reagan administration not only legislated against the striking Air Traffic Controllers but let it be known that the Roosevelt National Relations Law would not be enforced by Government action, and employers were free to refuse to recognise or deal with the unions or to refuse to conduct collective bargaining with these to negotiate pay deals. A new powerless labour market was created by the Reagan Government in the USA to underpay or impoverish workers in the hope of creating higher company profits.The fundamental change brought about by Thatcherism and Reaganomics was the political preference for running the economy in the interests of the rich, who received a greater share of the annual increases in national income, and the politically reduced allocation of national income to the workers.Unfortunately when any economy is taken over and run by its monied elite, lower economic growth invariably results. This is one of the greatest lessons of economic history which neither the US nor the UK acknowledge at any level - not politically, not in the media, not in the academics in their universities, not by their businessmen and businesswomen, not in their banks or by their bankers, not in their professional associations or in the popular culture of their people. Neither Reagan nor Thatcher appeared to realise that the commanding presence of their economies on the world stage had been the result of the involvement and activity of their workers and that a policy of preference for the rich and poverty for the workers was a recipe for manufacturing decline.The decline of the British Empire and the US Hegemony was due to the triumph of a defective economic understanding which has many labels but the latest is called neo-liberalism.This issue may need a more thorough explanatory investigation.5 The Other Great Losers of the last Millennium were The Chinese Empires of the Northern Song And Great Ming, but the culture of China has Recently Produced The Post-1975 Economic Resurgence of Modern China (1975-present day)5.1 The Northern Song Empire (960-1127) I have written so much about this elsewhere that I see no need to repeat much of it here. SeeGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to What are major Chinese innovations? andGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to How did Wang Anshi contribute to the economic world?5.2 The Great Ming Empire (1368–1644) The era of the Ming Dynasty succeeded the Yuan/Mongol rule and was particularly notable for the activities of the Yongle Emperor (1402–1424) who improved the Chinese economy to such an extent that the construction of the seven Great Treasure Fleets seemed to place no detectable strain on the Chinese treasury. See Ming treasure voyages - Wikipedia5.3 Modern China (1975-present day) The high economic growth of China is a consequence of the large share of the annual economic growth allocated to the people of China. That high economic growth is also a result of the continual creation of investment credit of about 25% of GDP a year by the PBoC and the direction of that credit into capital investment in the Chinese roads, rail and city building infrastructure and into equipment investment in manufacturing companies.5.4 The Mandate of Heaven The central concept of the Mandate of Heaven is that the ruler of China should rule the country in the interests of its people. SeeMandate of Heaven - Wikipediaand for my take on the subject seeGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to What are some examples of the Mandate of Heaven?That Mandate does not simply apply to Chinese leaders.5.5 The Basic Equation of Economic Development After Keynes, Western economists knew that the fundamental equation of National Income (NY) was equal to Consumption (C) plus Investment (I) plus Government spending (G) (ignoring for the moment that national income is increased by exports and diminished by imports). SoNY=C+I+GDomar and Harrod dynamised this equation by placing deltas before each item so that growth in National Income (dNY) was equal to growth in Consumption (dC) plus growth in Investment (dI) plus growth in Government spending (dG).But if an Austerity-increasing policy of low growth for the workers sets dC equal to nearly nil, and if the lack of an industrial policy reduces dI, and if a policy of small government reduces dG to nearly nil, then that’s an economic recipe for very low growth. Which is what has happened to the USA and the UK.6 The United Kingdom Hegemonic Periods and Thatcherism6.1 United Kingdom Hegemony 1 (1735–1815) “The Age of Steam”The Scottish-originated English-adopted industrial revolution was a product of the local banking systems which had fostered invention and innovation based upon intellectual insights into how things really worked. James Watt (1736–1819) took Richard Trevithick’s (1771–1833) steam engine (see Richard Trevithick - Wikipedia) and he converted it into a continually operating multipurpose machine, with over six times the efficiency of the original invention. SeeWatt steam engine - WikipediaThe Carron Iron Works (1759–1982) which became insolvent after 223 years. assisted that invention [that company was renamed the Carron Phoenix in 1982 see Carron Company - Wikipedia] because“The company also cast parts for James Watt's steam engine in 1765.”The Carron Iron Works also produced the Carronade, a lightweight cannon which helped establish, through the Royal Navy, British naval superiority for the decades from the 1770s to the 1850s. See Carronade - Wikipedia and it should be noted that this cannon was a direct development of the gunpowder artillery of the Song dynasty. See Gunpowder artillery in the Song dynasty - WikipediaJames Watt entered into a partnership with Matthew Boulton and produced over a hundred steam engines which drove the latter part of the British industrial revolution’s first seventy-year hegemonic period (1735–1805). The early years of that revolution were driven by the Tobacco Lord development through promissory notes of the three states of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina and the founding of local Scottish Banks led by Murdoch in 1730 in and around Glasgow and by the Tobacco Lord funding of other Glasgow-centred banks from 1749 and their partial funding of 88 Scottish companies, including capital for the Carron Iron Works.6.2 United Kingdom Hegemony 2 (1815–1885): “The Railway Age”The second period of British hegemonic dominance was the Railway Age from 1805 to 1875. That period was a direct development of the application of the steam engine to transport and the construction of railways.6.3 United Kingdom Hegemony 3 (1885–1945) “The Electricity Age”The third British hegemonic period was due to electrical engineering developments [based on the “second great unification of physics” based upon the insights of the Scottish James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)]. Maxwell’s electromagnetic understandings is“central to the performance of cellular mobile phones, GPS and Radar.”See James Clerk Maxwell Foundation - Wikipedia6.4 British Hegemonic Periods more Broadly DefinedIn my view the three British hegemonic periods are perhaps best described a little more extensively asGreat Britain 1: 1735–1805 The Tobacco, Cotton and Steam AgeGreat Britain 2: 1805–1885 The Railway and Steel AgeGreat Britain 3: 1885–1945 The Electrical Engineering and Automobiles AgeThese headings are only at best the most prominent features of each era and of course much else was also happening within these periods.7. In both Britain and America, war has been the economic education of the Conservative classes. Only after war when the upper classes of the UK and the USA could clearly see that the working classes had given their blood to preserve the nation have the Conservatives in the UK and the Republicans in the USA acted to improve the lot of the working classes.7.1 The UK Keynesian Period 1945–1979In this post war period, British Governments acted in the interests of improving the life circumstances and prosperity of the British people.The passage of Rab Butler’s 1944 Education Act and the Beverage Report and the Labour Government creation of the five pillars (or giants) of the Welfare State - which were the removal of want, better secondary education to remove ignorance, a new housing programme of slum clearance and new housing to remove squalor, a National Health Service free at the point of use to improve health, and a Keynesian full employment policy to remove poverty. See The Welfare State : Revision, Page 5During this period, the Keynesian policy of full employment was a central belief of successive British Governments, and that policy resulted in a widespread prosperity, perhaops best summed up in Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s 1957 statement “You’ve never had it so good.” SeeBBC ON THIS DAY | 20 | 1957: Britons 'have never had it so good'7.2 UK 1980–2018 From Economic Ascendancy to Thatcherism Despite three Kondratiev seventy year periods of economic dominance, the United Kingdom produced the leadership of Mrs Thatcher in 1979. Her political programme was one of profound division, to rule the United Kingdom only for the benefit of the rich.There was a 1952 Little Richard song which aptly summarised the results of Thatcher’s leadership. The song was called “She got what she wanted, but she lost what she had.” The slightly explicit lyrics areThe song was revised in 1962 making it less explicit. See Little Richard - He Got What He Wanted (But He Lost What He Had) / Why Don't You Change Your WaysMrs Thatcher succeeded in foisting a system of rule for the rich on the politics of the United Kingdom. When she did that, the three seventy-year periods of hegemonic dominance of the UK were finally over. The only way a country can become a world power is by running the country in the interests of all its people, which the UK once did during the 19th century, which FDR did from 1938–44, and which China is now doing.8 The United States Hegemony (1945–2015)8.1 The Foundation of US Economic Dominance in FDR’s Economic Miracle (1938–44) Roosevelt knew that in order to win the Second World War he needed to get ALL of the working people of America to help to achieve the war production aims. He did that with great skill. FDR’s economic miracle provided the foundation of the US postwar economic dominance of the West, and produced widespread prosperity within the USA..8.2 The US Post-War Keynesian Period (1945–79) The United States of America entered the postwar period with acommanding position in manufacturing industry. One illustration of this is the production of motor cars, including all private motor vehicles of all types plus all kinds of commercial vehicles. The car production numbers look like this:Source: From Table 119 Page 270 of The Statistical Yearbook 1949-50 United Nations, New York,1950. [Note that the above table does not include the USSRor China.]The USA produced over 80% of the world’s motor vehicles from 1946 to 1949.The legacy of FDR’s 1938–44 economic miracle- the dozens of government-funded massive steel plants sold into private hands, the over 50 artificial-rubber-producing factories constructed by no-cost FED credit creation, and the similarly funded vast high strength aluminium production plants, as well as the better roads and ports and airports built to facilitate easy fast transport around the USA and exports and imports - all provided an excellent springboard for the great US growth of the consumer society in the 1950s and 1960s. American homes were the first to have the chrome-bumpered stylised cars and the car industry centred in Detroit became the backbone of the US economy and aluminium pots and pans were produced in the ex-wartime factories and used in US kitchens. The ingenuity of Americans seemed endless and highly admirable.On May 25 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, announced and proposed that the US "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." See We choose to go to the Moon - WikipediaThe Moon Project succeeded and on 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on the lunar surface. It seemed that the Americans were living up to the statement in Genesis 11:16 that“Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”The American Government development of the German rocket technology through Operation Paperclip (see Operation Paperclip - Wikipedia) and the leadership of Werner von Braun had done something which had been previously thought impossible.During the US post war period from 1945–79 there was a general acceptance by US politicians of the Keynesian economics of government fiscal stimulation to provide full employment. Successive US Governments acted in the interests of the American people, and due to full employment policies enjoyed the highest living standards in the world. In retrospect many people see this era as a kind of “golden age” of the US economy.As I observed when I was working for the UN in 1976, American economic advisors were widely regarded as beneficial angels, because their advice was specific to the circumstances of the nations being advised, and was both helpful and practical.8.3 The US Washington Consensus/Neoclassical Economics Era (1980–2015)The Washington Consensus era ushered in the usual fiscal contractionary policies not only in the USA but for all governments following the American lead. The re-introduced understandings of neoclassical economics were announced as being “valid everywhere in the world, like the laws of Physics” but unfortunately that was more of a hope than a reality. The recently-published acceptance of the failings of neoclassical economics by three IMF economists come to the conclusion that neoliberalism neoclassical economics has been oversold. SeeThe full articles can be read at Neoliberalism: Oversold?During the neo-classical post-Keynesian era of the USA, the central industry of the economy - motor car production - fell from the 80% of world output which it had been in the late 1940s to about 11.3% in 2017. The UK car production fell from about the range of 8% to 10% of the world total during the late 1940s to less than 1.8% in 2017, and even that percentage refers almost entirely to the production of foreign-owned motor car assembly plants in the UK (such as the three Japanese car companies Honda, Nissan, and Toyota and the French Company Groupe PSA which now owns Vauxhall).Source: This is an edited extract derived from the table at List of countries by motor vehicle production - WikipediaSome reduction from the market share by the USA and the UK in the late 1940s was of course inevitable as other nations industrialised, but the almost total 97% loss of production of light vehicle car production in the USA (with the US car companies concentrating on truck production) along with the replacement of a previously thriving motor industry in the UK by four foreign-owned assembly plants, represents a great loss in local manufacturing capacity and the loss of the components suppliers and worker employment which goes with it.9 The Continuing Relevance of the Mandate of Heaven The Mandate of Heaven is not only a theoretical guidance about how a leader should morally behave but is also a practical statement about how to create a faster-growing and even world-dominating economy. The political and economic declines of the Northern Song Empire, the Great Ming Empire, the United Kingdom and the USA have all been due to the political elevation of the rich elite of the nation above its people.That is not a political statement but an historical observation.9.1 The Role of Constrictionary Credit in the Yuan Empire And The Role Of Political “Conservatives” In Bringing About Rapid Economic Decline In Ming Yongle EmperorWhen China was taken over by the Mongols, that event ended the Song Empire. These new rulers did not understand the role of Wang-Anshi created investment credit for agriculture and industry and public works (such as maintaining the dams) as the source of Chinese prosperity. The Yuan/Mongol Empire ended the Empire of the Song and created credit for consumption purposes (as the US does today) and this caused the inflation which was one major reason (the other was crop failure due to lack of irrigation maintenance works) for the brevity of the Yuan Empire (1271–1368).When the “Conservatives” came to dominate Ming China, their major policy was the reduction of credit and the victimisation of the poor in defiance of the “Mandate of Heaven” and these policies led to the rapid end of the great Chinese Empire of the Ming Yongle Emperor. The Conservatives not only let the then-greatest shipyard in the world at Nanjing fall into disrepair but they also forbade the construction of ships of more than two masts and the Ministry of War implied that the voyages of the great Treasure Fleet were fictional because no-one alive could remember them, and much of the documentation about past greatness was deliberately destroyed, perhaps because it was an unwanted reminder of previous Chinese greatness compared to its subsequent decline. As is recorded at the Columbia University site at The Ming Voyages | Asia for Educators | Columbia University comments in the section headed The Fateful Decision :“The Ming court was divided into many factions, most sharply into the pro-expansionist voices led by the powerful eunuch factions that had been responsible for the policies supporting Zheng He's voyages, and more traditional conservative Confucian court advisers who argued for frugality. When another seafaring voyage was suggested to the court in 1477, the vice president of the Ministry of War confiscated all of Zheng He's records in the archives, damning them as "deceitful exaggerations of bizarre things far removed from the testimony of people's eyes and ears." He argued that "the expeditions of San Bao [meaning "Three Jewels," as Zheng He was called] to the West Ocean wasted tens of myriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths may be counted in the myriads. Although he returned with wonderful precious things, what benefit was it to the state?Linked to eunuch politics and wasteful policies, the voyages were over. By the century's end, ships could not be built with more than two masts, and in 1525 the government ordered the destruction of all oceangoing ships. The greatest navy in history, which once had 3,500 ships (the U.S. Navy today has only 324), was gone."9.2 In The United Kingdom The most inventive and innovative economy in the world was probably the United Kingdom at the time of the industrial revolution. About 850 local private banks were created to provide the loans required to fund the necessary equipment which could enable the transfer of local SME invention into factory floor innovation.The population of Great Britain in 1801 was about 10.5 million rising to 27 million by 1850. It is difficult to list all of the key inventions of the British era of industrialisation, but it seems that perhaps over 700 key inventions - or about 25 inventions per million people -may have occurred. According to the research of Simon Hermann, about 1600 “world champion” SMEs may have been created by Germany’s Sparkassen local SME-supporting banking system, and the private provincial banks of England and Wales may have supported a similar level of inventiveness and innovation.9.2.1 Two interesting books about the decline of the United KingdomMy selection is Robert Skidelsky’s Britain Since 1900 - A Success Story? [Paperback – 30 Oct 2014] and John Eatwell’s 1982 book Whatever Happened to Britain?The Skidelsky book is an interesting attempt to redefine Britain’s economic failure as a limited kind of social and political success. The author argues, as the Wikipedia review puts it, that“We are accustomed to judging nations by their success in increasing or maintaining power - by these measures Britain has failed to thrive, but what of quality of life, prosperity, political, cultural and moral values?The British people are richer and healthier than in 1900. Despite cataclysmic events and some fraying at the edges, our society is more democratic and tolerant, and our constitution of liberty has been preserved, at a cost. But inequality of wealth income is much as it was before 1914, finance is scarcely less proud or industry more content, and history continues to be made by the elite.”Unfortunately the facts contradict nearly all of what Skidelsky alleges. The quality of life in Britain has declined immensely for the 14 million poor and for these eight million families who are targeted by recent Conservative Governments as sources of saving for funding of Government tax cuts for the rich. See the excellent reports continually produced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation about this topic, such as this one UK Poverty 2017 which points out that“UK Poverty 2017 highlights that overall, 14 million people live in poverty in the UK – over one in five of the population. This is made up of eight million working-age adults, four million children and 1.9 million pensioners. 8 million live in families where at least one person is in work.” andNumber of children in poverty surges by 100,000 in one yearLord Skidelsky, who is the author of by far the best biography of John Maynard Keynes, in his attempts to redefine Britain’s greatness in terms of its non-economic performance, is often wide of the mark. Prosperity is very unequally distributed as a consequence of Conservative Government policy. Our society is not more democratic because successive Conservative Governments have passed legislation to reduce the numbers of non-conservative voters on the voting rolls.Our society is not more tolerant. Race hate crimes surged upwards after the Conservative Government held the BREXIT referendum and Britain became more xenophobic.Our constitution of liberty has not been preserved. The takeover by the Cameron-led Coalition Government of the Electoral register through the 2013 Elector Registration and Administration Act was designed to drive millions of voters in the groups who did largely did not vote Conservative off the Parliamentary Voters Rolls. See David Cameron’s Partisan Gerrymandering of the British Democracy - where the evidence is listed. In the most extreme case of the largely black London constituency of Hackney, 40% of voters disappeared from the voting rolls.If the UK had a constitution like the US one, Cameron would have been impeached for the democracy-destroying effects of what he did.Allin all, I cannot even begin to agree that Britain since 1900 was in any respects “a success story”. To start the century with the most dominant, innovative and progressive economy in the world, and end it as an industrially demolished financialised low-level manufacturing economy; to start with the biggest bank in the world (The Midland Bank) and end it with that bank as a branch of the HSBC; to have had in Mrs Thatcher a Prime Minster who regarded the workers as “the internal enemy” and who destroyed first, the National Union of Mineworkers in a pitched battle at Orgeave (and the BBC reversed the order of events on TV, showing that the miners first attacked the police when the reality was the reverse) and second, the major pillars (except for the NHS) of the social contract and workers’ rights; the destruction of the coal mining and the steel industries of the UK, producing decline but not development ; the passing of the partisan Poll Tax (which had the intention of reducing non-Conservative voters on the Electoral Rolls) and which caused an unwarranted fourth Conservative victory for Major at the 1992 election - the 20th century showed that the UK Governments had lost their way in terms of economic development, social progress, economic understanding, and had failed in their duty of care to the British people. The elevation of political callousness and the destruction of the social contract, the elevation of finance above (and her hostility to) manufacturing, and the elevation of a non-performing Monetarism above Keynesianism were all wrong Government policies, none of which are adequately highlighted in Skidelsky’s book. The book resembles a kind of “BBC book” providing a comforting bedtime story to the British elite who the BBC represent and speak for. That book does not come to valid conclusions at all. The street parties spontaneously erupting at many locations on Thatcher’s death make a greater statement than this book does. See Criticism of the BBC for broadcasting five seconds (yes, five seconds!) of the song about Thatcher “Heigh ho, the wicked witch is dead” which criticism says a lot it does not intend to say. SeeRadio 1 controller defends decision over Lady Thatcher songGoogle produces 5.03 million hits for the words “Celebrations of Thatcher’s death.” I cannot begin to summarise these here.[I last read John Eatwell’s book several decades ago. I’ll re-read it and review it here in due course. More follows eventually.]10 The Relevance of Oswald Spengler’s Book “The Decline of the West” two volumes, Vol 1 1918 and revised 1922, Vol 2, 1923.Spengler thought a kind of plant analogy might apply to cultures -he illustrated that idea by identifying eight "high cultures" which were seeded and grow to maturity, then inevitably decay. In his view they all have a limited life of about two millennia, the first millennium consisting of growth followed by one of decline. There does not seem to be objective evidence for that viewpoint.Spengler's classification of the ideas of the Jews, Christians and Muslims, is "Magian" while the Ancient Greek and Roman ideas are "Appollinairian" and the modern Western ones are"Faustian."See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_WestSome of Spengler's summaries of trends are prescient. For example he says, according to the Wikipedia summary of his book (source quoted above)"Spengler notes that the greater the concentration of wealth in individuals, the more the fight for political power revolves around questions of money. One cannot even call this corruption or degeneracy, because this is in fact the necessary end of mature democratic systems."While that has certainly happened in the UK and the USA, it is the denial of democracy to allow rich individuals to have the overweening power to determine political decisions in their financial favour.10.1 The Failure of the so-called “Free Press”and MediaSpengler's comments on the media are interesting. From the Wikipedia summary above:"On the subject of the press, Spengler is equally contemptuous. Instead of conversations between men, the press and the "electrical news-service keep the waking-consciousness of whole people and continents under a deafening drum-fire of theses, catchwords, standpoints, scenes, feelings, day by day and year by year." Through the media, money is turned into force—the more spent, the more intense its influence."There are few better descriptions of the dog-whistle politics now usual in the Western media.10.2 The Failure of the Western “Democracies” - the USA and the UKIn both the USA and UK, the right to vote has been deliberately limited by government action to produce the success of right-wing candidates and governments.See The United Kingdom and the United States of America Have Both Lost “The Mandate of Heaven” where I say:“The Recent Removal of Voting Rights By Conservative Forces in US And UK Governments“Since 1980, the elective dictatorships of both the United Kingdom and the United States have increasingly ruled in the interests of the rich and privileged. But they have not been content just do that.“For example, voting rights have been denied to felons for the most minor offences in the USA, and the continuation of that disenfranchisement has been decided by the Florida governor Jeb Bush. This led to that state and its electoral college votes being declared for President George Bush in the 2000 election. As Mother Jones commented atHow Jeb Bush became a player in one of the South's darkest traditionshttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/jeb-bush-florida-felon-voting-rights-clemency/“The 2000 presidential election was ultimately decided by a 537-vote margin in Florida. More than 500,000 ex-felons were barred from the polls, including at least 139,000 African Americans, who vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. Their exclusion almost certainly changed the outcome of the race. The beneficiary, of course, was Jeb Bush’s brother.”“In the United Kingdom, David Cameron’s Coalition Government passed the 2013 Individual Registration and Administration Act which initially disenfranchised 13% of voters — mainly many women, the poor, council tenants, the Black and Middle East Community and the young — all of whom are unlikely to vote Conservative. In the worst case of the largely black community of Hackney, 40% of voters disappeared from the rolls. Cameron won the 2015 election to the surprise of all the pollsters and the people because of that massive politically-driven disenfranchisement.See “How David Cameron’s Government Stole the 2015 General Election” at:How David Cameron’s Coalition Government Stole the 2015 General ElectionAlthough the USA and the UK continually claim to be democracies, neither nation is now democratic.11 The End of The Dominance of the “Anglosphere”Many Western economists do not accept Kondratiev’s concept of cyclical booms and depressions as the historically major driving forces in history. It may be more useful to provide a reconsideration of the major issue, in the context of the indisputable end of the dominance of the Anglosphere.The “Anglosphere” era, when first Britain established a world-wide empire in which the Royal Navy ruled the waves and on which “the sun never set” and then the unrecognised takeover of that Empire by the American economy from 1945 lasted from 1735 until 2014, when the USA lost a century of economic pre-eminence and was replaced by China as the largest economy at $2014 PPP estimates, which the CIA World Factbook duly recorded.Arnold Toynbee in his monumental 12-volume “Study of History” has expressed the interesting view that civilisations respond to external challenges about three and a half times. He illustrates this by suggesting that when the invaders destroyed the dams and waterways that were crucial to the civilisations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, these essential irrigations were rebuilt well and perhaps even improved upon on the first three separate occasions, but after the the fourth destruction of these works the response was inadequate and half-hearted.If Toynbee’s view were correct, and if the period of hegemonic dominance is 70 years, then 3.5 “beats” is 245 years, and if the UK dominance started in 1735, this calculation suggests that the dominance of the Anglosphere should have ended from about 1970. That date does contain the seeds of UK/USA decline because it was during the 1970s that the neoclassical recovery and the ultimately less successful economic policies of the Washington Consensus (dominant from 1980) ruled the intellectual roost in the West, with the results we see today.12 Consequences The prioritisation of tax cuts for the already rich above the survival of the environment and the wealth and welfare of the workers has caused and is causing appalling outcomes. Dealing with each of these in detail would take too long, but very briefly three of the main consequences are:The Failure to Deal With Global Warming The warmest four years in the history of the world are the last four years. The Arctic is now so warm that the melting of the giant Greenland ice shield now looks inevitable, with a four degree rise in average world temperatures by 2090. The polar bears are now probably doomed to extinction. Major coastal cities will resemble Venice in future. Many important food-growing deltas (such as the Rhine in Europe, the delta of the Ganges, the Jamuna (which is the main channel of the Brahmaputra) and the Meghna rivers on which much of Bangladesh is located, the Nile, the Mississippi and more deltas than I can list here) will be salinated and food production will declineNeedless Poverty The almost four decades since 1980 have failed to produce a single economic miracle in the Anglosphere. The shutdown of manufacturing industries in the UK and the USAhas impoverished many millions of workers. Foreign Direct Investment has signally failed to support faster growth anywhere. The highest rate of foreign investment cannot possibly equal 25% of GDP year after year, so that result is predictable. Shimomuran macroeconomics enables nations to do for themselves what outside investors never could.China Must Lead Where The USA Doesn’t President Trump has declared that he doesn’t believe in global warming and has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. China can and should lead on the major issues ofInternational financial reform, with the creation of an SDR-like international settlement system that will not be linked to any one currencyglobal warming, where known technical solutions could make an enormous difference and where China could partly fund these in a successor to OBOR (one World of Lesser Temperatures - OWOLT?)economic growth education, where the NSD college could educate nations about how to grow rapidly and “sustainably”13 Conclusions The great “losers” in history arethe people of the Song Empire who lost their high living standards when the first Chinese industrial revolution was snuffed out by the Mongols (who ruled China only for their benefit) in the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)the people of the Ming Empire who lost their high living standards when the Chinese industrial resurgence was ended by the Conservatives (who ruled China for the benefit of the rich) from 1422 and after the overthrow of the Yongle Emperor in 1424the people of the United Kingdom and the United States from 1980 when these countries both adopted the non-performing Washington Consensus Macroeconomics (WCM) and low growth and poverty spread to the home of the industrial revolution and the one-time American hope of the worldthe people of the Western and Westernised world who have lost higher development and living standards due to the frequently forced adoption (by Washington-based institutions) of the low-growth Washington Consensus/neoclassical macroeconomics14 The great “winners” in history are the people of these governments who adopted investment credit economics in some or all of its local and national formsIn the first industrial revolution of the pre-Mongol Northern Song Empire due to the understanding of the first no-cost investment creation economist Wang Anshi who was Prime Minister (from 1070–76) to the Emperor Shenzong (whose rule was from 1067–1085)In the industrial resurgence of the Great Ming Empire under the Yongle Emperor (ruled 1402–1424) who contracted and despatched the seven Treasure Fleets under Zheng He; during this dynasty the largest dockyards in the world were at Nanjing and the Emperor’s many construction and reclamation projects produced a widespread prosperityIn the three tobacco states of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina (1702-1776) when Tobacco Lord Promissory Notes of pounds of tobacco were an accepted currency causing an economic boomIn Scotland due to Tobacco Lord establishment of about 50 local banks from 1730 and their funding of Scottish industry 1735–1776 and subsequentlyIn England due to about 800 local private banks funding local SMEs from 1750–1880In Germany where the Sparkassen Banking System helped establish, grow, and develop local high-tech SMEs from about 1802 to the present dayIn the South Manchurian Railway Company where no-cost Japanese-fiat investment credit creation caused the first 20th century Asian economic miracle 1920–1945In the USA when the FED created vast amounts of credit to fund FDR’s industrial war-winning economic miracle 1938–1944In post war Japan (1945–1972) where investment credit creation led to the Japanese economy becoming the second largest industrial economy in the world by 1972 and where Japanese living standards, following the adoption of the Shimomura Income-Doubling Plan (1960–1970) by the Ikeda Government. doubled from 1960 to 1966 - See George Tait Edwards's answer to What should everyone know about Japanese history?In South Korea where President Park increased the economic growth rate to 14% pa for two decades from 1960 to 1980 by adopting Shimomuran MacroeconomicsIn Taiwan during the mid 1960s when the Taiwanese adopted Shimomuran macroeconomicsIn China from 1975 where the all-out adoption of Shimomuran Macroeconomics produced an economic growth rate of 10% a year from 1975 to 2015 lifting over a billion Chinese people out of poverty.The other Answers to this question are also interesting.

NOT SOLAR OR WIND. I submit the best is hydro and its subset of hydrokinetics. The disaster of solar and wind stems from their inherent intermittency and their negative impact of electricity costs.THEY ARE BAD FOR THE ECONOMY. Wind and solar fail to replace fossil fuels and when added to the grid increase brown outs threatening hospital safety. Also they increase the cost causing fatalities from heat poverty. You are right that global warming is not real so there is no reason to shackle the economy and threaten our well being with failing renewables.Wind and solar are an economic disaster failing to make any difference to energy consumption world wide. Many companies in this sector have gone bankrupt with subsidies. Now subsidies are being taken off the table leaving the industry to meet the test of market forces. Wide spread bankruptcy is the result.As Warren Buffett said wind farms don’t make sense without the tax creditIn the real world of business and commerce, the cost of renewables makes them unaffordable without intervention by the state. As Warren Buffet explained in 2014, “on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”World’s Most Expensive Joke: $2 Trillion Squandered on Wind & Solar (So Far)…August 4, 2018 by stopthesethings 2 CommentsThe point, if there was one, of throwing hundreds of $billions in subsidies at wind and solar was to slash emissions of carbon dioxide gas. Taxpayers and power consumers who are on the receiving end of the bill for all this environmental piety would, after almost 20 years, be entitled to ask just how much bang they’re getting for their buck?The short answer is: not much.STT leaves the battle over carbon dioxide gas to others.Our view is pretty simple: if a naturally occurring beneficial trace gas, essential for all life on earth, really is killing the planet, then there is only one available solution. And that’s nuclear power.In 2018, if a climate alarmist is still waging war on CO2 (although he’ll call it ‘carbon’) and not talking about nuclear power, you know you’re dealing with a deluded crank.One character who’s still pretty fired up about carbon dioxide gas is Michael Shellenberger. However, Shellenberger worked out in short order that wind and solar don’t provide any solution, to anything. Whether that’s providing meaningful power; or reducing CO2 emissions in the electricity generation sector.Remember, that the only real justification for intermittent and unreliable wind and solar is that this pair reduce CO2 emissions.So – given that there’s no proof of reductions in CO2 emissions due to the introduction of wind and solar and plenty of proof to the contrary – those cashing in on climate alarmism are little more than a well-drilled band of thieves operating under State license.Carbon Emissions Rose in 2017 Despite Record Solar & Wind — More Proof They Can’t Save The ClimateForbesMichael Shellenberger13 June 2018Carbon emissions are on the rise despite record-breaking deployment of renewables, according to new BP Energy data released today.“Despite the extraordinary growth in renewables in recent years,” said BP, “and the huge policy efforts to encourage a shift away from coal into cleaner, lower carbon fuels, there has been almost no improvement in the power sector fuel mix over the past 20 years.”The data is further evidence that dilute and unreliable sources of energy like solar and wind cannot replace coal and other fossil fuels and will not lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions.Coal grew one percent in 2017 — its first growth since 2013. For the last few years, energy analysts had speculated that we had reached “peak coal,” thanks to abundant cheap natural gas.Natural gas consumption grew three percent globally and a whopping 15 percent in China in 2017.The last few years have seen huge amounts of hype about India’s investment in solar, but according to BP, the global rise in coal consumption came mostly from India, and to a lesser extent, China.And, “despite all the talk of peak oil demand, increasing car efficiency, growth of electrical vehicles,” BP notes, oil consumption grew 50 percent faster in 2017 than its decade-long average.The growth of coal and natural gas was enough to wipe out any emissions reductions from wind and solar, which grew 17 percent and 35 percent, respectively.Wind and solar account for just just six percent of total electricity globally, despite decades of subsidies. The growth of fossil fuels was enough to wipe out any emissions reductions from wind and solar, which grew 17 percent and 35 percent, respectively.According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), public and private actors spent $1.1 trillion on solar and over $900 billion on wind between 2007 and 2016. According to BNEF, global investment in these clean 10 energies hovered at about $300 billion per year between 2010 and 2016.To put this roughly $2 trillion in investment in solar and wind during the past 10 years in perspective, it represents an amount of similar magnitude to the global investment in nuclear over the past 54 years, which totals about $1.8 trillion.A big part of the problem has been the decline of nuclear. “The share of non-fossil in 2017 is actually a little lower than it was 20 years ago,” noted BP, “as the growth of renewables hasn’t offset the declining share of nuclear.”My organization, Environmental Progress, was the first to alert the world about the impact that declining nuclear power as a share of global electricity was having on efforts to deal with climate change.Over the last two years, renewable energy advocates have insisted that solar and wind can make up the difference. The new BP Energy data is further proof that they cannot.ForbesUKTransition to wind and solar renewables makes electricity go up. :..people will die if this renewable energy idiocy continuesRenewable energy’s dreadful costs and awful electricityUnreliable capacity and excessively high costs make renewable energy nothing more than a ‘green’ idealogue’s dream. Subsidies are a great waste and are being abandoned around the world so market forces will be the death nell of this nonsense.12 DECEMBER 2018 - 13:55 ANDREW KENNYWind turbines are not the way to go, says Andrew Kenny, just ask Germany.Picture: THINKSTOCKSA is stumbling towards energy disaster. On top of Eskom’s failures comes the calamitous Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2018, a plan for ruinously expensive electricity. (The IRP 2018, drawn up by the department of energy, plans SA’s electricity supply.) The IRP is mad, based not on the real world but on a fantasy world of computer models.The IRP’s “least-cost option” is in fact the most expensive option possible, which has seen electricity costs soaring wherever it has been tried. This is a combination of wind, solar and imported gas. It was drawn up by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and supported by the IRP. It is a recipe for calamity.It seems strange that SA should forsake its own huge resources of reliable energy and depend on foreign sources. Worse is its reliance on unreliable solar and wind.South Australia actually did implement something like the CSIR’s “least-cost option”. It closed coal stations, built wind turbines and some solar plants, and supplemented them with natural gas, which Australia, unlike SA, has in abundance. The result was soaring electricity prices, reaching, at one point in July 2016, the astonishing figure of A$14,000/MWh (R140/kWh). Eskom’s average selling price is R0.89/kWh. The “least-cost solution” resulted momentarily in an electricity price more than 150 times Eskom’s. It would be worse here because we don’t have much gas.The renewable energy companies and the greens seem to have captured the department of energy (quite legally, quite differently from Gupta capture)It also caused two total blackouts for South Australia. In panic it ordered the world’s biggest battery from Elon Musk. Jaws dropped when people discovered how expensive it was and how inadequate (with 0.5% of the storage capacity of our Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme).The IRP and CSIR refuse to recognise the essential cost that makes renewables so expensive. Here is the key equation: cost of renewable electricity equals price paid by the system operator plus system costs.The system costs are the costs the grid operator, Eskom in our case, has to bear to accommodate the appalling fluctuations of wind and solar power so as to meet demand at all times. The renewable companies refuse to reveal their production figures but I have graphs of total renewable production since 2013, the beginning of renewable energy independent power producers (IPPS) procurement programme. The graphs are terrible, with violent, unpredictable ups and downs.In March 2018, power output varied from 3,000MW to 47MW. To stop this dreadful electricity shutting down the whole grid, Eskom must have back-up generators ramping up and down to match the renewables; it must have machines on “spinning reserve” (running below optimum power), and extra transmission lines. These cause system costs, which can be very expensive. The renewable companies don’t pay for them; Eskom does, and passes them on the South African public.NonsenseThe system costs, ignored by the IRP and CSIR, are one of the reasons their models are nonsense. They explain an apparent paradox. Week by week we hear that the prices of solar and wind electricity are coming down; but week by week we see electricity consumers around the world paying more as solar and wind are added to the grid. Denmark, with the world’s highest fraction of wind electricity, has just about the most expensive electricity in Europe. Germany, since it adopted the absurd Energiewende (phasing out nuclear and replacing it with wind and solar) has seen electricity costs soaring.The answer lies in the green desire for conquest. Nuclear power, as you can see driving past Koeberg, works in harmony with nature. The greens don’t like that. They want to conquer and dominate natureThe renewable energy IPP procurement programme, hailed by renewable companies as a huge success, has forced on SA its most expensive electricity ever — and its worst. Eskom’s last annual report, for the year ending 31 March 2018, revealed it was forced to pay 222c/kWh for the programme’s electricity compared with its selling price of 89c/kWh. But the system costs make it even more expensive.We get an idea how much more from the one renewable technology that does provide honest electricity and covers its own system costs. This is concentrated solar power (CSP) with storage, where sunshine heats up a working fluid, which is stored in tanks and used for making electricity for short periods when required. The latest such plants charge about 500c/kWh at peak times. So the best solar technology, with an award-winning project, in perhaps the world’s best solar sites, produces electricity at more than 10 times the cost of Koeberg and about five times the cost of new nuclear.Carbon dioxide realityAfter the procurement programme proved a failure, Lynne Brown, then public enterprises minister, ordered Eskom to sign up for a further 27 renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs), each lasting 20 years. Malusi Gigaba, then finance minister, endorsed her.Nuclear reduces carbon dioxide emissions; renewables don’t. The Energiewende has turned Germany into the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in Europe, because wind and solar, being so unreliable, had to be supplemented with fossil fuels, especially coal.Two reasons drive renewables: money and ideology. Renewable energy companies make a fortune when they persuade governments to force their utilities to buy their awful electricity.But why do the green ideologues love wind and solar? Not because of free energy, which is actually very expensive. Tides, waves, solar, wind and dissolved uranium in the sea can all provide free energy but, except for the uranium, it is always very costly to convert it into usable power. (Uranium from the sea would be naturally be replenished but it is cheaper to buy it from a commercial mine.)I think the answer lies in the green desire for conquest. Nuclear power, as you can see driving past Koeberg, works in harmony with nature. The greens don’t like that. They want to conquer and dominate nature. They love the idea of thousands of gigantic wind turbines and immense solar arrays dominating the landscape like new totems of command. Wind and solar rely entirely on coercion by the state, which the greens also love (in a free market nobody would buy wind or solar grid electricity).SA NEEDS TO DIVERSIFY ENERGY SOURCES TO DELIVERSA is not taking advantage of the clear lead the country has in solar and wind resources.OPINION 2 months agoThe renewable energy companies and the greens seem to have captured the department of energy (quite legally, quite differently from Gupta capture). If they get their way, the rest of us are going to suffer.Since 1994, Eskom has been wrecked by bad management, destructive ideology and corruption. Because it didn’t build stations timeously, the existing stations have been run into the ground and are failing. Its once excellent coal supply has been crippled. There is massive over-staffing and Eskom is plunging into debt. Seasonable rains threaten another fiasco to match January 2008, which shut down our gold mines.The last thing Eskom needs now is to be burdened by useless, very expensive renewable electricity. Recently, the parliamentary portfolio committee on energy, after listening to submissions on IRP 2018, recommended that coal and nuclear should remain in our energy mix. Perhaps a ray of hope for sanity.• Kenny is a professional engineer with degrees in physics, mathematics and mechanical engineering.Wind and solar are failing to make any difference in global energy consumption - after two decades of expensive subsidies. Germany is the poster child and the results are devastating for that country.Interview with Prof. Fritz VahrenholtNTZ: What danger does Germany face should it continue down its current path of climate alarmism and rush into renewable energies?FV: Twenty billion euros are being paid out by consumers for renewable energies in Germany each and every year. Currently that amounts to 250 euros per household each year and it will increase to 300 euros next year.Worse, it's a gigantic redistribution from the bottom to top, from the poor who cannot afford a solar system to rich property owners who own buildings with large roof areas. The German Minister of Environment fears a burden of 1000 billion euros by 2040.It is truly outrageous that 1) 40% of the world's photovoltaic capacity is installed in Germany, a country that sees as much sunshine as Alaska, 2) we are converting wheat into biofuel instead of feeding it to the hungry, and 3) we are covering 20% of our agricultural land with corn for biogas plants and thus adversely impacting wildlife. We are even destroying forests and nature in order to make way for industrial wind parks.On windy days we have so much power that wind parks are asked to shut down, yet they get paid for the power they don't even deliver. And when the wind really blows, we "sell" surplus power to neighboring countries at negative prices. And when the wind stops blowing and when there is no sun, we have to get our power from foreign countries. In the end we pay with the loss of high-paying industrial jobs because the high price of power is making us uncompetitive.The agitators in climate science here in Germany have done us no favors. Renewable energies do have a big future, but not like this. It's been a run-away train and it's too expensive. We are putting Germany's industry in jeopardy. In reality there really isn't any urgency because the solar cycles and nature are giving us time to make the transition over to renewable energies in a sensible way.German Professor: IPCC in a serious jam... "5AR likely to be last of its kind"P GosselinNo Tricks ZoneMon, 16 Sep 2013 16:59 UTC© Warum die Klimakatastrophe nicht stattfindetProf. Fritz VahrenholtAnd: "Extreme weather is the only card they have got left to play."So says German Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, who is one of the founders of Germany's modern environmental movement, and agreed to an interview with NoTricksZone. He is one of the co-authors of the German skeptic book "Die kalte Sonne", which took Germany by storm last year and is now available at bookstores worldwide in English under the title: The Neglected Sun.In Germany Prof. Vahrenholt has had to endure a lot heat from the media, activists, and climate scientists for having expressed a different view. But as global temperatures remain stagnant and CO2 climate sensitivity is being scaled back, he feels vindicated.German Professor: IPCC in a serious jam... "5AR likely to be last of its kind" -- Sott.netINTERMITTENCY IS THE STUMBLING BLOCK FOR RENEWABLESThe heart of the matter is the intermittency of wind and solar when the wind does not blow and sun does not shine at the most inopportune times. The hope was for new battery storage technology to cover the gap. This is not happening. Sadly, I have personal experience working as a director with two truly innovative new battery technology start ups. Both have struggled for 5 years and counting and no light at the end of the tunnel. See the reason -The Battery Cycle – Setting the Record StraightBy Anthony Milewski, Chairman, Cobalt 27March 7, 2019in Technology Metals Edition InsightHow long does it take from a scientific breakthrough to commercial battery production? From discovery of a new material to inclusion into a chemistry to wide spread commercial use can take between 10 and 20 years. The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research has come up with a matrix for thinking about the actual time it takes for this process:Scientific discovery of a new material(s) or process. There is no time frame for this.New class of material synthesized. Scientists may spend one to two years on this step.Prove performance of the half cell. Between two to five years.Proven performance of lab scale fuel cells. Between two to five years.Material scale-up, cell testing, and scaling up to pack. Between five to ten years.The implications of this matrix are profound for the batteries that power EVs and should be considered by investors.The Battery Cycle – Setting the Record Straight - Anthony Milewski, Cobalt 27Let’s look at the current picture, according to the Energy Information Administration.So-called renewables comprised just over 11% of U.S. energy consumption in 2017. Of the renewable sources, hydro, geothermal, and biomass aren’t going to grow enough to achieve any of the Green New Deal’s goals.Rep.-elect Ocasio-Cortez must be counting on wind and solar to power her plan. Together they supply just 3% of total energy consumed.If we confine the discussion to power generation, wind and solar comprise just 7.6% of the 4 trillion kilowatt-hour total. (Source: What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?)If Solar And Wind Are So Cheap, Why Are They Making Electricity So Expensive?Wind intermittency makes coal a necessary and expensive partnerMichael Shellenberger via ForbesOVER the last year, the media have published story after story after story about the declining price of solar panels and wind turbines.People who read these stories are understandably left with the impression that the more solar and wind energy we produce, the lower electricity prices will become.And yet that’s not what’s happening. In fact, it’s the opposite.Between 2009 and 2017, the price of solar panels per watt declined by 75 percentwhile the price of wind turbines per watt declined by 50 percent.And yet — during the same period — the price of electricity in places that deployed significant quantities of renewables increased dramatically.Electricity prices increased by:Electricity prices increased by:o51 percent in Germany during its expansion of solar and wind energy from 2006 to 2016;o24 percent in California during its solar energy build-out from 2011 to 2017;oover 100 percent in Denmark since 1995 when it began deploying renewables (mostly wind) in earnest.What gives? If solar panels and wind turbines became so much cheaper, why did the price of electricity rise instead of decline?Electricity prices increased by 51 percent in Germany during its expansion of solar and wind energy.One hypothesis might be that while electricity from solar and wind became cheaper, other energy sources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas became more expensive, eliminating any savings, and raising the overall price of electricity.But, again, that’s not what happened.The price of natural gas declined by 72 percent in the U.S. between 2009 and 2016 due to the fracking revolution. In Europe, natural gas prices dropped by a little less than half over the same period.The price of nuclear and coal in those place during the same period was mostly flat.Electricity prices increased 24 percent in California during its solar energy build-out from 2011 to 2017.Another hypothesis might be that the closure of nuclear plants resulted in higher energy prices.Evidence for this hypothesis comes from the fact that nuclear energy leaders Illinois, France, Sweden and South Korea enjoy some of the cheapest electricity in the world.The facts are the most expensive retail electricity comes from countries with the most renewables!Bill Gates Slams Unreliable Wind & Solar: ‘Let’s Quit Jerking Around With Renewables & Batteries’February 18, 2019 by stopthesethings 21 CommentsBill says it’s time to stop jerking around with wind & solar.When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, it’s probably time to listen.Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.For almost a century, electricity generation and distribution were treated as a tightly integrated system: it was designed and built as one, and is meant to operate as designed. However, the chaotic delivery of wind and solar have all but trashed the electricity generation and delivery system, as we know it. Germany and South Australia are only the most obvious examples.During an interview at Stanford University late last year, Bill Gates attacks the idiots who believe that we’re all just a heartbeat away from an all wind and sun powered future.Gates on renewables: How would Tokyo survive a 3 day typhoon with unreliable energy?Jo Nova BlogJo Nova14 February 2019Make no mistake, Bill Gates totally believes the climate change scare story but even he can see that renewables are not the answer, it’s not about the cost, it’s the reliability.He quotes Vaclav Smil:Here’s Toyko, 2p7 million people, you have three days of a cyclone every year. It’s 23GW of electricity for three days. Tell me what battery solution is going sit there and provide that power.As Gates says: Let’s not jerk around. You’re multiple orders of magnitude — … — That’s nothing, that doesn’t solve the reliability problem.Bill GatesDuring storms, clouds cut solar panel productivity (unless hail destroys it) and wind turbines have to shut down in high winds.The whole interview was part of a presentation at Stanford late last year:Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming, says Bill GatesThe interview by Arun Majumdar, co-director of Stanford Energy’s Precourt Institute for Energy, which organized the conference, can be watched here.When financial analysts proposed rating companies on their CO2 output to drive down emissions, Gates was appalled by the idea that the climate and energy problem would be easy to solve. He asked them: “Do you guys on Wall Street have something in your desks that makes steel? Where is fertilizer, cement, plastic going to come from? Do planes fly through the sky because of some number you put in a spreadsheet?”“The idea that we have the current tools and it’s just because these utility people are evil people and if we could just beat on them and put (solar panels) on our rooftop—that is more of a block than climate denial,” Gates said. “The ‘climate is easy to solve’ group is our biggest problem.”If he only looked at the numbers in the climate science debate…Jo Nova BlogGreen New Deal? Wind Power ‘Dropped Off’ The Grid During Polar VortexAs Congress debates the Green New Deal, which calls for a massive increase in renewable energy use, new reports show wind energy “dropped off” as frigid Arctic air descended on the eastern U.S. earlier this year.“An earlier than expected drop in wind, primarily caused by cold weather cutoffs, increased risk of insufficiency for morning peak,” according to a report from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), which oversees electricity delivery across 15 states.The wind power shortfall triggered a “maximum generation event” on the morning of Jan. 30 when temperatures plummeted, MISO reported Wednesday of its handling of the historic cold that settled over the eastern U.S. in late January.Unplanned power outages were higher than past polar vortex events, MISO reported, much of it because wind turbines automatically shut off in the cold. Coal and natural gas plants ramped up production to meet the shortfall and keep the lights on.“This what happens when the government starts mandating and subsidizing inferior energy sources,” Dan Kish, a distinguished senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.Kish, a Green New Deal opponent, said the proposal would “double down with more ‘Rainbow Stew’ sources” that “don’t work when you need them the most.”Kish isn’t alone in his concern. Energy experts for years have been exploring the feasibility of integrating more solar and wind power onto the grid. The Green New Deal brought that debate to the forefront.While the Green New Deal doesn’t explicitly ban any fuel sources, it does call for achieving “net-zero” emissions within 10 years by “dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources.”The bill’s main champion, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said the Green New Deal was about “transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy,” at a press conference introducing the resolution in early February.Green New Deal supporters say wind and solar are necessary to fight global warming, but critics say increasingly relying on intermittent renewables poses a threat to grid reliability.The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a report Tuesday that detailed how “[w]ind generation dropped off … mainly caused by wind plants reaching their cold weather cutoff thresholds.”Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on MISO dataWind turbines are shut off when temperatures dip below minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, as happened in the upper Midwest and Great Plains — an area often dubbed the “Saudi Arabia” of wind energy. On top of that, when it gets, say, minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit, there’s not much wind.EIA said that “wind accounted for an average of 5%, ranging from 5% to 15% on surrounding days” on Jan. 30, while “coal supplied about 41% of MISO’s load and natural gas supplied about 30%.”The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment, but the group did publish a blog post in February on the polar vortex.AWEA’s research director Michael Coggin said wind energy’s performance was “strong” during this year’s polar vortex. Coggin said high voltage power lines allowed wind power from the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic to send power westward.Read more at Daily CallerJanuary 21, 2019Why 'Green' Energy Is Futile, In One LessonAre electric vehicles really environmentally friendly?Electric cars are often presented as “non-polluting” or “zero emission” vehicles. But they are not necessarily less polluting than conventional vehicles!To assess their ecological performance, it is important to take into account several elements...The energy used: green or not?Even if driving a fully electric vehicle does not cause any air pollution, the way the electricity it uses is generated should not be forgotten.An average of 60 % of the electricity produced in the world comes from coal and gas, i.e. fossil fuels. This means that an electric car produces nearly as much CO2per kilometer as a petrol or diesel vehicle.Are electric cars worse for the environment?Crunch the numbers, and it looks like all those subsidies might be counterproductive.By JONATHAN LESSER 05/15/2018 05:06 AM EDThttps://www.politico.com/agenda/...If you believe the headlines, traditional automobiles are speeding toward a dead end. All those V8s, V6s and turbocharged vehicles we’ve grown to love will soon be replaced by squadrons of clean, whisper-quiet, all-electric vehicles. And if you believe the headlines, the environment will be much better off.Policymakers at every level have done their part to push electric vehicles by creating a tankful of subsidies. Thanks to laws signed by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, electric-vehicle buyers can feast on federal tax credits of up to $7,500 that reduce the initial purchase cost of their vehicles. Not to be outdone, many states also dangle their own mix of goodies for electric vehicle buyers, including purchase rebates as large as $5,000, additional rebates for vehicle chargers, and free use of public charging stations—which, of course, are only “free” because they’re subsidized by ratepayers and taxpayers. Some states even give electric vehicles preferential access to carpool lanes.Then there are the electric vehicle mandates. In January, California Gov. Jerry Brown decreed that 5 million electric vehicles must be on his state’s roads by 2025, along with 250,000 charging stations. Eight other states are following California’s lead. One California lawmaker has even introduced legislation to ban all internal combustion vehicles by 2040.All of this might make sense if electric vehicles, as their supporters claim, were truly likely to reduce air pollution and tackle climate change. But are they?To answer that question, I used the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s most recent long-term forecasts for the number of new electric vehicles through 2050, estimated how much electricity they’d use, and then figured out how much pollution that electricity would generate, looking at three key pollutants regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act—sulfur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOX), and particulates—as well as CO2 emissions. I compared them to the emissions of new gasoline-powered vehicles, using the EIA’s “real world” miles-per-gallon forecast, rather than the higher CAFE standard values.What I found is that widespread adoption of electric vehicles nationwide will likely increase air pollution compared with new internal combustion vehicles. You read that right: more electric cars and trucks will mean more pollution.That might sound counterintuitive: After all, won’t replacing a 30-year old, smoke-belching Oldsmobile with a new electric vehicle reduce air pollution? Yes, of course. But that’s also where many electric vehicle proponents’ arguments run off the road: they fail to consider just how clean and efficient new internal combustion vehicles are. The appropriate comparison for evaluating the benefits of all those electric vehicle subsidies and mandates isn’t the difference between an electric vehicle and an old gas-guzzler; it’s the difference between an electric car and a newgas car. And new internal combustion engines are really clean. Today’s vehicles emit only about 1% of the pollution than they did in the 1960s, and new innovations continue to improve those engines’ efficiency and cleanliness.And as for that electric car: The energy doesn’t come from nowhere. Cars are charged from the nation’s electrical grid, which means that they’re only as “clean” as America’s mix of power sources. Those are getting cleaner, but we still generate power mainly by burning fossil fuels: natural gas is our biggest source of electricity, and is projected to increase. And coal, while still declining, will remain the second largest source of electricity for some time. (Third is nuclear power, which doesn’t generate emissions but has other byproducts that worry some environmentalists.) Even with large increases in wind and solar generation, the EIA projects that the nation’s electric generating mix will be just 30% renewable by 2030. Based on that forecast, if the EIA’s projected number of electric vehicles were replaced with new internal combustion vehicles, air pollution would actually decrease—and this holds true even if you include the emissions from oil refineries that manufacture gasoline.As for states like California with stringent mandates to use more renewable energy for their power grid, they also have the highest electric rates in the continental US, 50% higher than the US average. And electric rates in those states just keep increasing. So it’s a cleaner power mix, but makes recharging your car more expensive. The higher the electric rate, the lower the incentive for a new car buyer to purchase an electric vehicle.As for greenhouse-gas emissions, my analysis shows that electric vehicles will reduce them compared to new internal combustion vehicles. But based on the EIA’s projection of the number of new electric vehicles, the net reduction in CO2 emissions between 2018 and 2050 would be only about one-half of one percent of total forecast U.S. energy-related carbon emissions. Such a small change will have no impact whatsoever on climate, and thus have no economic benefit.So, if electric-vehicle subsidies don’t help the environment, what—or who—do they help? Most electric-vehicle buyers are far wealthier than average Americans. A nationwide survey in 2017 found that 56% had household incomes of at least $100,000 and 17% had household incomes of at least $200,000. (In 2016, median household income for the US as a whole was less than $58,000.) So it’s fair to say the subsidies disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, who cannot afford to buy even subsidized electric vehicles or live in their own homes to take advantage of residential chargers or solar panels.Not only that, the wires and charging stations needed to charge all those electric vehicles will be paid for by all ratepayers, further raising electric rates. And as more wealthy customers install solar panels to charge their electric vehicles, the costs to provide them back-up power will fall on those who cannot afford to do so.In effect, the wealthy owners of electric vehicles will enjoy the benefits of their clean, silent cars, while passing on many of the costs of keeping their vehicles on the road to everyone else, especially the poor.To be sure, electric cars are impressive. Some are quicker off the line than a Formula 1 race car. But there is no economic or environmental justification for the many billions of dollars in subsidies that America is already paying to speed their adoption.So what to do? First, Congress should immediately terminate those electric-vehicle tax credits, which just benefit the wealthy. Congress should also eliminate zero-emissions credits, which electric-vehicle manufacturers have used to boost their bottom line – $860 million for Tesla alone in the last three years. And third, states should eliminate their various subsidies for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, which are also paid for disproportionately by the poor and are contributing to rising electric rates.Electric vehicle subsidies and mandates share an unfortunate, and all too common trait with other government policies: They’re based on “conventional wisdom” that turns out to be wrong. Wealthy consumers who have purchased Teslas and Chevy Bolts primarily to signal their green bona fides for their friends and neighbors, and who have socialized many of the costs of their purchases to those who are less well-off, might wish to take a closer look at the numbers. Their hands may not be quite so clean as they believe.Jonathan Lesser is the President of Continental Economics, an economic and regulatory consulting firm. His new report, “Short Circuit: The High Cost of Electric Vehicle Subsidies” was published by the Manhattan Institute on May 15.Solar and wind taking over the world We hear it all the time Only it is wrong Now: 0.8% 2040: 3.6%Wind Power: Unfolding Environmental Disaster – Entire Ecosystems CollapsingNovember 9, 2017 by stopthesethings 8 CommentsAs STT followers are well-aware, this site doesn’t mince its words: wind power is the greatest economic and environmental fraud in human history.Pull the subsidies, and this so-called ‘industry’ would disappear in a heartbeat.For the best part of 20 years, the wind cult has attempted to justify the hundreds of $billions squandered on subsidies for wind power, as being all for the greater good.Armchair environmentalists – who have never planted trees to prevent erosion on creek lines or dragged junk and gunk out of polluted waterways – claim ‘mission accomplished’, every time a new wind turbine whirls into (occasional) action.Obsequious charlatans (like Simon Holmes a Court) even encourage naïve and gullible virtue signallers into ‘investing’ in so-called community wind farms (see our post here). They never get their money back, but at least they can tell their mates at Getup! that they’ve done their bit for the environment.And yet, when the trifling amount of electricity generated by these things across the planet is compared with the grief caused to communities, neighbours and the environment itself, it’s hard for anyone gifted with our good friends, logic and reason, to make a case for wind power. Here’s why.Scientists: Expansion Of Wind Turbines ‘Likely To Lead To Extinction’ For Endangered Vulture SpeciesNo Tricks ZoneKenneth Richard5 October 2017When pondering the future of wind power and its ecological impacts, it is well worth re-considering this seminal analysis from Dr. Matt Ridley.[W]orld energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, […] it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area half the size of the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year.If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area half the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfill the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs.The profound costs to wildlife of future-planning to expand wind energy to the levels demanded by “green” advocates — just to meet the world population’s additional energy demands with 350,000 more turbines each year — has been increasingly documented by scientists.The last remaining vulture species native to southeastern Europe is “likely” faced with extinction in the next few decades due to an “eight to ten times greater” mortality rate associated with the rapid expansion of wind energy projects in the region (Vasilakis et al., 2017).Bat species can be found dwelling in a wide variety of terrestrial habitats, including deserts and along sea coasts. Each species may play a fundamental role in its local ecosystem. For example, Kuntz et al., (2011) indicate that 528 different plant species rely on bat pollination and seed dispersal for sustainability. Boyles et al., (2011) estimated that by controlling pest populations (insects), the agricultural benefits of bats may reach $22.9 billion (U.S.D.) annually in the continental U.S. alone.In addition to White Nose Syndrome, deaths connected to collisions with wind turbines are now the leading cause of multiple mortality events in bats (O’Shea et al., 2016). Roughly 25% of North American bats are now classified at risk for extinction (Hammerson et al, 2017), in large part due to the explosion of wind turbines across the landscape. If the expansion of wind turbines continues at its current pace, the hoary bat population is projected to be reduced by 90% (Frick et al., 2017) within the next 50 years. As Hein and Schirmacher (2016) conclude, the “current and presumed future level of fatality [for bat populations] is considered to be unsustainable.”Even large mammals like the already endangered Portuguese wolf (“between 200 and 400 individuals” left) has had its reproduction rates reduced by the recent addition of nearly 1,000 new turbines in their shrinking habitat range (Ferrão da Costa et al., 2017 ).So what, exactly, are we gaining in exchange for increasingly endangering critically important wildlife species? Slightly above nothing.According to the IEA, wind energy provided for 0.39% of the world’s total energy demands as of 2013.At what point may we ask: Are the benefits of wind energy worth the ecological and wildlife costs?Wind Power: Unfolding Environmental Disaster – Entire Ecosystems CollapsingAussie Heatwave ElectricityAussie Heatwave Electricity Shortfall, Hospital Emergency Measures, Coal BlamedEric Worrall / 3 hours ago January 19, 2018Guest essay by Eric Worrallh/t JoNova – South Australia and the Australian State of Victoria learned the hard way that when power demand surges, you can’t turn up the solar panels.Melbourne hospitals switch off lights as mercury risesGrant McArthur and Aleks Devic, Herald SunJanuary 19, 2018 7:36pmPATIENTS were left in the dark after one of Melbourne’s biggest hospitals switched off its lights and non-essential equipment as temperatures soared on Friday.The Alfred turned off the lights on wards, in corridors and cafeterias about midday in a bid to conserve power.The dramatic move followed a Department of Health memo to hospital chiefs on Thursday night asking them to ensure back-up power supplies were effective, prompted by the increased risk of disruption in the heatwave.“Hospitals within Alfred Health have taken the initiative to act as good corporate citizens and reduce the use of electricity that is not directly needed for patient care. This is consistent with the advice provided by Australian Energy Market Operator,” she said.“Hospitals within Alfred Health have strong backup and emergency power supply capacity and in the event of a power outage expect clinical services to continue without interruption.”Department of Health spokesman Tim Vainoras said no directive was issued for hospitals to switch off equipment or conserve energy, however hospitals were advised to prepare for the impact of extreme heat including preparations for possible energy disruptions.A memo reiterating the state’s extreme weather protocols was sent to hospitals at 8pm on Thursday.“With increased temperatures across the state, demands on Victoria’s electricity supplies are likely to increase. This may lead to electricity disruptions in some parts of Victoria,” the DHS memo states.“It will be important to ensure your backup power is effective for the maintenance of critical services and that you have access to fuel supplies to support extended periods of power outages.”…Read more: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news...JoNova provided a link to a site which at the time of her post showed Queensland feeding NSW, which was passing the power to Victoria – though this changes hour to hour (see the live feed here).Australian Electricity Power Flow between States. Source AEMOIntermittent renewables are sometimes contributing, for example at one point when I looked at the feed it showed net power coming from South Australia, as opposed to South Australia sucking power in JoNova’s screenshot. But as the Victorian hospital shutdown demonstrates, the renewable contribution simply isn’t reliable. Businesses and emergency facilities throughout the affected states were required to switch off lights and “unessential” systems, so the politicians who created this mess could avoid vote losing mass blackouts.Greens were quick to blame coal for this terrifying brush with mass blackouts during the middle of a heatwave.Loy Yang B failure sends prices soaring, triggers supply safeguardsJANUARY 19 2018 – 2:18PMCole LatimerThe Australian Energy Market Operator has kicked off emergency measures to protect power supply after Victoria’s Loy Yang B brown coal-fired power station failed on Thursday afternoon, sending electricity spot prices soaring.As temperatures rose around southern Australia Loy Yang B’s generators failed at around 4pm, instantly taking around 528 megawatts of energy out of the state’s grid.The outage ahead of a major heatwave on Friday came despite assurances by its owner Alinta Energy that the ageing power station had the capability to continue providing power in the heat.“There are no issues expected ahead with the forecast hot weather,” Alinta Energy chief executive Jeff Dimery told Fairfax Media on Monday.…Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/t...This greensplaining ignores the central issue – the shortage of reliable, dispatchable power capacity. Despite billions of dollars worth of investment in Aussie renewables, a shortfall of a few hundred megawatts was enough to trigger a multi-state emergency.The system as it stands is not fit for purpose.One new coal plant, or a decent size zero CO2 emission nuclear plant, maybe even one new generator at an existing plant, is all that would have been required to avert this dangerous shortfall, all it would have taken to provide a sufficient supply buffer so the failure of one decrepit old coal plant couldn’t bring the whole system to its knees.But nobody wants to invest in new dispatchable capacity in Australia.Renewable mandates supported by Australian Federal and State Governments have made dispatchable energy unprofitable. Worse, power companies have no grounds for hope that any investment in dispatchables will become economically viable in the foreseeable future. The deeper green Federal opposition party wants more aggressive renewable targets, 50% renewables across the board in Australia in the next decade.The takeaway lesson for Australian politicians and people throughout the world should be that you can’t run hospitals and businesses on unreliable electricity. Next time turning off the cafeteria lights might not be enough; people will die if this renewable energy idiocy continues. Lets hope enough politicians learn this lesson quickly enough to avert a major disaster.https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018...