Norway Hypocrites

Sick of listening to Norway telling everyone about their wonderful fleet of electric vehicles? I know I am. Norway would have you believe they're saving the planet.

Except, they're not. Norway are the biggest hypocrites you'll ever find. They've just announced huge new oil and gas investment. 

But don't forget, New Zealand did its part. Yes, that plucky little country in the South Pacific banned oil and gas exploration. James Shaw of the NZ Greens is very proud of that achievement no doubt. I wonder what he thinks about Norway erasing all those gains and then some? Hmm...

https://www.offshore-technology.com/news/norway-approves-18bn-oil-and-gas-expansion/

New Zealand's Oil and Gas Exploration Ban - Silly

This post is to explain and bring to New Zealand's attention just how utterly fruit loop and dingbattery Jacinda Ardern's ban on oil and gas exploration is, and how the climate change commission must be the stupidest group of people ever assembled. Not unintelligent people, but very stupid people. 

Below you'll find a YouTube video. At first you'll think this has nothing to do with New Zild and on the surface you'd be right. But it is there to illustrate how the world doesn't stand still, it is developing all the time and NZ is being left behind. This video shows the progress in construction of Uganda's second international airport. It's being built in the western part of the country, near Lake Albert by a UK and Israeli joint venture. Oh really? Isn't that interesting. 

But first, some facts, Ken likes facts: Uganda has a population of 44 million and is about the size of NZ. It has varied geographic shape, from mountains in the west to lower areas in the east (its highest peak is much higher than Mt Cook, complete with glaciers). Drier areas to the north, warm wet climate to the south. You'll have heard of Lake Victoria, which drains across the country to Lake Albert and then out north to the white Nile. Lots of water, rainfall about 1,000-1,500mm a year in two wet periods, so it rains for 6 months of the year, and has rich soils, humidity 77% and average temperature throughout the year of 20 degrees Celsius. Ideal growing conditions. 

Yes, Hydro is being installed, nice and renewable with the fall from the mountains being exploited so the flow of rivers is used by being diverted in the upper reaches through steel pipes to the turbines, downstream the rivers just flow as normal. Really, cool, the UN is paying for it. No kidding, UN power programmes, nice eh, that UN, they're so climate friendly in supplying all that electricity. 

Now, consider this; the Americans are now developing oil and gas fields in western Uganda, near Lake Albert. The oilfields contain billions of barrels. Billions, not millions. That's why the airport, they need a large airport to bring in all the oil field equipment and spare parts, but on the export side, the country is better served to export time critical fresh fruit and vegetables to the UK. It already does the latter via Entebbe, but now that capacity will be doubled. 

With that oil and gas, they're building a refinery too, both supplying the local car market which is mostly Japanese secondhand imports, but VW has started building cars in neighbouring Rwanda. Then being built is an oil pipeline to east Africa, specifically to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania. 

Of course all this construction needs cement, so Chinese companies have built a cement plant producing 3 million tonnes a year, three times NZ's annual consumption for those who want to know, and that's just the one plant. Next door to the cement plant they've built an industrial park making everything you can imagine that this kind of industrial development needs, right down to flooring tiles. 

So, Uganda a country the size of NZ just blew away NZ's efforts to minimise carbon emissions. That's the message. And good for them. I hope they get a decent cricket team and thrash us one day (no, seriously, I really do). Personally, I'm amazed oil companies even bother with NZ. Why wouldn't these companies go where they'll be welcomed? So when you're told you can't have any LPG bottles, even when you've got a natural disaster and the power is off for months and you're starving, thank Saint Jacinda for saving you from climate calamity. Anyway, the video as mentioned, patience with their version of English folks, thank you. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho17fBoBNDw

Big Oil and Electric Vehicles

I thought of this lovely conspiracy theory, have fun with it. I haven't seen this anywhere else, so I apologise in advance if this isn't an original idea.

As I've outlined numerous times, electric vehicles (EV's) are total nonsense, a complete waste of time, don't even think about them. That's the well considered experienced view of the matter, all very scientific.

But hang on, what if the fact EV's are utter crap has something to do with why they're being pushed so hard. What if the big oil companies and the myriad of companies heavily reliant on the liquid fuels infrastructure are pushing EV's as they know they're rubbish. They're doing this to discredit alternative fuels or forms of energy. The result would be to force people back to the internal combustion engine and this would be for the foreseeable future. In other words, EV's are a stalking horse, concealing big oil's desire to lock in fossil fuels. Hmm?

Note that Norway, the world's biggest hypocrite which has made a fortune from oil and gas is heavily promoting EV's. Sweden is not far behind this, they're massive hypocrite's too but they'd be promoting their carbon capture technology. There'd be a lot of interconnecting and overlapping agendas with this theory, but they all have one goal; to lock in people to a future that relies entirely on old industries that have morphed into new, sexy, born again new technology companies. Old technology companies that are really old tech re-branded or re-skinned.

To support this theory, consider ideas that never get looked at seriously. We have the idea of the water powered car, which are generally discredited. One in New Zealand was designed and built, the story of which you can read about here: https://waterpoweredcar.com/archieblue.html

The argument against this is that it involves more energy (or the same amount) to separate the hydrogen and so there is no gain. Fine, but what about a nuclear car? The nuclear reactor generating heat, then a steam engine is used for motive power. The amount of uranium needed to drive a car its entire useful life would be extremely small. Even microscopic. It would not be enough to create an explosion, it would be more like a clock with reflective hour and seconds hands and numbers.

Such a car completely circumvents the liquid fuels infrastructure. No gas stations, and very few oil refineries would be needed as only certain lubricants would be required for wheel bearings and the like. These ideas would be ditched because of that very fact. In this new green age of Corporate Green only the right technology is accepted and that has to be based upon centralised models that rely on the existing companies (or sources of capital ) to provide the solutions. Independence is not allowed, with this idea that's exactly why EV's are promoted, they're to fail as they must, sending people into the arms of Big Oil.

Oil and Gas Exploration Ban

Well New Zealand has gone and shot itself in the foot. The current government has passed into law, a future ban on oil and gas exploration.

Name the parties that did this harm to the Taranaki region and New Zealand as a whole; Labour, NZ First, and Green.

Energy security is very important, NZ is now badly exposed. NZ is not well governed, we had National fiddling the books and moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic, now we have a party called Labour, hating the workers and doing whatever they can to put highly skilled workers out of jobs. NZ First talks regional development but hurts the regions. And finally the Greens, a bunch of former communists pretending to be environmental.

Is there a solution? Avoid voting for either Green or NZ First, they're both minor parties with far too much say. Drive these parties below the 5% threshold and get them out of parliament. Beyond that I don't have an immediate solution as there are no viable alternatives to National and Labour, but they're both utterly incompetent.

Labour's Oil and Gas Decision Very Naive

We are now seeing New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern's major weakness. She's good at media stuff, smiling and looking pleasant but when it gets hard and the issues are deep, she can't handle it. All she thinks about is whether the decision will be popular or not. How do I know this is how she thinks? She's got a team on Twitter constantly saying exactly that. Banning oil and gas exploration will be seen as widely popular they say. There is no evidence for this thinking mind you, but that's obviously how she thinks.

Thing is, we're talking real-world stuff here. This is playing for keeps, decisions have consequences. And with some decisions it doesn't matter whether they're popular or not, they just have to be taken.

A hard decision would be to embrace the oil and gas exploration industry and I'll tell you why: it has to do with sovereign risk. Since the Second World War, NZ has begged oil companies and their investors to come to NZ. Note I say begged. The world is a big place and these investors could go anywhere, but a few listened and they turned up. They'll now be regretting they did.

When that money departs, it will never return. Investors have memories and they won't forgive easily. In future they'll say thanks but no thanks. That is if they even answer the call. And don't think this rebuff will be limited to just oil and gas. There will be spillover into other sectors as well.

When the next financial crisis hits, NZ will be left swinging in the breeze. It is that serious, I find it hard to believe Labour would be that naive. Even if Labour reverse their decision, harm has already been done. The question also needs to be asked, why did Winston Peters and NZ First form a coalition with such fools? Was it so personal with National that Peters was prepared to sacrifice the whole economy? It seems so.

New Zealand Bans Offshore Oil Exploration

Here we go, Labour has fallen into the clutches of the communist party of New Zealand, err, I mean the Greens.

The Gummint (note my use of Labour vernacular when talking about the government) has announced the stopping of offshore oil exploration

This is a sop to the Greens. Where were the unions in this decision, aren't Labour all about the workers? Don't they realise that the oil and gas business is a producer offering high rates of pay? Hmm? C'mon Labour don't be so quick to buckle.

But it's only offshore right? That still means inshore oil, coal to oil, etc., doesn't it? Because there's plenty of that for now, so get on with it. And does this decision save the environment? No way, what it does is worsen things; those jobs which could be in NZ are sent to low wage economies and with a worse environmental record. So the planet actually dies faster. Morons.

Be brave Labour and stand up to the Greens, they're a bunch of naysayers who never do anything, few vote for them, if they insist on having their way then go to the polls and crush them. Do a deal with NZ First, a safe seat here or there - you get the idea, and crush the communist Greens.