Global energy reserves are hitting all-time lows and prices are soaring.
Failed renewables, poor foresight, and a historically long and cold NH (north hemisphere CiC) winter of 2020-21 are now pricing ordinary folk out of the market — as one UK charity recently put it, the poorest will soon have to choose between eating and heating.
Energy prices impact EVERYTHING, including the availability of food.
CHINA COAL INVENTORY NEARS RECORD LOW, NATION SUFFERS WORST OUTAGES IN A DECADE
In past years, when the calendar flipped to September, China set to replenishing their coal inventories ahead of the looming cold winter months. This year, however, coal is so scarce that the nation is struggling –and in many cases is failing– to merely keep the lights on.
As of September 21, the total stockpile of thermal coal –used to generate electricity– held by the nation’s six major power-generation groups stood at just 11.31 million tonnes — a shockingly-low reserve.
To put it in perspective, 11.31 million tonnes is capable of meeting China’s energy demand for just 15 days.
State media reports that of China’s 31 provincial jurisdictions, 20 have been forced to implement electricity-rationing measures since mid-September, making it one of the most extreme examples of energy rationing in the nation’s history, especially considering the impact it is having on regular households, and given that we’re only in September, when demand is low.
Power cuts in China are usually restricted to industrial users, but their frequency has risen since the second half of last year and have now been extended to households. The country’s 1.4 billion inhabitants are on for a tough winter of 2021-22.
LNG PRICES HIT NEW HIGHS
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices are set to spike further this winter and will likely surpass previous records set last winter as inventory levels remain historically low.
Asian spot LNG prices hit $29 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) this week, and are expected to remain well above $25 per mmBtu all winter, said Jeff Moore, manager of Platts’ Asian LNG Analytics division.
A cold 2020-21 winter pushed spot prices to a record high $32.50 per mmBtu in mid-January as gas inventory was drawn down to meet the demand surge, explained Moore.
Following that, a pick up in economic activities from the easing of coronavirus-induced restrictions in many countries sent demand spiking further, causing gas storage levels to fall to multi-year lows towards the end of summer, said Sid Bambawale, LNG trading manager at Vitol.
“This week, we start the winter season. It’s going to come down to one thing and that’s the weather,” he said, adding that a cold winter will send prices surging further, which in turn would threaten blackouts for potentially hundreds of millions of people.
Cold temperatures, as you would expect, increase demand for gas for heating and limited storage capacity means companies are not able to stockpile volumes ahead of time.
Record high Dutch TTF gas ( Title Transfer Facility, more commonly known as TTF, is a virtual trading point for natural gas in the Netherlands CiC) prices are also having a direct impact on Asian prices and are sending a ripple effect throughout the entire industry, said Denis Bonhomme, vice president of LNG at Total Energies China.
Dutch TTF gas sky-rocketed 10 percent on Monday alone, to 78 EUR/MWh. This was due to, among other things, to new weather models which foresee a colder than expected winter.
“That causes nervousness,” said Matthuas Detremmerie, trader for energy supplier Elindus.
In Britain, for example, gas prices have more than trebled over the past year — a brutal winter will only compound the misery.
“It’s a tense outlook this winter,” concluded Bambawale.
Prepare…
BRENT CRUDE SOARS
Rising oil price –oil has been on the march for five days in a row now– is also playing a key role in all this.
Brent oil shot above $80 a barrel, the latest milestone in a global energy crisis, on signs that demand is running ahead of supply and depleting inventories–so says the opening lines of a recent worldoil.com article.
Oil’s latest climb comes in line with forecasts for surging demand this winter, and speculation that the industry isn’t investing enough to maintain supplies. The jump to $80 is also adding inflationary pressure to the global economy. European natural gas, carbon permits and power rose to fresh records this week, with no signs of the rally slowing.
Oil prices could hit $90 this year as stock drawdowns deepen, says Goldman Sachs.
Much of the outlook for the rest of the year will hinge on just how cold the northern-hemisphere winter gets, continues the worldoil.com article. And, as touched on above, winter is set to be a doozy as historically low solar activity continues to impact global temperatures — these coming cold months could-well go down as the first of the modern Grand Solar Minimum winters.
Energy shortages and a looming colder-than-average winter — welcome to the controlled demolition of the empire.
AND FINALLY…
Below are pertinent points sent to me by John Shanahan, Civil Engineer, and Editor of allaboutenergy.net:
1) Reliable, affordable, plentiful energy is the only real currency. All paper currencies, even gold, are only worth the trust people put in their governments or how they value gold. With energy from fossil fuels and nuclear power you can do work for retail businesses, manufacturing, heavy industry, transportation, mining, space heating and cooling, food production, communications, information processing, knowledge preservation, education, tourism, entertainment, cell phones, the Internet, and vacations.
2) Since the 1960s, individuals and organizations have worked continuously to stop the progress made possible by fossil fuels, nuclear power, and their myriad of by-products. These people want the world to return to the level before fossil fuels, before 1800 AD. This is criminal, in my opinion, worse than almost all crimes ever committed. It would force the reduction in world population from about 7.9 billion (2021) to less than 1 billion (1800 AD). That will be a slaughter of 6.9 billion people, more than killed by all the wars, plagues, famines, etc. throughout history.
3) Alarmists, many media, and many politicians in North America and Europe are participating in this crime. This was unimaginable to me in the 1950s.
4) If these alarmists succeed in forcing everyone to stop using fossil fuels and nuclear power and impose wind and solar on North America and Europe, both continents will become economic, political, and learning backwaters. They will fall victim to others who are stronger, just like in nature from the smallest to the largest creatures. Nature recycles everything that isn’t alive, strong, healthy and able to control its environment.
One example of terrible things being done to dismantle the modern world is the completely unscientific false alarms that the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 280 ppm (parts per million) in the atmosphere in 1800 AD to 430 ppm today is causing life in the oceans to die. Most of Earth’s history has had atmospheric CO2 at levels far higher than today.
Regarding the Washington Post article from September 14, 2021, “Nuclear fusion goal one step closer with creation of 2 innovative magnets.” Fusion nuclear power on Earth requires numerous small copies of the process in the sun to be working continuously around the world. I don’t expect that any time soon, if ever on a large scale. The first paragraph claims that fusion is an energy source key to the fight against climate change. That kind of writing wouldn’t appear in the lowest level comic book, much less should it be written in the Washington Post.
1) If fusion energy won’t be available worldwide for a long time, if ever, how is fusion nuclear power going to help in the ‘fight against man-made climate change’ supposedly from use of fossil fuels in the next 10, 20, 50 years that our government is forcing us and the world to believe? See U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Forbes Kerry (JFK – 2).
2) The reality is that global and regional climate change are completely natural processes that can not be controlled by humans. Climate of urban areas and flood areas affected by dam controlled rivers can be changed by humans.
3) The Washington Post’s statement that fusion nuclear energy is key to the ‘fight against climate change’ is terrible journalism for a key American newspaper.
John Shanahan’s statements above are backed up by 2,300 articles, reports, PowerPoint Presentation, eBooks, and videos on the website: allaboutenergy.net.
The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING, in line with the great conjunction, historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow (among other forcings).
Both NOAA and NASA appear to agree, if you read between the lines, with NOAA saying we’re entering a ‘full-blown’ Grand Solar Minimum in the late-2020s, and NASA seeing this upcoming solar cycle (25) as “the weakest of the past 200 years”, with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.
Furthermore, we can’t ignore the slew of new scientific papers stating the immense impact The Beaufort Gyre could have on the Gulf Stream, and therefore the climate overall.
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