Notes From All Over, Part 2 -- February 1, 2021

EOG: interesting story. A bit old. I missed it when it was first reported a few weeks ago. Oil drillers are taking their money and expertise off-shore and overseas now that the new CEO/CIC has banned new leasing on federal lands/waters in the US. EOG moving focus to Oman. Appears to be a pretty big story based on the coverage of this story. Apparently the new administration prefers to put Omanis to work and let our union workers draw unemployment and play the GME and silver markets. 

The road to France: for the archives. Something for Sophia to read in 2035. The numbers simply don't add up. There is not enough land or water to add all the renewable energy that would required to replace this many nuclear plants. From Tatiana Serova, one of my favorite columnists:

On Wednesday January 27th, the International Energy Agency released a long-awaited report called “Conditions and requirements for the technical feasibility of a power system with a high share of renewables in France towards 2050”. Yet, that document was given a cold welcome by the French nuclear industry, as behind this somewhat complex title hides a key message : a scenario of 100% renewable energy is “technically possible” in 2060 in France. This implies that the country would potentially no longer need nuclear energy to meet its domestic demand.

The nuclear sector accounts for around 70% of today’s French electricity mix, and over 40% of final energy demand. Back in the 1970’s, France decided to take the nuclear path, aspiring to move away from oil and achieving energy independence. Since then, not only did the country guarantee its own security of electricity supply, but it could also export it towards neighboring EU countries. Killing two birds with one stone, France boasted some of the cheapest electricity in Europe and was proud to have an almost fossil fuels free electricity generation system.

In 2020, the priority has shifted from nuclear power towards complying with the Paris-agreement goal of being net-zero carbon by 2050. In its pluriannual plan of energy, France gave itself the objective to reduce the share of nuclear power in the energy mix to 50% by 2035. In 2020, the government announced the upcoming closure of 14 nuclear plants to fulfill this objective. The closure of the Fessenheim plant, in June 2020 left a 1,7 GW capacity gap to be compensated for with other sources of power generation.

Thank you, Dr Fauci: three weeks to "flatten the curve." One year later and not much curve flattening but certainly a lot of waves. Mostly "waves goodbye" to a lot of service jobs. Link here.