In yet another attempt to force Americans to accept the godless agenda of “progress” (the root of the satanic political religion of “progressivism”), we learn this week that President Joe Biden’s administration is releasing more funding to build out rural broadband networks, and that in 2022, for the first time ever, sales of highly energy-efficient heat pumps exceeded those of methane (“natural”) gas furnaces, with heat pumps making up 53 percent of heating system sales. Dear God, sales of electric vehicles, which mysteriously move without the gasoline that the Lord above intended, are also up sharply in the first quarter of 2023. Those latter two stats are from the International Energy Agency, which is obviously bad because “international.”
Yr Wonkette tried to get a comment from the America First! Energy Agency, but we learned that the director had been badly injured trying to convert a Ford F-150 Lightning to run on “gob” coal provided by Joe Manchin’s personal coal company.
Previously:
Maddow Devoted Half Her Show Last Night To TRUUUUUUUUCK, And It Was Great
EPA Gonna Punch That Climate Emergency Right In The Snoot!
Rep. James Clyburn: Give EVERYBODY Net!
Guess It Takes A Literal War To Move Green Energy Transition Forward
Shiny Happy Rural Broadband
(We mean the REM kind, not the gross awful Duggar kind.) The US Department of Agriculture announced Monday that it’s offering $714 million in new grants and loans for rural broadband internet in 19 states, with funding from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The new round of funding — the fourth so far — is part of the overall $65 billion “Internet for All” initiative funded by the infrastructure package. (So many programs! Internet for All is the one that’s doing rural broadband, making sure affordable broadband is available to lower-income folks, so no one will ever have to do homework in a Taco Bell parking lot ever again, and more.)
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement that
High-speed internet is a key to prosperity for people who live and work in rural communities. Thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we can ensure that rural communities have access to the internet connectivity needed to continue to expand the economy from the bottom up and middle out and to make sure rural America remains a place of opportunity to live, work, and raise a family.
Disgusting how they demand you pledge eternal fealty to Biden like that, just so your children can go online and find porn, atheism, and even Wonkette.
The USDA press release lists a whole bunch of neat projects being funded by the new tranche of loans and grants, connecting rural homeowners, farms, and schools to broadband all over the country through the “ReConnect” Program, which helps get high-speed broadband to places that currently have no or only very slow internet access. So far, ReConnect has funded 142 projects that will bring high-speed internet to 314,000 people, with more to come. The program also requires that service providers guarantee discounted services to low-income households and to customers on Tribal lands.
Oh, right: How terrible!
We’re Pumpin’ Heat!
The One-World Communist (because it was founded by the OECD) International Energy Agency said in a report released today that global energy efficiency is improving greatly, and that while global demand for energy also continues to increase — by about one percent in 2022 — the increased demand would have been nearly three times higher if not offset by the greater efficiency measures, hooray.
As part of that increased efficiency, purchases of heat pumps are way up in Europe, by 40 percent, and as we mentioned up top, the US is now buying more heat pumps than gas furnaces. That trend is expected to increase even faster in the next decade, thanks to the tax credits included in Joe Biden’s socialist Inflation Reduction Act; for 2022, the record was set before the larger IRA tax credits even went into effect.
Oh, also, that thing with heat pumps in Europe? Two neat things intertwined there, although they’re the result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 1) homes and businesses are more rapidly switching from gas furnaces to heat pumps since Europe isn’t getting methane from Russia anymore; and B) the disruption of methane supplies from Russia is also speeding up clean energy adoption, both in Europe and worldwide, despite a brief surge in coal use in reaction to the invasion. So less methane going into furnaces and less methane generating electricity.
EV sales are also increasing worldwide, making up 14 percent of global car sales (compared to seven percent of US car sales in the first quarter). For 2023, world EV sales should make up about 18 percent of total car sales. Mr. President, we cannot afford a humming car gap!
The IEA says that heat pumps are a “key technology” for decarbonizing around the world, and for a nice overview of all the cool things about heat pumps (did you know they can even walk the dog and make your smile whiter? We just made those up!), see this cool-beans overview by Noah Smith, who explains how they work (the magic of thermodynamics), why they’re better than having separate heating and cooling systems (they’re cheaper and it’s just one system), and why you should at least pretend to be excited about heat pumps now and then (because Joe Biden’s climate spies are everywhere, so smile goddamnit). Heck, Smith even links to another whole IEA report on the magic of heat pumps, noting that they’re being adopted quickly due to government subsidies and also to continuing improvements in the technology.
Also, a little tidbit to file in your brain for the next time someone starts griping “CHINA!” when you bring up carbon emissions, and especially coal: The IEA energy efficiency report we started with estimates that globally, coal and gas demand will actually remain flat overall, “with declines in Europe and North America offsetting growth in other regions.” So yeah, it would be better for both to decline as quickly as possible, but getting cleaner here is at least not compounding the problem.
Also: China is, along with the US and Europe, one of the quickest adopters of EVs, which are so much more efficient than internal combustion vehicles that even when they’re charged by coal-burning power plants, they emit far less CO2 than equivalent gas or diesel vehicles. (just to be clear, they’re that efficient anywhere, not just China. Why do I overexplain things?) So yeah, China needs to curb its coal habit, but some of it is being offset by its far more rapid adoption of EVs.
Finally, this is where we once again plug our Wonkette Book Club; we’re reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 epic climate novel The Ministry for the Future, which is about, among other things, all of the economic and social levers we might use to finally get the climate crisis under something like control. Yes, even China. Gosh, that must be bad somehow.
In conclusion, the power just went out on my street again, and if Boise can’t even keep the lights on, how are we supposed to ever have a clean energy grid the end. It’s just like living in BAGHDAD or KABUL I tells ya.
OPEN THREAD!
[USDA / Utility Dive / IEA energy efficiency report / Noahpinion / IEA Heat Pump report / Clean Technica / Image credits: Left, woodleywonderworks (cropped) Creative Commons License 2.0; Right, Phyxter Home Services (cropped), Creative Commons License 4.0]
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