Bang! 11 US states sue BlackRock, StateStreet and Vanguard for working as a cartel to reduce coal and increase electricity prices

By Jo Nova

Finally, a strike at the heart of the Blob

Texas and 10 other US States have pressed the radioactive Antitrust legal button and filed against BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. The states claim the money managers bought up large stakes in coal companies and then colluded to promote ESG and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) goals that reduced coal output. The decreased supply of coal, in turn increased the cost of electricity to consumers. It was fundamentally anti-competitive behaviour. These three companies together have $26 Trillion dollars of assets under management. That’s only one trillion smaller than the entire US GDP.

In this case, some of the collusion hidden in clear view. The three money managers said they were trying to save the world and to protect the people, and they joined groups like the GFANZ and Net Zero alliances like Climate Action 100+. But in the end, these three financial giants had collectively acquired close to 30% of most US Coal companies, and even though they claimed to have good intentions, the 11 State Attorney Generals argue that any extraneous claims of social benefits are irrelevant. These three companies have profited immensely […]

November 30th, 2024 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

ESG comes undone — BlackRock, JP Morgan abandon “Climate Action 100+”

Naturally the Big Bankers dress up in trees and rivers… they wouldn’t wear the Dracula Cape when people are looking, would they?

By Jo Nova

The biggest climate bullies on the planet just got a bit smaller. There are two monster climate banker clubs in the world, and yesterday, one of them, the “Climate Action 100+” lost three of the six largest asset management funds in the world, namely JP Morgan Chase, State Street and BlackRock.

State Street manages about $3.6 trillion in funds, JP Morgan Chase about $3 or $4 trillion, and BlackRock $10 trillion, so that’s something like $17,000 billion dollars that just left the ranch. The fact that this kind of money was all grouped together in a cabal of any sort is bad enough, but ponder that now, after the biggest fish have left the tank, there’s still $50 trillion left in assets on the inside.

It appears the Climate Action 100+ group had grown too big for its boots — the new Climate Action 100+ “phase 2” strategy expected asset managers to actively hound companies to cut their emissions.

An ESG Asset Manager Exodus

The Wall Street Journal

February 17th, 2024 | Tags: , , , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Renewables facing “Enron-style collapse” says Venture Capitalist — Sustainability has become a dirty word

By Jo Nova

Word is spreading openly of the awful third quarter results in wind and solar power, and in EV’s. Morningstar noted some $14 billion dollars moved out of sustainability funds in the last quarter even before the dismal results were announced. This is only a small part of the $300 billion total, but it’s a big bad shift in momentum in a sector that is supposed to be going exponential and theoretically “the next big thing”.

Two years ago funds were tagging anything they could with Sustainability. But the term has become a dirty word, and so has ESG. Funds that were enthusiastically adding these green terms to their titles are now dropping them and backing away slowly…

With major daily business newspapers now reporting the bad news it’s hard to see what will stop the slide — only massive subsidies would do that (temporarily), but the US has already done that with the bizarrely named Inflation Reduction Act.

But make no mistake, there is a $300 billion industry begging for help and a lot of politicians who don’t want to admit their renewables push was an economic disaster. The German government has bailed out Siemens, and the […]

November 21st, 2023 | Tags: , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |

Investors are starting to abandon clean green energy as they realize it’s never going to be cheap

Image by ThankYouFantasyPictures from Pixabay

By Jo Nova

Kathryn Porter in The Telegraph, has compiled quite the list of failures as offshore wind projects get frozen around the world. Decisions are being delayed, contracts abandoned, auctions left without bidders and almost no new projects started. The awful truth of inflation, the maintenance cost shocks and cable failures is all too much. Then there was the problem of needing a 100 years of copper, nickel and lithium production before Christmas.

It’s all been kept quiet. Who knew there were no offshore wind investments in the EU last year, apart from a few floating projects?

After years of subsidies, wind power was meant to get cheap enough to be profitable and competitive all by itself, instead, 25 years later, it just needs bigger subsidies. When the great oil and coal price crunch came, wind power was supposed to rise through the ashes, instead we discovered that wind turbine and battery factories needed cheap coal and oil like the rest of the economy.

Right now Australia has no offshore wind turbines and is about to jump onto a burning ship:

The myth of affordable green energy is over

October 13th, 2023 | Tags: , , , | Category: Global Warming | Print This Post Print This Post | |