William Yeatman

Wind Power Cheaper than Coal?; Renewable Energy Cant Compete in UK

by William Yeatman on September 4, 2001

in Science

 Wind Power Cheaper than Coal?

“The cost of wind energy is now less than that of coal.” With that startling declaration, Mark Z. Jacobson and Gilbert M. Masters, with the Department of Civil Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, conclude that the U.S. could meet its Kyoto target by replacing 59 percent of coal energy with between 214,000 and 236,000 wind turbines (Science, August 24, 2001).

How do they come to this conclusion? They point out that the direct cost of energy from a new coal power plant is about 3.5 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). But, claim the authors, there are many costs associated with coal use that are not accounted for.

“Coal-mine dust kills 2,000 U.S. miners yearly, and since 1973, the federal black lung-disease benefits program has cost $35 billion,” say Jacobson and Masters. “Coal emissions also cause acid deposition, smog, visibility degradation, and global warming; its particles increase asthma, respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and mortality.” Including these costs, say the authors, increases the cost of coal to 5.5 to 8.3 cents per kWh.

Wind power, on the other hand, only costs 3 to 4 cents per kWh. There is no mention of externality costs associated with wind power, however. Many of the costs that are attributed to coal are dubious, to say the least. Linking asthma to particulate pollution seems weak, since asthma rates have been going up even while particulate concentrations have fallen.

Moreover, most experts attribute the rise in asthma to higher levels of indoor air pollution. The harmful effects of acid deposition have been greatly exaggerated, and there is no evidence of any costs associated with higher carbon dioxide levels or global warming.

Glen Schleede, president of Energy Market and Policy Analysis, Inc., has heavily criticized the report. He notes several external costs associated with wind power that are ignored by Jacobson and Masters, including scenery impairment, noise, property value losses, the need for massive infrastructure investment to transport electricity from remote wind farms, and the provision of backup power to alleviate intermittency problems associated with wind power.

Moreover, the assumptions behind the analysis are wrong. Schleede points out, for example, that Jacobson and Masters assume that windmills have a capacity factor of between 35.8 and 39.6 percent. In reality, capacity factors are much smaller. Schleede assumes a 30 percent capacity factor (which is still higher than that currently seen in practice) to determine that it would take as many as 366,000 wind turbines to replace 59 percent of coal power.

Finding suitable sites for so many windmills (which are 300 ft. tall) would pose serious difficulties. Schleedes full critique, “Science article is wrong in claiming that wind energy is cheaper then coal,” can be found at www.heartland.org.

Speaking of costs, a proposed wind farm on a remote hillside in northeast Scotland has met with significant resistance. According to the September 1 issue of the Independent (London), “Accusations of foul play, misinformation, environmental destruction and dirty tricks have abounded in a fight over the siting of 21 turbines, each as large as a 30-story block of flats.” Worries about the adverse effects on local property values are a major concern to property owners in the area.

Renewable Energy Cant Compete in UK

Britains energy regulator, Ofgem, has told the government that more subsidies may be required for renewable energy if it is to meet the stringent greenhouse gas targets it has set for the country, according to the Financial Times (September 1, 2001). Britain has set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent below 1990 levels by 2010, and it wants half of those reductions to come through the use of renewable energy.

After implementing the New Electricity Trading Arrangements (NETA) five months ago, there has been a drop in wholesale electricity prices of 20 to 25 percent for large power generators and a drop of 17 percent for smaller generators including renewable energy generators.

Producers of renewable energy claim that the new arrangement has harmed them disproportionately relative to the rest of the electric power industry, mainly because they are unable to predict power output due to the intermittency problems that plague renewable energy. NETA “requires power producers to forecast output four hours in advance, and to buy any shortfall at premium prices.”

Ofgems chief executive, Callum McCarthy, is unapologetic. “Put simply, reliable plant commands a premium under NETA, as the majority of electricity customers want a reliable source of supply and the electricity system needs to be kept in balance to maintain the security and quality of supply” (Daily Telegraph, September 1, 2001).

“If for wider environmental reasons the government wishes to encourage forms of renewable generation whose output is less predictable or less reliable,” said McCarthy, it should “consider additional support to these types of generators” (Financial Times).

Bush Team Developing Kyoto Alternatives; Japan and U. S. will Talk

by William Yeatman on August 21, 2001

in Politics

Bush Team Developing Kyoto Alternatives

The Bush Administration is in the process of developing domestic alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol to present to UN climate negotiators at their November meeting in Marrakech, according to the Wall Street Journal (August 20, 2001).

The article by Jeanne Cummings reports that President Bushs proposals will involve a number of domestic initiatives, including additional funding for research on the causes of global climate change, for technologies to sequester carbon dioxide, and to study the regional impact of global warming.

Bushs adoption of a domestic plan is viewed by many as a response to criticism he has received from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D, SD) and House Democratic leader Richard Gephart (D, MO). In a recent speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Daschle addressed Bushs refusal to negotiate at the UNs recent climate talks in Bonn: “Instead of asserting our leadership, we are abdicating it. Instead of shaping international agreements to serve our interests, we have removed ourselves from a position to shape them at all.”

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said recently on NBC’s Meet the Press: “I’m optimistic that we’ll have initiatives that we can go to Marrakesh and talk about with the world leaders that will show that we’re serious about solving the problem [and] that the Kyoto solution is really not a solution at all.”

President Bush has a cabinet-level task force working on the global warming issue. The task force, which met the week before Congress went on recess and included Sen. Chuck Hagel (R, Neb.) and Rep. Billy Tauzin (R, La.), gave the President positive feedback on his domestic alternatives, Card said.

Japan and U. S. will Talk

The governments of Japan and the United States have agreed to hold ministerial talks on the Kyoto Protocol in late September. According to Yomiuri Shimbun (August 6, 2001), the Japanese delegation will try to persuade the U. S. either to rejoin the protocol or to present an alternative international agreement at COP-7 in Marrakesh beginning on October 28.

CNN reported on August 9 that Japanese officials are now leaning toward ratifying Kyoto with or without U. S. participation. The Japanese government has wavered over what to do ever since the Bush administration walked away from Kyoto in March.

According to CNN, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said that, “It isnt the United States we are concerned about. [The problem] is the details of the treaty, which have not been decided.” Another official added, “We have to know what we will be ratifying, and we were unable to draw out such details at Bonn.”

Science Magazines Summer Silliness; Climate Scientists Meet in Halifax

by William Yeatman on August 21, 2001

in Science

Science Magazines Summer Silliness

This summers silly season has not generated anything approaching last summers top-of-the-front-page claim by the New York Times that “The North Pole is melting” because of global warming. The Timess story by John Noble Wilford was based on only one sourcea press release from a global warming nut, albeit one with an academic post at Harvard. As reported in the August 23 and September 6, 2000 issues of Cooler Heads, the story was obviously ludicrous and the Times was quickly forced to retract it.

Although nothing so delightful has been concocted for this Augusts hottest days, Science Magazine is trying to entertain. In its August 17 issue, Science published an article on “Hidden Health Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation.” The article claims that more people die from air pollution than from traffic accidents in New York City, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, and Santiago, Chile. Reducing fossil fuel use to cut greenhouse gas emissions would therefore have the additional immediate benefit of saving lives and improving health.

There are several problems with the “study.” First, improving air quality has already been accomplished in cities like New York, where fossil fuels are still consumed in huge quantities, but few people now die because of air pollution. Second, the study doesnt mention that cutting fossil fuel use will either be enormously expensive or force people to use much less energy, both of which have serious health consequences. Moreover, reducing fossil fuel use is by far the most expensive way to reduce air pollution.

Third, it is highly doubtful that more people die from air pollution than from traffic accidents in all but a few big cities in developing countries. And in most of those cities, the worst air pollution comes from things like using charcoal or cow dung for cooking. Using more fossil fuels in those cities could cut air pollution.

Fourth, the study implies that all greenhouse gases are pollutants. This last point was picked up by Paul Recers story for the Associated Press (August 16, 2001). Recer, whose title is given in the byline as AP Science Writer, lists carbon dioxide as one of the pollutants causing people to die prematurely.

Climate Scientists Meet in Halifax

More than eighty atmospheric scientists are attending the first “International Conference on Global Warming and the Next Ice Age” at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada this week. Sponsored by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Meteorological Society, the conference is one of the few to bring together large numbers of scientific supporters and skeptics of global warming alarmism for debate and discussion.

The Halifax Chronicle-Herald reported (August 22, 2001) that Dr. Petr Chylek, professor of atmospheric science at Dalhousie, “organized the conference so that theories on climate change other than conventional thoughts about global warming could be discussed.” Dr. Chylek decided to hold the event after reading a newspaper story that cited scientific research claiming that the Greenland glaciers were melting because of global warming, whereas his own research showed that earlier temperature increases had not led to melting.

Dr. Chylek further explained that many of his peers believe that natural factors such as solar radiation and variation in climate patterns are contributing to global warming. He asserted, “Scientists who want to attract attention to themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to find a way to scare the publicand this you can achieve only by making things bigger and more dangerous than they really are.”

Dr. Greg Holloway, professor of oceanography at the Institute of Ocean Studies in British Columbia, pointed out that many past periods of dramatic climate change such as the ice ages occurred without significant human influence. “Everybodys ready for more evidence of global warming and not as ready for the scientific balance which is what you are receiving here.”

Etc.

  • The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World by Bjorn Lomborg was published in Britain on August 15 by Cambridge University Press. CUPs American edition is due on September 15. Lomborg, who is a professor of statistics at Aarhus University in Denmark, re-examines many of the controversial environmental claims originally made by Julian Simon and concludes that Simon got most things rights. Lomborg backs up his own conclusions with a huge amount of documentation.

Considering the amount of environmental heresy the book contains, it is astonishing how favorable the press reaction has been. The Economist (August 4, 2001) and the New York Times (August 7, 2001) ran long, flattering pieces on Lomborg and his book, which expands and updates the 1998 Danish version. The ever-so-politically-correct Guardian in London ran a three-part series by Lomborg.

The books longest chapter is devoted to global warming. Although Lomborg accepts the IPCCs assessment reports, his conclusions are more in line with the Cooler Heads Coalition.

Here is just one sample: “Is it not curious, then, that the typical reporting on global warming tells us all the bad things that could happen from CO2 emissions, but few or none of the bad things that could come from overly zealous regulation of such emissions? And this is not just a question of the medias penchant for bad news, as discussed in chapter 2, because both could make excellent bad news.”

Claims of Chinese Emissions Cuts are Disputed; United Kingdom Adopts Internal Cap-and-Trade Scheme

by William Yeatman on August 21, 2001

in Blog

Claims of Chinese Emissions Cuts are Disputed

A new pair of studies challenges the Chinese governments claim of significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In an August 15 story in the Washington Post, John Pomfret reports that a study funded by the World Bank questions the Chinese governments statistics asserting that Chinese coal consumption fell during 1999.

In addition, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing stated according to the Post that the Chinese government lied about the number of coal mines it shut down and about the speed with which it replaced coal with gas-based and hydroelectric power over the last five years.

This news casts doubts on a pair of reports claiming China has made progress in cutting carbon dioxide emissions. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory stated in April that since 1996, Chinas energy output fell 17 percent and its carbon dioxide emissions fell 14 percent. The European Unions office in Beijing reported that China increased its energy efficiency and reduced its coal consumption by 30 percent over the same period.

These conclusions, promoted in a press release/report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, were cited by Erik Eckholm in a front-page New York Times story on June 15. We love to say it: We told you so. In the June 27 edition of Cooler Heads, David Wojick of Electricity Daily pointed out that, “The only way this cut could be real is if people in China stopped cooking and heating their homes, since industrial and electric power coal consumption did not drop. Such an explanation is highly unlikely.” The U.S. Embassys report supports Wojicks conclusion stating that Chinese greenhouse gas emissions have dropped “little, if at all.”

The Chinese government confirmed that its estimates regarding coal reductions may have been too high. Zhou Dadi, director of the Energy Research Institute and the governments State Development Planning Commission, said that the United States Embassy is right to question their numbers, but that “we are clearly decreasing our coal consumption.”

United Kingdom Adopts Internal Cap-and-Trade Scheme

On August 14, the United Kingdoms Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (http://www.defra.gov.uk/) announced the adoption of a “voluntary” greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme to take effect in April of 2002. The programs goal is to cut carbon dioxide emissions by two million tons per year by 2010. Although participation in the program is described as voluntary, companies that join but fail to achieved their promised reductions will face economic sanctions.

Firms that join must either pledge to make cuts or purchase emissions allowances from other companies. The actual emissions trading scheme is scheduled to take effect in 2005.

The UK government has pledged to provide up to 215 million in subsidies over the next five years to companies that participate. Companies that fail to meet their reduction targets will be forced to forfeit their subsidies and face more stringent targets in subsequent years.

United Kingdoms Environmental Minister Michael Meacher stated, “The UK climate change program could cut greenhouse gas emissions to 23 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. I expect our scheme to make a significant contribution and at the same time benefit both business and the environment by stimulating and financially rewarding innovation and investment.”

In a related move, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs adopted a new set of energy efficiency standards for British electricity and gas suppliers on August 17. Its new program, entitled the Energy Efficiency Commitment, will require energy suppliers to reduce energy consumption by a target amount of 64 terrawatt hours. The program is expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 0.4 million tons per year.

The department has also mandated that energy suppliers ensure that at least one half of energy savings are achieved by reducing fuel consumption among poor households. It expects the program will save the average consumer 10 per year on gas and electricity.

Triumph in Bonn? Or Not!

by William Yeatman on August 2, 2001

in Politics

On Monday, July 23, negotiators in Bonn struck an agreement claiming that they had succeeded in rescuing the Kyoto Protocol despite the U.S.s refusal to endorse it. Pundits across the globe celebrated the breakthrough proclaiming the world safe from greenhouse gases.

“This first small step is a giant leap for humanity and for the future of our planet,” according to World Wildlife Funds Jennifer Morgan. “We have delivered probably the most comprehensive and difficult agreement in human history,” said New Zealand delegate Peter Hodgson (Investors Business Daily, July 24, 2001). And European Union environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, declared, “We have finalized the rescue operation. We have rescued the Kyoto protocol. It is a major achievement because we will live with this for many years to come” (The Glasgow Herald, July 24, 2001).

But is all this hyperbole justified? As noted in the July 25 issue of the Los Angeles Times, “After a good nights sleep and some sober contemplation, environmental activists Tuesday conceded the Kyoto Protocol adopted a day earlier falls far short of the lofty goals for fighting global warming contained in the original proposal.”

Indeed, the prognosis is even worse than portrayed in the Los Angeles Times. Nothing

specific was agreed to. For example, the delegates agreed to establish an adaptation fund for developing countries that would be funded by developed countries, but no agreement as to how much each country would contribute was reached. They also agreed that funding for the Global Environment Facility should increase, but again no specifics were contemplated.

As noted by Cooler Heads Counsel, Chris Horner, who attended the Bonn conference, “Negotiators addressed specifics of some among the scores of Kyoto provisions, and some of those resulted in agreement. Notwithstanding the absence of any comprehensive detailing of specifics, however, the bulk of those agreements actually consist of vague palliatives with a promise to continue talking about the issue. That is, for the most part there were merely agreements to agree at a later date.”

In what could be seen as a major defeat for the EU, it finally conceded the use of carbon sinks and emission trading on the insistence of Japan. Last November at the Hague, the EU allowed negotiations to collapse rather than make similar concessions to the U.S. With the U.S. out of the picture, however, Japan has become the key to bringing Kyoto into force because if it, along with the U.S., fails to ratify Kyoto it cannot become international law.

WWFs Jennifer Morgan characterized the reaching of the agreement without the U.S. as a “geopolitical earthquake,” implying a shift in power, but Bushs refusal to accept Kyoto forced the EU to make concessions that it had previously said were unacceptable if the treaty were to retain its “environmental integrity.” Moreover, WWF estimates that the concessions will lower carbon emission reductions from 5.2 percent below 1990 levels to 1.8 percent below 1990 levels.

“The biggest problem,” according to the Electricity Daily (July 26, 2001), “is that, technically speaking, the FCCC Conference of the Parties meeting in Bonn is not adopting rules at all, it is adopting recommendations. Moreover, these recommendations are addressed to a body that does not yet exist, and may not come into being for a long time.”

Rules that are binding on the parties to the protocol cannot be made until the protocol is ratified and becomes international law and the “Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties,” or COP/MOP, is created. “Every binding rule adopted in the Bonn agreement is carefully phrased as a recommendation to the COP/MOP, because the COP cannot make Protocol rules at this time,” says Electricity Daily.

That, all along, has been the major barrier to ratification for most of the countries with targets and timetables. Without knowing what the specific rules will be with regards to monitoring and enforcement, for instance, they are loath to ratify. Yet rules cannot be made until Kyoto is ratified.

Finally, although Japan has tentatively agreed to the recommendations made in Bonn, there is still no guarantee that it will ratify Kyoto. Indeed, a EU delegation source stated, “Ratification is by no means a foregone conclusion” (Agence France Presse, July 24, 2001). Japan has continued to insist on U.S. participation.

Australia has taken a similar stance. Australias environment minister, Robert Hill said that, “At the end of the day there are some very good parts to this agreement for Australia but there are still some areas which we have concerns with.” He also said, “you cant have an effective global response without the U.S.” Russia has also shown skepticism with the process and has yet to signal its willingness to ratify the treaty.

Global Warming Quantified?; Monster Hurricanes: Global Warming or Global Alarming?

by William Yeatman on August 2, 2001

in Science

Global Warming Quantified?

One of the major shortcomings of the report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that it treats all of its scenarios, 35 in all, as equally likely. Many scientists have commented that the high end of the IPCCs estimate of future global warming, the range from 1.4 to 5.8 degrees C (2.5 to 10.4 degrees F), is highly unlikely.

A research group from MIT calculated that there is far less than one percent chance that temperatures will rise 5.8 degrees in the next 100 years. They also calculated that there is a 17 percent chance that the temperature increase will fall short of 1.4 degrees.

In a new paper published in the July 20 issue of Science, Thomas Wigley, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and Sarah Raper, with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England, attempt to quantify the likelihood that temperature rise will fall within the range predicted by the IPCC.

What they found was that there is a 90 percent probability that temperatures will rise between 1.7 to 4.9 degrees C (3 to 8.8 degrees F) by 2100. This range, note the authors, “is very large compared with the observed warming over the last century.” They also conclude that the probability that temperatures will reach 5.8 degrees to be very low.

They come to this conclusion by attaching probability distributions, using IPCC values, to what they deem the most important uncertainties, such as climate sensitivity and the role of sulfate aerosols, in the climate models. They then run a simplified climate model that is calibrated to the more complex global circulation models, to generate a probability distribution for thousands of combinations.

Although this paper is important due to the fact that it focuses on the uncertainties in climate modeling, it is important to understand what the paper actually says. Its not so much a prediction of how temperatures will change in the future, but a prediction of how the models behave. In other words, if you run the model 100 times, it will give you a temperature rise that falls within 1.7 and 4.9 degrees 90 percent of the time. “Our results are only as realistic as the assumptions upon which they are based,” say the authors. Many of the IPCCs assumptions are demonstrably false.

Monster Hurricanes: Global Warming or Global Alarming?

A July 19th CNN story on the increasing severity of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean highlights the uncertainty inherent in long-term predictions of the effects of global climate change. CNN Miami Bureau Chief John Zarrella recently interviewed Christopher Landsea of the National Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory/Hurricane Research Division about his recent article on hurricane activity in the journal Science.

In the interview, Landsea pointed out that a major upward shift in climate has been responsible for the increase in hurricane activity over the last six years. He anticipates this shift will continue for the next ten to 40 years. However, he acknowledges that the increase in injuries and property damage caused by hurricanes is due to population growth and economic development. Specifically, he states: “I think at this point the U.S. is so developed and theres so many people along the coast that just about anywhere is a major disaster ready to happen.”

In his journal article entitled “The Recent Increase in Atlantic Hurricane Activity: Causes and Implications,” (Science, 20 July 2001), Landsea explains that the increased activity is caused by a simultaneous increase in sea surface temperatures and decreases in vertical wind shear. He points out that local conditions in the tropical Atlantic have a direct effect on the development of hurricanes. In addition, he states that the oceans provide the best indicators of long run variability for hurricane activity.

For historical perspective, he explains that from 1944-1970, the average number of major hurricanes in the North Atlantic Basin was 2.7. However, from 1971-1994, this number fell to 1.5. The recent upsurge has taken place from 1995-2000, during which the number rose to 3.8. He explains that 1997 was a year of below average activity because of the strong El Nio event that occurred.

As for whether the recent upward trend is due to global climate change, he states: “The historical multidecadal-scale variability in Atlantic hurricane activity is much greater than what would be expected from gradual temperature increase attributed to global warming. There have been various studies investigating the potential effect of long-term global warming on the number and strength of Atlantic-basin hurricanes. The results are inconclusive. Some studies document an increase in activity while others suggest a decrease.” He concludes by offering a stern warning to policymakers that our nations emergency management infrastructure must be bolstered to counteract the threat of more severe hurricanes over the next decade.

Therefore, the threat of increased injuries and property damage due to more severe hurricane seasons is of serious concern. However, it is premature to blame the effects of this problem on global climate change. Policymakers would be wise to take Landseas recommendations into account when examining the perceived costs of global warming.

EIA Report Weighs Costs of Multipollutant Strategy

by William Yeatman on August 2, 2001

in Blog

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released a new study entitled “Strategies for Reducing Multiple Emissions from Electric Power Plants.” This study measures the costs of imposing simultaneous caps on power plant emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), mercury (Hg), and carbon dioxide (CO2).

This new report by EIA follows up its December 2000 study on the projected costs of a three pollutant approach. It also sheds light on the prospective costs of recent legislative proposals, including H.R. 1335 (the Clean Power Act of 2001) and S. 1131 (the Clean Power Plant and Modernization Act of 2001) which advocate a four pollutant approach.

In the report, EIA points out that over the next 20 years NOx emissions are expected to rise slowly, SO2 emissions are expected to remain at year 2000 levels, and CO2 emissions are expected to increase steadily. The agency explains that, due to expanding electricity demand, a growing dependency on natural gas and the construction of a small number of new coal-fired power plants will cause CO2 emissions to rise.

The agency states that the effects of capping CO2 emissions at 1990 levels or at 7% below 1990 levels will force people to pay higher prices for electricity. Specifically, the report says “Electricity prices are projected to be much higher when CO2 emissions are capped than when NOx, SO2, or Hg emissions are capped43 percent higher in 2010 and 38 percent higher in 2020 than projected in the reference case. Consumers are expected to reduce their electricity consumption by 8 percent in 2010 and 12 percent in 2020 when faced with higher electricity prices.”

In addition, the agency explains that electricity prices could be substantially higher if natural gas prices turn out to be higher than projected. If CO2 caps are imposed, both domestic production and imports of natural gas must grow to meet electricity demands. Specifically, production of 0.8 trillion cubic feet from domestic sources and 2.3 trillion cubic feet from imports must be added over the next 20 years to meet the increased demand. This would require domestic natural gas producers to achieve record levels of output from 2005-2010 and would represent a serious challenge for the industry.

Therefore, the adoption of a four-pollutant approach would introduce serious uncertainty into Americas energy infrastructure. As unexpected fluctuations in natural gas prices contributed to the California electricity crisis, uncertainty in markets for coal, natural gas, and renewables could cause unanticipated problems for consumers. As the report states: “History does not offer clear guidance as to how the various markets might respond to changes as large as those required by the proposed emissions targets.”

In conclusion, a four pollutant approach to reducing power plant emissions would introduce tremendous uncertainty into the viability of American electricity markets. Dropping CO2 from the program would do a great deal to strip away some of this uncertainty and ensure that consumers can obtain the electricity they demand during the 21st century.

Japan is Far From Kyoto Target; Hurricane Damage Unchanged; Economics 101: Price Caps Dont Work

by William Yeatman on July 10, 2001

in Blog

Japan is Far From Kyoto Target

The Japanese Environment Ministry has reported that Japans efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have not gone well. Japan agreed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent below 1990 levels, but emissions rose a whopping six-plus percent in 1999 alone, putting total emissions at 6.8 percent above 1990 levels.

Japans greenhouse gas emissions fell in 1997 and 1998 due to an economic slump, according to Ministry officials, but 1999 saw an explosion, with private households increasing emissions by 5.3 percent, from industry by 4.2 percent, from office buildings by 3.3 percent and by 23 percent from the transportation sector (Asahi News Service, July 11, 2001).

Hurricane Damage Unchanged

It has been claimed repeatedly that global warming is causing increases in hurricane damages in the United States. Such claims were made frequently in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, which global warming alarmists said was the most costly storm of the 20th century.

Once again, however, environmentalist claims have been invalidated by actual research. A study by Tillinghast Tower Perrin, a risk-management consulting firm, is the first-ever comprehensive study of “insured hurricane damages from all hurricanes that affected the continental U.S. in the 20th century” (http://www.towers.com/towers/default_till.asp).

The studies key findings include:

  • “When actual insured hurricane damages are adjusted to reflect current property values and the increase in the number of people living toward the coast, insured damages in the 1990s were not unusually high compared to other decades in the 20th century.

  • “Hurricane Andrew did not produce the highest adjusted damages from a single storm; the September 1926 Miami hurricane led the way with $50 billion in insured damages. Andrew actually ran a distant second with $25 billion in insured damages.

  • “While Atlantic hurricane frequency did increase in the second half of the 1990s, the number of such storms striking the U.S. in the decade was actually the second- lowest of the 20th century.”

The analysis refutes global warming claims, according to Tillinghast Principal, Doug Collins. “Our study put historical hurricane costs on a comparable level,” he said. “No one had ever measured the whole 20th century before or considered the explosive growth of residences and vacation homes near the coast.”

Economics 101: Price Caps Dont Work

Anyone familiar with supply and demand knew it was bound to happen. President Bush warned against it. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, however, still plowed ahead with its plan of imposing floating price caps on wholesale electric power in the 11 western states. Now it is time to pay the price. The New York Times reported on July 4 that the price caps are worsening the energy crisis in California.

The price caps, which went into effect June 19, have contributed to further rolling blackouts in California and rolling blackouts for the first time ever in Nevada, according to the Times story. The price caps caused generators to withhold about 600 megawatts of power (enough power for about 600,000 homes).

The power companies are withholding power because of the confusion surrounding the price caps. The price caps change depending on conditions, such as the cost of fuel and operating and maintenance expenses. The caps are set to the cost for the least efficient power plant to produce electricity, which can also change. Adding to the turmoil is the fact that the caps are only reset when there is a Stage 1 alertwhen demand is 7 percent higher than supply.

Not only has the confusion caused companies to lower output, but the prospect of not receiving fair market value for their power has also contributed. “A lot of generators were telling us that they were uncertain what they would be paid, and so they didnt want to take the risk,” said Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources. Gary Ackerman of the Western Power Trading Forum agreed. “No ones going to pay for transmission if the cost is near the caps,” he said.

The blackouts in Nevada have come a time when temperatures were close to 120 degrees. Don Soderberg of the Nevada Public Utilities Commission noted that the price caps have had unintended consequences. “Were going to see how the caps might have played into this,” he said. Until then Nevadans can only hope the price caps do not bring more blackouts and the days do not get much warmer.

Uncertainty Abounds Before Bonn; Australia attempts to salvage Kyoto

by William Yeatman on July 10, 2001

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

Uncertainty Abounds Before Bonn

As negotiations resume in Bonn next week, it is not clear what will become of the Kyoto Protocol. Although the U.S. will send a delegation to the talks headed by Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, the State Department has confirmed that President Bush remains opposed to the treaty. According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, “The United States takes climate change very seriously and will work constructively within the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.”

“The United States is working with our allies to develop an effective and science-based approach to addressing global climate change,” he said (Greenwire, June 11, 2001).

Japan has become the key player in the negotiations. For the Kyoto Protocol to become international law a sufficient number of Annex I countries those required to make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions representing 55 percent of Annex I 1990 emissions, must ratify it. That threshold cannot be met without either Japan or the U.S.

Japans Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been pressured by the EU to ratify Kyoto without the U.S. He has made it clear, however, that he has no plans to do so, but in the meantime will work to persuade the U.S. to ratify Kyoto. He also urged the EU to take a more flexible stance on the issue (Asia Pulse, July 11, 2001).

A possible concession to placate Japan would be to postpone the Kyoto timetables, even though the protocol states that targets and timetables cannot be changed until after the protocol goes into effect. Currently, Kyoto requires that during the period of 2008 to 2012 a countrys average emissions should be at the target level. The Chairman of the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Jan Pronk said, “I can imagine that it would be possible to postpone the date of 2008 by two years, to 2010” (New York Times, July 6, 2001).

Canadas Environment Minister, David Anderson believes that efforts by the EU to proceed with Kyoto are a waste of time. “The EU may be right. It may be theoretically possible to proceed with Kyoto. But what is the victory worth?” he said. “Kyoto is only a means to an end. Effective climate change action cannot operate effectively without the United States” (Ottawa Citizen, July 11, 2001).

Meanwhile, a cryptic statement from the head of the U.N. Environment Program, Klaus Toepfer, suggests that the G-8 meeting in Genoa, Italy next week will play a role in forcing the issue. “Theres more than good reason to think there will be a signal coming from Genoa to Bonn to finalize it,” he said (Greenwire, July 11, 2001).

Australia attempts to salvage Kyoto

In an interview with Reuters (July 11, 2001), Australian Environment Minister Robert Hill outlined his plan to woo the U.S. back in to the Kyoto Protocol. Australia has been trying to get major developing countries, like China and India, to participate in a greenhouse gas reduction program. This would address one of the U.S.s primary concerns about the Kyoto pact. However, Hill has not found eager participants. “they cant see why they should accept legal constraints on burning carbon which could constrain their economic growth.”

Without a plan to include developing countries in Kyoto and with other concerns left unaddressed, the U.S. is unlikely to change its position at the upcoming talks in Bonn. Hill said that no deal should be reached at Bonn if it does not include the U.S. “We will continue to negotiate the Kyoto rulesbut we would argue it would be better if that process wasnt completed at this meeting in order that the door might be left open for the United States.”

Natural Cycle Confounds Global Warming; Where Has all the Carbon Gone?; Fossilized Leaves Challenge Climate Models

by William Yeatman on July 10, 2001

in Science

Natural Cycle Confounds Global Warming

One of the most important scientific questions that remains unanswered is the role of natural variability in the climate. As noted by Dr. Richard Lindzen in the Wall Street Journal (June 11, 2001), “Distinguishing the small recent changes in global mean temperature from the natural variability, which is unknown, is not a trivial task.”

A new study in the July 6 issue of Science adds another piece to the natural variability puzzle. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a climate pattern of winds that blow counterclockwise around the Arctic. In its “high-index phase” it does so at latitude even with the Great Lakes and eastern Europe. In its “low-index phase,” it extends south to the Ohio Valley and westward into France. It is an important climatic cycle that exerts “a strong influence on wintertime climate, not only over the Euro-Atlantic half of the hemisphere as documented in previous studies, but over the Pacific half as well.”

The study found that “High-index days are, on average, ~5 degrees C warmer over much of the Midwestern United States, central Canada, and Europe.” Low-index days exhibit colder conditions. “The NAO,” according to the study, “has exhibited a pronounced trend towards its high-index polarity since the late 1960s that is evident in its time series and is also reflected in the relative numbers of low- and high-index days in different decades,” leading to “warmer wintertime-mean temperatures across much of the NH [Northern Hemisphere] high-latitude continents.”

One of the authors of the study, Dr. David Thompson, of Colorado State University, noted in a July 5 Canadian Broadcasting Company article, “Public perceptions that winters are becoming less wintry appear to be as much or more due to the change in the Arctic Oscillation as to global warming.”

Where has all the Carbon Gone?

As environmentalists continue to harp on the evils of carbon dioxide, they may want to notice the lack of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although carbon dioxide emissions are up almost 40 percent in the past 20 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has decreased or remained the same, according to an article in Science (July 6, 2001). The author of the article Steven C. Wofsy with the Atmospheric Sciences Program, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, notes, “The reason for this discrepancy is that increasing amounts of anthropogenic CO2 are being removed by forests and other components of the biosphere.”

About 25 percent of carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuels is sequestered according to the Wofsys estimates. “But,” said Wofsy, “analyses of forest inventories (which measure forest areas and timber volume) seem to indicate that forests sequester much smaller amounts of carbon. Thus we have a mystery: If our forests are sequestering billions of tons of carbon annually, why cant we find it? Evidently, we have not been looking in the right places.”

Right now, scientists are not entirely sure where the extra carbon dioxide is hiding, but they have some thoughts. Many organic materials, such as woody debris, soil, wood products and woody plants, are not reported in forest inventories because they are not economically valuable. All of these things can absorb carbon dioxide. Professor S. Pacala of Princeton University, et al. estimates that more than 75 percent of carbon sequestration takes place in organic matter that is not inventoried (Science, June 22, 2001). Indeed, Pacala et al. estimates that carbon uptake in the U.S. equals 20 to 40 percent of worldwide CO2 emissions.

According to S. Fang et al., the carbon might be holed up in Asia (Science, June 22, 2001). Forests in China have absorbed substantial amounts of carbon dioxide thanks to reforestation and afforestation projects. When China planned its reforestation policy, it was not for carbon sequestration, but to restore ecosystems and produce wood for fuel. Wofsey points out that carbon sequestration will not stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it could significantly slow it.

Fossilized Leaves Challenge Climate Models

A new study of fossilized leaves cast further doubt on the reliability of climate models. An international team of scientists gathered Cretaceous era leaf fossils from Europe, Asia, and North America in an effort to calculate the temperatures at ancient sites. The leaf temperature calculations matched ocean bed oxygen isotope measurements. The surprise came when the scientists tested modern climate models, ability to predict ancient temperatures.

The results from the different models varied greatly. At most of the sites, the results of the models did not match the actual temperature data. “Were talking about an error on the order of 20oC, so its not small-not by any means” says modeler Paul Valdes from the University of Reading. What could cause such large errors in the climate models? Researchers think the answer lies in the way that climate models simulate the effects of clouds. “Its a generic problem with all climate models,” says Valdes.

The discrepancies between climate models predictions and actual temperatures leads to troubling conclusions about their ability to predict the future (New Scientist, July 9, 2001).

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