Sunday Shows Shun AGW (yet again); Apple’s Solar Deal Confuses Reporters; the Willie Soon “Conflict of Interest” Comet Makes Another Pass; and More
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Last weekend, there were again no questions about climate change on any of the four Sunday morning political talk shows (i.e., NBC Meet the Press, ABC This Week, CBS Face the Nation, and Fox News Sunday). In the five weeks since the SOTU–during which President Obama announced that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change”–these shows collectively have fielded exactly one question about AGW. And the purpose of that lone query, asked last week by ABC This Week’s Jon Karl, was to second-guess the President’s belief that AGW is no less a threat than *violent extremism* or Russian aggression. As I’ve previously explained, the absence of climate questions “is notable insofar as these shows are the embodiment of the political establishment. By ignoring the putative AGW threat to national security, they suggest that conventional wisdom on the issue rests well to the right of the President.”
- There is much misplaced media optimism over Apple’s announcement this month that it would pay $850 million to purchase 25 years of output from 130 MW of solar power nameplate capacity (with an estimated 30% capacity factor) to be built in Monterey County, California.
- Bloomberg’s Tom Randall wrote that the deal will be “profitable” for Apple. It’s unclear how he could know this given that the full contract terms haven’t been disclosed, as Randall himself concedes. More importantly, what little that is known about the deal suggests that it will be far from “profitable” for Apple (see next point).
- Slate’s Daniel Gross wrote that the deal is proof that solar power “can compete on or near equal footing with other sources of power.” Yet initial analysis of the deal’s terms by Forbes’s Christopher Helman, based on the announced sale price and the likely capacity factor of the planned solar power plant, suggests that Apple will pay roughly $100/MWhr for electricity; by comparison, wholesale electricity on the California spot market now costs about $34/MWhr. [click to continue…]