Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) published a curious op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times titled, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Legislation).” The bill that they claim to support and that can pass the Senate is not the 821-page draft bill that Senators Kerry and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) released two weeks ago. It is a fantasy designed to get the support of Senator Graham and other fuzzy-minded Senators with visions of lots of new nuclear plants, billions for technology…

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I attended an excellent briefing  today on “Creating a low-carbon future” by Michael Howard of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).  The event  was hosted by the U. S. Energy Association and its executive director, Barry Worthington.   EPRI has done a lot of work on how the electricity sector could meet the greenhouse gas emissions target in the Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bill.  That target is economy-wide emissions 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.

Howard said that EPRI wanted to identify a strategy…

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Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

Not a whole lot of news on compact fluorescent bulbs, but the absolute impracticality of them is illustrated in a consumer advisory piece in yesterday's News & Observer of Raleigh. A sampling:

Because they contain trace elements of mercury, disposing of the lights or cleaning up a broken one is not a simple proposition…

 

Americans discard an estimated 670 million mercury-containing bulbs a year, potentially releasing as much as four tons of mercury into the environment each year….

Disposal options: Don't…

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I found an extensive Reuter's story about coal use growth in China, despite worries over global warming. It's nice to see that a country like China has adopted CEI's high wealth creation, maximum growth, maximum resiliency approach to adapting with climate change.

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A world where there's not enough electricity. It is hard to even comprehend a world where you turn the switch and nothing happens. When I lived on a farm in Punjab, India, it used to amuse me. The whole world would go black and the only light in the village was my trusty laptop, with its blue glare. If any family in the village had an Akand Path going on, the sound of the Guru Grant Sahib would be abrubtly…

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The Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" touted itself as the world's first carbon-neutral documentary.

The producers said that every ounce of carbon emitted during production — from jet travel, electricity for filming and gasoline for cars and trucks — was counterbalanced by reducing emissions somewhere else in the world. It only made sense that a film about the perils of global warming wouldn't contribute to the problem.

It was a ridiculously good deal with one problem: So far, it has not led…

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This year’s most politically incorrect book–and also the one likely to have the biggest impact on public opinion–is not by HUMAN EVENTS’ Ann Coulter. Nor, surprisingly, is it by any other prominent conservative writer or talker. It’s Michael Crichton’s new novel, State of Fear.

When I first thumbed through my copy, I was worried that this time Crichton had gone too far in weighing down his plot with complex scientific information. That the characters spent too much time in long didactic…

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On September 24, Californias Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted a plan to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new cars and trucks starting in 2009. To sell cars in California, automakers will have to reduce fleet average GHG emissions by 22 percent in 2012 and 30 percent in 2016. CARBs rulemaking is a raw deal for auto dealers in California and any other state that mimics Californias plan.

Unscientific. To justify its rule, CARB cites the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate…

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 As several power companies in Great Britian raised their prices for residential consumers by 3.5 percent, analysts suggested climate change policies were part of the reason.

 An electricity analyst at consultants Wood Mackenzie told Reuters (Aug. 19) that, Industrial and commercial customers have seen rises between 20 and 30 percent in quotes for their power contracts for next year, mainly due to higher oil prices and a European Union carbon emissions trading scheme starting in January.  The report went on, The emissions…

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