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Fantasizing about a low-carbon future

by Myron Ebell on September 15, 2009

in Blog

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 by which the electric sector could be de-carbonized affordably.  Here’s the background and how EPRI would do it:

The decisions made today and in the next few years will shape electric generation in 2050, so we have to make the right decisions starting now.  Electricity generation accounts for about one-third of the 2005 U. S. total of six billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.  Electric rates in constant dollars have been remarkably flat for the past forty years.

EPRI has identified two paths to meeting the 83% reduction target.  The first is by deploying a full portfolio of energy sources.  A full portfolio would most notably include expanded nuclear power and widespread carbon capture and storage for coal and natural gas.  The second is by deploying a limited portfolio of sources that would exclude nuclear and carbon capture and storage.

What is most apparent in EPRI’s modeling is that the limited portfolio approach would end the use of coal completely by 2030.  Renewables would go up, but the biggest increases would be in the use of natural gas.  The result is that electricity would become very expensive, with rates tripling by 2050 in constant dollars.  In addition, we would be forced to use much less electricity in order to meet the emissions reduction targets.

The full portfolio scenario projects that most of the cuts would be made by building new nuclear power plants and new coal plants that capture and store 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions produced.  Natural gas use would go down considerably.  EPRI projects that electric rates would not quite double by 2050 were the full portfolio approach pursued.  Enforced reductions in use would only be about half as severe under the full portfolio compared to the limited portfolio.

The full portfolio scenario sounds very nice, but it’s fantasy.  It has almost nothing to do with the real world.  What EPRI (understandably) does not include in their models are the increasing political, regulatory, and legal obstacles to building new power plants.  Even if carbon capture and storage technology becomes commercially viable by 2020 (which is highly unlikely), it will take decades to permit and build more than a handful of coal plants that capture the carbon dioxide, the pipelines to transport it, and the underground pockets to store it.   Permitting delays will put pipeline siting and construction years behind schedule.  Lawsuits will be filed claiming that pressurized CO2 is too dangerous to be allowed.   Similarly, a few new nuclear power plants may be built in the next twenty years, but building a lot of new plants will take decades to overcome the permitting obstructions.

These obstacles do not apply only to coal and nuclear plants.  Proposed wind and solar energy projects are being blocked and delayed all around the country.  Bobby Kennedy, jnr., is leading the campaign to block a big wind farm off Cape Cod, where his family own valuable, scenic vacation property.  At the same time, Kennedy has lashed out at local environmental pressure groups at the other end of the country that are trying to block a big solar energy development in the Mojave Desert that he has invested in.  Even if both projects eventually get built, they are being delayed for years.  This is a problem that the environmental pressure groups have helped to create and don’t want to admit exists.  It means that the limited portfolio approach modeled by EPRI is fantasy, too.

One of the problems with relying on EPRI’s or any of the economic models to predict the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is that they assume that political decisions will be made in a rational, orderly way that will allow economic decisions to be made in an efficient way.  The Waxman-Markey energy rationing bill (H. R. 2454) is just the latest disproof of this assumption.  The bill creates a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions and then adds several hundred other programs to pay off individual special interests.  Nearly all these programs get in the way of the efficient working of cap-and-trade.  They will raise the costs of making mandatory reductions beyond what any model can predict.

The Newest Fake Argument for Cap-and-Trade: National Security

by William Yeatman on September 15, 2009

in Blog

To listen to Democratic Party leadership tell it, one would never know that a cap-and-trade has anything to do with global warming.

For example, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) pitched the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a cap-and-trade energy rationing scheme that narrowly passed in the House, as a “vote for jobs,” rather than as a vote for global warming mitigation. Of course, this is malarkey-government only “creates” green jobs by destroying many more jobs in other, less politically favored economic sectors.

Now Democratic leaders in the Senate are saying that cap-and-trade is all about national security. Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), in particular, has been pushing the thesis that climate change is going to cause conflict over scarce natural resource, drought-induced famine, and massive population flows. Kerry’s idea is to give political cover to moderate democrats otherwise loath to vote for an energy tax-moderates tend to represent Americans who are concerned with national security, but skeptical of global warming alarmism. By framing climate change as a threat to national security, these moderates might escape the adverse political consequences of voting for a cap-and-trade scheme.

That’s a risky bet for moderates, because Kerry’s national security argument is bogus. To learn why, read this excellent blog post by my colleague Marlo Lewis. Kerry’s claims are also refuted Christopher Monckton at the Science & Public Policy Institute, available here.

The Front Lines in the Global Warming War

by Julie Walsh on September 15, 2009

in Blog, Features

The EPA, supposedly the Environmental Protection Agency, has become the Economy Poisoning Agency. In the name of preventing a global warming apocalypse, President Obama’s EPA is on the verge of declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant and then controlling our entire economy through energy regulations. This would result in huge increases in our energy bills and virtually everything we buy. Yet to do this, of course, EPA had to ignore science. In fact, EPA was found in June to have suppressed a report by one of its own senior analysts that concluded that EPA’s global warming “science” was incomplete and out-of-date. EPA has tried to spin its way out of this fiasco, even proposing to shut down the office in which its whistleblower works!

The EPA’s possible economy-crushing activities have prompted a grass-roots email campaign to pressure EPA into changing course on its pending “Endangerment” proceeding, the rulemaking underlying all EPA global warming proposals. CEI and Freedom Action, a new organization affliliated with CEI, urge concerned citizens to join the fight by writing EPA with an easy form to tell EPA to put their regulatory plans on hold until they clear up this scandal and reveal ALL of the science.

Beer for my Horses

by Iain Murray on September 15, 2009

in Blog

The global-warming industry would probably still be solely owned by assoted cranks and romantics (and the odd vice president) if it weren’t for a bunch of CEOs taking a leaf from Enron’s playbook and attempting to monetize the issue. Playing the bootleggers in a classic bootleggers and baptists alliance, these businessmen have realized that they can get the government to increase their profits by means of “cap and trade” and similar regulatory interventions, at the expense of other businesses and the paying public. Ordinarily, such shenanigans would have the corporate watchdog groups in arms, but by getting the “baptists” of the green movement on their side, they have shielded themselves from public disgust.

This has to stop, and the good folks at Junkscience.com are at the forefront of calling foul. They are releasing a series of “Wanted” posters for six corporate fat cats who want to grow fatter by means of the Waxman-Markey Bill. Junkscience describes the six and their crimes as:

* Exelon CEO John Roe, the “carbon bandit,” who stands to make billions of dollars at taxpayer expense from Waxman-Markey’s free carbon allowances;

* General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, the “carbon schemer,” who would rather profit from lobbying for Waxman-Markey than innovating products that consumers actually want;

* Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, the “carbon betrayer,” who is lobbying for higher energy prices and against his own customers and shareholders;

* Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris, the “carbon extortionist,” who threatens to send American jobs overseas unless Congress pays him off with free carbon allowances;

* Caterpillar CEO James Owens, who can only be considered as “carbon clueless” since he is lobbying against the coal industry, one of his biggest customers; and

* John Deer & Co. Chairman Robert Lane, the “carbon crapshooter,” who seems to be betting that he can wreck the economy and profit simultaneously.

Form that posse and go get ‘em, guys.

How the New Senate Ag Chair (Blanche Lincoln) Changes America’s Energy Policy

by William Yeatman on September 15, 2009

in Blog

Last week Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) became chairman of the Agriculture Committee, after Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), the previous chair, accepted the gavel at the Health, Labor, Education and Pension Committee (vacated by the passing of Ted Kennedy).

Lincoln becomes the first female to chair this powerful committee, and her ascension to the top-spot will have a big impact on the country’s energy policy.

For almost a decade, the Senate Ag Committee has been the primary benefactor of ethanol, a fuel made from corn. Regardless whether the Ag chair was a Republican or a Democrat, the Committee, which is dominated by corn-belt politicians, showered ethanol with subsidies and give-aways-and even a Soviet-style production quota that forces consumers to use it. Government support for ethanol has been great for corn growers (they’ve seen demand increase by almost 50% since 2005), but it’s awful for livestock farmers, who have seen the cost of corn-feed skyrocket. Consumers have also been harmed, as the price of corn derivatives (meat, dairy, soda, etc., etc.,) has increased so sharply that inflation of the cost of food doubled the historical rate in 2008.

With Lincoln taking the gavel of the Ag Committee, however, the ethanol gravy train might be coming to an end. That’s because Lincoln doesn’t represent the corn-belt. To be sure, they grow corn in Arkansas, primarily in the eastern part of the state. But in western Arkansas, farmers raise chickens. In fact, the Natural State is the nation’s #2 producer of broiler chickens. America’s ethanol policy has seriously compromised the chicken industry, so we can expect Lincoln to take a more conservative approach with fuels made out of food.

Lincoln is also likely to affect the climate debate. The Ag Committee has some jurisdiction over climate change legislation, and Lincoln’s vote on cap-and-trade is a priority for her caucus leadership, which is having a tough time finding support for a climate bill among Senate Democrats. But Arkansas politics are decidedly unfavorable to global warming alarmism. Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Arkansas), who represents Little Rock and much of Pulaski County, was the only member of his State’s delegation to vote for the American Clean Energy and Security Act, cap-and-trade legislation that passed through the House of Representatives in late June, and he has been hammered over the airwaves by utilities, agriculture interests, and political opponents ever since. Now, there is considerable speculation that his seat is in jeopardy-all thanks to his vote for a cap-and-trade. No doubt Lincoln has noticed Snyder’s plight.

Is Cap-and-Trade Slipping on Obama’s Wish List?

by William Yeatman on September 14, 2009

in Blog

Rumors surfaced last week that President Barack Obama now considers financial sector reform to be his administration’s #2 priority after healthcare. Previously, climate change was thought to be the next big-ticket item on the President’s agenda.

The tea-leaves seem to indicate that this rumor is true.

For starters, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) decided to stay on as Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, rather than accept the gavel on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (a post vacated by the passing of Ted Kennedy).

The only plausible explanation for Dodd’s decision to remain the chairman of the Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over financial sector reform, is an expectation by Dodd that Obama will push for increased regulation of Wall Street in the short term. Dodd faces a tough re-election fight in 2010, and taking on Wall Street would put him in a favorable spotlight for the foreseeable future.

And today in New York, President Obama gave a speech on the need for a new regulatory regime to govern Wall Street, thereby lending further credence to the rumor that climate change has dropped as a priority.

Meanwhile, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (which has primary jurisdiction over climate change legislation) last week again delayed the introduction of global warming legislation, and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), the second ranking Democrat in the Senate, told reporters that cap-and-trade might have to wait until 2010.

Next Stop for ACE

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on September 11, 2009

in Blog

On Tuesday I reported about the Alliance for Climate Education’s indoctrination efforts of high school students in five metro areas: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Boston. This week ACE is advertising to hire “educators” in their next target city, which is Washington:

ACE is seeking a dynamic, energetic individual to give presentations on climate change to high school students in Washington, D.C. The Senior Educator will eventually be responsible for managing day-to-day operations, fostering relationships with schools and local ENGOs in D.C., and identifying opportunities for and delivering lively, multimedia presentations to students in an assembly format.  The educator is responsible for setting up school appointments, traveling to area schools, conducting presentations to a group of 200+ students and faculty, following-up with students and faculty after presentations, refining/revising program content and working in close collaboration with other staff in realizing ACE’s goals and priorities. The D.C. Senior Educator will also help develop the overall organizational strategy for supporting the collective youth voice and determining how it can be a more relevant part of the overall climate movement.

Just what the public schools exist for: letting advocacy groups in to take kids out of their classes to get recruited for a “movement.”

Thanks, Media Matters!

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent on September 10, 2009

in Blog

Fox News/Rush Limbaugh watchdog Media Matters for America did climate realists a big favor last night by posting a segment without comment from last night’s “O’Reilly Factor,” in which host Bill O. interviewed AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi about California wildfires and global warming. As O’Reilly explained, he invited Greenpeace to send a representative to appear on the program with Bastardi but the group declined to do so. That left the well-respected weatherman to present plenty of evidence that the fires have nothing to do with global warming. Witness:

1. Given an opportunity by O’Reilly to slam Greenpeace, Bastardi says “I don’t want to disparage them. They’ve done some good things.” But then he adds, “in this case their house of cards (the global warming-wildfires connection) goes up in smoke.”

2. (Illustrating with meteorological maps and that cool telestrator thing) “Over the last two years…whenever the Pacific Ocean starts cooling, and global temperatures start to cool, California gets dry….All this cold water off California means the air sinks over the top of California; when it sinks it dries out, so global cooling is actually a cause of drought in California…”

3. (Showing a temperature anomalies chart) “To prove to you the globe is actually cooling, if you look at the [IPCC] their forecast was for temperatures to go up, up, up, and over the last 10 years you can see — in an up-and-down manner — they are coming down. So for the last 10 years, it’s cooling.”

4. “While the earth was supposed to be warming a little bit, the atmosphere over the tropics was really supposed to be warming up quite a bit. (Shows model of tropical greenhouse warming) What has actually been happening? (replaces with chart of “reality” in the tropics) Nada.”

5. (Posts chart of accumulated cyclone energy trends) “And consequently, an inconvenient truth is, the tropical cyclone accumulated energy is down at record low levels, not record high levels.”

Watch for yourself, and pass along a big thanks to both MMFA and Greenpeace for letting facts reach the public without adding their lies and spin.

New Paper Shows Staggering Cost to Americans of Waxman-Markey

by Iain Murray on September 9, 2009

in Blog

There’s a new cost:benefit study from New York University Law School’s Institute for Public Integrity that, its authors claim, shows that, “From almost any perspective and under almost any assumption, H.R. 2454 [Waxman-Markey] is a good investment for the United States to make in our own economic future and in the future of the planet.”  A good investment for the US? Really?

The authors recognize that the benefits they find are global, while the costs are located in the US.  So let’s see what benefits accrue to US citizens and at what cost. (I am working with the authors’ figures here, which derive from the EPA, and are significantly different from the figures provided by such groups as the Heritage Foundation or the American Council for Capital Formation, which find much, much higher costs.)

Highest possible benefit = $5.2 trillion / 6 billion people = benefits of $866 per person

Cost to US citizen = $660 billion / 300 million people = cost of $2200 per citizen

That means a best possible benefit to cost ratio for a US citizen of 0.4:1.

The report talks about thinking of the Waxman-Markey costs as a “highly effective, highly leveraged form of foreign aid.”  One has to doubt that, given that the benefits that accrue to the developing world do so mostly in the far future, while the developing world is in desperate need of greater wealth – and better access to energy – today.  Even if it were true, however, one wonders whether the American public will accept a de facto tax increase of around $1300 per person, or $400 billion total, to pay for such climate aid.

Yet that’s assuming that the “high end” benefits scenario is what occurs.  The global low end benefits are actually far outweighed by the American costs, leading to a benefit:cost ratio to America of something in the order of 0.05:1 (or a cost:benefit ratio of 20:1).

And, of course, there’s no guarantee that a reduction in American emissions will amount to a reduction in global emissions.  We have seen the response to European cap-and-trade schemes being the relocation of facilities to other jurisdictions.  If so, the effective foreign aid program of Waxman-Markey might actually be a loss of American jobs to be replaced by developing world jobs, with no emissions reduction at all.  That would be very generous of us, but not quite what the authors of this study have in mind.

To summarize, the authors of the study have conclusively demonstrated that the Waxman-Markey bill is actually a very bad deal for the United States, and their attempts to claim otherwise are just spin.

The Washington Post discovers that poor people need more energy

by Myron Ebell on September 9, 2009

in Blog, Features

The Washington Post has discovered that poor people in poor countries need access to modern energy.  In an excellent article on today’s front page, Emily Wax details the energy poverty of Africa, India, and Pakistan.  And she draws the obvious conclusion that has evaded most of the establishment media for years: that’s why India and other developing countries aren’t going to sign on to any UN treaty that mandates reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions.  They don’t need an energy diet; they need thousands of coal-fired power plants.

Wax writes: “Just one in four Africans has access to grid electricity, according to the World Bank. More than 500 million Indians, roughly half the population, have no official access to electricity, and those who do are experiencing rolling brownouts as India’s Power Ministry tries to make up for a 25 percent shortfall in electricity generation. The developing world’s dearth of power hinders prosperity and adds another layer of difficulty to daily life.

“In much of Africa, families depend on generators, candles, kerosene lamps and firewood. Blackouts force shops to close early, schools to cancel classes and hospitals to turn away patients. Foreign investors become wary of parking their money in Africa, experts say.  ‘Big companies in Africa seem to get most of their electricity from generators, or they build their own power plants,’ said Thomas Pearmain, an Africa energy analyst for IHS Global Insight.”

Of course, environmental pressure groups say that poor countries need to avoid “our mistakes” and build a new energy economy using renewable sources and new technologies.  The problem is that most of these new sources provide a lot more sanctimonious self-satisfaction than energy.  I recently drove through upstate New York on a mild summer day.  I saw over seventy windmills in several groups along the way.  Not a single one was turning.  That’s because the wind doesn’t blow much in the summer (when demand is highest because of air conditioning).  In sub-tropical countries like India there isn’t much wind at any time of year.

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