William Yeatman

Drill, Baby, Drill! (To Save the Environment)

by William Yeatman on February 17, 2009

in Blog

When is it OK for an oil slick to coat a pristine beach?

When it’s a “natural occurrence,” of course!

My boss stayed at a hotel in Santa Barbara, and on the bed stand of his room, a pamphlet read:

“Tar found along local beaches is the result of natural seeps in the ocean that leak oil and natural gas into the Santa Barbara Channel. Like the La Brea tar pits on land, natural cracks and faults caused by ancient earthquakes allow oil and gas to escape from the ocean floor. The seepage then floats to the surface where some evaporates, some degrades and the rest thickens into floating balls of sticky tar. Tides, currents and winds can wash the tar onshore.”

That’s not all!

To hammer home the naturalness of the oil slick that coats the hotel’s beachfront, the pamphlet further noted that, “The Chumash Native Americans put tar seepage to work 5,000 years ago. Besides waterproofing baskets and bowls, they used a mixture of tar and pine to seal their canoes.”

So Captain Hazelwood did the Eskimos a service by providing them with plenty of sealant, right?

That was a cheap joke, but there is an actual policy point here.

If you can’t distinguish between a “natural” oil slick and an anthropogenic oil slick, and you think that all oil slicks are bad, then you’d want to do something about it. Well, it so happens that there is an easy fix for these “natural” oil slicks: drilling. By removing the oil, it can’t seep out and coat beautiful beaches.

So let’s drill, baby, drill! (for nature, that is)

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on February 13, 2009

in Cooler Heads Digest

Announcements

More than 70 of the world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues will confront the subject of global warming at the Heartland Institute’s second International Conference on Climate Change in New York City, March 8-10, 2009. They will be joined by economists, legal experts, private-sector business people, state and federal legislators and officials, policy analysts, media, and students. To learn more, click here.

In the News

Travesty-Rep. Inslee’s Behavior at Committee Hearing
Marlo Lewis, Globalwarming.org, 12 February 2009

The Collapse of Climate Policy
Roger Pielke Jr., Prometheus, 7 February 2009

Obama’s Extreme team on Energy
Ben Lieberman, FoxNews.com, 6 February 2009

Video: Heartland Institute Exposes Fear Mongering
Heartland Institute, 5 February 2009

Carbon Collapse Threatens Green Dreams
Sarah Arnott, The Independent, 9 February 2009

Climate Change Paradox: New Wind Power Doesn’t Reduce Emissions
Anselm Walderman, De Spiegal, 10 February 2009

Energy Secretary Floats a Carbon Tax
AFP, 12 February 2009

News You Can Use

Expensive Ethanol

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy jointly have launched a new website that allows viewers to compare the annual cost of fueling vehicles with E-85 (a blend including 85% ethanol) and regular unleaded gasoline. According to their calculations, it is almost 120% more expensive to fill a vehicle with E-85 than with gas. Click here to read commentary by CEI’s Marlo Lewis on the new site. Thanks to Dan Kish of the Institute for Energy Research for calling it to our attention.

Inside the Beltway

Senate Confirmation Hearing for Chronic Kook

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee held a hearing on Thursday, 12th February, on the nominations of Dr. Jane Lubchenco to be Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and of Dr. John P. Holdren to be White House Science Adviser and Director of the Office and Science and Technology Policy.  Lubchenco was careful not to say anything.  It looked as if Holdren’s eagerness to say something was frustrated by his knowing that he’d been advised by his handlers not to say anything.  The only interesting exchange during questions came when Senator David Vitter (R-La.) asked Holdren about some of the outrageous statements he has made over the years.  Holdren has been preaching imminent environmental doom and the need for population control and de-development of the industrialized countries for decades.  A few years ago he predicted that one billion people could die from global warming by 2020.  Vitter put him on the spot and peeled away just enough of Holdren’s mask to catch a glimpse of the kook underneath.  The Chairman and Ranking Republican of the committee, Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) are trying to send both nominations to the floor quickly for confirmation by voice vote.  Let’s hope that Sen. Vitter’s efforts will cause some Senators to consider Holdren’s nomination a little more carefully.

Green Pork in Stimulus

The House and the Senate are likely to vote on the conference report for the so-called stimulus package in the next day or two.  The bill wastes $790 billion of taxpayer money in an astounding number of ways.  The “green” spending provisions reportedly survived pretty well in the House-Senate negotiations.  It will take some time to add up all the potential “green” spending and tax credits.

Boxer Sets Timetable for Energy Rationing

I forgot to mention in last week’s issue that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Marin County, Calif.), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, held a press conference on 3rd February to discuss her plans for a cap-and trade bill this year.  She said that the new bill would be less complicated than the Lieberman-Warner bill that crashed on the Senate floor last June and listed six principles that would guide writing the new bill.  The only item worth noting is Boxer’s discussion of the schedule.  She said that she was determined to vote a bill out of committee before the annual UN global warming meeting in Copenhagen in December.  That’s when the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change are supposed to wrap up their negotiations on an agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.

It was only a few months ago that the Democratic leadership said they would have a cap-and-trade bill on President Obama’s desk to sign before Copenhagen.  Now, Boxer is committed to having a bill out of committee before Copenhagen, while her House counterpart, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills, Calif.), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has promised to have a bill out of his committee by Memorial Day.  But it looks increasingly likely that neither the House nor the Senate will consider and vote on a cap-and-trade bill on the floor this year.  And 2010 is an election year, when floor time becomes scarce and Members shy away from having to take votes on controversial issues.  Although these same Democratic leaders complained in the early years of this decade that the Republican majority was stalling on global warming legislation and that the time for talk was long past, the prospects for enacting energy-rationing legislation by a Democratic majority nonetheless continue to fade into the future.

Around the World

UK: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

According to a story this week in the Independent, Sammy Wilson, Northern Ireland’s Environment minister, banned an advertising campaign urging people to help tackle climate change by turning off their television sets because he does not believe humans are the main cause of global warming.

An airline industry journal this week reported that Adair Turner, chairman of the independent Committee on Climate Change that advises UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, proposed limiting UK citizens to just a few vacation trips abroad by air per year in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, spent almost $5,000 to install a D400 Stealthgen wind turbine on the roof of his London home in order to appear environmentally sensitive. After planners noticed it was in the wrong spot, Cameron took the turbine down, but it never went back up, most likely because it was an unsightly waste of money: Experts estimated that Cameron’s turbine would take 40 to 70 years to pay its way. B&Q, the manufacturer of the turbine, has announced that it will stop selling the D400.

Study: Renewables Remain Uncompetitive in EU even with Energy Rationing Policies

A new study by Chappin and Dijkema from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands questions the common assumption that raising the cost of inexpensive coal-fired power will cause a shift to renewable sources. By modeling the future reductions forced by the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, they conclude:

“A long-term portfolio shift towards less-CO2 intensive power generation is observed. However, the effect of CET (CO2 Emissions Trading) is relatively small and materializes late. The absolute emissions from power generation rise under most scenarios. This corresponds to the dominant character of current capacity expansion planned in the Netherlands (50%) and in Germany (68%), where companies have announced many new coal-based power plants. Coal is the most CO2 intensive option available and it seems surprising that even after the introduction of CET these capacity expansion plans indicate a preference for coal. Apparently in power generation the economic effect of CO2 emission-trading is not sufficient to outweigh the economic incentives to choose for coal.”

Across the States

California

The Los Angeles Times reported this week on an independent analysis asserting that the city government has not “appropriately analyzed or communicated” the fact that the city’s plan to generate 35% of its electricity with renewables by 2020 would have a “significant impact” on energy prices. The office of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) disputed the analysis. The Mayor continues to claim that using greater amounts of expensive alternative energy will benefit the economy.

Maryland

Maryland Governor Martin O’ Malley (D) held a press conference this week to promote S. 278, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act of 2009, which directs a state agency to develop a strategy to reduce Maryland’s greenhouse gas emissions 25% below 2006 levels by 2020, while at the same time ensuring “no loss of manufacturing jobs; a net increase in jobs and a net economic benefit…and no adverse impact on the reliability and affordability of electricity and fuel supplies.” Of course, that’s impossible, but by the time that Maryland citizens have to pay more for energy to meet O’ Malley’s contradictory agenda, the Governor will be safely out of office.

Global Warming 101: Solutions

by William Yeatman on February 4, 2009

in Global Warming 101

Global warming may or may not be a problem.  Man may or may not be driving it.  Given the uncertainties, a significant amount of global regret may apply if we divert too much of our global wealth to solving what may be a non-existent or trivial problem, especially if that diversion mires billions in poverty.  On the other hand, we may also regret not doing anything if man-made global warming does turn out to be a problem.  It is therefore prudent to examine what steps we can take that would prove beneficial whether or not anthropogenic global warming turns out to be a problem.  These steps can be termed “no regrets” policies.

What makes a No Regrets Global Warming Policy?  A global warming policy can be termed “no regrets” as long as it:

  • Reduces the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere, or
  • Mitigates, prevents or reduces a harm associated with global warming, or
  • Provides greater capacity for dealing with problems associated with global warming
  • Without imposing significant cost or diverting economic activity.

Top Five “No Regrets” Policies

1.)  Eliminate all subsidies to fuel use.
Subsidies to energy R&D cost taxpayers millions of dollars while producing minimal benefits. While these programs may be relatively small given the size of domestic energy markets, they serve little, if any, useful purpose while subsidizing large corporations at taxpayer expense. The potential threat of global warming, whether it is real or not, is simply one more reason to eliminate these subsidy programs. An international agreement aimed at ending energy subsidy with binding targets would be a significant victory for emissions reduction.  Unlike Kyoto, which forces an energy starvation diet on its participants, such a treaty would be a move to combat energy obesity.

2.)  Repeal the Federal Flood Insurance Program.
Much of the concern over global warming’s potential for harm in the US relates to sea level rise and the flooding that will result.  However, much of the investment in potentially vulnerable areas is a result of the Federal flood Insurance Program.  This program encourages building in vulnerable areas by acting as a moral hazard: people take greater risks because the government has said it will help bear that risk. Reform would reduce the moral hazard connected with building on vulnerable land, transferring the risk from the taxpayer to the private sector, which is likely to take a more realistic view of the issue.

3.)  Reform Air Traffic Control Systems.
Greater demand for air travel means more flights, which means greater fuel use and increased emissions. Yet, the current government-operated system of air traffic control, based on a 1920s-era system of beacons, may hinder innovations that could reduce fuel use and emissions. As a general rule, the shorter the flight, the less fuel will be consumed. Yet neither airlines nor pilots have the freedom to choose the most direct and economical route. Giving pilots freedom to map their own course is an attractive and desirable change in the eyes of the industry, and the impact on the environment would be tremendous. As well as saving considerable amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, the policy will deliver significant benefits in terms of time and expense to the US economy.  By obviating significant reductions in service levels associated with more routine applications of emissions reduction policy, it is to be preferred to that approach.

4.)  Facilitate Electricity Competition.
By rejecting the model of central regulation and allowing suppliers to meet their customers’ needs more exactly while relying on distributed generation, energy waste and the associated emissions will reduce considerably.  This reduction in waste will prove economically beneficial even if emissions themselves do not cause problems.

5.) Reduce Regulatory Barriers to New Nuclear Build.
There is no other technology than nuclear that is proven to be capable of providing emissions-free energy at the scale required to make significant reductions in carbon emissions.  The problem is that thanks to anti-nuclear activism by environmentalists in the 1970s, it takes a very long time to build a nuclear plant.  This pushes development and construction costs up to the level where it is not economically competitive with higher-emitting forms of electricity generation like coal and natural gas.  According to the nuclear energy institute, it takes 10 years from concept to operation to build a nuclear plant, and only four of those are construction, the rest is permit application development (2 years) and decision-making by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (4 years).

Global Warming 101: Costs

by William Yeatman on February 4, 2009

in Global Warming 101

Energy Needs v. Global Warming Goals

Leading climate alarmists claim that global greenhouse gas emissions need to decrease to 60 percent below present levels by 2050 if humans are to avoid catastrophic climate change. But such a drastic emissions reduction is at odds with the world’s energy needs. Economists predict that an 80 percent increase in global energy demand will cause global greenhouse gas emissions to grow by 70 percent by mid-century.

CO2 Emissions by Region

CO2 Emissions by Region

Almost all the increase in energy demand and emissions will come from developing countries, where a quarter of the global population lacks any access to electricity. Indeed, almost half of the world’s people have to rely on traditional biomass, agricultural residues, and dung for cooking and heating. These countries will require tremendous amounts of energy if they are to grow their economies and escape poverty.

Given the reality of increasing energy demand in the developing world, the only way to reduce emissions is de-carbonize energy production. Yet fossil fuels account for 85 percent of the world’s primary energy for a very simple reason: They are the world’s least expensive source of energy. Therefore, a carbon-free energy future is an expensive energy future.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, annual global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 30.3 gigatons a year by 2050 to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2050. To get an idea of the costs of de-carbonizing energy production, consider the chart below, which depicts actions that would “save” 1 gigaton of CO2-equivalent per year:

Actions that Provide One Gigaton CO2 per Year of Mitigation or Offsets

Actions that Provide One Gigaton CO2 per Year of Mitigation or Offsets

Someone would have to pay for all those new nuclear power plants and wind turbines. The International Energy Agency estimates that halving global emissions by 2050 would cost $45 trillion. That is $45 trillion above the cost of fossil fuel energy that would not be spent to create wealth. That would take a big bite out of global prosperity. Much is said about the so-called “consensus” on climate science, but the economic consensus is that reducing emissions reduces economic growth.

Making energy more expensive would be catastrophic for the developing world, for which access to affordable energy is a precondition for economic growth, the most important driver of human well-being. Costly emissions reductions policies would rob the world’s poorest people of opportunities to escape poverty.

Alarmists claim that rising temperatures threaten human welfare—but reducing emissions from energy production also threatens human welfare, especially in the developing world, since doing so limits economic growth. So what is worse, the warming or the policy?

The question we have to ask is, “What’s Worse? Climate change or climate policy?”

In a Cato Institute study, Indur Goklany suggests that climate change is unlikely to be the world’s most important environmental problem during the 21st century, because a richer but warmer world is better for human welfare than a colder but poorer world would be.

The Cost of Global Warming

The Cost of Global Warming

In his book Cool It, Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg applies a cost/benefit analysis to climate change mitigation measures like the Kyoto Protocol, and finds that they are a tragic waste of money. According to his research, we could spend a fraction of the cost of climate policies on immediate problems, like HIV or malaria, and save millions more lives than global warming would take.

Dr. William Nordhaus of Yale University estimates that 3°C of global warming would cost the world $22 trillion this century. Al Gore’s package of measures, which calls on the U.S. to “join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth,” would reduce warming costs to $10 trillion, at a cost of $34 trillion.

Climate change might harm human welfare, but so would climate change policy. Policy makers should assess and weigh both sets of risks before deciding on a course of action.

Global Warming 101: Science

by William Yeatman on February 3, 2009

in Global Warming 101

A “planetary emergency—a crisis that threatens the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth”—that is how former Vice President Al Gore describes global warming. Most environmental groups preach the same message. So do many journalists. So do some scientists.

In fact, at the 2008 annual meeting of Nobel Prize winners in Lindau, Germany, half the laureates on the climate change panel disputed the so-called consensus on global warming.

greenhouseeffectpreview

The Greenhouse Effect

You have probably heard the dire warnings many times. Carbon dioxide (CO2) from mankind’s use of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas is building up in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas—it traps heat that would otherwise escape into outer space. Al Gore warns that global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions could increase sea levels by 20 feet, spin up deadly hurricanes. It could even plunge Europe into an ice age.

Science does not support these and other scary predictions, which Gore and his allies repeatedly tout as a “scientific consensus.” Global warming is real and carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to it, but it is not a crisis. Global warming in the 21 st century is likely to be modest, and the net impacts may well be beneficial in some places. Even in the worst case, humanity will be much better off in 2100 than it is today.

The following is a summary of key points:

  • Average Annual Heat-Related Mortality: People will not drop like flies from heat waves in a warming world. Heat-related mortality will continue to decline as the world warms.

    averageannualheatrelatedmorpreview

    Average Annual Heat-Related Mortality

  • Far more people die each year from excess cold than from excess heat.
  • Global warming will not make air pollution worse.
  • Global warming will not lead to malaria epidemics in Northern Hemisphere countries.
  • Contrary to Gore, no “strong, new scientific consensus is emerging” that global warming is making hurricanes stronger.
  • Global Death & Death Rates Due to Extreme Events, 1900-2004: Since the 1920s, death rates related to extreme weather declined by more than 98 percent globally. The impression conveyed by An Inconvenient Truth—that global warming is making the world a more dangerous place—is false.

    globaldeathanddeathratespreview

    Global Death & Death Rates Due to Extreme Events, 1900-2004

  • Gore’s warning that global warming could shut down the Atlantic branch of the oceanic thermohaline circulation (THC) and plunge Europe into an ice age is science fiction.
  • Gore’s warning that sea levels could rise by 20 feet is science fiction. Sea level rise in the 21 st century is likely to be measured in inches, not in feet.
  • The world warmed at a rate of 0.17°C per decade since 1978, according to the temperature record compiled by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since most climate models predict that warming will occur at a constant—that is, non-accelerating—rate, it is reasonable to expect that global warming in the 21 st century will be close to the low end of the IPCC’s forecast range, of 1.4°C to 5.8°C.
  • Temperature Measuring Station on Aspault Parking Lot: The actual warming rate may be only half the 0.17°C per decade rate implied in the IPCC temperature record, because the IPCC has not adequately filtered out the warming biases from local factors like urbanization and improper management of monitoring equipment.

    asphaulttemperaturestationpreview

    Temperature Measuring Station on Aspault Parking Lot

  • A warming near the low end of the IPCC range would produce both benefits—longer growing seasons, more rainfall, fewer cold deaths—and harms—more heat waves, more drought, some acceleration of sea level rise—but nothing resembling catastrophe.
  • Even in the IPCC high-end warming forecasts, human welfare would improve dramatically over the next 100 years. In the IPCC fossil-fuel-intensive development scenario, per capita GDP in developing countries increases from $875 per year in 1990 to $43,000 per year in 2100—even after taking into account an additional 110 years of global warming. Even in the IPCC worst-case scenario, global warming is not the civilization-ending catastrophe Al Gore purports it to be.

EU President Takes on Gore

by William Yeatman on February 2, 2009

in Blog

Czech President Vaclav Klaus took aim at climate change campaigner Al Gore on Saturday in Davos in a frontal attack on the science of global warming.

2nd Int’l Conference on Climate Change in NYC

by William Yeatman on February 2, 2009

in Events

More than 70 of the world’s elite scientists specializing in climate issues will confront the subject of global warming at the Heartland Institute’s second International Conference on Climate Change in New York City, March 8-10, 2009. They will be joined by economists, legal experts, private-sector business people, state and federal legislators and officials, policy analysts, media, and students.

California’s Green Jobs Experiment Isn’t Going Well

by William Yeatman on February 2, 2009

in Blog

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership. Instead, since 2007 — in anticipation of the new mandates — California has led the nation in job losses.

Climate Policy Lessons from Europe

by William Yeatman on February 2, 2009

in Blog

The recent European Union climate agreement provides a useful warning to incoming President Obama and his team when they consider what to do about global warming. The rhetoric from the EU may sound nice, but when it comes to translating words into action, Europe has shown that the job is harder than it looks. EU member states have found it very difficult to reduce emissions, meet renewable energy targets or create lasting green jobs.

See the full story at the Washington Times.

California Blocks People of Santa Barbara on Drilling

by William Yeatman on February 2, 2009

in Blog

The Los Angeles Times today reports that the California State Lands Commission overturned a proposal by county officials and environmentalists for expanded oil production off the Santa Barbara coast. Environmentalists helped craft the measure, which allowed a Texas energy company to drill new wells in exchange for the eventual retirement of four platforms.  Despite broad, bi-partisan support for the agreement in Santa Barbara, the State Lands Commission objected to the deal because its approval would have sent “a message heard very, very clearly by those who call for ‘drill, baby, drill,’” said Lt. Governor John Garamendi (D), who sits on the Commission, and who intends to run for Governor.

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