William Yeatman

Cooler Heads Digest

by William Yeatman on January 16, 2009

In the News

Debate Over: It’s Freezing
David Harsanyi, Townhall, 16 January 2009

Paulson on Energy Rationing
Myron Ebell, Globalwarming.org, 15 January 2009

Global Government
Chris Horner, Washington Times, 14 January 2009

The Problem with Green Jobs
John Whitehead, Salon, 14 January 2009

Pickens’s Windmills Tilt against Market Realities
Neil King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 13 January 2009

Spare Detroit Car Czar’s Green Thumb
Sam Kazman, Detroit News, 13 January 2009

Bail Out Big Three by Cutting Red Tape
Iain Murray, Detroit News, 13 January 2009

Laffer Gas
William Yeatman & Jeremy Lott, Culture 11, 13 January 2009

Green Wacko Tobacco
Chris Horner, Human Events, 13 January 2009

News You Can Use

Inaugural Emissions

Paul Chesser

The Institute for Liberty and The Chilling Effect have calculated some “conservative” estimates of how much carbon will be emitted at next week’s swearin’ (in) of the green new president. They came up with a total of 575 million pounds of CO2 as the likely figure.

Inside the Beltway

Myron Ebell

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the new Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said at the committee’s first hearing on Thursday that he planned to mark up cap-and-trade legislation before Memorial Day.  The committee has 36 Democrats and 23 Republicans.  It looks to me that the Republicans on the committee will vote against any cap-and-trade bill close to unanimously.  That means that Waxman will have to win over at least several of the committee’s Democrats from coal States in order to pass his bill out of committee.  That makes it likely that any bill will be a lot messier than the environmental pressure groups would like to see.

Waxman held a hearing to spotlight big business support for cap-and-trade.  Fifteen members of the U. S. Climate Action Partnership testified about their new agreement on the outlines of a cap-and-trade system to ration energy.  Witnesses included Jeff Immelt of General Electric and Jim Rogers of Duke Energy, plus the heads of Conoco Phillips, Exelon, Rio Tinto, PNM Resources, P G and E, Siemens, and NRG Energy.  Five heads of environmental front groups for big business that belong to USCAP also testified—NRDC, EDF, Nature Conservancy, WRI, and Pew Center.

Not everyone was pleased.  At a briefing on USCAP’s new plan for Senators and Representatives before the hearing, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) apparently unloaded on the CEOs.  His office then sent out a press release that made Corker’s broadside public.  Corker in the press release  calls USCAP’s plan self-serving and says: “I’m totally bewildered that in this anti-earmark atmosphere, USCAP would promote what is basically just another request from special interest groups to take money out of taxpayer pockets.”

The House Appropriations Committee released the text of an economic stimulus bill that would cut taxes by $275 billion and spend $550 billion.  I haven’t seen the tax cuts yet, but they are undoubtedly designed to benefit special interests.  Extending tax subsidies for renewable energy is probably included.

The new spending is described in the committee report as “$550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in.”  Parts of the package are pork barrel projects designed to create “green jobs.”  For example, there is at least $18 billion for renewable technologies and energy efficiency.  There is an $8 billion loan guarantee to finance renewable energy and transmission projects.  The bill would spend $6 billion on weatherizing houses of low-income people and another $7 billion on making federal buildings more energy efficient.  The Institute for Energy Research this week happened to publish a paper that blows a lot of big holes in the green jobs myth.

Senate committees held hearings this week on President-elect Barack Obama’s nominees for environment and energy posts.  His choices for Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Interior, EPA Administrator, and CEQ Chairman sailed through the hearings.  Senators voiced little criticism and asked few tough questions.  The nominees were careful not to make controversial remarks.  For example, Dr. Steven Chu, Obama’s pick for Energy, played down his anti-coal remarks and sounded more like the administrator he is about to become than the advocate that he has been.

Around the World

The Russian Gas Crisis Week Two

Russia’s cutoff of gas to Ukraine and eighteen other European countries is now in its tenth day. Several deals to end the crisis have fallen apart.  Negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union may resume this weekend.

German gas stockpiles are down to levels usually seen at the end of the heating season. Slovenia said its gas reserves will last for another 30 days. French gas supplier GDF Suez has been sending emergency supplies to Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bosnia and Serbia. Serbia’s three largest cities are now facing blackouts because the lack of gas has forced consumers to switch to electricity to heat their homes, overloading their power grid. Residents and businesses in the Serbian, Bosnian and Hungarian capitals have resorted to burning oil, wood and coal. And angry Bulgarians demonstrated outside the parliament in Sofia.

The dispute between Russia and Ukraine currently centers around who will pay for “technical gas”—gas worth several million dollars per day that is needed to power compressors to push gas westward through the inefficient pipeline system that was built in the Soviet era. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met today with European energy company chiefs to push his idea of a consortium to help pay for this technical gas. The companies within the consortium would jointly buy the gas from Gazprom at a price of around $450 per 1,000 cubic meters, according to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The European Commission threatened today to take unspecified sanctions against Russia and Ukraine unless gas flows to the EU resume after the weekend. The crisis appears to be changing the thinking of some European leaders on the EU’s energy priorities. Securing energy supplies suddenly seems more critical than reducing greenhouse emissions by closing down coal-fired power plants in order to address global warming.  Announced plans to close down nuclear plants may also soon be reconsidered.

Hilarious Tale of Eco-Idiocy

by William Yeatman on January 14, 2009

Al Gore keeps two huge sport utility vehicles running outside the building wherever he speaks. International environmental diplomats rack up huge carbon footprints flying around the world to luxurious hotel resorts for climate conferences. A Prius gets less gas mileage than a Hummer.

To this list of eco-ironies, we can add New York Representative Eric Massa’s failed fuel cell road trip. According to Jason Chen at Gizmodo, Massa “tried to drive a fuel cell car from NY to DC to make an environmental point and to show how great fuel cell cars are.”

But things got complicated.

Chen continues:

“Massa drove one fuel cell car while a hybrid SUV [Chevy Tahoe] towing an additional SUV followed along. Once he got half way, he switched to new fuel cell car [which I assume was towed to the half way point sometime earlier so that it would be waiting for the environmentally-conscious congressman]. The empty fuel cell was then towed back by the first SUV. As he continued on his journey, the second SUV followed. Once Massa arrived in DC, the second SUV then towed the second fuel cell car back to NY.

So basically, one SUV traveled 400 miles and one SUV traveled 600 miles for a total of 1000 miles on a 300 mile trip. That's not even counting the mileage on the fuel cell car. Nice work there Captain Planet.”

Gas Crisis in Europe Continues

by William Yeatman on January 14, 2009

in Blog

The natural gas crisis in Europe continued Wednesday as the standoff between Russia and Ukraine left millions of homes without heating fuel for another day.

Global Government

by William Yeatman on January 14, 2009

I was in the room in The Hague in November 2000 when then-French President Jacques Chirac hailed the Kyoto Protocol, or "global warming" treaty, as "the first component of an authentic global governance." Then-European Union Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom seconded the sentiment when she told London's Independent that Kyoto was "not about whether scientists agree" but instead "about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide."

Why Energy R&D Spending by Government Cannot Succeed

by William Yeatman on January 14, 2009

Dr. Stephen Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's selection to head the Department of Energy, is a vocal proponent of wasting taxpayer money on research & development for alternative energy.  Dr. Chu prefers to think of state r&d as an "investment," but "waste" is the appropriate terminology.

The fundamental shortcoming of government funded “r&d” is government’s inability to successfully perform the “d” part. That’s the process by which an innovation (itself a product of the “research” component) is brought to the market and made economically viable. It culminates when consumers find value in the aforementioned innovation, and start to buy it in sufficient quantities to make the enterprise of that innovation profitable.

It is a complex process that is dependent on myriad intangibles, such as trial-and-error tinkering and circumstance. Successful development is diffuse and unpredictable
Government bureaucrats and politicians, however, are capable only of spending money and exerting rules from the top-down. They have neither the omniscience nor the manpower to successfully develop an innovation.

That’s the theory. In practice, government has a long history of failure in “r&d.” To learn more about this history, read "Why State R&D Flops," by Peter Foster, from last week's Financial Post. 

Laffer Gas

by William Yeatman on January 13, 2009

That's the most charitable explanation we can muster for the other week's "revenue neutral" gas tax hike proposal by three prominent conservatives. It's a Rube Goldberg-like social engineering scheme of the kind that most conservatives rejected in the 1970s, along with comparable worth, the ERA, and mood rings.

Green Wacko Tobacco

by William Yeatman on January 13, 2009

in Blog

2008 was a bad year for global warming alarmists.  Their credibility has been entirely destroyed by none other than Mother Nature.  As George W. Bush leaves office, the world is actually cooler than it was when he came in.

Bail Out Big Three by Cutting Red Tape

by William Yeatman on January 13, 2009

in Blog

Through excessive regulation, Congress has placed Detroit at a competitive disadvantage with foreign automakers, since many rules are aimed at eliminating the sort of vehicles that Detroit has proved adept at designing and marketing.

Fight Alarmism by Voting for the 2009 Weblog Awards!

by William Yeatman on January 13, 2009

Two great blogs—Climate Audit and Watt’s Up With That—are in the running for the Best Science Blog category of the 2009 Weblog Awards.

If you’ll remember, Climate Audit was on the precipice of winning this award last year when a cabal of alarmist bloggers mounted a sketchy, last minute campaign to stuff the ballot box in favor of an evolution blog. As a result, Climate Audit only shared the title.

Let’s make sure there is no controversy this year by putting one of these two great blogs over the top!

Click here to make your vote heard.

Obama’s Pick for Science Adviser Is Unfit To Serve

by William Yeatman on January 13, 2009

In December 2008, President-elect Barack Obama nominated Dr. John P. Holdren to be White House Science Adviser. The White House Science Adviser heads the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which “serves as a source of scientific and technological analysis and judgment for the President with respect to major policies, plans and programs of the Federal Government,” according to the OSTP web site.

John Holdren’s 40-year record of outlandish scientific assertions, consistently wrong predictions, and dangerous public policy choices makes him unfit to serve as White House Science Adviser. The Senate should not confirm his nomination.

Click here to learn why John Holdren is unfit to serve as White House Science Adviser. 

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