The Real Science Trashers
Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune, 30 August 2011
Gore: Deniers Are This Generation’s Racists
Caroline May, Daily Caller, 28 August 2011
Wind Power Is Dying
Tait Trussell, FrontPageMag, 28 August 2011
Hiring, Federal Environmental Employee: Integrity Not Required
Chris Horner, AmSpecBlog, 27 August 2011
Rick Perry’s $7 Billion Problem
Robert Bradley, Jr., Master Resource, 26 August 2011
The ethanol compromise did not make it into any debt ceiling negotiations and its future is now looking bleaker than ever before. The Congressional ‘super-committee’ established by the debt ceiling negotiations will have to decide by November 23rd some manner to reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion or face potentially unpopular automatic spending cuts to defense and discretionary spending (though USA Today writes that these “threats” have failed in the past). None of the rumored super-committee members seem to be from regions that would require their support of the ethanol industry
The ‘ethanol compromise’ had legs because it funneled money into the domestic ethanol industry while still maintaining a facade of deficit reduction. It would have collected $2 billion in revenue from the ending of the domestic tax credit as of July 21 and used a small amount less than that to spend on items near and dear to the ethanol industry (mainly ongoing support for cellulosic ethanol and money for the installation of blender pumps at fueling stations), hence their support.
For most of the last decade, alarmists have rung the global warming bell. Back in 2006, when Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, was released, it seemed folks were beginning to wake up to the alarm. Public concern regarding global warming peaked following the release of Gore’s movie and is now back down to pre-propaganda levels. Addressing the declining public alarm about global warming, Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, said, “The erosion in both public concern and public trust about global warming should be a clarion call for people and organizations trying to educate the public about this important issue.”
Ed, Al, et al, should be alarmed, as three different news items in one week add to the public’s growing skepticism about global warming.
Obama’s CAFE Fairy Tale
Henry Payne, The Michigan View, 29 July 2011
EPA’s Air Quality Overkill
Steve Milloy, Washington Times, 29 July 2011
Heartland Responds to Nature
Joseph Bast, Heartland Institute, 28 July 2011
Polar Bear Scientist Under Investigation
Becky Bohrer, AP, 28 July 2011
New Paper “On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance”
Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science, 26 July 2011
Yesterday’s UK Guardian reports that a “special meeting” of the United Nations (UN) Security Council is “due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change.”
This was inevitable. With the Cold War many years behind us, and only a few important regional wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) going on, the Security Council needs some kind of permanent, global crisis to justify its existence. Mission Creep thy name is Climate Change. [click to continue…]
Today, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on “The Future of Natural Gas.” There were no partisan or ideological fireworks. The expert witnesses were Howard Gruenspecht (U.S. Energy Information Administration), Ernest Moniz (MIT), and George Blitz (Dow Chemical).
Moniz argued the environmental risks associated with natural gas were “challenging but manageable.” Blitz sounded a note of caution. Industry uses natural gas both as a feedstock and as a manufacturing fuel. Policy-driven increases in natural gas demand due to, for example, a Clean Energy Standard, EPA’s Utility MACT Rule, or tax incentives for natural gas vehicles could do what high gas prices did in the early 2000s — close factories and offshore jobs. I may blog on their testimonies later on.
Gruenspecht’s testimony provides a valuable primer on natural gas production, demand, reserves, and trends. This post excerpts some of the key facts and figures he presented.
Yesterday’s edition of Greenwire features an amazing column on cellulosic biofuels by reporter Paul Voosen. It’s got interviews with leading researchers, industrial history going back to WWII, science, economics, and the narrative suspense of a detective story.
Voosen’s main point: Despite substantial private and public investment, there have been “no Eureka moments” in the “long U.S. campaign” to scale up Nature’s digestive processes (found in fungi and the guts of termites, cows, dung beetles, and other fauna) to break down cellulose and create affordable alcohol fuels from prairie grasses, wood wastes, and other fibrous plant materials.
There Has Been No Global Warming Since 1998
James Delingpole, Telegraph, 6 July 2011
Global Warming? New Ice Age? The Only Certainty Is That YOU’RE Paying for Hysteria
Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, 6 July 2011
Wind Energy: A Review of Health and Safety Concerns
John Droz Jr., Master Resource, 6 July 2011
UN Climate Initiative Is a Nightmare
Caroline May, Daily Caller, 6 July 2011
No Need for ‘Compromise’ in Trimming Ethanol Subsidies
Washington Post editorial, 5 July 2011
This is the new claim being thrown around by renewable energy proponents with supporting data by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Check the link here:
During the first quarter of 2011, renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind) provided 2.245 quadrillion Btus of energy or 11.73 percent of U.S. energy production. More significantly, energy production from renewable energy sources in 2011 was 5.65 percent more than that from nuclear power, which provided 2.125 quadrillion Btus and has remained largely unchanged in recent years. Energy from renewable sources is now 77.15 percent of that from domestic crude oil production, with the gap closing rapidly.
Looking at all energy sectors (e.g., electricity, transportation, thermal), production of renewable energy, including hydropower, has increased by 15.07 percent compared to the first quarter of 2010, and by 25.07 percent when compared to the first quarter of 2009. Among the renewable energy sources, biomass/biofuels accounted for 48.06 percent, hydropower for 35.41 percent, wind for 12.87 percent, geothermal for 2.45 percent, and solar for 1.16 percent. [click to continue…]
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released draft Clean Air Act permits for Shell’s planned oil exploration in federal offshore waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, which are parts of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. The draft permits are subject to public comment and will undoubtedly be litigated by environmental pressure groups.
Shell has been trying for more than four years to drill in 10-year lease tracts for which it paid the federal government more than $2 billion. Shell has also invested well over $1 billion in building the infrastructure that offshore exploratory drilling requires. If oil is discovered, then Shell would make huge further investments to begin production and connect the fields to the Trans Alaska Pipeline. Shell would pay a royalty to the federal treasury for every barrel produced.
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