EPA Issues List of CO2 Emitters

The EPA posted a list of major emitters of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. There are 6,157 facilities on the list.

Not surprisingly, the largest emitters are coal-fired power plants.

This continues the EPA’s war against coal.

Coal-fired power plants belonging to the Southern Company top the list.

The list can be found at the EPA Web Site of CO2 Emitters at http://ghgdata.epa.gov/ghgp/main.do

It’s interesting to look at their map of emitters.

While industry only produces 20% of the nation’s emissions of CO2, they are prominent among the many locations emitting CO2.

Presumably, these companies are also in danger of being regulated by the EPA over their emissions of CO2. How will that affect jobs?

A sampling from the immediate Chicago area include:

TC Industries, PQ Corporation, Abbot Park Facility, Seymour of Sycamore, Woodland Recycling, Caterpillar Inc., VVF Illinois Services, Wheatland Prairie Recycling, Lamont Refinery, Argonne National Laboratory, John Sexton Sand and Gravel, Navistar, Loyola University Medical Center, Finkl & Sons, Vantage Oleo Chemicals, Kraft Foods Global Inc., Koppers Inc., Corn Products International, Electro-Motive Diesel, Blue Island Phenol LLC, CID Recycling, Arcel Ormittal Riverdale Inc., Horsehead Corp., Saint Gobain Containers Inc., Rhodia Inc., Victor Pipeline LP,. Stepan Co., Flint Hill Resources, Air Products and Chemicals, Exxon Mobile Oil Refinery, Aux Sable Liquid Products.

TSAugust

January 22, 2012

Sustainability; the New EPA Frontier

The EPA seeks to expand its authority by bypassing Congress with the concept that it should focus on Sustainability, not just environmental impact statements – Or that sustainability should be part of environmental impact statements.

Either way, the EPA is attempting to grab more power without the approval of Congress.

The study for which the EPA paid $700,000 said “Environmental impact assessment tends to focus primarily on the projected environmental effects of a particular action and alternatives to that action.” However, sustainability impact assessment examine “the probable effects of a particular project or proposal on the social, environmental, and economic pillars of sustainability”—  As a news article by George Russell noted this is “a greatly expanded approach.”

With a focus on sustainability, the EPA becomes involved in predicting the future.

It should be noted that sustainability is the theme of this year’s UN conference in Rio de Janeiro, which will attempt to put greater pressure on the United States to conform to the UN’s environmental wishes.

TSAugust

January 15, 2012

The advent of fracking can change the energy picture for the entire world. No longer will OPEC be the dominant player.

This is what fracking can accomplish, if environmentalists don’t stop fracking.

Hydraulic fracturing of shale is what is known as fracking.

Fracking is not without problems.

The disposal of waste water is a problem.

There have been temblors attributed to fracking, but these have been identified with injecting waste water into disposal wells rather than from fracking itself.  

It’s important to dispose of waste water in a safe manner, and this will be the norm regardless of any bad practices that might have occurred in the past.

Environmentalists claim that fracking can contaminate aquifers and water supplies, but when fracking is done at great distances from aquifers there is virtually no danger of contamination. Contamination of water supplies can occur if the natural gas wells are not properly constructed, but not from fracking.

Fracking is used to produce huge supplies of natural gas in the U.S. and possibly in Europe and China. It is also used for extracting oil from tight shale.

Fracking, in conjunction with oil from Canadian oil sands, can allow the U.S. to be essentially freed from dependence on Mideast oil.

TSAugust

January 8, 2012

Scientists have found that 96 percent of the water flowing from the mountains in Nepal and into river basins comes from snow and rain not melting of glaciers. Only 4 percent comes from glacier melt during the summer. The lead author of the study, Richard Armstrong, says of the 4 percent “only a minuscule proportion comes from the melting away of the end points of the glaciers due to global warming.”

The Asian rivers are not in danger of drying up for lack of glacier melt.

In fact, the temperatures in the Himalayan Mountains remain below freezing even in the summer, so most of the glaciers there do not melt. This is unlike the Andes, the Alps or the Rockies.

Glacier “melt” is actually sublimation, where the ice goes directly to the gaseous state. This is the same as Mt Kilimanjaro, that was so blatantly hyped by Al Gore in his movie The Inconvenient Truth.

A new study will sort out the question: How much water in Asian rivers, comes from rain, snow and glacier melt? Knowing the exact amounts provided by snow, for example, will allow scientists to predict water flow based on the size of the winter’s snow pack each year.

TSAugust

December 18, 2011

The following are comments by Lord Moncton on the agreement reached in Durban.

• A new International Climate Court will have the power to compel Western nations to pay ever-larger sums to third-world countries in the name of making reparation for supposed “climate debt”. The Court will have no power over third-world countries. Here and throughout the draft, the West is the sole target. “The process” is now irredeemably anti-Western.       

• “Rights of Mother Earth”: The draft, which seems to have been written by feeble-minded green activists and environmental extremists, talks of “The recognition and defence of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony between humanity and nature”. Also, “there will be no commodification [whatever that may be: it is not in the dictionary and does not deserve to be] of the functions of nature, therefore no carbon market will be developed with that purpose”.

• “Right to survive”: The draft childishly asserts that “The rights of some Parties to survive are threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change, including sea level rise.” At 2 inches per century, according to eight years’ data from the Envisat satellite? Oh, come off it! The Jason 2 satellite, the new kid on the block, shows that sea-level has actually dropped over the past three years. ·       

• War and the maintenance of defense forces and equipment are to cease – just like that – because they contribute to climate change. There are other reasons why war ought to cease, but the draft does not mention them.       

• A new global temperature target will aim, Canute-like, to limit “global warming” to as little as 1 C° above pre-industrial levels. Since temperature is already 3 C° above those levels, what is in effect being proposed is a 2 C° cut in today’s temperatures. This would take us halfway back towards the last Ice Age, and would kill hundreds of millions. Colder is far more dangerous than warmer.

• The new CO2 emissions target, for Western countries only, will be a reduction of up to 50% in emissions over the next eight years and of “more than 100%” [these words actually appear in the text] by 2050. So, no motor cars, no coal-fired or gas-fired power stations, no aircraft, no trains. Back to the Stone Age, but without even the right to light a carbon-emitting fire in your caves. Windmills, solar panels and other “renewables” are the only alternatives suggested in the draft. There is no mention of the immediate and rapid expansion of nuclear power worldwide to prevent near-total economic destruction.    

• The new CO2 concentration target could be as low as 300 ppmv CO2 equivalent (i.e., including all other greenhouse gases as well as CO2 itself). That is a cut of almost half compared with the 560 ppmv CO2 equivalent today. It implies just 210 ppmv of CO2 itself, with 90 ppmv CO2 equivalent from other greenhouse gases. But at 210 ppmv, plants and trees begin to die. CO2 is plant food. They need a lot more of it than 210 ppmv.

• The peak-greenhouse-gas target year – for the West only – will be this year. We will be obliged to cut our emissions from now on, regardless of the effect on our economies (and the lack of effect on the climate).·       

• The West will pay for everything, because of its “historical responsibility” for causing “global warming”. Third-world countries will not be obliged to pay anything.

 TSAugust

December 11, 2011

Queen Elizabeth’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, has described wind farms as “absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace.”

The Duke also criticized the use of subsidies.

Former Chancellor Lord Lawson supported the Duke’s statements. “If you tried to devise the most costly and inefficient means of generating electricity imaginable, you would choose wind power.”

The Sunday Telegraph article reported: “When Esbjorn Wilmar, of Infinergy, which builds and operates turbines, introduced himself to the Duke at a reception in London, he found himself on the end of an outspoken attack on his industry.

‘He [the Duke] said they were absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace,” said Mr Wilmar. “I was surprised by his very frank views.”

“Mr Wilmar added: ‘He said they would never work as they need back-up capacity.’”

And qouting from the Daily Telegraph, “It works like this. Power companies are required by law to provide a proportion of green energy and if they don’t meet the target, they are fined. But they can avoid the fine if they buy-in green energy credits, which are traded in the shape of ROCs.

“The money from selling ROCs is far more attractive to the wind farm speculators than the value of the energy itself. The power companies simply pass on the cost to the poor sap who buys their electricity. It’s Machiavellian. Worse, it’s Brownian — and, as the Duke says, a disgrace.”

Clearly, the British are beginning to realize that wind farms are a bad option.

TSAugust

December 4, 2011

The company Better Place that was to establish a way for electric vehicle batteries to be changed-out, rather than being recharged by the owner may have problems. Remember, the concept was to build stations where car owners could bring their vehicles to have the

It’s flagship effort was to be in Israel, where car owners could have the batteries on their vehicles changed-out in ten minutes, thus avoiding long time wasted for recharging. Better Place would own the batteries, while the car owners would pay a monthly fee for using the battery.

Better Place’s targeted market in Israel were car leasing companies.

Now these companies are balking at buying these cars that are being made in Turkey by Renault.

The problem is that the resale value of the cars is expected to be 70% below the original selling price, which is far below resale prices on other vehicles.

It’s always possible that some arrangement will be arrived at that doesn’t leave Renault and Better Place in the lurch.

Better Place had planned on using a similar strategy in Denmark, but events in Israel could torpedo that effort.

TSAugust

November 27 2011

The latest IPCC summary contains a lot more about unknown, than what’s known. This is a startling admission for an organization that has bee virtually 100% certain about global warming and the catastrophe it will create.

The new summary says there is ”low confidence” that global warming will unleash more severe storms, such as hurricanes.

It also says that it’s not certain that global warming is here:  "Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability".

In other words, the summary says there is no way to know what will happen. So why does the IPCC say a catastrophe can only be avoided by cutting CO2 emissions?

And, it agrees that increased losses from storms are not because of global warming: "Long-term trends in normalized economic disaster losses cannot be reliably attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change."

However, the summary does say that global warming will get worse if CO2 emissions are drastically cut. In this respect, the IPCC hasn’t come around entirely to thinking that global warming is primarily attributable to natural causes, which is the conclusion found in the report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, titled “Climate Change Reconsidered”.

TSAugust

November 20, 2011 

Sánchez Galán, head of Iberdrola, Spain’s largest utility, spoke out against Spain’s concentrating solar power (CSP) efforts.

He said, “The massive deployment of these plants at the moment has no justification. We must immediately stop the development of economically and environmentally inefficient energies. Someone has to pay for the green solar feast; we can’t carry on doing things for the few."

Only a few years ago he was very keen on CSP.

Iberdrola has been investing in natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants and is concerned that with utilities forced to buy electricity from “green” sources, its investment could be put at t=risk.

In a way, this highlights how expensive “green” electricity can cause excessive investment in CSP while hurting companies who invest in economic NGCC power plants.

TSAugust

A new study shows that melting glaciers may not be the source of a great deal of drinking water around the world.

There have been many extreme prophecies of doom about the glaciers disappearing and water supplies evaporating.

Even the IPCC erroneously reported that the glaciers in the Himalayas would be gone in 30 years: A statement that the IPCC had to retract.

Using satellite data and chemical tracers, scientists now say yhat very little water comes from glaciers, maybe 5% from the Himalayas. In Peru, only 5% came from a major glacier.

"There has been a lot of misinformation and confusion about it [drinking water from glaciers]," said Peter Gleick​, co-director of the California-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security. He went on to say, "About 1.3 billion people live in the watersheds that get some glacier runoff, but not all of those people depend only on the water from those watersheds, and not all the water in those watersheds comes from glaciers. Most of it comes from rainwater."

TSAugust

November 6, 2011

The EU’s plan to charge airlines for their CO2 emissions were challenged around the world. Carbon emission charges would cost the industry $23.8 billion over eight years.

Airlines contribute around 3.0 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and will be included in the EU's carbon trading market on January 1, 2012.

U.S. passengers flying to Europe, and between European cities, will be hit by this tax.

EU climate action commissioner Hedegaard announced that airlines will receive 85 percent of their emissions allowances free of charge in 2012, and the figure will drop to 82 percent per year beginning in 2013.

Commissioner Hildegaard says these are revenues since the airlines will only pay 15% of the cost in 2012. She says further, that the airlines could use these funds to buy new planes.

This comment by Hidegaard is absurd since the airlines have to surrender the “free” allowances at the end of the year.

It would appear as though the Europeans are falling all over themselves trying to impose an unworkable, unnecessary system on the world.

TSAugust

October 30, 2011

The UK has scrapped its first project for capturing and storing CO2.

The CCS project in Fife, Scotland was to convert an existing power plant so that it could capture CO2.

Apparently the length of the pipeline from the power plant to where it was thought CO2 might be sequestered was the reason given for cancelling the project.

The power plant at Fife is the UK’s second largest coal fired power plant and Europe’s third largest.

The project itself would have cost around $1.5 billion. Obviously this is a huge amount of money to spend on an esoteric project for which there may be no need.

TSAugust

October 23, 2011

The graphical representation of greenhouse gasses best illustrates why cutting CO2 emissions is a fool’s game.

Click here for graphical display

It’s important to recognize that water vapor is the predominant greenhouse gas.

Cutting CO2 emissions by 50% has virtually no effect on CO2’s impact on temperatures.

TSAugust

October 16, 2011

The apparent fact that the EPA didn’t follow its own rules or adhere to the Data Quality Act signed by President Clinton in December, 2000 raises the issue whether the Endangerment Finding is legal.

The Endangerment finding is the basis for all the regulations being promulgated by the EPA that threaten our ability to produce low cost electricity.

The Inspector general of the EPA, found that:

“We concluded that the technical support document that accompanied EPA’s endangerment finding is a highly influential scientific assessment and thus required a more rigorous EPA peer review than occurred. EPA did not certify whether it complied with OMB’s or its own peer review policies in either the proposed or final endangerment findings as required.”

This report only questioned the procedure and not the scientific findings, but, even so, it raises the issue as to whether the Endangerment Finding is legal and whether the rules being issued by the EPA will stand-up in court.

TSAugust

October 9,2011

The Wall Street Journal opined that things were getting better when it came to drilling in the Gulf.

Unfortunately, getting better doesn’t mean they are back to normal.

Also reported in the Wall Street Journal were facts that showed the Obama moratorium hurt our ability to drill in the Gulf.

As of this date, 11 offshore rigs scheduled to drill in the Gulf have relocated to countries like Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt, Congo, French Guiana and Liberia. Each rig that moved elsewhere meant the loss of 500 American jobs.

In addition, approximately 20 deep-water drilling rigs could also exit the Gulf if the federal government doesn't accelerate the permitting process. Records show that deep-water permitting is 39% below the monthly averages over the past three years.

Furthermore, shallow-water permitting is 80% below historical averages.

While it’s good that some minor improvements have been made since the BP oil spill, it’s important to keep in mind that the government is still preventing us from getting all the oil we could from, not only the Gulf of Mexico, but also from off-shore the East and West coasts and from Alaska.

TSAugust

October 2, 2011

Sweden refused to lease its ice breaker, Oden, to the U.S. for use in Antarctica, because of heavy ice during the last two winters in the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Okhotsk and the need for the Oden in the Baltic this winter. The U.S. has leased the Oden for the past five years.

Sweden, Russia, Estonia and Finland now realize they need their ice breakers after over 100 ships were stranded by heavy pack ice last winter.

Reportedly, the U.S. has not built new ice breakers because policy makers believe that global warming will eliminate the ice. Now, the U.S. is in the embarrassing position of having to beg for the use of foreign ice breakers.

TSAugust

September 25, 2011

Emerging Countries Tell US to Cut CO2 Emissions

"We demand that industrialized countries set more meaningful objectives toward CO2 reductions than what they have presented up to now," Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota told a meeting in Inhotim, Brazil.

All four countries look ahead to the next climate change conference in Durban South Africa this December.

The Durban conference will seek to find a way to have the US and Europe pay into the 100 billion dollar fund to help developing countries curtail CO2 emissions.

These countries are also demanding that the Kyoto Protocol be renewed.

TSAugust

September 18, 2011

Some studies are used to distort the truth. The recent study about the migration of living creatures to warmer climates is a good example of how an isolated fact is used to instill fear of anthropogenic global warming.

Chris D. Thomas, a conservation biologist at the University of York in England, who led the work published Thursday in the journal Science, said, “This more or less puts to bed the issue of whether these shifts are related to climate change. There isn’t any obvious alternative explanation for why species should be moving poleward in studies around the world.”

This is, of course an absurd, statement in the context of anthropogenic global warming. Naturally many critters will expand their living room as temperatures rise, and there is no question that temperatures have risen about 1.3 degrees F over the past 150 years.

As for human health, and anthropogenic global warming, “research shows that mosquitoes that can carry malaria, dengue fever and other tropical diseases have expanded their ranges in recent decades, said Emily Shuman, an infectious diseases physician at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.” (Quote from Washington Post)

As SEPP commented, “[This] implies dengue fever is new to the US. Apparently what is now dengue fever was described in the 18th Century by founding father Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, while we were still in the little ice age. The US eliminated the fever by rigorous public health measures including killing misquotes with DDT or pouring oil on swamps and other waters that misquotes used for breeding.”

The statement in the Washington Post story about warming and human health, is intended to incite fear over anthropogenic global warming.

Just because critters are moving because of warming temperatures doesn’t indicate that warming temperatures are due to anthropogenic global warming.

No one knows why temperatures have gotten warmer, and no one knows how long they will continue to get warmer. Whatever happens to future temperatures will, no doubt, affect where critters live.

TSAugust

September 11, 2011

Otto, D. 2009. Economic losses from the floods? In: Mutel, C.F. (Ed.). A Watershed Year: Anatomy of the Iowa Floods of 2008. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, Iowa, United States, pp. 139-146.

Pielke, R.A. and Downton, M.W. 2000. Precipitation and damaging floods: Trends in the United States, 1932-97. Journal of Climate 13: 3625-3637.

Villarini, G., Serinaldi, F., Smith, J.A. and Krajewski, W.F. 2009. On the stationarity of annual flood peaks in the continental United States during the 20th century. Water Resources Research 45: 10.1029/2008WR007645.

There has been a great outcry against acid rain, with the premise being that SO2 emissions from coal fired power plants caused fresh water lakes to become acidic. Supposedly acidic lakes couldn’t support fish.

Now there is a hue and cry about acidification of the ocean because of the deposition of CO2 due to global warming.

The science disputes both these assertions.

Lakes in upstate New York were naturally acidic. In addition other fresh waters around the U.S. support abundant supplies of fish.

For example, the Okefenokee Swamp has measured pH ranging from 4.4 to 3.1. For comparison, vinegar’s estimated average pH is 3.7.

The Great Dismal Swamp in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina has a measured pH seasonally ranging from 4.0 to 3.5. Its waters have been known as highly acidic since colonial times, long before the burning of coal became wide spread.

Natural sea water is slightly alkaline and is not acidic. The idea that CO2 is causing acidification is bogus, with pH levels reduced from 8.1 to around 7.7, the level that might be reached with very high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Even at 7.7 the oceans would be alkaline.

Any pH level over 7 is alkaline not acidic.

Acidic lakes hold a large variety of fish, crustaceans and other life.

Acidification is another scare tactic used by extreme environmentalists.

TSAugust

August 28, 2011

Remarkably, the first head of the IPCC, Maurice Strong, said it truthfully and fully when he said:

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse?  Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

How blatant a statement do we need to understand the true agenda of the IPCC and the left wing, socialist and communists who support the IPCC with its call to for the U.S. to cut its CO2 emissions 80% by 2050?

Cutting our emissions 80% would cripple the economy of the United States and achieve Maurice Strong’s objective.

Our book, Carbon Folly, explains why it isn’t possible to cut CO2 emissions 80% without crippling the U.S. economy. See Home Page.

The Hawaii Reporter covered this issue on July 5^th of this year when it explored the corruption of the National Academies of Science.

TSAugust

August 21,  2011

Anyone who has even superficially been watching the climate debate knows that the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia has been caught in what has become known as Climate Gate.

Their refusals to respond to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were well documented until someone released a group of emails that indicated there was a conspiracy to keep information secret – thus Climate Gate.

One would think that CRU would respond more favorably to new FOI requests, but that appears not to be the case.

The posts by Steve McIntyre on the Climate Audit website make it clear that things haven’t changed at CRU despite their protestations to the contrary.

If you want additional details over the latest example of CRU’s unwillingness to become part or the solution rather than the core of the problem, go to http://climateaudit.org   

Steve McIntyre has a record of unearthing faulty data and information published by the IPCC and those supporting it.

TSAugust

August 14, 2011

A 1973 paper by Chu Ko-Chen established that temperatures in China have fluctuated during history from 2 degrees C higher than today, to 3 degrees lower.

This supports the contention that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were not isolated to Europe, but existed around the world.

It is also compatible with the hypothesis that the Sun has been the primary natural cause of climate change.

In part, the abstract read:

“The world climate during the historical times fluctuated. The numerous Chinese historical writings provide us excellent references in studying the ancient climate of China. The present author testifies, by the materials got from the histories and excavations, that during Yin-Hsu at Anyang, the annual temperature was about 2 degrees higher than that of the, present in most of the time. After that came a series of up and down swings of 2—3 degrees with minimum temperatures occurring at approximately 100 B. C. (about the end of the Yin Dynasty and the beginning of the Chou Dynasty), 400 A. D. (the Six Dynasties), 1200 A. D. (the South Snug Dynasty), and 1700 A. D. (about the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Ching Dynasty). In the Han and the Tang Dynasties (200 B. C.— 220 A. D. and 600—900 A. D.) the climate was rather warm.’

This paper recently came to light and was reported on the “Climate Science: Robert Pielke” web site.

The Environmental Defense Fund found they had to spend more than $1 million annually lobbying for Climate Legislation, such as cap & trade, so they had to find a way around the law that limited their contributions as a Tax Exempt organization.

As they noted on their web site: “[The EDF] created a sister group, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, which is free of spending limits. This has enabled us [EDF] to ratchet up our legislative efforts, particularly on climate …”

Manipulating the system to get around spending limits demonstrate how Tax Exempt organizations can accept contributions from powerful, rich people, such as Soros, and continue to lobby Congress, uninhibited by spending limits.

Where is the line drawn between the not for profit part of the organization and the part that can lobby?

Can a person in the not for profit part of the organization be paid by both parts and thereby be in a position to lobby?

Does the lobbyist who is paid for by the “fund” take orders from the not for profit part of the organization, and is therefore actually representing the not for profit?

All tax exempt organizations should be audited by the IRS to determine how they are actually handling contributions.

TSAugust

July 24, 2011

CAFE limits on miles per gallon were established to improve automobile mileage, but have they gone to extremes. The president has asked that CAFE standards be increased to, what many say, is an unworkable 62 mpg.

What would be the unintended consequences of such a move?

As widely reported, it would likely result in people being forced to buy smaller cars. It’s been proven that smaller cars are more dangerous when they are involved in an accident.

Essentially there are four ways to improve mileage:

1.  Reduce weight.

2. Reduce Horsepower

3. Improve engine efficiency

4. Switch from gasoline to other fuels

The most difficult of these approaches, but also the most cost effective, is to improve engine efficiency. No doubt some improvements are possible, but the manufacturers have been working on this for years, so the improvements in mpg are likely to be small.

Smaller cars make use of the first two approaches.

Lighter weight, but more expensive, materials can be used in the frame and body of the car. Some items can be eliminated, such as the spare tire.

The ultimate solution is to switch to another fuel. Natural gas would be the least costly approach, but there are infrastructure problems that could make this difficult.

Switching to electric vehicles is the most costly of all alternatives, and also has huge infrastructure problems.

As reported in the WSJ, manufacturers are already planning to eliminate spare tires, so we are on the way to realizing the unintended consequences.

TSAugust

July 17, 2011

According to Al Gore we should all be buying carbon credits to offset our carbon footprints.

Most people don’t buy into that idea and won’t spend one penny on such amorphous things as carbon credits, so the EU, in its wisdom, will force you to pay for carbon credits indirectly by forcing airlines to buy credits for their flights into and out of Europe.

Buying these carbon credits from the EU would cost airlines $1 billion in 2012 and $4 billion in 2020. Obviously, these costs will be passed on to the airline’s passengers so, if you fly to or from Europe, you will be buying these credits.

The airlines are suing the EU, and if they win, it will be another nail in the coffin of the EU carbon trading scheme that is already falling apart.

TSAugust

July 10, 2011

It’s widely believed that the little Ice Age was brought about by a lack of sun spots. The lack of sunspots was referred to as the Maunder Minimum between 1645 – 1715.

Here is some interesting information, as reported in the Register, on June 14, 2011.

"This is highly unusual and unexpected," says Dr Frank Hill of the NSO. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

“Good news for Mars astronauts – Less good for carbon traders, perhaps.

"Hill's own research focuses on surface pulsations of the Sun and their relationship with sunspots, and his team has already used their methods to successfully predict the late onset of Cycle 24.

“Hill's results match those from physicists Matt Penn and William Livingston, who have gone over 13 years of sunspot data from the McMath-Pierce Telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona. They have seen the strength of the magnetic fields which create sunspots declining steadily. According to the NSO:

“Penn and Livingston observed that the average field strength declined about 50 gauss per year during Cycle 23 and now in Cycle 24. They also observed that spot temperatures have risen exactly as expected for such changes in the magnetic field. If the trend continues, the field strength will drop below the 1,500 gauss threshold and spots will largely disappear as the magnetic field is no longer strong enough to overcome convective forces on the solar surface.

“In parallel with this comes research from the US Air Force's studies of the solar corona. Richard Altrock, in charge of this, has found a 40-year decline in the "rush to the poles" – the poleward surge of magnetic activity in the corona.

"’Those wonderful, delicate coronal features are actually powerful, robust magnetic structures rooted in the interior of the Sun,’ Altrock says. "Changes we see in the corona reflect changes deep inside the Sun ...

"’Cycle 24 started out late and slow and may not be strong enough to create a rush to the poles, indicating we'll see a very weak solar maximum in 2013, if at all. If the rush to the poles fails to complete, this creates a tremendous dilemma for the theorists ... No one knows what the Sun will do in that case.’

“According to the collective wisdom of the NSO, another Maunder Minimum may very well be in the cards.”

TSAugust

July 3, 2011

Heartland Institute Sixth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-6) will take place in Washington, DC from breakfast Thursday, June 30, to noon Friday, July 1, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

The theme of this conference is “End of the Delusion,” reflecting the fact that a majority of scientists and the general public now realize past claims of scientific consensus and predictions of climate catastrophes were simply wrong.

These conferences have had world renowned scientists speak on the many facets of climate change.

The last conference was in Australia.

Earlier conferences have been in Washington DC and New York City.

This link will take you to the Heartland Institute web site.

TSAugust

May 1 2011

A group has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Colorado claiming that Renewable Energy Standards are unconstitutional by violating the Commerce Clause.

Renewable Energy Standards are also called Renewable Portfolio Standards.

The complaint claims that only Congress has authority to regulate interstate trade.

The group maintains that RES legislation in Colorado requires citizens to buy renewable power when other less costly, legal electricity is available for purchase. Colorado has, in effect, placed burdens on the distribution of electricity.

“Forced purchase” of renewables is against the economic interests of Colorado’s citizens, and hurts economic growth. The claim outlines the many ways that renewables such as wind, are uneconomic.

TSAugust

April 24, 2011

The United States ratified the UNFCCC treaty and, as a result, we are reaping the hatred of the world because we won’t agree to cutting CO2 emissions 80% by 2050.

The UNFCCC treaty came from the Rio conference known as the Earth Summit in 1992.

It was an election year in the U.S. and George H.W. Bush agreed to the Senate ratifying the treaty to avoid a confrontation with Albert Gore, a leader in the Senate who desperately wanted the treaty adopted.

There is overwhelming evidence that cutting CO2 emissions, as decreed by the UN, will cripple the American economy and have no effect on climate.

A $100 billion annual Climate Fund was agreed to at the UN Cancun meeting last year, where the United States would have to contribute around 20%.

Activists demonstrating in front of the UN building in Bangkok, where the latest meeting was held, demanded reparations from the United States while burning an effigy of Uncle Sam.

The next UNFCCC meeting will be in Durban, South Africa at the end of 2011. You can expect the other 190 members of the UNFCCC to vote for the annual $100 billion Climate Fund, and for the United States to make major contributions to it.

We will be outvoted by approximately 190 to 1, assuming we vote against the proposal.

TSAugust

April 17, 2011

President Obama said, while speaking in Brazil about drilling off its coast, "We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers."

It’s hard to understand why he would want to increase the amount of foreign oil we purchase, rather than increasing oil production in the United States.

The Congressional Research Service concludes that the U.S. probably has as much as 155 billion barrels of oil recoverable with existing technology, much of which has been closed off from exploration for political reasons. This estimate is five times larger than the estimate to which the administration routinely refers. And this estimate doesn’t include the 700 billion barrels of oil locked in shale in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

TSAugust

April 3, 2011

Excerpts from “False claims that ‘wind farms’ provide large economic and job benefits”, by Schleede.

One would think that by now Obama Administration officials would admit that “wind farms” do not provide large economic and job benefits.  However, recent Administration statements suggest the delusion continues and, perhaps, that officials do not understand why their expectations are unrealistic.

False expectations may be due to the infamous “JEDI” model (Jobs and Economic Development Impact model) developed for DOE’s National Renewable Energy “Laboratory” (NREL) by a wind industry consultant-lobbyist.  Unfortunately, this “model”( paid for with our tax dollars) has been widely promoted by NREL and DOE and outputs from the model are used by “wind farm” developers to mislead the public, media, and government officials.

Economic models often produce false or misleading outputs because (a) the model itself is faulty, and/or (b) unrealistic assumptions are “fed into” to model, with the result that the models overstate national, state, and/or local job and other economic benefits. In the case of wind energy models, basic flaws and faulty assumptions often include one or more of the following:

1. Ignoring the fact that much of the capital cost of “wind farms” is for equipment purchased elsewhere, often imported from other countries.  Some wind energy advocates claim that wind turbines are “manufactured” in the US when, in fact, they are merely assembled in the US using imported parts and components.  About 75% of the capital cost of “wind farms” is for turbines, turbine parts and components, towers and blades – so a large share of the “wind farm” cost is for imports.  These add to the outflow of wealth from the US and provide no economic or job benefits in the US. 

2. Assuming that employment during project construction results in new jobs for local workers -- when most “wind farm” construction jobs are short term (6 months or less) and the overwhelming share of them are filled by specialized workers who are brought in temporarily.

3.  Assuming that land rental payments to land owners for allowing wind turbines all have local economic benefit.  In fact, these payments will have little or no local economic benefit when the payments are to absentee landowners OR if the money is spent or invested elsewhere or is used to pay income taxes that flow to Washington DC or state capitals.

4.  Using "input-output" models that spit out "indirect" job and other economic benefits that, in effect, magnify (a) all of the overestimates identified above, and (b)  use unproven formula and data to calculate alleged “multiplier" effects.

5. Ignoring the fact that electricity produced from wind turbines, has less real value than electricity from reliable generating units -- because that output is intermittent, volatile and unreliable.  Also, the electricity is most likely to be produced at night in colder months, not on hot weekday late afternoons in July and August when demand is high and the economic value of electricity is high.

6.  Perhaps most importantly, ignoring the fact that the investment dollars going to "renewable" energy sources would otherwise be available for investment for other purposes that would produce greater economic benefits. 

These were only half the reasons cited by Sckleede as to why wind farms are inefficient, costly and don’t create jobs.

TSAugust

March 27, 2011

Americans, and other countries, are faced with a decision. Either we will develop low-cost, abundant energy that is conducive to economic growth, or we will choose high-cost energy that will inhibit economic growth in order to cut CO2 emissions.

This is the message that TSAugust will attempt to publicize, accompanied with supporting factual information.

• Low cost electricity is supplied by coal and natural gas.

• High cost electricity is supplied by wind and solar.

Transportation fuels are tougher to categorize.

• Oil is somewhat expensive.

• Natural gas is less expensive and is in abundant supply. However, few compressed natural gas (CNG) cars are being built in the United States, and there are too few CNG fueling stations to support nationwide use of CNG.

Future articles will focus on various technologies in an effort to provide readers with factual information so that they can choose America’s energy future.

TSAugust

March 20, 2011

The company hosting our websites had a catastrophic failure while I was traveling out of the country. It wasn’t possible for me to get the web sites back on-line until I returned, and even then, it took two weeks to get them up and running.

Thank you for your patience.

I will be focusing TSAugust on energy issues, publishing items of interest that will parallel my blog Power America at www.dddusmma.wordpress.com

Donn Dears

President TSAugust

March 16, 2011

The cold snap in the UK has caused wind farms to come up short.

It is a harbinger of what could happen in the US if wind energy is pursued any further.

During the last quarter of 2010, wind produced 8.6% of the UK’s electricity until the freezing temperatures and high winds arrived, then output fell to 1.8%.

The slack had to be taken up by pressing coal fired power plants into service.

In 2009 the situation was even worse, with wind producing only 0.2% out of a possible 5% of the UK’s electricity production.

That year, the national grid had to have its larger customers cut back on their usage of electricity during the cold snap.

This is the third bitterly cold winter in the UK and questions are being asked as to why the Met Office predicted a warm winter and whether the country should believe that CO2 is causing global warming.

TSAugust

January 16, 2011

Some attribute this winter’s cold to fewer sun spots. They also believe that the slowdown could presage a few decades of cold winters.

It’s interesting to note that NASA’s predictions about the current sunspot cycle have been consistently changing, with each new prediction showing fewer sunspots.

The chart shows the progression of NASA’s predictions.

First NASA was two years off for predicting the start of solar cycle 24.

Then, starting in 2006 NASA predicted a high of as many as 180 for the peak in sun spots. This was consistently changed so that the latest prediction is for a peak of 64 sun spots.

TSAugust

January 9, 2011

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