Climate Policies

Climate Policies to What End?

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Oren Cass writes at Commonplace Who Is Climate Policy For?  Not workers. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

I mostly stopped writing about climate change in 2018, when actual analysis lost all relevance to the increasingly unmoored claims of climate activists. The frequently cited estimates of catastrophic cost, I showed in published reports and congressional testimony, were simply nonsensical. One prominent model relied upon by the EPA predicted that heat deaths in northern cities in the year 2100 would be 50 times higher than they had been in southern cities in the year 2000, despite the northern cities never reaching the temperatures that the southern cities were already experiencing. Another study, published in Nature, predicted that warming would boost Mongolia’s GDP per capita to more than four times America’s. But no one cared; no one was held accountable.

When subsequent research flipped the claims on their head, no one even flinched. Here’s the New York Times, four years apart:

(Technically, the first chart is GDP loss, while the second is heat deaths. But as the Times explained, the main driver of GDP loss in that first chart is heat deaths: “The greatest economic impact would come from a projected increase in heat wave deaths as temperatures soared, which is why states like Alabama and Georgia would face higher risks while the cooler Northeast would not.”) [Note:  Observations actually show a “warming hole” in Southeast US, perhaps due in part to reforestation efforts.]

Discussion of solutions, meanwhile, became entirely performative. So many climate agreements were signed, none had the prospect of substantially shifting the trajectory of global emissions, which is driven overwhelmingly by growth in the developing world. The Biden administration spent four years trumpeting unprecedented investment in fighting climate change. Try to find a comment linking that action to a downward shift in future temperatures or a reduction in any of the purportedly existential harms repeated ad nauseum as the basis for the action. I’ll wait.

The climate lectures had become the equivalent of the parent telling his children to eat their vegetables, because children in Africa are starving.

So now I encounter climate change mostly in the context of discussions about how best to build a policy agenda that serves the interests of American workers, and the working class broadly. Along with the refusal to enforce immigration law and the passion for shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars into a higher education system that fails most young people, the obsession with fighting climate change is a quintessential tradeoff preferred by progressives that they are of course welcome to make, but that cannot be squared with a commitment to working-class interests.

Progressives tend not to appreciate this observation,
or the cognitive dissonance that it triggers.

As I wrote in The Once and Future Worker, “People know how they want society ordered and wish desperately for that same thing to be good for everyone else.” Our 20-year-old texter feels this strongly. Fighting the climate crisis and providing for working families are not mutually exclusive. But the belief in a mythological crisis goes forever unsubstantiated. What is the ongoing devastation of communities that Biden-style policy action will mitigate?

To be clear, when I say mythological crisis, I don’t mean that climate change is a myth. I think climate change is a very serious challenge with which the United States, and the world, must find ways to cope. I’d also like to see us pursuing aggressive public investment in next-generation nuclear technology, and in the industrial precursors to strong electric vehicle supply chains—both of which are smart industrial policy regardless of climate implications.

But in the broader scheme of a century of economic, technological,
and geopolitical changes and challenges, the gradual increase
in global temperatures does not rank high.

This is not my opinion, it is the conclusion of the climate models, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the analyses that attempt to translate these forecasts into economic impacts. Climate change is not one of the top challenges facing working families in America. Solving it, if we could, which we can’t, would do little to move the needle in helping them achieve middle-class security.

But what about the “Green New Deal”? It has “New Deal” right in the title, suggesting a clear commitment to improving economic opportunity! That’s true, as far as it goes. Indeed, we could launch a “Purple New Deal” dedicated to knocking down all buildings that are not purple and replacing them with purple ones, which would also have many jobs associated with it.  Unfortunately, that’s not good economic policy.

What the Green New Deal—and climate policy, generally—attempts to do is shut down the existing energy industry and much of the industrial economy that relies on cheap and reliable energy, and replace it all with new “green” jobs. This should not require saying, but apparently does: Supplanting an existing, robust energy sector and industrial economy that provides a lot of very good jobs outside of our knowledge economy and superstar cities, with a new set of industries that hopes to do the same, does not in fact deliver economic gains.

The stated goal of climate policy is to replace things we already have. Anything new it creates is an attempt to climb back out of a hole it has dug itself. And unfortunately, the new tends to be less good, economically speaking, than the old. That reality in the auto industry is what drove the UAW strike last year.

The best way to understand all this is with a simple hypothetical: Let’s say we didn’t have to worry about climate change. A neat little box sucked greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere for free; problem solved. Would anyone still propose the Green New Deal? No climate change to worry about, you need to propose an agenda to support working families, how high on the list is “spend trillions of dollars shutting down the industrial economy and attempting to replace it with a set of less efficient and unproven technologies in which the United States has a much weaker position”?

It’s nowhere on the list.
Because climate policy does not help the working class.

For whatever reason, the project of decarbonizing the economy captures the progressive mind like no other. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundanceopens with a paragraph about waking up in the year 2050 in a cool bedroom powered by clean energy sources—a bedroom no cooler than the one you would wake up in today. Their abundant future is, first and foremost, not a more abundant one at all—merely one whose energy system they have transformed. Discussing scarcities, they start with, “We say that we want to save the planet from climate change.” When they enthuse that “new technologies create new possibilities and allow us to solve once-impossible problems,” they are thinking first of greenhouse gas emissions. “We worry,” first, “over climate change.” And “this book is motivated in no small part by our belief that we need to decarbonize the global economy.”

In my podcast with Klein, I asked him whether combatting climate change might represent a tradeoff in his agenda, rather than item one for bringing abundance to America. “For most, certainly, liberals who think about this and have studied this,” he responded, “the decarbonization is just central to the idea of what it would mean for our descendants to live a flourishing life.” Pitched this way, it fits perfectly the ideological template of most neoliberal missteps of the past 30 years: a purported win-win that serves the priorities of highly educated, high-income elites, who then instruct everyone else that the same thing should be their priority too. Like globalization, and unrestricted immigration, and free college.

Fool me once… Climate policy imposes massive costs, and damages the industrial economy, in pursuit of a specific goal: reducing carbon dioxide emissions. And if that’s your goal, that’s fine. Fight for it! Make the case for the tradeoff. But don’t pretend there’s no tradeoff, and certainly don’t tell the people you’re trading off that you’re really doing it for them.

 

See Also 

Eco-Loons War on Productive Working Class

 

More Lying About Carbon Capture

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Carbon capture tech is pie-in-sky impractical, but was weaponized against coal-fired power plants by requiring CCUS as though it were proven effective and profitable.  Just The News reports Biden’s EPA hid comments from Dept. of Energy that undermined key part of EPA power plant rule.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Clean Power Plan 2.0 was supported by a finding that carbon capture
technology had been “adequately demonstrated.” The EPA sought and
got comments from the DOE, which disputed that “demonstration.”
Somehow those comments never made it into the administrative record.

It appears that the Biden-Harris administration hid comments that would have undermined its Clean Power Plan 2.0 rule (CPP2), which the Trump administration is currently reviewing. The EPA had sought comments from the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) on the efficacy of carbon capture technology prior to proposing the rule. These comments, which were somehow scrubbed from the administrative record, disputed a key claim the rule is based on. Those missing comments, a legal expert says, could provide a basis for the rule’s repeal.

The CCP2 requires all coal plants to install carbon capture technology by 2039, which captures and stores emissions in underground geological formations. It also requires new natural gas-fired power plants to install the technology, with requirements starting in 2032. Experts warned the rules would drive up electricity costs and destabilize the grid by disincentivizing reliable power from coal and natural gas in favor of intermittent wind and solar power.

The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to develop new emissions standards, but those standards must be achievable at a reasonable cost. The technology required for compliance must also be adequately demonstrated. Documents obtained by Just the News show that the EPA formally sought comments from NETL in March 2023 on its soon-to-be proposed rule, which was put out for public comment the following May.

The proposed rule allowed for two technologies — hydrogen and carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS) — to meet the emissions standards on fossil fuel-burning power plants. Comer’s letter quotes two unnamed authors expressing that neither technology was viable.

Hydrogen was removed from the rule when it was finalized in April 2024. Carbon capture technology, however, was part of the final rule, even though the comments from one unnamed NETL author stated that:

“CCUS remains prohibitively expensive even after use of funds or tax credits made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.”

The EPA based its determination that CCUS was “adequately demonstrated” on the performance of the Boundary Dam Unit #3 (BD3), which is a Canadian coal-fired power plant fitted with carbon capture technology. An April 2024 report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis called the project an “under-performing failure.” Despite $1 billion CAD spent on the project, it was, as of April 2024, capturing far less than the 90% originally promised. Its capture rate through the end of 2023 was just 57%, which was 63% of the 90% promised, the report found.

Comments from NETL engineers, according to the GOA’s records request, state that “the ongoing operating performance of the same BD3 demonstration project is being, once again, misconstrued as having provided sufficient justification for claiming satisfactory performance to allow the technology to be considered ‘adequately demonstrated.’”

Carbon capture at Boundary Dam 3 still an underperforming failure

To be considered a success, a carbon capture project must capture all or almost all CO2 produced by the facility (power or industrial plant) to which it is attached and must do so for decades. Stantec photo by Kevin Ross.

Another comment states that BD3 only approached the 90% promised target for two months over a period of 8 years and three months. Another comment states that after 8 years and three months “of demonstration, such failure to meet negligible standards for emissions limitations, over a full-year period ending less than one year ago, argues strongly for not considering BD3 as a credible basis for Best System of Emissions Reduction and ‘adequate demonstration’ of the related technology.”

“These comments were sanitized at some point in this process and were not included in NETL’s and/or DoE’s comments to EPA, which made their way into the administrative record,” according to the GOA’s record request.

An EPA spokesperson told Just the News that the EPA, as part of its reconsideration of the CCP2, is developing a proposed rule, which will be published once it has completed an inter-agency review and been signed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

“Many have voiced concerns that the last administration’s replacement for that rule is similarly overreaching and an attempt to shut down affordable and reliable electricity generation in the United States, raising prices for American families, and increasing the country’s reliance on foreign forms of energy,” the spokesperson said.

Canada PM Carney Floats Imaginary “Decarbonized Oil” Pipeline

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Reality intrudes in National Post article Alberta and Ottawa tout a grand bargain on ‘decarbonized’ oil but some are skeptical.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Carney said he’d consider fast-tracking a new oil pipeline
to the West Coast if it shipped ‘decarbonized barrels’

OTTAWA — “Grand bargain” was the phrase of the day on Parliament Hill after Prime Minister Mark Carney and his provincial counterparts found common ground on oil and gas development.  “If (the Conservatives) were listening to yesterday, there is a grand bargain,” Energy Minister Tim Hodgson boasted to the Opposition benches.

“There is a bargain that the Premier of Alberta has signed onto.”  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith left Monday’s first ministers’ meeting with a new deal exchanging oil sands access to coastal waters for massive investments in decarbonization technologies, but experts warn this could be a costly pipe dream. 

“I’m worried we’re seeing (the first ministers) fall into a trap of wanting to have their cake and eat it too,” said Tim McMillan, a partner at Garrison Strategy and the former head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“There’s real potential there (and), if further developed, the federal government will look to advance it,” said Carney.  But McMillan says the devil could be in the details.

“I don’t know exactly what they’re talking about with decarbonization, but… it may be linked to carbon capture, which does not increase our exports (or) investability,” said McMillan.  “If (carbon capture) becomes a long-term requirement for new projects, it will likely have a negative effect on future investments in Canada’s upstream oil and gas sector.”

The Calgary-based Pathways Alliance, a group of six major oil sands producers, has put forward a $16.5-billion decarbonization network that would reroute carbon emissions from nearly two dozen facilities to an underground hub near Cold Lake, Alta.  The big-ticket project has been at a standstill for years over government funding.

Carney and Hodgson have both paid lip service to the Pathways project in recent weeks, but the venture still faces an uphill battle.  A recent independent analysis found the project was likely to lose money due to the limited recyclability of captured carbon.

“Even under optimal conditions, the Pathways project may struggle to break even, and real-world operations are rarely optimal,” read the study, prepared by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.  “The Canadian federal government and the province of Alberta may be pressured to make up the likely shortfall,” it continued.

“An unprofitable carbon capture project will struggle to bring lasting positive economic benefits to host communities and become dependent on external financial subsidies to maintain operations.”

McMillan also noted that Canada’s two biggest competitors in the heavy oil industry, Mexico and Venezuela, are unlikely to follow suit with large-scale carbon capture projects of their own, giving each an edge over Canada on a per-barrel basis.

Footnote:  “Some are skeptical” understates the case.  “Decarbonized Oil” is a Ruinous Farce.

The Study is Financial risks of carbon capture and storage in Canada: Concerns about the Pathways Project and Public Energy Policy.  Highlights in italics with my bolds and added images.

Cost challenges threaten the ability of a large, planned carbon capture project to achieve financial sustainability. The Pathways Alliance plans to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) generated at 13 oil sand processing facilities, compress the gas and send it by pipeline to a storage hub near the Cold Lake region in Alberta. Publicly available financial information on the Pathways project is scant. It is instructive, however, to analyze the experiences of two existing commercial carbon capture facilities in Alberta—the Alberta Carbon Trunk (ACTL) line facility and Shell’s Quest facility.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) examined the two currently operating CCS projects, together with current policy and provincial carbon market dynamics. The resulting report identified troubling cost implications for the Pathways CO2 transport and storage project and raises the concern that the Canadian federal government and the province of Alberta may be pressured to make up the likely shortfall.

  • We find total costs including interest, insurance, depreciation and taxes for existing commercial-scale carbon capture plants in Alberta are approaching thresholds that threaten profitability.
  • Rising project costs are not being offset by commensurate increases in CO2 capture volumes and associated revenue. Operating costs are growing at twice the rate of CO2 captured volumes.
  • CCS operating revenue is uncertain. An effective cap on emission performance credit (EPC) pricing of CAD$170 per tonne limits project revenue potential, while a looming oversupply of carbon EPCs is an example of risks to project cash flows. The option to combine Clean Fuel Regulation credits with EPCs is available to ACTL, but this significant financial benefit is not available to the Pathways project.
  • Performance risk is financial risk. Without substantial efficiency improvements, the cost per tonne of CO2 captured is likely to exceed the revenue that the project can generate for each tonne captured. 
  • An unprofitable carbon capture project will struggle to bring lasting positive economic benefits to host communities and become dependent on external financial subsidies to maintain operations.

Even under optimal conditions, the Pathways project may struggle
to break even, and real-world operations are rarely optimal.

Large-scale public investment in CCS is misguided. The technology has struggled to achieve meaningful emissions reductions or prove its long-term viability. The lack of demonstrated success and heightened financial risks indicate public investments are unlikely to yield the desired environmental or economic benefits.

 

 

Green Schemes Hidden by Greenhushing

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Transcript excerpted from captions of  Interview with Bjorn Lomborg What is behind business ‘greenhushing’? [FN refers to comments from FOx News interviewers, BL to Bjorn Lomborg]

FN: From Climate Talk to climate realism. As energy secretary Chris Wright says climate change is a side effect of building the modern world. Banks and businesses seem to be finally getting on board with this. But moving from unrealistic promises, greenwashing lies and environmental fear-mongering, risks some engaging in greenhushing, purposely keeping quiet about sustainability actions.

Our next guest says climate solutions come with their own set of costs [you can read his op-ed excerpted later in this post]. And joining us now, and Brian and I are both huge fans of Bjorn Lomborg’s work. He’s Copenhagen Consensus President. Bjorn, so great to see you.

What are you concerned with in terms of going from greenwashing to then kind of burying what these corporations are doing now?

BL: Well the real problem is for a long time corporations have been saying “Oh we’re going to be so green,” and they got lots of applause and everybody said “Oh this is great in Davos and stuff.” And of course it’s not what businesses mostly should be doing. But now with Trump and everything else, people are realizing, “Oh wait, this is not a good idea.” So they’ve stopped talking about it but they’re still doing a lot of it. And actually a new survey of of about 4,000 sustainability people in these big corporations said, “Yeah we’re going to talk a lot less about it, but we’re still going to do it. We’re actually going to do a little more.”

And that’s troublesome because this is not what businesses should be doing.
They should be in the business of making great products and high profits.

FN: So there’s a debate out there. You’ve got the CEOs of these companies and the question is: Do they really believe in the green thing or were they just doing it because the social pressure was so strong? And now they’re pulling back because really at the end of the day they agree with you, they just want to run their businesses.

What I hear you saying is in fact the guys running these businesses really are bought into the green agenda and they will do it again when the political environment lets them speak more freely. Is that what you’re saying?

BL: It’s hard to know. I think you’re right a lot of the CEOs are saying, I actually want my business to run and drive a profit. But now they’ve hired so many other people, sustainability experts and everybody else. Of course if that’s your job, you’re pushing for doing more of that. So I think it’s important for businesses to rein in and say:

“Look we’re not going to be doing this anymore, we’re actually going to go back and focus on what we’re good at, namely servicing customers.”

FN: This goes to something else that you’ve written about, that corporations need to focus on creating things profitably, because the environment improves as nations prosper. And the greatest polluter is poverty. We saw with John Kerry here in the United States and him talking to subsaharan Africa about cutting off any funding and financing for them to extract fossil fuels from the earth and thereby bring their nations out of poverty. Keeping nations poor makes the environment worse, rather than allowing them to develop into modern societies.

BL: Absolutely. I wrote two things for Earth Day. First we have to recognize there are environmental problems. And it’s great that we get a better environment, and fundamentally when you get rich you can actually afford to do a lot of this. And as you point out poverty is the biggest polluter, because if you’re poor, you quite frankly have other important issues. So you’ll cut down your rainforest or whatever else you need to do.

Secondly, it also emphasizes as you just pointed out that most nations and especially poor nations need to get out of poverty by doing what we’ve done. They want to have access for a lot more energy and mostly that is going to be fossil fuels. Remember when Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe decided to say “All right we’re not going to go and get any energy from Russia.” But they didn’t say “Oh so we’re going to go all green.” They actually went to Africa to buy up their fossil fuels because we want to keep our living standards. But they simultaneously told the Africans, “But you shouldn’t be using it, you should actually go all green.” That’s just hypocrisy absolutely.

Excerpts from Lomborg op-ed Time to pull the plug on corporate virtue-signaling

The era of being cheered on for every green promise and vow
– regardless of how silly or self-defeating – has come to an end

Climate change is undeniably a real problem which has tangible economic impacts. However, climate solutions also come with their own set of costs, often demanding that businesses and individuals rely on pricier, less dependable energy sources. The decision to balance the expenses of climate policies with the advantages of climate action falls rightly under the responsibility of governments, not profit-driven businesses.

Yet over the past decade, even major contributors to climate change – such as the fossil fuel industry itself – invested in extraordinary green policies. Five years ago, BP made an astonishing promise to slash its oil and gas production by 40% by 2030, while increasing green energy generation twentyfold and becoming net-zero.

Now, along with other big, Western oil companies,
it has abandoned those farcical green promises and
recommitted to its primary activity: fossil fuels.

No doubt, this U-turn will be lamented by green activists. But the truth is that these promises were always an inefficient way of helping the planet, and very shortsighted for fossil fuel companies. Even after the world has spent $14 trillion on climate policy, more than four-fifths of global energy remains supplied by fossil fuels.

Over the past half-century, fossil fuel energy has more than doubled, with 2023 again setting a new record. Consumers and businesses are crying out for more energy, while competitor state-owned oil companies from the Middle East have continued to provide more fossil fuels. It is a foolish energy company that declares it will supply less energy.

Banks also had a fling with green policies, and have now dumped them, with the six largest U.S. banks leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, and Wells Fargo officially abandoning its goal of achieving net-zero emissions across its financial portfolio by 2050.

In the peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a study finds that of 1,500 “climate” policies announced around the world, a mere 63, or 4%, produce any reduction in emissions.

While some industries are moving faster than others, there are signs that many companies will just change their language, and not their inefficient climate policies.

As leaders of international organizations and corporations scramble to adapt to an entirely new world, it’s important they go further than just shifts in rhetoric. The era of being cheered on for every green promise and vow – regardless of how silly or self-defeating – has come to an end. Now it’s time for those leaders to get back to business.

Update: Congress Enacting Climate Realism

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Nico Portuondo reports on progress to enact realistic climate laws in his E&E News article Energy and Commerce unveils broad climate law rollbacks.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The House committee’s portion of the Republicans’ big party-line bill
also includes expedited permitting for gas exports and other projects.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s section of the Republicans’ party-line megabill includes billions of dollars in clawbacks from a host of Inflation Reduction Act programs.

The legislation — up for markup Tuesday — would affect the Department of Energy’s Loans Program Office, EPA’s Greenhouse Reduction Fund and many other climate law initiatives, according to text released Sunday night.

Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said the climate law repeals would add up to $6.5 billion in savings. He said the unobligated balances represented “the most reckless parts of the engorged climate spending in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”

“The 2024 election sent a clear signal that Americans are tired of an extreme left-wing agenda that favors wokeness over sensible policy and spurs price increases,” Guthrie said in a Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Guthrie said the administration “has already reversed President Biden and Democrats’ electric-vehicle mandates and natural-gas export ban; now it’s Congress’s turn.”

Guthrie told committee Republicans on a call Sunday that the overall legislation — including changes to Medicaid — would create more than $900 billion in savings, according to POLITICO.

A committee spokesperson said “the bill specifically rescinds funding leftover from nine of the Biden Administration’s IRA renewable energy and electrification subsidy programs at the Department of Energy — saving taxpayers money and allowing for deficit reduction.”

Department of Energy

The legislation would scrap “the unobligated balance” of IRA funding for the Loans Program Office and money dedicated to transmission projects.

The LPO received over $35 billion from the climate law, while DOE’s Grid Deployment Office got around $3 billion as part from the IRA’s “Transmission Facility Financing” section.

Republicans will also try to rescind IRA funds boosting a number of other DOE programs, including initiatives on advanced vehicle manufacturing, energy infrastructure reinvestment financing, tribal energy loan guarantees and state-based efficiency grants. Those programs, in total, received around $8.3 billion from the climate law.

The committee, however, did not make clear just how much leftover funding is available to repeal after the Biden administration pushed to get as much as possible out the door.

Outside of IRA programs, the legislation would accelerate permitting for infrastructure projects through new fees, something similar to the Natural Resources Committee text and what Democrats have called a pay-to-play scheme.

One Energy and Commerce provision, for example, would allow DOE to automatically deem a potential liquefied natural gas export facility to be in the “public interest” — normally a key regulatory hurdle — if the applicant pays a one-time fee of $1 million.

Another provision would allow other natural gas infrastructure developers to receive an “expedited permitting process” from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission under the Natural Gas Act if the applicants pays $10 million or 1 percent of the project’s projected cost.

The proposal eyes permitting being completed within a year and would exempt projects from certain litigation. A similar timeline and fee would apply to carbon dioxide, oil and hydrogen pipeline permitting.

The legislation would also rescind congressionally appropriated funding outside of the IRA for key DOE programs, including around $401 million from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and around $260 million from DOE’s State and Community Energy Programs.

It would grant $2 billion for the department to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a longtime objective of Republicans to shore up the nation’s energy security.

EPA

The bill text confirmed a longtime promise from Energy and Commerce leaders that they would target unobligated balances from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion IRA program designed to support clean energy projects particularly in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

Outside of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the plan would repeal a variety of IRA programs designed to reduce air pollution at schools and ports, reduce emissions from diesel engines and construction materials, and promote carbon monitoring initiatives.

And, as expected, the legislation takes aim at the Inflation Reduction Act’s methane fee. That program is designed to reduce methane leaks from natural gas infrastructure. Congress, through the Congressional Review Act, already repealed EPA regulations implementing the fee.

The legislation would also roll back two regulations on emissions from passenger vehicles. Gone would be the latest corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and EPA’s newest multipollutant emissions standards for model years 2027 and later, requiring significant reductions in greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions from light-duty and medium-duty vehicles.

Republicans went further in their targeting of Biden-era vehicle policies with a proposed repeal of $600 million in grants and rebates to states, municipalities tribes and nonprofits to expand the use of zero-emission vehicles.

See also: 

How To Fix US Energy After Biden Broke It

Abolishing the Climate Politico-Legal-Media Complex

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Linnea Lueken describes the nullification in her Town Hall article The Savaging of the Climate Politico-Legal-Media Complex.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on waste and harmful
policies has given so-called “green” politics a rude awakening. 

The administration is savaging the climate complex of lobbyists and NGOs, politically connected profiteering companies, and virtue signaling politicians bent on ending fossil fuel use. The greens are on the defensive and have yet been unable to form a cohesive response. For the good of humanity and the planet, let’s hope the disarray continues.

I almost hesitate to talk about this, lest the climate grifters in the media suddenly realize they are spending too much time focusing on tariffs and immigration and are forgetting one of the pillars of the globalist secular religion: climate alarmism. They still seem to be reeling, and it is amazing to see.

Note: The $$$ in the diagram are in 2010 $, not including consultancies and a plethora of NGOs. Likely it is today a multi-trillion dollar industry.

The Trump administration has been systematically ripping apart the politico-legal elements of what Michael Crichton once dubbed the climate “politico-legal-media” complex. This climate-focused approach to environmental extremism was meticulously constructed over the course of decades by previous Republican and Democrat administrations alike. No one else has taken the green scam to task the way Trump is.

Trump immediately rescinded Biden’s EV targets, as well as mandates for solar and wind and heat pumps. He removed the USDA’s website pages dedicated to climate change. He took an axe to Department of Energy (DOE) funding of climate-focused university research, which is still being battled in the courts (maybe this will end the apparent trend of scientists tying everything to climate just to get those grants).

Trump also got rid of the mandated use of paper straws in federal buildings, which is pretty funny.

While the climate-obsessed media were busy bleating about those insults to climate orthodoxy, DOGE tackled the climate slush fund known as USAID. USAID, it turns out, was sending billions of dollars for climate pet projects. Who knows how much of that went to overhead and graft with nothing to show in terms of mitigating climate change.

Interestingly, the extremist group Just Stop Oil closed shop shortly after cuts to USAID began. They claim it is because they have been victorious in keeping UK oil in the ground, but it is likely no coincidence that climate activists and protestors are increasingly finding themselves behind bars as the public tires of disruption and destruction and funding is drying up from governments, sometimes funneled through NGOs.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin also announced that the administration is considering eliminating the greenhouse gas reporting requirements for power plants, and then hit the greens with another major blow. He reiterated to Breitbart News that he intends to look at the carbon dioxide Endangerment Finding – which has been used to craft regulations based on the idea that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses represent a significant threat to human health… despite the fact that they are necessary for life on Earth. This comes after Trump signed an executive order asking the EPA to review the finding. Eliminating it would undercut the basis for all climate related regulations, from restrictions on power plants, to vehicle restrictions and mandates, to appliance restrictions, and beyond.

The end of the Endangerment Finding would be a big blow against
climate alarmism and an even bigger win for freedom.

I could almost feel bad for the greens, except that they have done nothing but suck up our hard-earned cash and increase human misery in the United States and abroad by pushing suicidal and stagnating policies. They fund programs aimed at stopping poorer countries from developing their own resources. They attack farming and endorse restrictions on the kind of appliances and cars average people can buy. They push policies limiting what one can eat and how food is grown, and restrictions on electric power production, all in the name of changing future weather.

This is not to say the Trump administration is anti-environment; to the contrary, under his first term, the EPA focused heavily on streamlining the clean-up of superfund sites. Zeldin is already putting cleanups of superfunds on an accelerated timeline. Trump and his team have reiterated that they are interested in maintaining clean air and water, and preventing wildfires that Democrat policies have worsened.

Time will tell if these attacks on the climate cult will prove fatal,
but thus far it has been incredible to witness.

Oh yeah; Happy Earth Day.

 

 

 

Time to Axe the Climate-Industrial Complex

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Kevin Mooney makes the urgency case in his Real Clear Energy article Celebrating American Independence With an All-Out Assault on Anti-Constitutional Climate Measures.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Now is the time to double down against the “Climate-Industrial Complex” with accelerated regulatory reforms that will hopefully endure beyond Donald Trump’s second term. Since day one of his new administration, the president has moved quickly to keep his promise to unleash American energy.

This means unraveling climate policies based on specious, unscientific findings that reached an apex with whatever leftist committee was in charge of the Biden White House. The American Energy Alliance, a Washington-based free market advocacy group, has put together a list of 50 Actions the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have taken to maximize America’s energy potential.

Some of the more significant items include EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to revisit the phony 2009 Endangerment Finding that identified CO2 as a pollutant. The finding came about in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court 2007 ruling in Massachusetts v EPA where the high court determined that the agency had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The ruling opened the way for the Obama and Biden administrations to lock in a long list of regulations restricting American energy.

The term “Climate-Industrial Complex” is an apt description some commentators have affixed to the vast network of activist groups and unelected administrative agents who have erected an extra-constitutional fourth branch of government all in the name of climate. Only by attacking the very premise of the climate lobby’s regulatory schemes can Team Trump achieve lasting change. Overturning the Endangerment Finding is a big part of that process since it would mean yanking out the edifice of regulations that raise energy prices for consumers and limit their choices. The CO2 Coalition, which includes scientists and researchers from across the globe, has a long list of “Climate Facts” highlighting the benefits of CO2, and it’s role in sustaining life on Earth, while debunking exaggerated claims about global warming. The attack on CO2 is an attack on humanity itself.

Another component of the Trump agenda included in the AEA list is the president’s abrupt move to once again withdraw from the U.N. Paris Climate Agreement and to revoke any financial commitments to the U.S. under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Under the agreement, participating countries pledge to reduce their CO2 emissions through “nationally determined contributions” or NDCs for the ostensible purpose of reducing “global warming.” Trump has long maintained that the international climate agreement “handicaps the U.S. economy” without producing any benefits for the climate or the environment. Right from the beginning, the agreement was crafted with an eye toward constraining America’s economic and military power while giving adversaries like China a free pass. Trump instinctively knew this was case. In his first term, Trump made the critical point that he was “elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” There’s an undeniable link between Trump’s restoration of an “America First” energy policy and the concept of “No Taxation Without Representation.” Why should U.N. bureaucrats be permitted to raise energy costs on the American people without a straight up and down vote in Congress?

Other notable actions on the AEA list include efforts to eliminate taxpayer funded subsidies for unworkable green energy, and the resumption of export permit applications for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects.

Tom Pyle, the AEA president, sums the early days of the Trump’s second term of very nicely in a press statement:

“President Trump has wasted no time fulfilling his promise to unleash our country’s vast resources and undo the reckless policies of his predecessor, beginning with a flurry of executive orders and spending reductions. More recently, his agencies – especially the EPA – have formalized the process of rewriting or eliminating a host of harmful regulations. Congress has also acted with haste by nullifying a host of rules using the Congressional Review Act and has begun the process of eliminating the wasteful Inflation Reduction Act subsidies through the budget and reconciliation process.”

That part about the Congressional Review Act (CRA) deserves some extra attention since the climate lobby is just as potent here domestically in California as it is within the United Nations. In fact, the CRA may be the most viable tool available to prevent Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, and likely presidential candidate, from superimposing his climate policy goals on the rest of the country. The CRA is a law passed in the 1990s that enables Congress to overturn final rules issued by federal agencies. Members have 60 days to introduce a joint resolution disapproving of the rule after an agency’s rule is reported to Congress. On the House side, Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-CA, has taken the critical step of introducing a CRA resolution of disapproval to repeal the Biden EPA’s 11th hour move to grant California a waiver for its Advanced Clean Cars II program, which would prohibit the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035.

Under a provision of the Clean Air Act, the EPA is authorized to establish emission standards for new motor vehicles. The agency also has latitude to grant California a special waiver to impose even more onerous regulations. That’s where the assault on consumer choice comes into play.

Other states are permitted to adopt the California standards and put gas powered cars on the path to extinction. This process is already well underway with 11 states and Washington D.C. adopting the California standards. The CRA could and should be used as a tool to reverse what is essentially a nationwide electrical vehicle mandate compliments of California. But there’s a problem.

Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, has joined with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to make the case that the CRA should not be used to overturn the waiver because it is their view that it is an adjudicatory order, not a rule.

Pyle cuts through the legal gibberish.

“Despite misleading reports, the Congressional Review Act is crystal clear: once an agency action is submitted to Congress, it is Congress—and Congress alone—that holds the unassailable power to approve or disapprove that action,” Pyle said in a release:

“The GAO’s role is purely advisory, with no legal authority to block Congress from exercising its constitutional duty. The California waiver, which seeks to impose a nationwide electric vehicle mandate, is a prime example of why the CRA exists: to ensure that Congress retains control over regulatory actions that significantly affect the American public. It is time for Congress to step in and put a stop to California’s electric vehicle mandate. Doing so will protect consumer choice and prevent unelected agencies from dictating the future of American transportation.”

With the 250th anniversary of American independence fast approaching, there is no better way to mark that occasion than by caging the climate lobby’s administrative beast, uprooting California mandates, and restoring Congress to its proper station as a lawmaking body.

Why Must Repeal Biden’s IRA

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Frank Lasee explains why Republicans Must End Democrats’ IRA Caused Inflation.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Democrats passed the Orwellian named inflation Reduction Act (IRA) without a single Republican vote. They told us that it would be a $369 billion spending package. In fact, it could cost nearly $5 trillion adding to our debt.

The United States now has a $36.5 trillion national debt,
with a trillion dollars in annual interest payments.

The money for the IRA is all borrowed money. It causes more unnecessary energy spending, driving up electric rates and increasing inflation. This overspending is unsustainable and harmful to the United States; inflation is putting pressure on families’ budgets.

The subsidies in the IRA are incredible. Wind and solar get a 50 percent tax credit to build and a 30 percent subsidy for the electricity they produce. Trump and Congress need to end these subsidies. Not only for wind and solar, but for all the other supposedly green initiatives, like battery factories, electric vehicle manufacturing components, and hydrogen. We simply can’t afford it. 

This “green” borrowing is driving up our electric rates. Because wind and solar power are part-time and intermittent, they cannot provide full-time, keep the lights on all the time electricity generation. They do not replace any natural gas, coal, or nuclear power they just add costs.

It is like a household that has two on demand gas cars that serve their needs. They think they can save money with another car. Because of the 50 percent tax subsidies and propaganda they buy a solar car. 

They find that the solar car doesn’t work the first and last hour of the day, or when it is raining, or cloudy and not at night. The sun isn’t powerful enough. They learn they cannot replace any of their gas cars with the solar car.

So, they buy a wind car that only works the 30 percent of the time the wind blows. They find they can’t get home from their kids’ soccer game or from work because the wind stopped blowing.

Capacity shortfall events – or blackouts – in Southwest Power Pool (SPP) when we modeled EPA’s proposal for carbon mandates, stemming from the agency’s use of 80% or higher capacity values for solar energy.

They are now paying for four cars instead of two. This is exactly what is happening to our electric grid. We are paying for a full-time and part-time electricity production. 

To make matters worse, the way that regional transmission organizations (RTOs) pay for our electricity doesn’t allow us to realize any savings from the heavily subsidized wind and solar generation. 

The industry calls it take and pay. The most expensive form of electricity the RTO purchases is what they pay all electricity providers. This means that there is no savings from wind and solar for electric consumers, only increased costs.

Projected Business Electricity Expenses in California based on increasing commercial rates.

No other industry pays the highest bid price to all suppliers, regardless of what they bid. But that’s what they do in the electric world. We are paying higher electricity rates because of this practice.

This begs for state legislative action to correct this expensive payment scheme. 

Wind and solar further drive up the price of electricity because they require many miles of expensive transmission wires and displace full-time electric generation. Forcing it to run less than it would if they were not on the electric grid.

As natural gas and coal power plants run more part-time, every electron they sell must have a higher price to cover their costs. Their maintenance costs will only increase, too, because they were never designed to run intermittently.

Trump understands that wind and solar drive up the cost of our electricity, particularly offshore wind, which costs five times more than natural gas electricity, and are built in hurricane alley. What could go wrong? The simple answer is to stop subsidizing all electric generation with our borrowed inflation causing tax dollars. And states should end favorable regulations that require the purchase of wind and solar first. 

There are 21 House Republicans that have signed a letter saying they don’t want to repeal the IRA, even though they didn’t vote for it. Because it is fostering wasteful pretend “green” spending in their districts. Clever Democrats have the bulk of the spending going into these Republican districts in order to preserve this green slush fund.

President Trump needs to use his considerable persuasion and political muscle to end this Democrat boondoggle, which adds to our $36.5 trillion national debt.

Frank Lasee is a former Wisconsin state senator and former member of Governor Scott Walker’s administration. The district he represented had two nuclear power plants, a biomass plant and numerous wind towers. He has experience with energy, the environment, and the climate. You can read more energy and climate information at www.truthinenergyandclimate.com which Frank leads.

The Right Climate Stuff

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Not everyone is aware that the scientists and engineers who made the NASA space program successful disputed the global warming/climate change narrative promoted at the agency by people like James Hansen.

After all the slogan in the NASA workplace was that of Edward Deming, and they were only convinced by the facts rather than feelings or opinions about the future.  Many of them formed the Right Climate Stuff Foundation.

In particular Walter Cunningham explained his reasoning in an article In Science, Ignorance is not Bliss. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

NASA has played a key role in one of the greatest periods of scientific progress in history. It is uniquely positioned to collect the most comprehensive data on our biosphere.   For example, recently generated NASA data enabled scientists to finally understand the Gulf Stream warming mechanism and its effect on European weather. Such data will allow us to improve our models, resulting in better seasonal forecasts.

NASA’s Aqua satellite is showing that water vapor, the dominant greenhouse gas, works to offset the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2). This information, contrary to the assumption used in all the warming models, is ignored by global warming alarmists.

Climate understanding and critical decision making require
comprehensive data about our planet’s land, sea, and atmosphere.

Without an adequate satellite system to provide such data, policy efforts and monitoring international environmental agreements are doomed to failure. Our satellite monitoring capability is being crippled by interagency wrangling and federal budget issues. As much as a third of our satellites need replacing in the next couple of years.

NASA should be at the forefront in the collection of scientific evidence and debunking the current hysteria over human-caused, or Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). Unfortunately, it is becoming just another agency caught up in the politics of global warming, or worse, politicized science.

Advocacy is replacing objective evaluation of data, while
scientific data is being ignored in favor of emotions and politics.

There are excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the Sun and the Earth’s temperature, while scientists can not find a relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption, and global temperatures. But global warming is an issue no longer being decided in the scientific arena.

Saying the Earth is warming is to state the obvious. Since the end of the ice age, the Earth’s temperature has increased approximately 16 degrees Fahrenheit and sea levels have risen a total of 300 feet. That is certain and measurable evidence of warming, but it is not evidence of AGW—human-caused warming.

We can track the temperature of the Earth back for millennia. Knowing the temperature of the Earth, past or present, is a matter of collecting data, analyzing it, and coming up with the best answer to account for the data. Collecting such data on a global basis is a NASA forte. I believe in global climate change, but there is no way that humans can influence the temperature of our planet to any measurable degree with the tools currently at their disposal. Any human contribution to global temperature change is lost in the noise of terrestrial and cosmic factors.

Our beautiful home planet has been warming and cooling for the last 4.8 billion years. Most recently, it has been warming—be it ever so slightly—but there is nothing unusual about it! The changes and rates of change in the Earth’s temperature, just since the Industrial Revolution, have occurred many times in our climatic history. While climate scientists generally agree that the Earth’s temperature is always changing, not many of them would say that humans are responsible for those changes.

None of this is to say there are not legitimate reasons to restrict emissions of any number of chemicals into the atmosphere. We should just not fool ourselves into thinking we will change the temperature of the Earth by doing so.

In a December 2007 Senate report, 400 prominent scientists signed a letter pointing out that climate change was a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it. Their ranks included experts in climatology, geology, oceanography, biology, glaciology, biogeography, meteorology, economics, chemistry, mathematics, environmental sciences, engineering, physics, and paleo-climatology.

Their message: When changes are gradual, man has
an almost infinite ability to adapt and evolve.

The fearmongers of global warming base their case on the correlation between CO2 and global temperature, even though we cannot be sure which is cause and which is effect. Historically, temperature increases have preceded high CO2 levels, and there have been periods when atmospheric CO2 levels were as much as 16 times what they are now, periods characterized not by warming but by glaciation. You might have to go back half a million years to match our current level of atmospheric CO2, but you only have to go back to the Medieval Warming Period, from the 10th to the 14th Century, to find an intense global warming episode, followed immediately by the drastic cooling of the Little Ice Age. Neither of these events were caused by variations in CO2 levels.

Even though CO2 is a relatively minor constituent of “greenhouse gases,” alarmists have made it the whipping boy for global warming (probably because they know how fruitless it would be to propose controlling other principal constituents, H2O, CH4, and N2O). Since human activity does contribute a tiny portion of atmospheric CO2, they blame us for global warming.

Other inconvenient facts ignored by the activists: Carbon dioxide is a nonpolluting gas, essential for plant photosynthesis. Higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere produce bigger harvests.

In spite of warnings of severe consequences from rising seas, droughts, severe weather, species extinction, and other disasters, the U.S. has not been stampeded into going along with the recommendations of the UN Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—so far. Even though evidence supports the American position, we have begun to show signs of caving in to the alarmists.

With scientific evidence going out of style,
emotional arguments and anecdotal data are ruling the day.

The media subjects us to one frightening image of environmental nightmare after another, linking each to global warming. Journalists and activist scientists use hurricanes, wildfires, and starving polar bears to appeal to our emotions, not to our reason. They are far more concerned with anecdotal observations, such as the frozen sea ice inside the Arctic Circle, than they are with understanding why it is happening and how frequently it has occurred in the past.

After warnings that 2007 would be the hottest year on record and a record year for hurricanes, what we experienced was the coolest year since 2001 and, by some measures, the most benign hurricane season in the Northern Hemisphere in three decades.

Even though recent changes in our atmosphere are all within the bounds of the Earth’s natural variability, a growing number of people are willing to throw away trillions of dollars on fruitless solutions. Why do we allow emotional appeals and anecdotal data to shape our conclusions and influence our expenditures with the science and technology we have available at our fingertips?

The situation is complex, but the sad state of scientific literacy in America today is partially to blame for belief in AGW. When a 2006 National Science Foundation survey found 25 percent of Americans not knowing the Earth revolves around the Sun, you know that science education is at a new low and society is vulnerable to the emotional appeal of AGW.

And don’t underestimate the role of politics and political correctness.

The public debate should focus on the real cause of global temperature change and whether we can do anything about it. Is global warming a natural inevitability, or is it AGW—human caused?

The conflict over AGW has deteriorated into a religious war; a war between true believers in human-caused global warming and nonbelievers; between those who accept AGW on faith and those who consider themselves more sensible and better informed. “True believers” are beyond being interested in evidence; it is impossible to reason a person out of positions they have not been reasoned into.

It doesn’t help that NASA scientist James Hansen was one of the early alarmists claiming humans caused global warming. Hansen is a political activist who spreads fear even when NASA’s own data contradict him.

Warming in the upper atmosphere should occur before any surface warming effect, but NASA’s own data show that has not been happening. Global temperature readings—accurate to 0.1 degree Celsius—are gathered by orbiting satellites. Interestingly, in the 18 years those satellites have been recording global temperatures, they have actually shown a slight decrease in average temperatures.

Hansen is currently calling for a reduction of atmospheric CO2 by 10 percent and a moratorium on coal-fired power plants, while claiming the Bush administration is censoring him. Other so-called scientists are saying the world must bring carbon emissions to near zero to keep temperatures from rising.

In today’s politically correct environment, many are reluctant to dispute the popular wisdom; when they do, they are frequently ignored. When NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, Hansen’s boss and a distinguished scientist in his own right, attempted to draw a distinction between Hansen’s personal and political views and the science conducted by his agency, he was soon forced to back off.

It is the true believers who, when they have no facts on their side, try to silence their critics. When former NASA mathematician Ferenc Miskolczi pointed out that “greenhouse warming” may be mathematically impossible, NASA would not allow him to publish his work. Miskolczi dared to question the simplifying assumption in the warming model that the atmosphere is infinitely thick. He pointed out that when you use the correct thickness—about 65 miles—the greenhouse effect disappears! Ergo: no AGW. Miskolczi resigned in disgust and published his proof in the peer reviewed Hungarian journal Weather. [See: The Curious Case of Dr. Miskolczi]

For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric CO2 has continued to accumulate—up about 4 percent in the last 10 years—the global mean temperature has remained flat. That should raise obvious questions about CO2 being the cause of climate change.

Instead, AGW enthusiasts are embracing more regulation, greater government spending, and higher taxes in a futile attempt to control what is beyond our control—the Earth’s temperature. One of their political objectives, unstated of course, is the transfer of wealth from rich nations to poor nations or, as the social engineers put it, from the North to the South, which may be their real agenda.

Climate Lemmings

In the face of overwhelming evidence for natural temperature variation, proponents of AGW are resorting to a precautionary argument: “We must do something just in case we are responsible, because the consequences are too terrible if we are to blame and do nothing.” They hope to stampede government entities into committing huge amounts of money before their fraud is completely exposed—before science and truth save the day.

Politicians think they can reverse global warming by stabilizing CO2 emissions with a cockamamie scheme of “cap and trade.” A government entity would sell CO2 allocations to those industries producing it. The trillions of dollars in new taxes and devastation to the economy would be justified by claiming it will lower the temperature of the Earth. This rationalization is dependent on two assumptions: (1) that CO2 is responsible for the cause of changes in the Earth’s temperature, and (2) a warmer Earth would be bad for humanity.

The reality is that atmospheric CO2 has a minimal impact on greenhouse gases and world temperature. Water vapor is responsible for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect. CO2 contributes just 3.6 percent, with human activity responsible for only 3.2 percent of that. That is why some studies claim CO2 levels are largely irrelevant to global warming.

Without the greenhouse effect to keep our world warm, the planet would have an average temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius. Because we do have it, the temperature is a comfortable plus 15 degrees Celsius. Based on the seasonal and geographic distribution of any projected warming, a good case can be made that a warmer average temperature would be even more beneficial for humans.

For a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars a cap-and-trade system would eventually cost the United States, we could pay for development of clean coal, oil-shale recovery systems, and nuclear power, and have enough left over to pay for exploration of our solar system.

By law, NASA cannot involve itself in politics, but it can surely champion the role of science to inform politicians. With so many uninformed and misguided politicians ignoring the available science, NASA should fill the void. NASA is synonymous with science. Allowing our priorities to drift away from hard science is tantamount to embracing decadence. NASA will surely suffer; and politicizing science is killing it.

I do see hopeful signs that some true believers are beginning to harbor doubts about AGW. Let’s hope that NASA can focus the global warming discussion back on scientific evidence before we perpetrate an economic disaster on ourselves.

Walter Cunningham, (1932–2023) geophysicist, fighter pilot and Apollo 7 astronaut, who flew the first test flight of the Apollo Program, Apollo 7.  In 2010, Cunningham published a short book titled “Global Warming: Facts versus Faith” His editorial was published in the Houston Chronicle on August 15, 2010,  Climate change alarmists ignore scientific methods.  (When You Don’t Have the Facts, Appeal to Public Opinion).  In 2012, he and other former astronauts and NASA employees sent a letter to the agency criticizing its role advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

Fast Track to Poverty: Green Energy

Posted on by Ron Clutz

At his blog, Matt Ridley explains How the Green Energy Transition Makes You Poorer.
Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Crony capitalism at work

A leaked government analysis has found that Net Zero could crash the economy, reducing GDP by a massive 10% by 2030. Yet the spectacular thing about this analysis is that it expects this to happen not if Net Zero fails—but if it succeeds. In effect, it is saying that if the government really does force us to give up petrol cars, gas boilers, foreign holidays, and beef, then there would be perfectly workable things left idle, such as cars, boilers, planes, and cows. Idling—or stranding—your assets in this way is an expensive economic disaster.

Even more intriguing was the government’s economically illiterate response to the leak. A spokesman said: “Net zero is the economic opportunity of the twenty-first century, and will deliver good jobs, economic growth and energy security as part of our Plan for Change.”

Do they really think that economic growth is the same thing
as spending money? Because it isn’t.

Imagine the government saying that it is going to require the entire population to throw out all their socks and buy new ones by next Thursday. Under the logic it espouses for Net Zero, this would result in a tremendous burst of economic growth. Think of all the jobs created in the sock industry and the shops! They would be better off. Ah, but you, the consumer, would be poorer. You would have as many socks as before but less money. This is the broken window fallacy, explained by Frédéric Bastiat nearly 200 years ago: going around breaking windows makes work for glaziers but does not create growth.

Net Zero is a project to replace an existing set of technologies with another set of technologies: power stations with wind farms, petrol cars with electric cars, gas boilers with heat pumps, plane trips in the sun with caravan trips in the rain, cows with lentils. The output from these technologies is intended to be the same: electricity, transport, holidays, food.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that these new technologies and activities require exactly as much money to build and run as the old ones. What have you gained? Less than nothing because you have retired existing devices early, losing the latter half of their lives. It would be like replacing all the socks in your drawers long before they needed replacing but with identical socks. Does that make you richer? No, poorer.

If the new technologies are more efficient than the old ones, fine. LED light bulbs use about 90% less electricity than incandescent bulbs did. So yes, it does make sense to throw out your old bulbs before they expire, stranding those assets, to save electricity and money. Is the same true of a wind farm or a heat pump? No, they are demonstrably more expensive and less reliable at producing the same electricity than the devices they are replacing. They are worse, not better.

That’s why they need subsidies. We have spent £100 billion so far subsidising “green” energy in the past few decades, money we could have spent on something else: tax cuts, for example. So, the green energy transition has made us poorer, not richer. It has given us the most expensive electricity in the entire developed world.

It has made some people richer, for sure. Dale Vince, an eco-tycoon, has made a fortune out of building unreliable energy. So have lots of fat cats in the City of London, lots of big landowners in the Highlands of Scotland, and lots of manufacturers in China. I have lost count of the number of times wealthy people have told me I am wrong to criticise the unreliable energy industry because “my son Torquil’s fund has done rather well.”

Net Zero crony capitalism is efficient at one thing:
transferring money from poor people to rich people.

This government has forgotten that its job is not to champion the interests of producers, but consumers. So did the last government, though Kemi Badenoch’s speech on Tuesday showed a welcome return to thinking about consumers. Electricity is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end, an essential input allowing us to do the one and only thing that does, really does, represent growth—achieving more output with less input.

Right now, the Net Zero transition is doing the very opposite.

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