Voice For Liberty

Tag: Climate change

  • GPACE “Sunflower” Questions Misleading

    The website of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy contains a list of ten questions for Sunflower supporters.

    (It seems if you’re an environmentalist, the term “Sunflower” is enough to let you know what these questions are about. For normal Kansans, though, they’ll need a little more information. These questions refer to Sunflower Electric Power Corporation and its proposed expansion of the Holcomb Station coal-fired power plant. Or, simply, “the coal plant.”)

    When I read these questions, they reminded me of questions used in push polls. These questions — not really questions at all — are designed to produce a change in the views of the respondent. They are often based on a false premise, but sound reasonable or tenable. That’s the case with many of these ten questions.

    For example, here’s the first question: “How is the use of our scarce (and hard earned) water resource to produce electricity for Colorado good economic policy for western Kansas?”

    Now if you didn’t know much about this issue, you might conclude these things from this question: That the plant will use a lot of additional water that Kansas can’t spare, that western Kansas exists only to serve the selfish interests of Colorado, and that exporting electricity to Colorado isn’t a benefit to Kansas.

    Here’s some of the things wrong with this question: First, the premise that the power plant will use a lot of water is false. That’s because the plant has to purchase water rights for the water it will use. If the power plant didn’t use this water, it would likely be used in agriculture, probably irrigating corn to be fed to cattle or turned into ethanol.

    Besides, the water usage of the plant is very small compared to the use of water in Kansas agriculture. My post Holcomb, Kansas Coal Plant Water Usage in Perspective explains.

    Then, what’s bad about exporting power to Colorado or other states? Don’t we in Kansas spend a lot of effort producing oil, natural gas, wheat, beef, and airplanes just for export to other states? How is electricity different? Has Kansas started a trade war with Colorado?

    It’s true that the Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman complained that the plant would export power “while leaving Kansas with 100 percent of the carbon dioxide.” (See Untruths About Carbon and its Regulation at the Wichita Eagle) Her complaint is based on a false premise. I know of no authority — not even Al Gore — that believes that carbon dioxide pollution is a problem in the local vicinity of a power plant. To the extent that carbon emissions are a problem — and that’s a mighty big “if” — it’s a problem on a global scale.

    Some of the other questions posed by GPACE have similar problems. This technique of pushing questions based on false premises does nothing to promote reasoned discussion of issues in Kansas.

  • Wind power: look at costs of “boom”

    There’s been a lot of investment in Nolan County, Texas. Things are booming.

    That’s pretty much the entire point of an op-ed piece in the Wichita Eagle by Scott Allegrucci. (Money Blowing in the Wind in Texas, January 16, 2009)

    He’s the director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, based in Topeka. This organization’s website states that “GPACE seeks to correct an imbalance in the information citizens and their elected representatives have received regarding the critical and complex energy policy decisions facing our state.”

    If that’s really GPACE’s goal, Mr. Allegrucci didn’t advance it in this piece. That’s because he promotes the benefits of spending on wind energy without considering the true cost of wind energy. Further, he ignores the tremendous subsidy poured into wind energy production.

    Last year the Texas Public Policy Foundation released a report titled Texas Wind Energy: Past, Present, and Future. This report contains information about the realities of wind power. It provides the balance that GPACE says it seeks to provide but fails to deliver in Mr. Allegrucci’s op-ed.

    For example, did you know that every bit of wind power that’s produced receives a subsidy? Last year, as the subsidy was about to expire, wind power advocates warned that without the subsidy, wind power production would cease. No new plants would be built. It’s these subsidies that have created the growth in Nolan County that Allegrucci writes about. These subsidies produce some peculiar incentives. From page 25 of TPPF’s report:

    The financial handouts available to wind developers are so generous that, in Texas, many wind-energy producers “will offer wind power at no cost or even pay to have their electricity moved on the grid, a response commonly referred to as ‘negative pricing.’ Wind providers have an incentive to sell power even at negative prices because they still receive the federal production tax (PTC) credit and renewable energy credits.”

    Directing subsidies of any type into a concentrated area produces the results described by Allegrucci in this county. There’s nothing remarkable about that. But what about the rest of Texas? From the executive summary of the TPPF report:

    The distinction between wind and wind energy is critical. The wind itself is free, but wind energy is anything but. Cost estimates for wind-energy generation typically include only turbine construction and maintenance. Left out are many of wind energy’s costs — transmission, grid connection and management, and backup generation — that ultimately will be borne by Texas’ electric ratepayers. Direct subsidies, tax breaks, and increased production and ancillary costs associated with wind energy could cost Texas more than $4 billion per year and at least $60 billion through 2025.

    It’s a common error, assuming that since no one owns the wind, wind power is free once the turbines are built. That’s far from the case, though. Page 23 tells us this:

    The true cost of electricity from wind is much higher than wind advocates admit. Wind energy advocates ignore key elements of the true cost of electricity from wind, including: (i) The cost of tax breaks and subsidies which shift tax burden and costs from “wind farm” owners to ordinary taxpayers and electricity customers. (ii) The cost of providing backup power to balance the intermittent and volatile output from wind turbines. (iii) The full, true cost of transmitting electricity from “wind farms” to electricity customers and the extra burden on grid management.

    The reality is that the boom in Nolan County is being paid for by electricity customers throughout Texas. Not by their choice, too.

    When considering wind power, balance requires us to consider these factors. The illustration that a concentrated area experiences a boom from a subsidized, expensive, and unreliable source of power doesn’t paint a picture of sound public policy.

  • Tom Nelson, Climate Change Information Center

    Meet Tom Nelson, a valuable resource for information about climate change. His self-named blog — Tom Nelson — consolidates a wide variety of material that you won’t find on the websites of the “warmists.”

  • Not All Agree With New Kansas Energy Plan

    Currie Meyers of the Kansas Federalist has a few issues with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius‘ energy plan. I can’t link directly to Meyers’ article, so I’ll reproduce it in its entirety here.

    Sebelius New Energy Plan Lacks Energy

    Governor Kathleen Sebelius unveiled weak and pathetic energy proposals that she hopes will help Kansas capitalize on renewable energy. Standing beside her at the major news event was Lt.Gov. Mark Parkinson, whom has already announced he is not running for running for office. The Sebelius four-point legislative plan calls for:

    Net Metering! Which would allow Kansas consumers to generate their own electricity, then sell the surplus they create back to the power companies. (The only energy I can produce on my own is Methane and she wants to tax that one! Maybe I can capture all the squirrels in my yard and place them in the wheel cage for energy. There is plenty since we can’t hunt varmints in the city. Oh, by the way, they tried this “Net Metering” idea in Missouri but consumers could not get insurance to cover liability of producing their own energy.) Next!

    Setting into law the state’s existing voluntary renewable portfolio standard! The standard initially called for 10 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewable resources by 2010, a goal the state has already met. (If we have already met it and we are in a billion dollar deficient then what’s the benefit of making this into law? Except that liberals like laws, regulations and portfolios.) Next!

    Requiring all new state buildings or leases meet energy-efficiency standards! (Which will actually cost more to taxpayers due to the capital improvements that will have to be done in order to change energy systems. And there also is a difference between energy efficient and green. Green is not always efficient.) Next!

    Creating energy bond programs! So Kansas can attract solar and wind manufacturing jobs to our state. (How about tax abatements, low business taxes, low capital gains taxes and less business regulation instead? How about Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Bio-Fuels?) Next!

    This is the best energy proposal that our liberal government leaders can come up with? You have got to be kidding me! “It’s time we take the next step toward a clean energy future,” said Sebelius. No Governor, it’s time to lead! And this ain’t it!

    Lead, follow or get out of the way! The citizens are waiting!

  • A reasoned look at wind power

    The Texas Public Policy Foundation has released a report titled Texas Wind Energy: Past, Present, and Future. It doesn’t have a catchy title, but the report is full of useful information about wind energy. Here’s a little bit from the executive summary:

    The distinction between wind and wind energy is critical. The wind itself is free, but wind energy is anything but. Cost estimates for wind-energy generation typically include only turbine construction and maintenance. Left out are many of wind energy’s costs—transmission, grid connection and management, and backup generation—that ultimately will be borne by Texas’ electric ratepayers. Direct subsidies, tax breaks, and increased production and ancillary costs associated with wind energy could cost Texas more than $4 billion per year and at least $60 billion through 2025.

    Wind, like every other energy resource, has its pros and cons, and there is no doubt that wind power should be part of Texas’ energy supply. Texas needs a variety of fuel sources, plus concerted efforts at conservation and efficiency, in order to meet its energy needs. However, wind energy should only be employed to the extent it passes economic cost-benefit muster. Instead of subsidizing private wind development and imposing billions of dollars in new transmission costs upon retail electric customers, Texas policymakers should step back and allow the energy marketplace to bring wind power online when the market is ready. Texas electricity consumers will reap the benefits of such a prudent path.

  • Attitudes towards global warming are changing

    Global warming alarmists — in this article Christopher Booker refers to them simply as “warmists” — have become “even shriller and more frantic” in light of evidence that climate change may not be proceeding they way they’ve been predicting.

    In his article in the Daily Telegraph (2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved), Booker makes these points:

    Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

    First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare.

    Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a “scientific consensus” in favour of man-made global warming collapsed.

    Thirdly … All those grandiose projects for “emissions trading”, “carbon capture”, building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to “biofuels”, are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

    In Kansas we’re considering taking very expensive actions to mitigate carbon emissions. (See coverage of Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP), for example.) These actions, in the global scheme of things (and it’s not called “global warming” for nothing), are less than the proverbial drop in the bucket. At the same time, we delay doing things that we need, like the expansion of the Holcomb Station coal-fired electricity generating plant. Let’s hope that 2009 brings a reasoned and measured response to the hysteria generated by the “warmists.”

  • Global warming rope-a-dope

    Walter Williams reports that the science behind global warming is not as solid as alarmists and zealots present it to be.

    The scientists, not environmental activists, include Ivar Giaever, Nobel Laureate in physics, who said, “I am a skeptic. … Global warming has become a new religion.” Kiminori Itoh, an environmental physical chemist, said warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history. … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” … Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, said, “Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly [from promoting warming fears], without having their professional careers ruined.”

    The problem is, as Williams says: “The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet.” And once laws are in place, Williams says, they’re very difficult to remove, no matter how strong the evidence is of their harm.

    Global warming alarmists pursue their agenda with zeal, and usually with no consideration as to the harmful effects of their policies. If uncontrovertible evidence that global warming is a mistake were to appear, would it make any difference to them? Of course not. Their crusade, which in reality is a thinly-disguised campaign against capitalism, would continue.

    For Dr. Williams’ column, see Global Warming Rope-a-Dope.

  • Temperature Errors and Response Raise Doubts

    More coverage of errors in global climate data appears in The Telegraph. The errors were in Russian data, where apparently the September temperature figures were used again for October.

    A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen’s institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

    If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. … Yet last week’s latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen’s methodology has been called in question.

    Source: The world has never seen such freezing heat.

  • It’s colder in Russia in October than in September

    Or at least it should be, unless you’re a global warming alarmist. Then it’s okay to use September temperatures for missing October observations.

    That’s what the Investor’s Business Daily editorial Cold, Hard Facts reports happened. Really.

    The editorial is based on Steve McIntyre’s research, reported on his site Climate Audit in the post Did Napoleon Use Hansen’s Temperature Data?