by Dave Rutledge
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On August 3, President Obama declared that “under the Clean Power Plan, by 2030, renewables will account for 28% of our capacity,” and “will save the average American family nearly $85 on their annual energy bill in 2030.”
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In the accompanying EPA rule, the word renewables is not used consistently. Sometimes it includes hydroelectric power, sometimes not. Sometimes the focus is on wind and solar power, sometimes it is broader. As the readers are aware, capacity is not the same thing as generation, and for generation, prices vary widely during the day. This makes it unclear how we get from a 28% capacity to $85 in annual savings. It is common for energy analysts to use levelized costs to compare different sources, but a residential consumer is paying for 24/7 access to a working grid, not for electricity from individual sources.
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Without any enabling legislation, President Obama plans to force the United States to make an enormous capital investment, of the order of a trillion dollars, in wind and solar power and the associated grid infrastructure. Politicians often talk about investments when they mean forced transfers, but this really would be an investment, and the goal of this post is to estimate the return for the consumer. The post was inspired by a post by Willis Eschenbach at What’s Up With That. I will not consider the health and climate impacts of the plan. Judy Curry started the discussion of these in her August 3 post.
If the residential electricity bills actually do go down $85 a year as President Obama promised, then that $85 would be the return on our investment. To evaluate an investment, we divide it by the annual return to get a payback time. The situation is different if the electricity bills go up. The return is negative. We are never paid back and we have also lost our investment. One can still calculate a payback time using the same formula but we get a negative payback time, which is worse than any investment with a positive payback time. The readers who are scientists and engineers may appreciate the analogy to negative-temperature systems that are hotter than any system with a positive temperature. Among those awful investments with negative payback times, the smaller the negative payback time the worse the investment.
One complication in assessing a return on wind and solar investments is that the primary subsidies for renewables in the United States are the 30% federal tax credit and the 2.2¢/kWh producer tax credit for wind. These subsidies are effectively paid for by the people who pay income taxes. The toll falls heavily on the upper 1% in income who pay 46% of net US income taxes. Another problem in assessing a possible return is that the US has not gotten very far in wind and solar power. They accounted for only 4% of the electricity generation in 2013.
Europe is a better place to evaluate an investment in wind and solar power. The primary subsidy in Europe is a feed-in-tariff. Who pays in the end is different from the US. The people who are well off enough to buy solar arrays effectively are paid by the people who are not well off enough to buy solar arrays. I will leave the question of whether this is good social policy or not to the Europeans, but for this post it is useful because it means that the residential electricity bills reflect the wind and solar installation costs. It also helps that Europe has installed more than twice as much wind and solar capacity as the US.
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Our starting point is Figure 1, which shows a plot of residential electricity prices compared with the residential component of wind and solar capacity for OECD-Europe countries. The data and the figures for this post are available as an Excel file. Willis Eschenbach and Jonathan Drake also made price plots for EU countries. Our emphasis will be on the higher-income European countries that are members of the OECD. Some countries, like Norway and Switzerland, are in OECD Europe but not the EU, while Romania is in the EU, but not the OECD. BP deems that Estonia, Iceland, Luxembourg, and Slovenia are not significant enough to include in their electricity spreadsheets, and I omitted them also.
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The residential component of the wind and solar capacity is calculated from the residential share of the final consumption reported by the IEA. At 15¢/kWh, Norway is an outlier, well below the other countries. It has a very large per-person residential consumption of electricity generated by hydroelectric power. Norway also provides profitable balancing services to the continent, consuming wind and solar electricity when the price is low and providing hydroelectric power when the price is high. Roger Andrews has an excellent post on this balancing. The trend line is calculated without Norway. Incidentally, the US residential price is 12¢/kWh, even lower than Norway. The US has low-cost natural gas and coal and the US emphasizes tax credits rather than feed-in-tariffs to subsidize wind and solar power. As Willis noted, higher wind and solar capacities are associated with higher prices. For European consumers the return on their wind and solar investment is negative.
Figure 1. Residential electricity prices vs the residential component of the per-person wind and solar capacity for OECD Europe Countries. The electricity prices are taken from the IEA, the capacities from BP, and the populations from the UN. Data are for 2013, except for the Spanish price, where I filled from 2011. The IEA prices are converted at the market exchange rates.
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How negative is the return? I propose that we interpret the y-intercept of the trend line, 18.8¢/kWh, as the price of electricity without any wind or solar capacity. As a check, in Germany in 2000, when the wind and solar capacity were negligible, the price was 16.3¢/kWh, expressed in 2013 dollars with BP’s deflator. The difference between the actual price and the zero-wind-and-solar price becomes a per kWh surcharge for the wind and solar capacity.
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If we multiply this by the annual residential consumption we get an annual per-person wind and solar surcharge. These are shown in Figure 2. Again there is a clear trend. More capacity is associated with a greater surcharge. The slope of the trend line in the figure is $1.14/y/W. If we divide this by the average cost of the cumulative wind and solar capacity, we get the return on the investment, which will be negative. I will take the average cost to be $4/W. Expressed as a negative payback time, this is 3.5 years. Expressed as a negative return, it is 29% per year.
Figure 2. Calculated annual per-person wind and solar surcharge vs the residential component of per-person wind and solar capacity for OECD Europe Countries. Hungary (11W/p, –$7/p/y) is omitted from the graph, but included in the trend calculation. The trend is constrained to go through the origin.
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As investments, these are inconceivably bad and we would expect large opportunity costs at the national level. It is interesting that if we start on the right in our graphs and move left past Denmark and Germany, the big spenders are the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) that have been in the financial doghouse in recent years.
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For consumers, the high electricity prices discourage the use of electricity for increasing safety. During the great European Heat Wave of 2003, 70,000 people died, most of them indoors. This is a horrible way to die. The people who were indoors could have been saved by a $140 Frigidaire window unit, but only if they could afford to pay for the electricity.
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Biosketch: Dave Rutledge is the Tomayasu Professor of Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology.
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JC note: As with all guest posts, please keep your comments civil and relevant.
My understanding is that the savings are supposed to come from efficient programs, so people supposedly use less juice, even though it costs more per kwh. Efficiency was dropped from the target calcs but remains as a compliance mechanism. I consider this projection preposterous but there it is. The increased cost of renewables is offset by efficiency, in the Presidentail fantasy, or am I missing something? I do not see that assumption in this post, interesting as it is.
There is a lot room for efficiency improvements in space heating/cooling.
It’s one of the factors that has limited the number of nuclear plants being built in the US Southeast. Demand projections to 2030 and beyond are a bit too soft to make a large investment in generation.
There is a lot room for efficiency improvements in space heating/cooling.
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if we are saving $85/year, why would there be greater efficiency?
It would seem that saving $85/year would lead to less efficiency, as there would not be as much reason to implement efficient appliances.
DW, to the extent you may be correct, that is one of three strong lagal grounds for challenge. By no contorted stretch of the imagination does the CCA confer on the EPA authority to mandate state level electricity savings measures. Just shows the incredible degree of unconstitutional overreach Obama is attempting.
Didn’t they leave that part out of the final version of the Plan?
Timg56, they dropped it from the target calculations but my understanding is that it remains as a compliance option and much has been written saying this in the efficiency community. The regs do not mandate any specific actions, just the target. But EPA has always been clear that the savings occur from efficiency despite the fact the electricity prices go up. They do not claim that renewables lower the price.
David,
“But EPA has always been clear that the savings occur from efficiency despite the fact the electricity prices go up.”
I would have said “because” rather than “despite,” and “conservation” rather than “efficiency.”
Is there any place on the EPA web site that says what they expect the residential electricity prices to be in 2030? Or even where it is acknowledged that the residential prices would go up?
Dave
Dave, I hate to lay a 700 page doc on you but your best bet is the EPA Regulatory Impact Analysis:
http://www.epa.gov/airquality/cpp/cpp-final-rule-ria.pdf.
About 2.3 eons ago I helped create the Federal RIA requirements. EPA tends to hide their smoking nonsense guns in footnotes. Enjoy.
David,
Ugh. I surrender. I had been looking through the Clean Power Plan documentation for the residential price information without success.
Dave
David,
Bingo. Table 17 on page 1379 of the EPA Rule, mass-based approach. Supposedly the Clean Power Plan will have NO EFFECT (0% change) on retail prices in 2030.
From the table, it appears that this happens because of the assumption that natural gas and coal prices will be lower in 2030 than now. It is a fool’s game to predict fossil-fuel prices in 2030. Or even in 2020.
Junk science all the way down.
Dave
Exactly, Dave, nonsense all the way down. Page 1379 is about right. But note too that the benefits require avoiding economic damages for the next 300 years, according to the Social Cost of Carbon absurdity. 300 years! Think about that. 300 years ago George Washington was not even born yet. But EPA knows what the global economy will be like for the next 300 years and what today’s emissions will do to change that.
How silly does it have to get before it gets beyond silly?
Unfortunately the agency can assume whatever it likes. The Courts will not rule against agency assumptions, only procedures. Only Congress or a new President can stop EPA. In fact it is not clear that a new President can do it because EPA is an independent agency, not part of the Cabinet. They do not answer to the President.
The head of the EPA is a political appointee. She works for Obama, not us.
Of course it won’t “save consumers money.” That’s not the purpose of this latest scheme of our Indonesian-in-Chief.
It’s designed to punish the American consumer for using electricity at all levels in the modern victim’s life, from the very beginning of production in resource extraction to the electrical power required to run a neonatal intensive care unit or power a defibrillator.
It’s an expression of profound hatred and arrogance on the part of Michelle’s Metrosexual Meatpuppet, and the most practical and directly applicable solution would seem to involve visiting the local Home Depot for a sufficiency of rope.
There are streetlights in Mordor-on-the-Potomac in need of proper decoration.
As for standards of civility, is there need to remind anyone reading here about how those “swarms of officers” sent hither by George III were treated in the years leading up to Lexington and Concord?
Tucci78 can you please make your point without stuff like the MMM part of your comment. I also don’t think talk of hanging a black man is appropriate either given the history of that in the USA. I’m not a fan of political correctness and I myself have called Obama an idiot for his position on asthma being caused by global warming but you are crossing some lines here in my opinion.
It’s merely an expression of frustration. Let’s see what we are expected to believe:
The government is going to lower CO2 (is it meaningfully lower CO2, or merely symbolically lower CO2?)
Per this post, the path will cost a lot of money per kWH
You are going to save money
Millions will have money pulled from their wallet to go to whom? A good guess will be to cronies. Yet, who is going to expose the actual consequences of this action?
No. First, our “Rainbow White House” occupant – “Bathhouse Barry” – has more than enough insinuation in his cloaked and sealed personal past history to support a supposition that he’s a little light in the loafers, and second, what is wrong with regicide, whether accomplished by the noose, decapitation, or shooting the malfeasor to death by musketry?
Wasn’t the precedent established in English common law with the execution of Charles I?
Besides, Soebarkah – a citizen of the Republic of Indonesia who has never undergone naturalization (if, indeed, he had by birth once been a U.S. citizen prior to his formal adoption by “Lolo” Soetoro; that supposition is still not supported by forensically valid documentation) – is at least half Caucasian, and his ostensible male parentage is Luo. This latter means that to whatever dubious extent he’s able to claim “black” ethnicity, it’s much-diluted by the long-prevalent intermarriage between that East African population and semitic – Arabic – peoples who had settled in that corner of the Dark Continent over recent centuries,
In his way, His Illegitimacy is far more closely related to the Arab slavers responsible for raids on the West African populations from which American blacks descend, and there is nothing in his official public persona which is in any way authentically related to the American negro population.
He has purposefully engrafted himself upon that population for the sake of personal privilege and political advantage, to none of which he has ever been genetically or culturally entitled.
Tumblebum: it’s the dog whistle posts that are welcomed here that attract the more honest of your side.
There’s anything of the “honest” on the Obamasucker side?
Hm. What evidence could be advanced to support that assertion?
ftt – I didn’t read it as an antebellum rant like you did. Clearly to me it was directed at liberal culture. Metrosexual is a common big city culture not connected at all with race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrosexual
The reference to rope, decorating street lights in Mordor-on-the-Potamac, Concord, Lexington, and George III are all references to the Revolutionary War. The veiled reference to hangings were for treason committed by white men loyal to the king of England. Obama is half white and was raised in typical white culture in Hawaii. His grandmother who did most of the raising was a bank vice president fercrisakes. He is not even peripherally connected with black culture in the US or antebellum slavery. His Kenyan ancestors were slave traders not slaves. He’s stereotypical metrosexual.
all right, put that way, I will withdraw my comment and my objections.
It is my opinion your comment crosses the bounds of civility.
And Stanley Ann Dunham’s Mistake hasn’t violated the bounds set by the U.S. Constitution in the E.P.A. ukase he has issued by way of his cataclysmically vicious “Clean” Power Plan?
What attitude is proper in the citizen when those who govern are not restrained from such mischief (indeed, malfeasance) by the rule of law?
Silent leges does not bring into existence “the state of nature” between ruler and ruled?
fulltimetumbleweed
In my opinion it’s protected political speech and crossed no boundaries whatsoever. Get over it
Most of that went over my head due to American references and being Canadian I didn’t know that. I am over it now.
Assume for the sake of argument he is an MMM. What does that have to do with anything? We may not like his climate policies but that could be the discussion here, his policies. Enough people liked him, he won.
It’s protected political speech personalizing a famous politician. Get over it.
David Springer:
Protected from government action unless there is a threat or call for violence.
In any event, there is no right to post garbage on Judith Curry’s site and the moderator should delete these posts. I believe she has a duty to do so. These racist rants are as idiotic as the defense of the use of Nazi name-calling on WUWT and Bishop Hill.
With “friends” like these….
His comment reflects what he is, and what the people who like him and what he says are… nothing but chit sausages… human excrement in a skin with enough bones to hold the pile crap upright. .
They are taking money from those who do not support their liberal and green schmes and giving it to those who do support their liberal and green schemes. This is about the transfer of power and money.
Let’s see, by restricting supply to the market Obama expects to save money. Supply – demand. How does that work again?
There is no restriction on supply. It is called demand side management or DSM or negawatts. You pay people to do things that reduce their consumption of electricity, such as insulating their house. There is a large literature on this and it is a common practice with some utilities. That it works is controversial, to say the least.
‘Save money?’
yer say …
‘ The President’s
Clean Power
Plan (scam)
save dollars?’
yer ask …
‘Guvuh-mints
save con (n’d)
-sumers’ money?;
yer surmise …
Hrrmph, not
until pigs
have wings and
white elephants
take ter the sky..
If you were to call everyone in your address book and ask them the same question the poll answer would be an overwhelming, no.
Are things like this still included in the mix?
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Legislature-OKs-161-billion-transportation-bill-gas-tax-hike-311200411.html
Dave Rutledge,
Excellent post, thank you and thank you Judith for posting posts like this.
The final decision on policy will ultimately be on the basis of rational economic factors. Irrational policy may last for a while, but eventually it fails as those wo apply rational economics gain economic advantage over those that don’t. So posts like these are very valuable for educating scientists and others who have little understanding of financial and economic matters and their effect on human well being.
Obama is clearly an economic illiterate. Worse still he has surrounded himself with economically illiterate advisers.
You underestimate him – and you’re missing the purpose of this “Clean” Power Plan. Soebarkah knows precisely what effect this abomination will have on the U.S. economy; indeed, the malignancy of all outcomes inevitable therefrom can only be the results of his intention to wreak havoc against the people of our republic.
Neither he nor his associates nor those who offer him material support and endorsement are describable as “illiterate” in the principles of economics.
Do not mistake for well-intentioned stupidity that which is far more accurately diagnosed as willful viciousness.
Tucci,
I will point out that he cannot be “light in the loafers” as you mentioned above and also a diobolical genius.
I personally go with the light loafers theory. Our President is a lightweight in most areas. However it does not take an economic genius to figure out that increasing regulation leads to the socialist nirvana so hoped for by liberal elites. (The nirvana part being their being in charge.)
Egad. D’you really mean to sit there before your Amiga and give the impression that you haven’t any idea of what the expression “<a href="https://www.wordnik.com/words/light%20in%20the%20loafers"light in the loafers” signifies?
Little hint: it has rather more to do with his “Bathhouse Barry” paraphilias than with his fund of knowledge in political economics. In both regards, our Community Organizer is at least somewhat like John Maynard Keynes, also a malevolent quack in his theoretical work – to the extent that there’s anything of coherent “theory” when it comes to the Bamster – and long held to have uranian disposition and activities in his Bloomsbury Group interactions.
D’you really mean to sit there before your Amiga and give the impression that you haven’t any idea of what the expression “<a href="https://www.wordnik.com/words/light%20in%20the%20loafers"light in the loafers” signifies?
Apparently not.
Nor does the link you listed know what it signifies, as it was blank.
HTML encoding error (as should have been obvious). No “edit” function on this Web page.
So you’re too stupid and lazy to open a search engine and look up the expression? Urban Dictionary defines it well enough, as does Wiktionary and Babylon 10.
Or are you just disincline tof unwedge your rostral knob from your descending colon?
Well, it’s at least appropriately positioned there. You’re altogether too typical of those who can neither see lightning nor hear thunder, ain’tcha?
Lighten up Tucci.
I offered no insult, I haven’t done coding since Fortran, and it was lack of interest that kept me from digging further into the meaning of the loafer comment.
As far as I am concerned, our President has redefined the term C in C. It now refers to Clown in Charge. Fortunately one of the great things about our nation is that we can weather Presidents who are lacking in competence. At least until demographics push us too far from our foundation.
Whether you offered “insult” or not is immaterial, nor did I take your slovenly lack of perspicacity and application as “insult.” You’re an idiot, you’ve proven that much. Who takes umbrage at a lazy slob simply for demonstrating his slovenliness?
As for our Occupant-in-Chief, it’s not (at all) that he’s “lacking in competence” but rather that this empty suitful of lies and ethnicities and arrogance has been (and continues to prove himself) altogether too competent in imposing political and economic decompensation upon the republic and the shrinking productive population thereof.
Apparently Racism and Homophobia are approved opinions on CE. Mention the dee-word or j_0_$_h_~_@ and get axed. That’s some Strange $h!t, Maynard.
If you like your electricity rates you can keep them.
Exactly what I was thinking!
Dave,
Great post. Thank you.
“As investments, these are inconceivably bad and we would expect large opportunity costs at the national level. It is interesting that if we start on the right in our graphs and move left past Denmark and Germany, the big spenders are the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) that have been in the financial doghouse in recent years.”
These are political payoffs, not investments.
Excellent post. I think it’s possible to use this data to estimate costs in the USA under various natural gas price increase scenarios. USA natural gas prices are bound to increase over time (this is even more evident if the Obama energy plan is implemented), but I don’t think they’ll reach today’s European levels by 2030. From what I can see they may add about 6 cents to 10 cents per kWh in the high price scenarios.
Lets remember tat here in Europe we are 10 to 15 twears ahead of the States in yters of having AND implementing a plan
.On August 3, President Obama declared that “under the Clean Power Plan, by 2030, renewables will account for 28% of our capacity,” and “will save the average American family nearly $85 on their annual energy bill in 2030.”
Lets remind everyone that THIS IS A DIURECT LIFT FROM THE uk GOVTS STATEMENT
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Sorry, my post escaped so it is Repeated
—- ——
Lets remember that here in Europe we are 10 to 15 years ahead of the States in terms of having AND implementing a renewables/co2 reduction plan
.On August 3, President Obama declared that “under the Clean Power Plan, by 2030, renewables will account for 28% of our capacity,” and “will save the average American family nearly $85 on their annual energy bill in 2030.”
Lets remind everyone that this is a direct lift from the UK’s govt statement and it turned out that the ‘savings’ were as a result of assuming that renewables would halve in price whilst reliables at least doubled. Also implicit in this is that Energy supplies would not necessarily be available ‘on demand’.
With our Petrol at some $ 8 a gallon and our energy costsat least double yours it is clear the American consumer is potentially in for a lot of pain if Obama keeps his word and this will spill over into the business sector. The US will be uncompetitive on many global markets without a substantial devaluation. This will combine with the general loss of global ‘influence’ America has suffered over the last few years as it has appeared to withdraw from international affairs.
These are honeyed words from Obama but with a sting in the tail.
Step away.
tonyb
+10 And speaking of “direct lifts” and “honeyed words” …
There is little doubt in my mind of the influence of a Feb 21, 2011 “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) duly signed by the US EPA’s Lisa Jackson and the UNEP’s Achim Steiner. A document I had stumbled across somewhere in the envirosphere, circa Aug. 2/15, and which I have now archived here.
In this 9 page document, one finds such bureaucratic gems as:
Needless to say, the “Scope” of this five-year MOU is well-larded with lofty ambitions:
And, of course, there’s the “Annex” … which provides a little more detail of the intent of the “scope”. For example d) above is now IV. in which one finds:
I’ve been sitting on this MOU because I had every intention of seeking out a similar MOU between the UNEP and its EU “partner” – the latter of which has had no small measure of influence in the downfall of the U.K., which you describe above.
But I do wonder how many US legislators seated in Congress are even aware of this MOU which, IMHO, contains the “seeds” – so to speak – of the disastrous path from which the U.K. now appears to be somewhat belatedly on the verge of diverging, along with more EU constituent nations, one hopes!
Increased cost/kwh affects the cost of almost everything you buy as well as your utility bill. It seems these secondary costs are never included in these analyses. Also, is there not additional cost associated with unavailable power, such as spoilage from failed refrigeration?
Just have a look at the result in Ontario where hydro has gone up some 76%, businesses are leaving in groves and dramatically increased cost to the average consumer is offset by a massive subsidy scheme. Meanwhile Ontario is scrambling to try to get power lines in from elsewhere to avoid Toronto going brown.
Has the cost of groceries increased?
Yes, but to be fair the dollar has undergone a huge drop of about 30 cents in exchange with the USA and since most of our food comes from there, some of that might be due to other things. The hydro jump can only be attributed to the green revolution.
For all my cynicism, I still am shocked to hear the POTUS tell such a lie to the American people. CA is an experiment in progress with plenty of data and the data says that the implementation of renewables makes electricity much more expensive. We are the furthest along the renewable path and we have the most expensive electricity in the nation. QED
Can someone point me to a graph that charts cross-national per capita spending on electricity? Price per unit is not the only relevant factor to consider.
Here’s some “Statistics for Dummies” :
One software engineer makes $180,000/ yr and his auto detailer makes $20,000/yr. Their average income is $100,000 and everyone is happy.
No more posts (soup) for you.
Joshua, you are right. We could also consider kwh per líter of wind, or joules per solar panel.
Josh*a
I suppose some sort of guide would be the percentage of people in fuel poverty although that might be calculated in different ways according to the country concerned.
tonyb
tony –
That would be another, meaningful stat. I would wonder if, for example, that while price per unit is higher in Germany than in the U.S., fuel poverty is lower?
But like price per unit, it only tells part of the story. It’s problematic, IMO, when people isolate a correlation as we see in this post (between % of mix that is renewables and price per unit), and then make broad-based assumptions about causality (what other reasons might help explain the causality of price differentials?) and the implications of that correlation.
My understanding is that in Germany, say, the price per unit is higher relative to other countries compared to the cost relative to other countries…in the sense of how much people pay per capita for electricity. IMO, that’s an important consideration but I rarely see it being discussed.
tony –
Not only do I rarely see it being discussed, but we even get folks like those above who apparently think that the relationship between price per unit and access is irrelevant.
Joshua,
If you follow the link to the spreadsheet in the post, it gives residential TWh, population in thousands, and residential prices for these countries. This would allow you to calculate the per-person residential costs.
Industrial prices are quite different, and the industrial component of the countries’ economies varies, so overall spending may not be that meaningful.
Dave
The present administration long ago lost any remaining credibility. Thanks for once again demonstrating that so rigorously.
I have noticed such a contempt for the public he’s supposed to serve. He just opens his mouth, gives a professorial lecture and we are expected to be quiet and do as we are told. Yet so many people just lap it all up and beg for more. Sometimes I wonder about humanity.
According to the US census the country currently has a population of some 319 million and by 2030 the estimated population will be some 360 million.
That’s an increase some 40 million. How are you going to convert to Renewables by 2030 for the existing population let alone cater for another 40 million? It makes no sort of sense at all.
tonyb
The Obama plan doesn’t call for “converting to renewables by 2030”. It’s targets are to reduce emissions from electricity by 4.6% from current levels, and to use coal for 27% of electricity production (down from 34% today).
It’s very difficult to get to the substance amid all the hype, and to discern any substance at all. When all is considered, this plan is just empty, nonsense slogans.
see http://euanmearns.com/obamas-co2-deception/
How are you going to convert to Renewables by 2030 for the existing population let alone cater for another 40 million? It makes no sort of sense at all.
The average installed residential air conditioner has a SEER rating of about 10.
The current SEER standard for new residential air conditioners in the US is SEER 13. The current SEER rating for a state of the art commercially available air conditioner is SEER 30.5(Mitsubishi split system).
Going from an average installed SEER rating of 10 to SEER 20 by 2030 cuts energy used for air conditioning by 50%. Add in similar savings for heat pumps.
Wanna save $85/year on electricity? Replace your air conditioner.
Harry,
Do you know if f anyone tracks longevity in appliances? I have a free (in the sense I didn’t pay directly for it) refrigerator thanks to my electric utility. It’s power usage is lower than the one it replaced. But its expected operating life is half of the old one.
Longevity of appliances? Wind Turbines, heh, more
than 200 feet high and massive towers, have to be to
support a turbine housing, or nacelle, the size of a bus
and rotor blades 100 to 150 feet long.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/windpower/9770837/Wind-farm-turbines-wear-sooner-than-expected-says-study.html
Gonna be a lot of giant corpses littering the land. RIP.
It can be done. Terraform the USA till it’s shaped like Norway (find someone to do that for free), get someone to build lots of hydro (for free)…and in fifteen years time the average power bill goes down by 85 bucks, all thanks to renewables.
But enough money talk. Think of all the “folks” and “kids” who won’t be suffering asthma. Unless they get cold.
That’s all, “folks”.
Don’t need teraforming. In California, just dam Yosemite like was done to HetchHetchy to serve San Fransisco. Convert Yellowstone to a massive geothermal plant. Dam the Grand Canyon for hydro. Ditto Potomac River Falls in DC. Wind turbines all along the Blue Ridge Parkway and all over the mountain peaks of Great Smokies national park. After all, what are a few parks compared to leading the world by example to save itself from CAGW?
Get over here immediately. You are batting at no3 at the Oval and Beth is opening the Bowling.
Mods, this is entirely on topic and is cleverly disguised climate stuff..
tonyb
Nope. Wouldn’t be cricket.
The entire Australian team has lately gone fishing outside off-stump and will make contact when back onshore.
Meanwhile, the mods should do their job and snip tonyb for o/t – though I expect some terraforming and microclimate manipulation will have to be performed on the Oval, global headquarters of Perfidious Albion.
Oh dear, gents. Could it be that those obscene US treewood pellets for fomerly coal fired UK plant Drax are producing ASHES?
Tony,
Learn to love real baseball.
Though to be fair, my exposure to cricket is rather limited.
I am a slow bowler but very accurate and I am
in earnest.
The English balls are pointy and have huge ridges at their seams. They’re called Dukes but any relationship between them and the Ebglish nobility would have to be tenuous.
Beth, I bowl very slow right-arm rubbish. Sad but true.
Right arm orthodox spin here. Can land it on a dinner plate. Of course, the plate needs to be size of the entire wicket and dip/flight/spin can only be detected through modelling methodology.
Prove me wrong with a 28% probability and I give you $85 in 2030. (If you can catch me. Us predicters and futurologists are hard to nab come future time.)
Just some thoughts.
– Remember that solar costs are decreasing, so numbers today do not disprove what is possible in 2030. Even the increase mentioned is about $1 per day. If the poorest are the most affected, just for some context, an increase of the minimum wage by just $1 per hour gives them $2000 per year.
– I can see how the “skeptics” are very concerned by possible reductions in energy costs from renewables because it takes their whole pro-fossil economical argument away, and they may as well give up on opposing the CPP on price grounds. Their argument ends up being about keeping coal as a jobs program regardless of its added cost to consumers.
– Investment in a new energy infrastructure has a parallel with the interstate highway investment of past administrations. The cost benefit is hard to quantify, but it was generally regarded as a good investment for the sake of modernization. Old road systems were not adequate or efficient enough for future needs.
Re solar, please look up the economics of the underlying PV experience (aka learning) curve. It is logarithmic based on cumulative experience. Past price declines DO NOT project the way you appear to think. And Yhen factor in BOS costs. See discussion and illustrations in guest post Grid Solar. Believing something does not make it true, nor reverse Rutledge’s calculations from European experience.
Remarkable economic illiteracy, even for a “climate catastrophe” klutz. As if any arbitrary uptick in the state or national minimum wage standard were beneficial to anyone among the population segment capable of performing nothing but the sorts of unskilled labor for which minimum wage is paid.
As for the dollar-denominated construction, operating, and repair costs of photovoltaic (“solar”) power generation, there is an absolutely frabjous dead-from-the-neck-up dollop of decerebrate wishful burbling about any prediction of costs in Federal Reserve fiat extending to 2030 that proves with diagnostic precision that you’ve got no friggin’ idea whatsoever about the nature of currency in an era of central banking “quantitative easing.”
The curse of willful ignorance is upon you, and I could condemn you to no fate more appropriate than the suffering you’re proving so eloquently to deserve.
jimd
I do not understand why you think sceptics are automatically wedded to fossil fuel as if it is some ideological totem. We go by what is most reliable and cheapest, as energy produced in those terms has fuelled the industrial revolution.
Renewables are not yet ready to step up to the plate.
tonyb
You only have to look at Congressional Republicans here in the US to see that weddedness. They don’t hide it.
JImD
But you said ‘sceptics’, that is to say the great mass of people and not specifically the very few people within Congress.
tonyb
The US Congress has the largest concentration of “skeptics” anywhere on the planet, and they have a set of people buzzing around them trying to keep them that way, it looks like.
Tonyb,
Don’t blunt your pick on that stone JimDemocrat – he is a political operative and he knows his lines well. You might as well argue on stage with a Shakespearian actor as he recites his lines – you get the same output no matter what you say.
Your posts are among the best – don’t waste them.
i don’t think poor people appreciate getting a pay raise to have it go down the drain in higher electric bills.
I also wonder if it makes sense to go through all this bureaucratese to get < 0.05 degree C temperature drop. Seems to me the USA would do better financing a hydropower dam on the Congo River plus the associated high voltage lines to large urban centers in the region.
“Supply theories are based on the neo-Keynesian cost-push model and attribute stagflation to significant disruptions to the supply side of the supply-demand market equation, for example, when there is a sudden real or relative scarcity of key commodities, natural resources, or natural capital needed to produce goods and services. Other factors may also cause supply problems, for example, social and political conditions such as policy changes, acts of war, extremely restrictive government control of production. In this view, stagflation is thought to occur when there is an adverse supply shock (for example, a sudden increase in the price of oil or a new tax) that causes a subsequent jump in the “cost” of goods and services (often at the wholesale level). In technical terms, this results in contraction or negative shift in an economy’s aggregate supply curve.” Wikipedia.
How can the Presidents Clean Power Plan possibly not severely influence the living standard of many americans – in particular, but not limited to, the 1/3 of United States families which can be regarded as low-income families?
Look, the claim itself is just basically a lie- a flat out lie.
He is going to save me $85 in 15 years? I am still looking for my $2,500 in healthcare savings he said I would see instead of the $4,000 increase I have experienced…..
Where is the BS button!
Maybe you are in one of those Republican states that didn’t do it properly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uninsured-rate-states-obamacare_55c7e3f9e4b0f1cbf1e561f7?utm_hp_ref=politics&kvcommref=mostpopular
You have those dem talking points down!
I am in Florida which participates in the FED exchange. Do I get to meet the people I am paying health insurance coverage for now? My comment has nothing to do with uninsured participation rates. That point is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It is about increasing costs for insurance that was supposed to go down in cost. That cost is not going down for your average working American and neither will the cost for energy under the POTUS’s plan 15 years from now.
Again, where is the BS button.
The people benefiting most are the below-median-salary workers who can now afford health insurance through the Medicaid expansion in states that adopted it. For them the costs have come down into the affordable range from being unaffordable, hence the name of the act. I don’t think Florida is one of the 30 states that participated in this.
You obviously did not even read your own linked HuffPo citation. That speaks volumes towards credibility on the subject matter.
I certainly recommend the article. The percentage uninsured has come down because health insurance is more affordable to more people, except in some states where its full benefit is not available. People complaining about costs are either in those states, where they need to get their state governments to listen, or are paid well enough that health insurance is not a major drain given that it should be a priority in their household budget anyway.
Efficiency efforts questioned:
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2014/08/energy_efficiency_rebates_in_p.html
There are mixed reports, some in favor of it and some against. The price of energy drives the payback calculation. The higher it is the better efficiency looks.
We are witnessing a community organizer’s approach. We need a strong Iran as our friend; we need their assurances that they won’t build nukes until we tell them to. Our friends in Moscow do agree with our plans. Meanwhile, let’s channel more money to our friends in Solyndra’s followers.
If the US pulls out of the Iran deal, Russia and China may end sanctions anyway, and on top of that, they won’t have any nuclear limitations or inspections. This rather good question was put to George Will by a Fox anchor yesterday, and his only response is that it was a mistake to even be at this point, so he didn’t answer the question of while we’re here, now what?
Would you be willing to go to war to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons? That is the ultimate question.
Not if you can stop them with just negotiations, which is what has happened.
Somebody make a note of Jim D’s claim that Obama has stopped Iran from getting nukes. When that proves to be just as stupidly wrong as the rest of Obama’s promises, it will be the only approved response to every talking point he pukes up here henceforth.
Give the deal a chance, and as part of the deal, we can watch what they do better than without one. Have more negotiations with their next government in ten years, and perhaps Israel will have a less warlike leader by then too.
Give the deal a chance, says huffpo yimmy. Any deal is better than none. War is the only alternative. Kick the can down the road. It worked out well enough with North Korea. They haven’t bombed anybody, yet. Why worry about one more nutty totalitarian regime with the bomb and long range ballistic missiles?
Worked out well for Neville.
Peace in our time.
The drumbeat by the Republicans is the same as the one leading up to Iraq. They have not learned from their wrongness on these types of things. I think it is just unmitigated fear, and probably nothing to do with funding defense contractors, but it could be both.
The little huffpo rascal wants to pretend that it’s only fearful Republicans who oppose this terrible deal. Foolish. My guess is that the top Republican pols know what I know and they are not motivated by fear of Iranian nukes. The Israeli military and intelligence communities will not allow the nutty ayatollahs to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, period. And it won’t matter if a naive lefty loon Neville Goldstein from Labor-Meretz-Joint List coalition happens to be PM. It will be very messy.
The deal puts them even further from a nuclear weapon than when Netanyahu did his months-away-from-a-bomb talk back in 2012. Answer the question posed to George Will above. Why is no deal better than a deal? Do you trust China and Russia to maintain sanctions without a deal? What is your prediction of what happens if the deal collapses?
No deal is better because it allows the US to use the threat of military force, and military force, at it’s discretion and at timing of our choosing. It keeps Iran off guard and looking over it’s shoulder. It must be accompanied by a strong stance with both Russia and China.
No deal is better because it also allow US allies to use the threat of military force, and military force, at their discretion.
I expect the US to elect a serious president, one like Reagan, who will make it clear to both Iran and Russia that the US will not stand for Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. And like when Reagan was elected, I expect Iran will react as we expect – out of fear they will capitulate.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick” diplomacy is what I would hope for. It worked to break up the Soviet Union, it will work to back down Iran.
Appeasement via this deal will not work.
Now you answer a question: When in history has an agreement with an aggressor nation ever prevented war?
The deal doesn’t take military threats off the table. If the US has a President that still thinks that military threats work, they can still do that too. GWB was particularly good at issuing threats, but really didn’t think things through before issuing them. What happens if they don’t have the WMD that you want them to turn over and you go to war anyway? Blame intelligence.
You are clueless, yimmy. Why do you think the Iranians are celebrating? Do you really believe the Obama BS that the hardliners oppose the deal, like the Republicans? The hardliners made the deal. They are in charge of Iran.
Your simpleminded dream that Iran will have a more peace loving regime in ten years is almost comical. The nutty ayatollahs will be more firmly in charge. The only reason they made the deal is because their economy is in shambles.
They get to keep their nuclear infrastructure, everybody knows they can still breakout and they get $150 billion to help them along. They get to sell all the oil they can dig up. They get to continue their development of long range ballistic missiles with the help of their North Korean buddies. Do you know what long range ballistic missiles are for, yimmy? It’s not to carry a ton of conventional explosives. Can you say kilotons, yimmy?
What did we get? The 24/7 anywhere anytime inspections that had been advertised were never on the table. Lies. The U.S is not even allowed to know the details of the IAEA inspection regime. We have no control, not even participation. We can’t even trust our own regime and we are going to trust the IAEA and the ayatollahs. Let the cheating continue. Google “Parchin”.
So, what if we don’t do the deal? Are they going to resume full speed on the nuclear weapons program they swear they never had? Or are they going to get the idea that we ain’t playing this time? There is a lot of incentive for them to agree to a deal that dismantles their nuclear weapons program. They say they don’t want nuclear weapons. If they won’t agree to such a deal, it just means they are determined to get the bomb at any cost.
Don’t you think the ayatollahs would have to be irrational not to agree to such a deal, yimmy? That almost surely means a nuclear war in the Middle East, with the Sunnis rooting for the Jews. Google “Israeli Dolphin class sub”. In the business, we call that effective first strike capability.
And I don’t expect that the cold hard facts will budge you one bit, yimmy.
The deal reduces centrifuges, removes enriched uranium, allows tracking all their uranium, and they have said they don’t want nuclear weapons anyway because they would rather lift sanctions. The sanctions worked, and this is the pay-off. It is everything you wanted. They are not celebrating because they want nuclear weapons and a war, but because the sanctions are being lifted, and they are safe from a war with the west. The hardliners have to deliver tough rhetoric to save face, but the deal means they lost.
Yimmy totally wrong and Donny totally right.
Rational summary here. Read what it is before complaining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action
Israel seems to be the irrational player here. Most of the world favors this including Arab nations.
Another article here.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/07/the-iran-debate-moves-on/399713/
Yimmy still totally wrong.
Who T F are you to say that Israel is being irrational?
You live in a Progressive cave filled with deniers of reality.
yimmy, yimmy
The deal allegedly stretches out their breakout time from a few months to one year. When they are clear of the sanctions, they will cheat. If they did not want nuclear weapons, they would have settled this long ago without going through the pain of sanctions.
“The hardliners have to deliver tough rhetoric to save face, but the deal means they lost.”
What did they lose, yimmy? Their bomb plans put off for a while?
Look at the direction the polls are going, yimmy. This is really starting to stink with the public. More Dem pols are deciding not to toe the party line.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/10/shock-poll-only-41-of-democrats-want-congress-to-approve-obamas-iran-deal/
I know it’s all about lefty world citizen ideology with you yimmy, but on this you could try to face the facts and get on America’s side, for a change.
“The drumbeat by the Republicans is the same as the one leading up to Iraq”
Republicans? Do you need to be reminded of the quotes by most dems in the run up to the war…. including Bill and Hillary?
“Why is no deal better than a deal?”
It depends on the deal…right? That is such a simple and obvious answer it’s hard to believe anyone would attempt to use that logic. But they do, as does Obama
“They are not celebrating because they want nuclear weapons and a war, but because the sanctions are being lifted, and they are safe from a war with the west. ”
They always had the ability to avoid war. Stop supporting and participating in terrorism and stop developing nuclear weapons. Do you think if they did that they would be in danger of being attacked? .
“The hardliners have to deliver tough rhetoric to save face, but the deal means they lost.”
They lost? They continue to enrich uranium, We help them protect their facilities. We can’t even inspect their facilities. They get hundreds of billions to spend on …what could they possibly use that money for?
And what about the secret deals? They probably lost in those too.
You get the choice of pulling out of the deal and Iran goes back to making nuclear weapons tomorrow while other countries may also be released from the deal and lift their sanctions, a win-win for Iran, or hold onto the deal and see if they hold their end for ten years to keep the sanctions off. The Republicans may be saying (I am not sure because they don’t state their alternative) that they want a deal to be enforceable in perpetuity through generations, and there just are no deals to be had like that in global politics. They want to throw away the good, looking for the perfect (of some unspecified sort). It’s like throwing away a healthcare system now for some alternative to be concocted at a later date. It is their modus operandi, and we are used to it.
chuckrr, read the Wikipedia article about the deal. They don’t get to keep any of their enriched uranium for one thing. Whoever told you they are keeping it, you need go back there and put them right. There is a lot of disinformation of this type going around.
Jim,
In answer to your question:
The reason no deal is preferable is based on the understanding that sanctions are having an effect. Otherwise Iran would not be at the table. The knowledge( assumption?) that Russia and China would cheat has limited impact, in the sense that neither can totally divorce themselves from the world’s economic and political system. Sure they will cheat. But only to the point it doesn’t cost them something they value.
Iran needs this deal more than we do. Apparently the only people who need it more are named Kerry and Obama. That legacy thing.
It is just illogical to back out of a deal where you will have access to their facilities, and they reduce centrifuges and enriched uranium stockpiles, and you want to give that up for what exactly? It’s like folding with a royal flush. It is too good a deal to just throw away. Hold on to a good hand, and just wait and see if it wins, because it can, before tossing it.
There’s a lot of disinformation. On that we agree. But I’m no different that the Islamic radicals according to Obama so I can understand why you wouldn’t listen to me. You can keep on enriching that uranium but you can’t keep it. And those intercontinental ballistic missiles you can now develop or buy…you can’t use them. But you can keep your doctor.
Like I say, this deal can win what it is for, which is a non-nuclear Iran. If Iran decides they want to throw it all away and get those sanctions back, that is their problem, and we are back at square one where the anti-dealers also want to be now for some reason that remains unfathomable.
Jim…A royal flush? I’d like to think that comment was meant as some sort of parody. Kind of Baghdad Bobish..
We don’t have a royal flush. We have a pair dues’s and our opponent is drawing to an ace with a flush possible. And we just went all in.
Iran hardliners win only if the deal collapses whether now or later. Their people lose that way. If the deal sticks, the hardliners lose and the people win. No one is guaranteeing the deal sticks, but it is better than the guaranteed failure of opting out.
You’ve mastered the strawman much like your supreme leader. It’s all out war or “the deal”. No other outcomes. It’s either Obamacare or granny dies in the street. Vote for Hilary or women will not be allowed birth control and police will continue their extermination of blacks.
To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you go with the deal you have, not the deal you might want or wish to have at a later time.
Jim…Who do you think we were negotiating with? Who do you think controls Iran? Don’t you think we were probably negotiating with the people that control Iran. Here’s a hint. They are called Mullahs and the Ayatollah . And here’s a synonym ….hardliners. The Ayatollah doesn’t think he lost.
“To paraphrase Rumsfeld, you go with the deal you have, not the deal you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
Well that’s the problem with paraphrasing and analogies. The’re almost always contorted to make the original meaning unrecognizable. For instance you don’t go into negotiations with a deal. It’s a deal after the negotiations are complete.
And now you’ve actually unwittingly proved the entire problem with the process and the outcome. When you negotiate you have to be willing to walk away without a deal. If you go in determined to make a deal, and only a deal is an acceptable outcome you will almost always get fleeced. As happened here
chuckrr, if they are going to renege on the deal, they will need to do it quickly before all their enriched uranium and most of their centrifuges are removed. If their intention was to renege, we would not have had a deal in the first place, because the dumbest thing they could do is deal, and then go back on it after losing stuff.
Jim D I noticed you did not answer my question: When in time has an agreement with an aggressor nation prevented war?
Too tough a question for you?
Oh, and Jim D, how is it the U.S. brought about the fall of the Soviet Empire without going to war. Was it by negotiatong a deal and then helping the USSR economy?
Ken D, there have been nuclear test ban treaties and other nuclear deals directly with the Soviet Union. There was a successful deal a couple of years ago to get the worst chemical weapons out of Syria. This one is more like the latter. It is front-loaded to get more bad stuff (enriched uranium and equipment) out of a bad place (Iran’s control). Congress scuppering it means that just doesn’t happen.
Here’s a thought.
A deal that Israel was happy with obviously would not have been accepted by Iran, just on principle, so I think the genius move was to have Netanyahu being the bad cop in all this, and he is still doing it, which means Iran will consider they got the best they could considering Israel’s influence on US foreign policy.
Seeing this is clearly a political sub-thread, I’ll post a little of Greg Sheridan’s view. Sheridan is The Australian’s Foreign Editor, highly respected and well-regarded in both Oz and the US, very pro-American and with many high-level US friends and contacts:
“The presidency of Barack Obama has reached a stage of decomposition akin to that of a spent uranium shell lingering dangerously on an abandoned battlefield. Obama’s presidency is now a deformed caricature of its former self — vaguely recognisable, intensely unattractive, dangerous to be near. I reach this melancholy and unattractive conclusion following Obama’s truly bizarre argument that the only alternative to his capitulation to Iran is war
“This is a statement almost clinically deranged. It combines everything that is bad in the Obama presidency: rhetorical overreach, emotional blackmail, supreme arrogance and an almost demented failure to confront reality.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/barack-obamas-road-to-disaster-with-a-rotten-iran-nuclear-deal/story-e6frg6z6-1227474674365
Faustino
Bottom line time:
Obumbles says:”If in fact the breakout times now are a few months, and we’re able to push that breakout time out to a year so that we have more time and space to see whether or not Iran is cheating on an agreement, kicking out inspectors, going for a nuclear weapon; if the breakout time is extended for 15 years and then it goes back to where it is right now, why is that a bad deal?”
So, what we get out of the deal is that instead of it taking a few months for the ayatollahs to break out and produce a nuclear weapon, it will take maybe a year. That’s estimated based on the assumption that we are fully aware of the extent of their past and present nuclear activities, how much enriched uranium they have access to and to what level it has been enriched. It also assumes that they won’t spend a few billion of their hundreds of billions in sanctions relief windfall to acquire fissile material from their North Korean pals. It also depends on us catching them cheating, before they make much progress. What could possibly go wrong?
What the nutty hardliner ayatollah’s who rule Iran get is hundreds of billions in sanctions relief to spend on making trouble and they get to keep a nuclear infrastructure that can produce a bomb in a year, or less. They are officially a nuclear threshold state with the grateful blessings of Obumbles. He’s happy with the deal. The hardliner ayatollah nutcases are happy with the deal.
One more thing. This is just bizarre:
yimmy:”Here’s a thought.
A deal that Israel was happy with obviously would not have been accepted by Iran, just on principle, so I think the genius move was to have Netanyahu being the bad cop in all this, and he is still doing it, which means Iran will consider they got the best they could considering Israel’s influence on US foreign policy.”
I don’t think he is joking. Dude has been humorless up to now.
Faustino, went to Greg Sheridan book launch talk at
the Institute Of Public Affairs last week. A sobering
experience.
On a lighter o/t note. Re yr right-ar-slow bowling, am
I am a match . . . slow bowling fer the school girls’
Rounders Team waaay back in the mists of time? )
Iran will get nuclear weapons. A bunch of religious fanatics that think bringing on the end of days is a good idea will be armed with nuclear weapons. What could possibly go wrong?
Beth, in Brisbane I’ll be seeing Brendan O’Neill next week and Greg Sheridan the week after. Rare events in the Deep North. Faustino.
http://media.cagle.com/56/2007/03/16/36065_600.jpg
genghiscunn | August 11, 2015 at 12:57 am |
“Seeing this is clearly a political sub-thread, I’ll post a little of Greg Sheridan’s view. Sheridan is The Australian’s Foreign Editor, highly respected and well-regarded in both Oz and the US, very pro-American and with many high-level US friends and contacts:”
AKA – a lightweight with nary an original thought.
Just repeats what his “high level US friends” tell him.
An epic waste of time.
So, Jim D, did we give up sanctions to Russia or Syria? And how is that Syrian agreement working for us? Seriously, that’s the best you got?
Ken D, Syria has given up chemical weapons and the alternative was not just sanctions, so for Iran to give up nuclear material when the alternative is just sanctions, that is a good deal.
Don M, if you think Iran is going to be happy with anything Israel is happy with, dream on. That won’t happen, and you will wait a long time while Iran build up their stocks before such an attempt is finally given up as a waste of time. We have the middle ground where neither are happy, but that is where the deal is best for everyone else, and the timing is critical.
JimD. Given the fact that you are on this board many hours every day, I’m beginning to believe you are paid by the Dimowit party to carry water for Obumbles. The Iran “deal” is such a huge mistake. You are outright lying that other countries in the Middle East think this “deal” is a good one. For example, here is something from CBS. There’s a lot more where that came from. Instead of giving the Iranian more-ons money, we should still have them embargoed. They hate us. Which of those three words do you not understand? Giving money to people that hate us is the pinnacle of stupidity brought to us by the Dimowits. How can you defend this garbage and sleep at night?
*****
But while the Israeli’s may have voiced the most vehement opposition, the nuclear deal was met with a profound wariness also in the Arab world, where concerns are widespread that the easing of its international isolation could tip the already bloody contest for power in the region toward Shiite-led Tehran.
Arab countries have deep fears of Iran gaining a nuclear weapon, and some have been skeptical that a deal will prevent that from happening. But equally high for key Sunni-dominated Gulf allies of the United States is the worry that a deal gives Iran the means – through an economic windfall — and an implicit green light to push influence in the region.
The Arab world has been polarized for years in a worsening proxy conflict between Iran and Gulf powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, fueling Sunni-Shiite tensions and stoking wars. In Syria, Iran’s support has ensured the survival of President Bashar Assad against Sunni rebels backed by Gulf nations in a devastating civil war, now in its fifth year.
Yemen has been torn apart this year as Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition air campaign, has tried to help fend off Shiite rebels supported by Tehran. In Iraq, Saudi Arabia has opposed the growing power of Iran even since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein and the rise of a government led by Shiite politicians close to Iran.
***
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-nuclear-deal-saudi-arabia-arab-allies-israel-middle-east-sunni-shiite/
jim2
Years ago I met Sadaam Hussein, The Shah of Iran and President Assad’s father. All were ‘strong men’ and all allied to the west to some degree or other. Travelling round the area I became acutely aware as to the need for such people as they were sitting on top of a powder keg. The Iraq war was a very bad decision.
Ensuring the West has security of supply of energy in all its forms is a strengthening argument for renewables as undoubtedly we rely on such countries as Saudi Arabia at our peril. They are behind many terrorist movements. Excluding Israel I would back Jordan-very pro western but in trouble-Iraq, despite the problems there and Iran whose youth is surprisingly pro western and due to their long history past masters at exerting influence.
The US needs to reassert itself as for the last decade it seems to have taken a back seat on foreign affairs. Obama has been a poor President but I see no Presidential candidates who gives me optimism. Hillary Clinton is terrible and there were very few in the recent Republican candidates TV debate I would take seriously, least of all Donald Trump, who, for some reason, you seem to like.
Lets hope some better candidates come to the fore from both sides of the political divide
tonyb
Hi Tony. WRT Trump. His late bursts of public bluster can be deceiving. The man has built an empire and done thousands of deals. If you consider that for a moment, you must realize there is more to him than bluster. He can be diplomatic, subtle, or wield power depending on the situation. That has to be the case because you must realize he didn’t get where he is today only by insulting people.
I admire him that he doesn’t let the media here push him around. I read that Trump’s presence has caused the other Republican candidates to shift to the right. If these people are “shifting” then we know without a doubt they are disingenuous. If nothing else, Trump is not that.
It pains me that he said John McCain isn’t a war hero. He took it back, but he never should have said it. Nevertheless, he is stating his mind on the issues here in the US. I am totally with him that ILLEGAL immigration MUST be stopped. He understands the economy and how jobs are created.
There are a few other Republican candidates I would support. Fiorina perhaps, depending on her views on illegal immigration. I could support Walker or Cruz.
Otherwise, the rest are RINOs.
Also, Tony, I’ve had some close Iranian friends here in the US. The general population was highly Westernized at one point. I don’t know how much that has changed, but in any case, we are having to deal with a leadership that hates us. Tough nut, but that’s where we are.
jim2
Of course I realise that Trump has built a business empire but that doesn’t make him a nice human being or able to deal with all the sorts of people that a politician needs to, in that regard I would put him in the same category as Robert Maxwell. I simply cant see him as President. However, at least the Republican party had a tv debate brimming over with eager candidates.
Apart from Hillary Clinton, who I think is getting weaker by the day and surely cant survive the astonishing private server business , I don’t see who the strong Democrat candidates are going to be. Perhaps JImd could enlighten us on that?
Illegal immigration is a problem all over the Western World and our leaders have been incredibly weak in dealing with it
tonyb
There is some serious delusion on this sub-thread.
To see how good the deal is you just need to go back to the start of the process in 2009, where, under Ahmadinejad, Iran was arguing its ‘sovereign right’ to nuclear power as non-negotiable.
The current deal represents a significant back-down from Iran.
Any one with an ounce of sense will see this as the victory it is and be grateful. Some aren’t happy with just this and seem to need some kind of ritual humiliation as part of the deal.
Then there are the extremists – they’ll never accept any kind of deal and have their hearts set on war.
Michael –
==> “Some aren’t happy with just this and seem to need some kind of ritual humiliation as part of the deal.
Then there are the extremists – they’ll never accept any kind of deal and have their hearts set on war.”
I think that a lot of it is explained by ODS.
The Iran deal the anti-Christ flavor of the day.
This is farcical:
“Ken D, Syria has given up chemical weapons and the alternative was not just sanctions, so for Iran to give up nuclear material when the alternative is just sanctions, that is a good deal.
Don M, if you think Iran is going to be happy with anything Israel is happy with, dream on. That won’t happen, and you will wait a long time while Iran build up their stocks before such an attempt is finally given up as a waste of time. We have the middle ground where neither are happy, but that is where the deal is best for everyone else, and the timing is critical.”
Syria gave up chemical weapons because they couldn’t make effective use of them without suffering almost complete international condemnation and their continued use would have almost certainly resulted in multi-national bombing, increased support for the rebellion and Assad hanging from a lamp post.
Iran has not given up nuclear material. They still have the infrastructure in place to produce a bomb when they choose to do so. In theory, it will just take them a little longer, after they make the decision. And they get the benefit of hundreds of billions of dollars to fund long range ballistic missile development, terrorism and other forms of mischief and they still hate us and shout death to America, etc. But maybe they are just kidding.
When this farce started the U.S. position was the same as Israel’s: dismantling of Iran’s capability to produce nuclear weapons and a 24/7 anytime, anywhere ironclad inspections regime. The plan was not to work out some deal that would make the nutty ayatollahs happy. But that is exactly what we did and only an idiot would think it’s a good deal for us.
(ridiculous moderation, just fill in the blank with your best epithet)
This is farcical:
“Ken D, Syria has given up chemical weapons and the alternative was not just sanctions, so for Iran to give up nuclear material when the alternative is just sanctions, that is a good deal.
Don M, if you think Iran is going to be happy with anything Israel is happy with, dream on. That won’t happen, and you will wait a long time while Iran build up their stocks before such an attempt is finally given up as a waste of time. We have the middle ground where neither are happy, but that is where the deal is best for everyone else, and the timing is critical.”
Syria gave up chemical weapons because they couldn’t make effective use of them without suffering almost complete international condemnation and their continued use would have almost certainly resulted in multi-national bombing, increased support for the rebellion and Assad hanging from a lamp post.
Iran has not given up nuclear material. They still have the infrastructure in place to produce a bomb when they choose to do so. In theory, it will just take them a little longer, after they make the decision. And they get the benefit of hundreds of billions of dollars to fund long range ballistic missile development, terrorism and other forms of mischief and they still hate us and shout death to America, etc. But maybe they are just kidding.
When this farce started the U.S. position was the same as Israel’s: dismantling of Iran’s capability to produce nuclear weapons and a 24/7 anytime, anywhere ironclad inspections regime. The plan was not to work out some deal that would make the nutty ayatollahs happy. But that is exactly what we did and only an _____ would think it’s a good deal for us.
“Then there are the extremists – they’ll never accept any kind of deal and have their hearts set on war”
Libs seem incapable of making an argument that isn’t based on straw men..Its the “deal” or war. If your not for the deal you are for war. Show me the quotes of anyone opposed to the deal that advocates war. I see plenty of quotes from the Iranians advocating the destruction of Israel and the US, but the reverse, not so much. The delusion seems to be fomented in the minds of people like Michael and Jim and unfortunately our supreme leader. The extremists…anyone that disagrees with the supreme leader.
chuckrr (@chuckerenno) – Libs seem incapable of making an argument that isn’t based on straw men..Its the “deal” or war. If your not for the deal you are for war. Show me the quotes of anyone opposed to the deal that advocates war.
“I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office,” he said. “It’s very possible, God forbid that this would happen, but very possible, that the next president could be called to take aggressive actions, including military actions, on their very first day in office.” – Scott Walker, Rupublican candidate.
How does that translate into Scott Walker advocating war, mikey? You are probably unaware of the military actions taken by Obumbles in the past and now, on a daily basis. Where did you cherry-pick that out of context quote from, mikey?
I don’t think that “advocating” for war stands up to skeptical scrutiny.
I do think, however, that exploiting the situation (scare-mongering) for political purposes does, as does ODS.
“I do think, however, that exploiting the situation (scare-mongering) for political purposes does, as does ODS.”
What’s ODS? Does Chuck Schumer belong to that?
Obama Derangement Syndrome.
Using the descriptor “Obumbles” is a first-rank symptom of the disease.
A group of military leaders have supported the deal in a letter. Their main point is that it would be very hard to make an international case for war if we haven’t even given Iran a chance to go through with their end of the deal first. It’s a little hawkish, but a good point too.
Another point, the Republicans are saying to Iran, you can hold onto your enriched uranium and centrifuges while we go back and see if we can make a deal that Israel is happier with. No, this is a chance to just get the uranium and centrifuges out of there and then see what you want to argue about next.
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence should be deranged because of the huge negative to the US Obumbles is.
Jim D,
And it’s likely that other key allies are growing sick and tired of US intransigence on Iran and could walk away from sanctions if this deal doesn’t go through.
There is no better deal on the horizon and Republicans who say there is are either taking people for fools, or are fools.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Dr._Strangelove_-_Riding_the_Bomb.png
“The plan was not to work out some deal that would make the nutty ayatollahs happy” – don don
But they aren’t. The ‘mad mullah’s’ are not happy about Iran giving up nuclear power (any NPT signatory is allowed to develop nuclear power) and the madmen of the west aren’t happy about a non-military solution.
You’re in fine company….
You are lying about the deal, mikey. The nutty ayatollahs are not giving up nuclear power. Quote the text in the deal that says the nutty ayatollahs are giving up nuclear power. Have you missed the Obumbles claim that the deal lengthens the breakout time to a weapon to a year? How does that jibe with them giving up nuclear power? What reactor are they going to dismantle? Are you really this ignorant, or are you an America hater? I don’t see any other possibilities.
You’re truly clueless don don.
Fordow will be de-commissioned, Arak converted from heavy-water and used only for medical isotopes and research, and the under construction HW reactor halted and decommissioned.
All plutonium will be exported, excess HW to be sold/exported, excess centrifuges and enrichment equipment locked up under IAEA monitoring.
Only fools would pass up this opportunity
Whose side are you on, mikey. I have read the agreement.
Fordow is not being de-commissioned. It’s being cosmetically remodeled from it’s original purpose, which was as a secret underground site to enrich uranium for weapons production in flagrant and heinous violation of the NPT. It’s about as bad as it gets. The violation will not be eliminated, but will remain open as a “research” facility with the hardened infrastructure largely in place and the lights on. They will retain 1044 centrifuges (for research) and can put many thousands more in the bunker, whenever they want to break out.
At Natanz, 5060 centrifuges will remain in operation. The other twelve thousand or so (those we know about) will be stored at Natanz under IAEA watch. Whenever the nutty ayatollahs decide to break out, they send the IAEA home and get to work with at least 19,000 centrifuges. Why do they have so many freaking centrifuges, mikey? Now they only need 5000 to make their stuff for peaceful purposes. Why aren’t all those superfluous centrifuges being smashed or sent out of the country?
Arak will also be remodeled and allegedly will not be able to produce weapons grade plutonium “in normal operation”. Whatever. It can be remodeled back again, when they feel like. They can get their North Korean buddies to help them:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/north-korea-irans-pathway-nuclear-weapon-13570
That’s enough. They are very obviously not giving up nuclear power. That’s a very big mikey lie. They are going to build more reactors. They retain in country 19,000 centrifuges that they have previously used to produce enriched uranium for a bomb. What has stopped them up to now is the threat of military force and the economic sanctions, period.
Two years ago they agreed to provide Clarification of Outstanding Issues to the IAEA regarding their nuclear weapons programs. They lied. Naturally, extensions were granted. Now they are supposed to provide this clarification, which would amount to a confession, by October 15. What are the chances they will stop lying and start living up to their agreements?
Recent satellite observations show them covering up evidence of past bad behavior. They have just been caught trying to procure items they promised not to mess with anymore. They have scientists and technicians working alongside the peace loving North Koreans nuclear nuts. No doubt learning how to cheat on nuclear weapons agreements made with the dim Americans.
Bottom line, they retain the ability to get a bomb within a year. Obama says so. Our C in C has taken military action off the table and legitimized Iranatollah as a nuclear threshold state. What a freaking clown.
They will continue working on long range ballistic missiles. Why they want those, mikey? No good without nukies. The nutty ayatollah dictators and their henchmen get several hundred billion$ in sanctions relief to make holding the Iranian people down easier. Mo’ money for terrorism and extending their hegemony. Makes you wonder why they are still mad at their pal, Obama. They should be erecting statues of the Compromiser in Chief. He’s working with the ayatollahs, but not the Republicans.
“Fordow is not being de-commissioned. It’s being cosmetically remodeled from it’s original purpose, which was as a secret underground site to enrich uranium for weapons production in flagrant and heinous violation of the NPT. It’s about as bad as it gets…..”
What a silly man you are….
Take a secret enrichment plant, stop it’s enrichment activites, remove the hardware for enrichment and turn into a international research centre under full public glare and IAEA monitoring, and that’s “not being de-commissioned”…..according to don.
Barking.
“He’s working with the ayatollahs, but not the Republicans” – Don
Funny that the “ayatollah’s” and the Rebublicans want the same thing – to scuttle the deal.
Fine bed-fellows you have there Don.
You are floundering, mikey. The Obama-DNC talking points are transparently lame and disingenuous.
They can restart the hardened underground enrichment facility at Fordow, whenever they decide to break out. There will still be a thousand centrifuges there and many thousands more stored around the corner. They built and operated the Fordow nuclear weapons factory clandestinely in violation of the NPT. They are still lying about it’s use. Do you think they have changed their stripes? Obama says they maintain the infrastructure to produce a bomb in about a year. Don’t you believe your hero?
The plain fact is that Obama made the deal with the ayatollahs. The ayatollahs rule in Iran, period. And when the time comes, they won’t be constrained by any “agreement” with the Great Satan.
They don’t have to restart Fordow. The ayatollahs are happy as clams. Their hard up for cash North Korean partners in crime have up to 20 nuclear weapons in stock. The ayatollahs have a cash windfall, granted by their benefactor Obama, of several hundred billion$ to do some shopping. They very likely have already made a deal with the North Koreans to buy several devices. We know for a fact that they are financing and participating in NK work on long range ballistic missiles that have no usefulness unless they are topped with nuclear warheads, period.
This is serious stuff, mikey. You should try to be rational in considering the implications and stop the mindless partisan BS.
So, the return on investment of government-subsidized solar- and wind-generated electricity is a minus 29%…? My question is, how much of this market interference result in increased inflation versus decreased GDP?
It’s a given that Peter’s is Ox is being gored but, is anything of value actually ending up in Paul’s pocket? It could be that the result of the weight of the government’s thumb on the scales of free enterprise capitalism is higher prices for fewer goods.
In exchange for the loss of productivity and misallocation of scarce resources, we apparently can go to bed at night feel better about ourselves, even as birds are being incinerated or turned to mincemeat and everything green years for more CO2.
The free market reduced CO2 emissions by switching to natural gas, long before the EPA did anything.
Now, the EPA’s going to get involved. What could possibly go wrong?
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/animas-river-mine-waste-water-jpeg.jpg?
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/animas-river-mine-waste-water-jpeg.jpg
A proposed slogan for the EPA:
The EPA – A River Ruins Through It!™
™ JustinWonder
When the EnvironmentalProtectionAgency becomes the EnvironmentalPollutionAgency.
http://www.ladailypost.com/content/nm-lawmakers-write-epa-gold-king-mine-spill
it was the invention of the air conditioner that enabled hot nations to compete on an equal footing for the first time with the cooler countries.
First, it was low cost energy that allowed a lot of people to use the air conditioners.
Now, they want to take away the low cost energy from those of us who still have it, and prevent those who don’t have it now to ever even hope to get low cost energy.
They also want to take away the CO2 that grows the green stuff that helps keep us all alive. They do want to reduce the population of earth.
Low cost energy is the key to a good future. It helps us grow and supply food to more people than ever believed possible. It helps us stay cool in hot times and it helps us stay warm in cold times. It helps us move, if we need to.
Temperature and Sea Level are inside the outer bounds of the past ten thousand years and it is not headed out. Look at actual data, not flawed model output.
Low cost energy is the key to a good future.
Yep – lowest CO2 emissions in 20 years …mas o menos…
…and the economy didn’t collapse. Dodged a bullet there.
…and the economy didn’t collapse. Dodged a bullet there.
And we didn’t need dictatorial government to make it happen, either, so another bullet dodged.
And while temperatures have risen, people have never been healthier, wealthier, longer lived, better educated, or more prosperous, so we’re dodging all kinds of bullets.
While it is also true that the less wealthy, less healthy, countries are also the warmer ones. We don’t know why. It just is.
While it is also true that the less wealthy, less healthy, countries are also the warmer ones. We don’t know why. It just is.
But they too are getting healthier and wealthier, even though temperatures are rising.
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/2014/12/blogs/graphic-detail/20150103_gdm200_1.png
In fact, it’s hard to remember what we’ve got to show for our ‘business as usual’ energy use but also ‘business as usual’ warming:
http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ourworldindata_the-life-expectancy-of-the-world-population-in-1800-1950-and-2012-%E2%80%93-max-roser.png
Jim D:
Could it be because life has always been easier in warm countries, making wealth and inventiveness somewhat less important?
Answer me this one: why are warmer regions of the world so rich in animal and plant life?
Peter
The late great (but dictatorial) premier of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew reckoned it was the invention of the air conditioner that enabled hot nations to compete on an equal footing for the first time with the cooler countries.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/leekuanyew
tonyb
While it is also true that the less wealthy, less healthy, countries are also the warmer ones. We don’t know why. It just is.
in many warmer countries, you can live off the land, year round.
in colder countries, you must work harder in the warm times to get enough to make it through the cold times. working harder often helps to make you healthy and wealthy.
In case anyone here’s interested in facts about the spill (more than cynically exploiting the spill to advance an agenda).
https://www.hcn.org/articles/when-our-river-turned-orange-animas-river-spill
josh*a
Thanks for the informative article. The comments were good as well.
I have no idea what the stigma of ‘superfund’ is, but it seems like there were too many people with good intentions getting involved, but no consistent body to draw everything together and resolve it over the long term. The EPA seems as if it should have taken overall control and banged a few heads together but its involvement was too long delayed and not effective because of local rivalry.
In the UK the Environment Agency (a govt agency) would have taken control of such a large and complex operation and instructed private firms to do the work under its supervision.
tonyb
“exploiting… to advance an agenda”
Yes, Global Warming scare stories fit into this as well.
Thanks, Joshie.
Andrew
Tony –
I’m following the issue… I’ve traveled and hiked/snowshoed a bit in that area. Got two nephews who have lived in Durango (one still there, just so happens to be moving in a couple of weeks). Also have in-laws who live there, fixtures in the community (one of whom works for this: http://www.durangotrain.com/). My partner’s cousin lives on a property that runs right down to the river.
FYI – Silverton is a really nice town…and if you ever get to the area, you should put this on your list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouray,_Colorado …although given that you seem to go to the Alps a lot, it might not impress you as much as it does us Yankees.
Sad development…but no one seems clear as of yet about the long-term impact. Got my fingers crossed.
The stigma associated with Superfund is pretty straightforward. If a place is declared a Superfund site, people will assume it is an environmental hazard to health. Generally not considered optimal for property values and stimulating business activities. :-)
.
Actually, they “cause” quite a few emergencies. It’s just that usually it’s their dictatorial, poorly-thought-out, and spottily-enforced regulations that are responsible. The actual “polluter” is typically a company that couldn’t follow their maze of self-contradictory regulations, or a company that should never have been in business but gets/got away with ignoring the regulations because those that make a good-faith effort to follow them spend too much money jumping through needless hoops.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/curbing-global-warming-mission-impossible/2015/08/09/b95b2650-3d2d-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html
Well, it depends.
The US is using less electricity because of efficiency and the electricity it generates is less CO2 intensive because of frackable natural gas. Presumably, these trends are not unique to the US and will follow elsewhere if they haven’t already.
Plus, earth may be slowly running out of new emitters.
It’s conceivable that accumulation rates slow and reverse without doing anything.
Trade agreements to specifically enable natural gas development would seem to be a non-controversial action governments could take.
Turbulent Eddie — As I understand it, there are at least two obstacles on natural gas. (1) Fracking requires a lot of water (e.g., that they don’t have in China); (2) U.S. Corporations have not been willing to share the proprietary intellectual capital of fracking with folks like the Chinese.
Now if the GOP was smart (and not just against everything), they would tie the unlimited export of U.S. LNG to a comprehensive Global Warming Initiative — especially involving trade to “free market” developing countries that like us (e.g., Vietnam).
If we posit a “smart” Red Faction, why wouldn’t we consider the proposition that they’d be too “smart” to fall for the preposterous anthropogenic global warming craptacular?
It’s not a matter of being “just against everything” but rather demanding of this extraordinary (and prima facie idiotic) conjecture regarding the trace increase arguably contributed to the global atmosphere by the purposeful combustion of petrochemical fuels that level of support sufficient to justify something like an appendectomy or investment in a convenience store.
Is there EVIDENCE behind the catastrophic AGW contentions of your cadre of climate quacks, or are you just another Watermelon blowing it out’n yer bunghole?
yup
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/7987-US-pioneers-water-saving-in-fracking-but-China-s-nascent-shale-sector-lags
Steven: Thx for link. It reminded me that we need to wait to have “The Big One” in So Cal before they frack the heck out of the Monterey Shale… otherwise the oil companies will be on the hook for a chunky chunk of the inevitable trillion dollars in damages.
Electro-coagulation is a pretty cool process. {I’m surprised Rud dosen’t have a patent on it ;^) } About three years ago, a business acquaintance was all set to dump huge bucks into buying a state of the art unique patent-pending process for recycling frac fluids made by some machine shop dudes in a dinky Oklahoma town. He wanted to bring it out to Cali and get a RWQCB permit for it.. Five minutes of google showed there were dozens of firms getting into it at the time and the process itself is over 100-years old.
No doubt that it works, and I think the OK gear-heads thought they were on to something special, but paying 5-times market rate for a mess of welded and plumbed transformer, pumps, plate, channel, angle iron, electrodes and pipe seemed a bit much. I told him that his best bet was to try and make his own system work rather than buy it from some random shop. Apparently that sounded too much like work.
Ya know, with all of China’s over-production of solar PV, I wonder if they’re remembering that solar-powered pumps and desalination can be run on intermittent power. Don’t need to wait for storage technology.
Dr. Rutledge statements on wind & solar tax credits piqued my interest:
“These subsidies are effectively paid for by the people who pay income taxes. The toll falls heavily on the upper 1%.”
As U.S. Senator Grassley (Republican) states (starting at 1:07 into the video), Dr. Rutledge is attempting to have a debate in a vacuum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XMYQZQAlWw&feature=youtu.be
Why doesn’t Dr. Rutledge include fossil fuels and nuclear power subsidies? Why are solar & wind tax credits only singled out? What about things like tax goodies to Wall St. Hedge Funds (that brought the World’s economies down)?
Also, from an engineering economics basis, Dr. Rutledge’s view is puzzlesome. Could Dr. Rutledge run/utilize a “Revenue Requirement Model” (such as PROVAL, used by tax normalization IOUs) and then make his claim?
Which fossil fuel subsidies? As far as I know there is no subsidy on natural gas. Are you referring to Saudi Arabia?
Listen to the Sen. Grassley video.
SS, Grassley only proves he is ignorant. At least with repsect to US. Now wrt Venezuela, SA, and Russia, he can huff and puff. To same effect.
What is really needed is a constitutional amendment providing for recall of a President gone rogue in his second term.
Dave Rutledge, “It is common for energy analysts to use levelized costs to compare different sources but a residential consumer is paying for 24/7 access to a working grid, not electricity from individual sources.”
Except now the concept being sought is to go off the grid as Elon Musks Solar City concept with affordable panels and lithium battaries. Obviously not doable everywhere without sun or wind. If that technology is successful then new economic models would have to be used.
“concept being sought is to go off the grid”
Nonsense. You can go off the grid while you live in a world which is on-grid, and supports you. You can be a good socialist, as long as you have a rich daddy to keep you.
Anyone who really wants to live off grid, should emigrate to some remote African village and give it a try for a year or two, and come back to report.
Poor old David appell seems very depressed that obamas plan will have no discernible effect on temperature.
http://davidappell.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/obamas-clean-power-plan-prevents-00004c.html
It seems astonishing as to how many fervent warmists were seemingly unaware that the drastic reductions planned in emissions would have no practical impact on temperatures
Tonyb
I’m not depressed, and my blog post doens’t read that way. It’s mostly a demonstration of how gargantuan the climate problem is, and how small our efforts are. We have to transition to a noncarbon society and economy, and it will happen a fraction of a Celsius at a time.
PS: Obama’s plan isn’t a “drastic reduction.”
David,
“We have to transition to a noncarbon society and economy,”
Correct.
How we do it and particularly, how fast it needs to be accomplished, is still open to debate. Claims of catastrophe due to a warming planet serve only to cloud the debate.
David
Four years ago I wrote this article
http://judithcurry.com/2011/05/26/the-futility-of-carbon-reduction/
Immediately after, I asked a dozen or so climate scientists and organisations for their best estimate of temperature reduction according to various carbon reduction criteria.
Unless we were prepared to turn the world upside down immediately and basically halt emissions the temperature reductions were adjacent to zero and the cost for each fractional reduction was so laughable that no one would be taken seriously if they went down this route.
Tonyb
tonyb
You missed the memo of the meme.
The objective is not to reduce temperature x degrees.
This is a pretend problem with pretend solutions providing real control over the means of energy production. Real problems that are measurable and outcomes can be successful are not don’t lend themselves to make believe issues that lead to real control increases of central gov.
Look behind the curtain at the manipulator of the story line.
Scott
It’s mostly a demonstration of how gargantuan the climate problem is,
Can you identify specifically what risks you fear?
Certainly a slow warming itself is not a problem.
Warming rates are less than the low end projections.
Human population appears to be on course for a peak and decline.
CO2 uptake continues to increase.
Vegetation appears to be more plentiful on a global basis.
It would appear that we’re ok without panicking.
“how gargantuan the climate problem is, and how small our efforts are”
That’s funny. We can wreck the climate, yet our effect on it is small.
Andrew
OMG! 0.0004⁰C!
I hope yimmy doesn’t find out about this. He will be even more depressed than poor davey.
David
All I can think of is Peggy Lee’s sultry rendition of “Is That All There Is?”
How can anyone take any of this serious. My condolences to you.
Complaining about air pollution from coal plants begs the question since particulates have been cleaned from the stack for a long time now. That just leaves the non-pollutant CO2. A non-issue.
The difference between 700 ppm BAU and a 450 ppm target is about 2 C. That is what this is about. If more skeptics got the numbers right, we could have a proper debate.
CO2 = #consumers * energy_used * co2_per_energy
co2_per_energy means fuel choice which is what everyone focuses on.
But #consumers and energy_used both seem to improve with economic development.
Perhaps if people focused on a positive – economic development
rather than on a negative – prohibiting fuel choices then we’d all be better off.
With those first two factors increasing for sure, the only one we can control is co2 per energy, which says decrease rather than increase coal as a share of energy production because that is the worst source of energy we have while being a significant fraction. Otherwise it is 700 ppm and rising by around 2100. It hinges on what we do about coal especially.
JimD,
“The difference between 700 ppm BAU and a 450 ppm target is about 2 C. That is what this is about. If more skeptics got the numbers right, we could have a proper debate.”
There is no debate. If someone is about to shoot themselves in the foot you might want to have a debate over the wisdom of that action, just to be nice. It’s nice to be nice. If someone wants to shoot YOUR foot, then that is not the appropriate time for a debate. This block and tackle with holding and dirt throwing – a sandlot slugfest. Take a cue from your leader the Obamanator – he’s not fooling around.
What about the river that the EPA polluted? Should we trust the EPA to regulate the fuels that have fired the industrial revolution and enabled all of the resulting social reforms ot the last 150 years? What about that EPA?
On the 2 C effect, you are right that the outside world is past debate, and it is on towards action, but the people here still want that debate, so here we are.
On pollution, what about your neighborhood smoke stacks affecting your own air? Are you as concerned about those as about a New Mexico river? What about the weekly oil spills that pollute various areas? Isn’t the net effects of oil spills worse than what happened in New Mexico? It is touching that so many “skeptics” “care” so much about the river while we haven’t seen anything on other pollution episodes from them even if it affects their own areas. It just rings of hypocrisy.
JimD – here’s a chance to do some comparison, I don’t know the answer, so for me it would be a good experiment. Your premise above seems shaky to me, The pollution risk/damage in air from post 80s coal plants in Kentucky seem trivial to me compared to heavy metals in public waters. I thin heavy metals are more dangerous than oill. but (fair disclosure) I bought a place on the Gulf waters stained by oil while Horizon was gushing before it was capped.
So here’s the comparison to make: TVAs coal ash pond at Kingston ruptured in 2008 releasing toxic metals into public rivers, it’s about as big a utility disaster as I know of in recent times. Probably the case where a utility was most deserving of criticism and did net harm as compared to some of the molehills made into mountains. How big were the levels of heavy metals there compared to what happened with this EPA spill? How are the reactions from the environmental community and other communities to the two events? I don’t know the answer-so for me it’s a good experiment and reality check. I’d be surprised if TVAs was worse, but if so I Would lean toward your position Jim wondering why folks are making a big deal of this EPA spill and join you in dismissing this concern as hypocritical. If on the other hand the levels from the EPA spill are multiples of the TVA spill, maybe you should admit there is some environmental hypocrisy going on. Honestly I have not had time to look into this and no technical reasons, for expecting which spill might be worse, just my guesstimating (subject to change) based on my understanding of how things get blown up, but I am willing to go with the evidence.
Note – I know unquestionably TVA discharged more “waste”. As described this will hinge on the concentration of heavy metals as the TVA spill (frequently identified as one of the worst US man made disasters) reached a billion gallons of sludge compared to the units in Colarado being in millions. I haven’t been able to find anything talking specifics beyond amount of waste (not potency). I’m traveling and not likely going to turn up more soon, but I hope another denzian might share some info or insight here.
Planning Engineer: Air is much more likely to be a complete exposure pathway than water. That is the most important factor in risk assessment.
All these spills into water are bad for the environment and great fodder for superficial debate, but people generally don’t end up consuming the pollution. If you are concerned about water exposure, look into THMs.
Horst – are we getting a little bit apples to oranges here besides the potential discrepancies in concentration level? Sure I’d rather have a heavy metal splashed on my skin than inhaled into my lungs. But breathing air close to a coal plant doesn’t scare me like swimming in impacted waters.
Where did Mr Rutledge get the 70,000 died figure from? Wikipedia?, New Scientist in 2003 said there are 35,000 deaths, and the Met Office says 20,000 (still too many of course).
Are these deaths all the people who died during the heat wave or the number of extra deaths that are the result of the heat wave?
While I have no particular argument with the article I do wish there were sources listed for some of these figures mentioned so we can decide if they are valid or not.
John,
There is a link in the post to a standard secondary source, Richard Keller’s book Fatal Isolation. That book uses as a primary source
Jean-Marie Robine et al., “Death Toll Exceeded 70,000
which is available free at
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/5609980_Death_toll_exceeded_70.000_in_Europe_during_the_summer_of_2003._C_R_Biol
Dave
Quantifying Obama’s Skyrocketing Energy Prices
The Price Tag For Uprooting America’s Electric Grid WSJ August 7, 2015
What is the true cost of electricity Institute for Energy Research.
Japan Times reports growing concern about nuclear reactor safety:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/08/10/national/reactor-kagoshima-readied-tuesday-restart/?utm_source=Daily+News+Updates&utm_campaign=ced1fcb6cd-Thursday_email_updates11_08_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c5a6080d40-ced1fcb6cd-332818853#
David,
Thank you for the link, I read it with interest – and noted how they were blaming Global Warming (this was written in 2008), or at least warning that Global Warming would make this occur more often.
The flip side of the problem – higher cost of energy leads to increase in mortality – is the increase of the death rate in the winter months, here it is pretty obvious that poor access to heat leads to an increase in morbidity. I found this paper (from 2002 interestingly enough) that goes into more detail on that. An example from the paper states that during the years 1988 through 1997Overall, the UK exhibits an average seasonality rate of 18%, which represents about 37 000 annual excess winter deaths.
Here is a more recent paper that discuses all-cause related death and it notes:
In February and March 2012, excess deaths among the elderly have been observed in 12 European countries that carry out weekly monitoring of all-cause mortality. These preliminary data indicate that the impact of influenza in Europe differs from the recent pandemic and post-pandemic seasons. The current excess mortality among the elderly may be related to the return of influenza A(H3N2) virus, potentially with added effects of a cold snap.
One would need more time to pull out the excess deaths due to cold vs. influenza.
Still it does seem to indicate that people with limited financial access to electrical (or other forms of) energy for cooling or heating have a higher mortality rate in both the summer and winter when temperatures are at seasonal extremes. Enforcing your argument that to protect their inhabitants countries should do what they can to mitigate energy costs.
One last paper on cold – The EU published this report recently. and I quote:
Deaths during heat-waves have received much media attention in recent years, and yet cold weather is even more lethal. Heart/respiratory diseases and strokes claim more lives in cold weather.
‘Nuff said?
John, it’s interesting that you quoted a paper from the EPH website concerning cold-related deaths but omitted to mention that on the very same website you can find a paper concerning heat-related deaths.
The real question is not about cold=bad/heat=good or vice versa, but rather, what is the overall effect of a shift of climate in direction of higher temperatures? The answer appears to be that increasing temperatures will lead to an increase in the mortality rate. The reason is that the mortality rate at high temperatures increases more steeply per °C rise than the the mortality rate at low temperatures decreases per °C rise. If you are interested I can post some calculations.
It says cold kills more than hot weather. Not too difficult to understand. Anyway, beside the real point which is cheap energy can prevent deaths due to hot and cold.
John,
Thank you for the links and your observations. The papers were new to me and the Healy paper in particular was full of interesting observations.
Dave
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I’m not sure what is worse: those who oppose Obama’s climate bill because it is from a Democrat/Communist/Socialist/Leftist political mindset or those who support it because it isn’t Republican/Fascist/Conservative/Rightist.
From my view: a pox on both the political parties, and the proposition as put forward is crap purely on its completely non-credible cost and gain projections.
$85/year savings on electricity in some future date is pure fantasy unmitigated by any form of data or fact.
Climate mitigation is minimal to nonexistent even by the consensus view.
There is nothing there to like?
I agree with the sentiment. I think that is inevitable that to an extent that some people will line up on an issue not because of the substantive issues, but because of their mindsets. The real problem (and the problem here) is when such thinking clouds or dominates the dialogue such that the real substantive issues get lost in all the noise.
.
Adherence to (and requirement of) unimpeachable scientific method is now supposed to be some kind of “mindset”?
In medicine, “soft” indicators (particularly the subjective – and therefore least reliable – of the “SOAP” process of determining diagnosis and treatment) are never dismissed as irrelevant. They commonly provide key clues to what pathologies must be ruled out in the differential, so no good physician will approach any issue without paying heed to the human factor – particularly pernicious secondary gain – in etiology.
Soebarkah has proven himself repeatedly to act against the interests of both the republic and the rights of the individual American, and with regard to his usurpatory “Clean Power Plan” nothing else should be expected. A high level of vigilance in dealing with all that emits from this creature is the citizen’s duty.
Reblogged this on JunkScience.com.
Very relevant article in the WSJ (full text available here):
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/press/the-price-tag-for-uprooting-americas-electric-grid/
Hi Judy,
Indeed it is. The IER study is a levelized cost analysis that attempts to include the fossil fuel backup costs for wind.
My sense from the European experience, however, is that something is going amiss that is not captured by any levelized cost analysis. The apparent charge of a dollar per watt per year for wind and solar capacity represents an enormous potential burden on a society. Consider that replacing the nominal electricity generation (kWh) of the United States, leaving aside storage issues and new loads like electric cars, would require something of the order 10,000W of wind and solar capacity per person.
To be continued …
Dave
I’d suggest looking at what the German Energiewende minister said to understand clearly what is going wrong there.
I can’t remember the link, but said “godfather” of the Energiewende admitted that a form of electricity Gresham’s law was occurring with wind and solar PV – that these intermittent sources were causing utilities to focus on coal for core generation due to cost with newer natural gas plants being idled. I also recall that the same person also noted that this effect was now extending even beyond Germany’s borders – that natural gas plants in other EU countries were now being affected due to the flood of Danish and German alt-e electricity on the spot electricity market.
A last item I recall – that the effects of above noted alt-e electricity were such that there were double digit days in a year where the spot price of electricity was negative.
If you have your own solar panel there’s an entertainment value in seeing how it works out. That ought to be subtracted from the cost.
Here’s my 15-watt panel keeping a 12v battery in the basement charged, a battery that is there only to give the panel something to do.
With MPPT tracking I’ve never gotten more than 8w out of it.
But it’s interesting.
I have a panel of about the same size which is also connected to a car battery. I charge up my electric bike from it using a 220 volt inverter
Tonyb
Great! The “Affordable Energy Act”! Why doesn’t he just drop the “affordable” from these things and admit that he is doing it on what he considers to be “moral” grounds? Because he is a dishonest liar would be my first guess, second guess, if that one is wrong, would be that he naively believes whatever academics tell him, but you would think he would have gotten over that with the “stimulus.”
EPA’s McCarthy: Contaminated water from Colorado mine will spread.
“EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said Tuesday that the agency is still trying to determine how it accidentally unleashed millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into Colorado’s Animas River and vowed to use the “full breath of the agency” to clean up the mess.”
This is a full blown PR nightmare. The entire EPA regulatory environmental agenda is probably as vaporous as greenhouse gas.
S
“Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.”
Frederick Nietzsche
…unless they do it in public while acting benign and benevolent.
Do you see the pattern here? It’s another Obama Executive Action Operation, like Fast and Furious. They wanted to justify stricter gun control, so the DOJ let a river of firearms flow into Mexico and pointed to all the resulting mayhem and killings.
Also, there is a disingenuous side to the Clean Power Plan argument being made by advocates: It claims to represent “climate justice,” in spite of the fact that electric rate increases are quite regressive.
P.S. Wikipedia definition: Climate justice is generally used as a term for viewing global warming as an ethical issue and considering how its causes and effects relate to concepts of justice, particularly environmental justice and social justice. This can mean examining issues such as equality, human rights, collective rights and historical responsibility in relation to climate change. Recognizing and addressing the fact that those least responsible for climate change experience its greatest impacts is seen by many as being central to climate justice.[1][2] The term is also used with reference to legal systems, where justice is achieved through application and development of law in the area of climate change.[3]
Stephen,
One other aspect is that I have never heard of the climate justice troops giving credit to increased agricultural yield in low-income countries from CO2 fertilization and longer growing seasons. I suspect is those are a significant part of the African cereal yield improvement over the last 60 years.
Dave
When the word “justice” is compounded with another noun, it usually stops meaning justice and starts meaning interest.
‘ When I use a term like ‘climate justice’ , ‘ said
Wikipedia in rather a scornful tone, ‘ it means just
what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’
H/t Lewis Carroll.
Stephen Heins
Re: “those least responsible for climate change experience its greatest impacts is seen by many as being central to climate justice.”
A greater problem is that the centralized “solutions” demanded by climate activists based on outlandish climate sensitivity and wildly projected models will cause far greater economic harm on “those least responsible”!
David Rutledge
Thanks for clear graphs and discussion.
Is it possible to appeal to a Special Master” to review the evidence for EPA’s climate models and assumptions to see if they comply with the regulations and data quality requirements etc.?
e.g., John Christy’s testimony showing CMIP-5 models mid tropospheric tropospheric projections from 1979 running ~400% of actual warming trend.
Similarly Pat Michaels reviewing papers with substantially lower climate sensitivity.
e.g., Michaels testimony
As an aside, with some exceptions, there has been a hush over the climate industry/media about the EPA’s 3 million gallon toxic mine spill on August 5th; and then, it took days to be reported. In fact, it took the EPA almost a full day to inform the New Mexico’s Governor and government. To date, the EPA hasn’t informed New Mexico exactly what toxins were spilled.
Stephen,
This is a big problem for democrats. Just as they are out whipping the party faithful into frenzy about climate change in order to get out the vote for 2016, including a lot of noise and fanfare about the EPAs regulation of CO2, the EPA blows it and turns a river yellow with toxins. What a photo op for the repubs! I think they will blow it, the dummies. Anyway, it has the democrat trolls working overtime in the blogosphere. The MSM is in stunned silence.
If this had happened on Bush’s watch the Democrats’ mainstream media would be out there in droves, neck deep in the water looking for dead polar bears.
Psst! As recent as this morning, Gina McCarthy was expostulating about the Clean Power Plan at the Resources of the Future Leadership Forum:
http://wvmetronews.com/2015/08/11/mccarthy-says-clean-power-plan-legally-sound/. She is sounding more like a graduate of the Glengarry Glen Ross School of Sales, instead of the guardian of American’s health and wealth.
It wasn’t until this afternoon that she actually acknowledged the 3 million gallon Colorado toxic spill. Where is the Queen of Hearts when we need her?
While the More:on-in-Chief moves to make electricity cost more for US consumers and businesses, we see Mexico move to make electricity cheaper, and they are reaping the benefits of cheap energy. Cheap energy is a boon to a country and that idea isn’t just a theory. From the article:
…
A number of factors influenced the country’s slow but steady rise as a manufacturing hub for multinational corporations, including its membership in NAFTA, other trade agreements, cheap labor costs and its proximity to the United States.
An employee inspects a Volkswagen Jetta at the company’s assembly plant in Puebla, Mexico.
Susana Gonzalez | Bloomberg | Getty Images
An employee inspects a Volkswagen Jetta at the company’s assembly plant in Puebla, Mexico.
But observers point to another recent development that they see accelerating investment in Mexico and boosting economic productivity: Electricity is getting cheaper.
The Mexican government made changes to the country’s constitution in 2013, allowing foreign companies to invest in its previously state-controlled oil and gas reserves, and its electricity market, for the first time in roughly 80 years.
The reforms are part of an effort to reverse years of declining productivity growth in Mexico. GDP growth has declined from 6.4 percent in the period from 1950 to 1980 to 2.4 percent between 1980 and 2010, according to a Columbia University report prepared for Goldman Sachs on the energy reforms.
…
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/mexicos-falling-electricity-rates-draw-manufacturers.html
Carly Fiorina really gets it:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422395/carly-fiorina-climate-change-left
Watch her interview with Katie Couric.
Contrast her handling of Couric with that of Ted Cruz.
I wish there were a way for her to be taken more seriously by more voters.
!!! working on post now.
Subjective…
http://freebeacon.com/issues/obama-clinton-foundation-donors-sold-green-fuel-to-military-for-149-per-gallon/
cost for 1,500 gallons.
Great post! First time I saw her interviewed. I missed the “debate” last week but my wife was really impressed.
It’s not only what she said, but how she said it and her handling of Katie Couric was masterful.
A new paper in Australia calculates subsidies per MWh to coal $A0.86, gas $A0.0003, Solar $A412, wind $A42, other renewables $A17.5.
Obviously very rational to favour solar and wind. I don’t know how this compares with the US, but grounds for caution.
http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/media_releases/Electricity_production_subsidies_in_Australia_FINAL.pdf
Faustino
No vested interests there……..
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Adopting the “Clean Power Plan” will not save you $85.
It will cost you your Liberty. Remember the tenets of “Progressivism”.
The original “Progressive” movement assumed that its rule-writing governmental “experts” would be “disinterested” and “scientific”. Scientific Management (“Taylorism”) didn’t work.
(1) Carson, Kevin A. “Taylorism, Progressivism, and Rule by Experts.” Political. The Freeman?: Foundation for Economic Education, August 24, 2011.
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/taylorism-progressivism-and-rule-by-experts
(2) Wikipedia contributors. “Progressivism in the United States.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, July 29, 2014.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Progressivism_in_the_United_States&oldid=619007595