Said story: Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.

They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances — efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights. (snip)

The protests date to 1992 when the United Nations passed a sweeping, but nonbinding, 100-plus-page resolution called Agenda 21 that was designed to encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering development to already dense areas. They have gained momentum in the past two years because of the emergence of the Tea Party movement, harnessing its suspicion about government power and belief that man-made global warming is a hoax.

Some may in fact see it as a UN plot, but, then, the UN has been pushing junk science and all sorts of initiatives, most recently “biodiversity” and “sustainability”, as a means to put more control into the hands of government, as well as people’s hard earned money. As Tom Nelson points out

Is Revkin really sure that Tea Party activisits don’t just see their hard-earned cash being blown on idiotic left-wing bad-weather-preventing projects?

Let me tell you a little tale. Behind my home is a greenway that follows the Neuse River. The stretch in my area, which extends a few miles from the Highway 264 bridge north, is mostly dirt and gravel. Over the last few months they have been paving it. And cutting down trees. Wait, cutting down trees on a greenway? And by “months” they have literally been slapping down a mile or two of pavement perhaps 5 feet wide. I hear their machines every weekday for months. Not quite sure what they are doing, but, I’m pretty sure it’s expensive. Now, I have no problem with the greenway. In fact, I think it’ll be great to rollerblade on (there are no good places in my area to ‘blade). Of course, not many people used it before: most folks either walked the sidewalks or the golf car paths. I’d go for a walk down it beforehand (it’s been closed for about 5 months now) and see no one else. A $13 million bond was voted in back in 2007. Perhaps, in this economy, it isn’t the time to spend the money on a greenway that will barely be used. Total cost for all the greenways is $30 million. Rather expensive, eh? And wasteful. Should have put convicts out there building it.

Similarely, TEA Party activists are tired of the government wasting enormous amounts of money, usually overspending at high levels, on “green” projects that will rarely be used. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes nature projects for the sake of nature are good. But, be responsible with the money. And don’t cut trees down on greenways, for goodness sakes.

Barack Obama’s avalanche of needless regulations on coal-fueled power plants are going into effect and the net result will be the closing of hundreds of power plants all across the country just when our need for power is increasing. This will absolutely necessitate the cost of our power to skyrocket. But, this is exactly what he wants. He wants to rape us for our power. He said so from the beginning.

Well, now that he’s had the opportunity to put into place just some of the new rules and regulations he wants — and he’s only pushed through a tiny bit of what he really wants, indeed — we are already seeing the results of his attack on us.

Look to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland where six coal-fueled power plants are being shut down by FirstEnergy because the retrofitting the power plants will have to undergo to satisfy Obama’s whims is just too expensive to justify.

Company spokesmen say there is no help for it.

“This decision is not in any way a reflection of the fine work done by the employees at the affected plants, but is related to the impact of new environmental rules,” said James H. Lash, president, FirstEnergy Generation and chief nuclear officer. “We recently completed a comprehensive review of our coal-fired generating plants and determined that additional investments to implement MATS and other environmental rules would make these older plants even less likely to be dispatched under market rules. As a result, it was necessary to retire the plants rather than continue operations.”

Obama is forcing these new regs on the whole industry. Many thousands of jobs will be lost — this particular shut down will cause the loss of over 500 jobs initially — and the loss of the generating capacity will force a larger load on other plants necessarily causing costs to go up for all of us.

This isn’t just affecting out-of-date plants owned by FirstEnergy, either.

Douglas Gotham, director of the State Utility Forecasting Group, for instance, says that rates hikes are on the way in Indiana, as well, and all because of Obama’s onerous new EPA regulations.

“Due to the federal regulatory focus on emissions from coal-fired generators, Indiana is expected to experience larger price increases than projected on a regional or national level.”

This is exactly what Obama wanted. Remember in 2007 when he sat down with the San Francisco Chronicle and told us all that he wanted to bankrupt the coal industry and that our rates would “necessarily skyrocket”?

Well, his plans are succeeding. Prices are indeed “skyrocketing.” Worse, jobs are being lost. As Sean Harkbarth of the US Chamber of Commerce notes,

Utility MACT is only part of the assault on coal power plants. Last September, I wrote about how EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution rule cost 500 jobs in Texas. The Chamber’s senior vice president of Environment, Technology, and Regulatory Affairs, Bill Kovacs told Congressmen last summer that the “cumulative impact of regulatory action can be overwhelming” and is causing power plants to be taken offline and putting people out of work.

Hackbarth points to testimony of EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus who admitted last April that jobs are not part of their determinations.

So, Obama’s plans really are well on the way to fruition. But it’s just beginning. He very much wants to do far more damage than he has thus far.

(H/T Thurber’s Thoughts)

(Wall Street Journal) In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The letter from the concerned scientists goes on to describe how CO2 is actually a good gas, and life evolved when concentrations were 10+ times higher. How young scientists are afraid to come forth and not walk the academic Warmist line. That this is not the way science works. Oh, and that if you want the real answer as to why so many push the meme of man-induced global warming climate change extreme weather global weirding it’s snowing because it’s hot, you need to follow the money.

They also point out that if one does subscribe to the notion of AGW, the best solution is not taxes and restrictions, but economic growth

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

And, let’s not forget, with strong economic growth comes advances, advances that could see quality replacements for much of the use of fossil fuels (coal and oil, which, let’s face it, aren’t particularly clean, and I’m not referring to CO2) at cheap prices. Instead of wasting money on means to “stop global warming”, none of which actually work, that same money could be used to solve medical issues, to increase the quality of life of people, and even deal with real environmental issues. But, we all know that the AGW movement is about putting more money and power into the hands of centralized government, enforcing a far left fascistic vision of the world.

And, oh, these scientists aren’t exactly pip squeeks. Check the listing at the WSJ.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

For our year living in the woods of Maine, I wanted a place where I could see and hear wildlife. Someplace both quiet and remote.

In our part of Maine, quiet and remote means off the electrical grid. Our summer rental cabin had no electricity except for a small generator to power the water pump and a 20-watt solar panel connected to a 12-volt battery powering our laptop and cellphone. The winter rental cabin where we are now has a diesel generator and a battery bank.

Having a diesel rumbling in the background is not the Maine woods experience I wanted. Too noisy. Too smelly. Too OPEC.

That actually sounds like a good idea, and, as an environmentalist myself, I’d want to hear the sounds of nature, too. I love the early mornings on the back deck near a pond running off the Neuse River here in Raleigh, the quiet punctuated with the calls of wildlife. Anyhow, Craig becomes an Internet expert on ….. solar! And

Once in Maine, I found a local expert on solar, asked for a detailed cost estimate, cross-checked it with people who knew solar and drained $6,000 from our savings to install six modules (panels) totaling 1,410 watts of power.

Then the real learning started.

Well, that $6k drop on panels is a wee bit more than Craig might have spent if the cabin was hooked up to the regular power grid, but, again, I do not think solar is a Bad Idea, and it’s much better, in my opinion, to search for solutions to single homes/small groups of homes than the huge solar farms which require large swaths of clear cut land. Alas

I learned that installed capacity is different from actual energy generated. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that solar power production in the ZIP code for our system over the last four months in an average weather year should be 441 kilowatt hours. Our system produced 305 kilowatt hours in those four months — 31 percent less.

and

I learned that energy generated is not the same as energy that can be used. When the solar panels convert photons to electrons, it’s DC power, but we need AC power. The DC power is stored in a large battery bank, and an inverter switches it to AC, losing about 23 percent of the power generated in the process.

and finally

The bottom line is that our solar production provides only 46 percent of what we need, and what we need is minimal.

Therefore, Craig runs the diesel generator a bit. Because solar is not ready for prime-time, even if he doubled the number of panels. But, again, he is on to something, namely, aim solar for personal ownership and usage.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Global Warming Policy Foundation) President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil and gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines. “[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

The report does not specifically mention the Keystone XL pipeline, but it endorses moving forward quickly with projects that “deliver electricity and fuel,” including pipelines.

“The Council recognizes the important safety and environmental concerns surrounding these types of projects, but now more than ever, the jobs and economic and energy security benefits of these energy projects require us to tackle the issues head-on and to expeditiously, though cautiously, move forward on projects that can support hundreds of thousands of jobs,” the report says.

Again, I’m not a real big fan of oil, it’s kinda dirty and not particularly good for the environment (I’m not talking about CO2, but real pollutants), but, I live in Reality Land where the world runs on oil at this time, and reducing the amounts will not see a unicorn magically crap out viable renewable methods. Seeing more oil based projects increases employment with good paying jobs, and these good paying jobs lead to, yes, spreading the wealth. I had a post drafted a few months ago which I never posted about the North Dakota oil workers getting so much money that they were snapping up property. In Arizona.

(Washington Times) House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said the presidential jobs council’s recommendations for expanding domestic energy production, cutting government red tape and overhauling business taxes are exactly the policies passed by the House in the past year. Most of those bills have stalled in the Senate.

White House Spokesweasel Jay Carney said that the Jobs Council wasn’t referring to the Keystone XL pipeline specifically, which is kinda true, but, we all can see that it factors in. Canada is not going to be patient forever, as China is knocking on the door, wanting that oil. I suspect that Canada will make no decision till the day after the general election in November to make a decision.

Getting our own oil, as well as getting it from Canada, will increase employment, increase wages, and reduce our dependence on oil from countries around the world which are run by dictators and Islamists. Security.

We all know that Obama will blow off these recommendations, otherwise, his base will revolt and drive to D.C. in fossil fueled vehicles and take unnecessary fossil fueled flights to protest.

(CBS News) Solar panel maker Solyndra received a $528 million Energy Department loan in 2009 – and went bankrupt last year. The government’s risky investment strategy didn’t stop there, as a CBS News investigation has uncovered a pattern of cases of the government pouring your tax dollars into clean energy.

Take Beacon Power — a green energy storage company. We were surprised to learn exactly what the Energy Department knew before committing $43 million of your tax dollars.

Documents obtained by CBS News show Standard and Poor’s had confidentially given the project a dismal outlook of “CCC-plus.”

Asked whether he’d put his personal money into Beacon, economist Peter Morici replied, “Not on purpose.”

“It’s, it is a junk bond,” Morici said. “But it’s not even a good junk bond. It’s well below investment grade.”

Was the Energy Department investing tax dollars in something that’s not even a good junk bond? Morici says yes.

“This level of bond has about a 70 percent chance of failing in the long term,” he said.

Here’s where it gets even better

CBS News counted 12 clean energy companies that are having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five have filed for bankruptcy: The junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy and Solyndra.

In terms of the Central Government budget, $6.5 billion is chump change. For the 53% who do pay federal taxes, this is an obscene use of our hard earned money to prop up companies that are bound to fail in the name of making Obama’s politically motivated “green” energy initiative look good, at least in the short term, as well as hook up Democrat campaign donors and backers.

The long term shame here is that this type of malfeasance damages the future of clean energy. I believe that most of us can agree that these “alternative” energy sources are part of the future. They aren’t ready for prime time. Not yet. Not even close. Wasting taxpayer money on doomed and mostly worthless ventures will certainly erode any near term future investments in these types of companies, even ones that are probably going to be winners.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.

And what are those global threats? Surprisingly, Progressivism/fascism is not mentioned. Instead, we have Nuclear disarmament, Nuclear energy (outdated power plants can be a danger), and….Climate change!

In fact, the global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere. The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification. Since fossil-fuel burning power plants and infrastructure built in 2012-2020 will produce energy — and emissions — for 40 to 50 years, the actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be impossible to redirect. Even if policy leaders decide in the future to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting technologies, it will be too late.

They forgot to mention that unicorns may become extinct.

The challenges to rid the world of nuclear weapons, harness nuclear power, and meet the nearly inexorable climate disruptions from global warming are complex and interconnected. In the face of such complex problems, it is difficult to see where the capacity lies to address these challenges. The political processes in place seem wholly inadequate to meet the challenges to human existence that we confront.

Inadequate, eh? Obviously, the Atomic Scientists will recommend that every believer live the carbon neutral life, and they themselves will abide by that lifestyle..so, they recommend

• Adopting and fulfilling climate change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions through tax incentives, harmonized domestic regulation and practice;
• Vastly increasing public and private investments in alternatives to carbon emitting energy sources, such as solar and wind, and in technologies for energy storage, and sharing the results worldwide.

Well, damn, I thought they might recommend that every Warmist stop driving in fossil fueled vehicles, give up charging their iPhones, and disconnect their homes from the power grid in order to save Gaia from becoming a quarter as warm as the Earth has been for the entire time life has been present on the Earth. So, I blame the Atomic Scientists for the ticking of the Clock.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(Fox News) Once again, going green has taxpayers seeing red. This time however, billions in federal subsidies for electric vehicles are going those who need them the least: the 1 percent.

According to the CEO of General Motors, the average annual income of buyers of the Chevy Volt is $170,000. Those who buy the luxury electric Fisker Karma or Tesla roadster earn more than $250,000 a year. Yet every wealthy buyer receives a hefty handout from Uncle Sam, adding more than $7,500 to the federal debt for every car sold.

When all the federal and state subsidies to General Motors and its Volt suppliers are totaled, Hohman estimates each Volt sold costs taxpayers as much as $250,000.

“If you’re wealthy enough to afford one of these electric automobiles more power to you,” but Hohman says the handouts and tax breaks simply transfer wealth from the poor and middle class to corporations and the rich who can afford cars that cost as much as a small home.

Doesn’t that make you feel great? Obama can play the class warfare card all he wants, but his policies have tended to help the 1%, of which Obama is part of. And his policies especially help the 1%ers who are campaign donors. And, while I support newer technologies that will provide us (eventually) with cleaner, cheaper, and more abundant power and vehicles, using money earned by hard working taxpayers to provide silly vehicles like the Chevy Sloth to people who want a status car is idiotic and deplorable.

Fortunately, there are plenty of plans to continue to provide the 1%ers with more free taxpayer money. In Raleigh, the city has built 29 electric vehicle charging stations, provided at taxpayer expense. The electricity is also free for the EV owners, paid for by the taxpayers. Supposedly, they will eventually charge for the usage.

In California, they will charge $2-$3 per charge, at a taxpayer cost of $1.3 million from a grant to build the stations.

In Detroit, electric cars and hybrids are flooding the Detroit auto show, meaning taxpayers will further fund the lifestyles of the rich. Remember, the Prius was a status vehicle early on, and has morphed into a usable vehicle. There are many usable hybrids out there, including some SUVs, like the Escape and the Highlander. But, then, hybrids can travel more than 50 miles at a clip, and they can use the air conditioning and heat. Until EVs can be purchased by regular people and take people on long trips, regular people will continue to buy gas vehicles that get great mileage.

(Photo from Political Clown Parade)

(NY Times) A senior Iranian official on Tuesday delivered a sharp threat in response to economic sanctions being readied by the United States, saying his country would retaliate against any crackdown by blocking all oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for transporting about one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

The declaration by Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, came as President Obama prepares to sign legislation that, if fully implemented, could substantially reduce Iran’s oil revenue in a bid to deter it from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Now, I don’t blame Obama for attempting to get tough on Iran, if you call sanctions, which typically end up hurting the common people, rather than the rulers, tough. But, I do find it interesting that Iran has so little fear of an Obama led America that they would make these threats. It’ll be interesting to see if this affects the oil markets today.

Also, if only there were alternative oil sources on US soil and right off-shore, along with right across the border with our friend to the north. Alas, we apparently have no oil sources domestically at all, and have to rely solely on the wind blowing and the sun shining for power.

Prior to the latest move, the administration had been laying the groundwork to attempt to cut off Iran from global energy markets without raising the price of gasoline or alienating some of Washington’s closest allies.

And there is the problem with much of liberal led government: “laying the ground work to attempt…” It’s the politics of “we’ll talk about creating a plan to actually eventually make a plan.” They aren’t actually Doing Something.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

(The Politico) The shutdown-averting budget bill will block federal light bulb efficiency standards, giving a win to House Republicans fighting the so-called ban on incandescent light bulbs.

GOP and Democratic sources tell POLITICO the final omnibus bill includes a rider defunding the Energy Department’s standards for traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient.

DOE’s light bulb rules — authorized under a 2007 energy law authored signed by President George W. Bush — would start going into effect Jan. 1. The rider will prevent DOE from implementing the rules through Sept. 30.

But Democrats said they could claim a “compromise” by adding language to the omnibus that requires DOE grant recipients greater than $1 million to certify they will upgrade the efficiency of their facilities by replacing any lighting to meet or exceed the 2007 energy law’s standards.

Hmm, that last part sounds somewhat like they would extort companies, or socialism. Either one. This is a good thing, though, most domestic light bulb makers of incandescent bulbs have already shut down, so, here’s something else China will provide. Realistically, not many people actually use 100 watt incandescent bulbs, but, the rules did affect 3-way bulbs, and would have been slowly phased in for lower wattage bulbs, ending with 40 watt bulbs in….2014.

On Twitter, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) wrote: “I strongly oppose that language. I hope it’s deleted from any final bill that we pass.”

“It’s the power of Michele Bachmann and the presidential campaign,” added Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee that approved the original language. “What can I say? If we can solve the energy problem with the outcome on the light bulb, America would be a great place.”

Quick, someone in the D.C. area head over to their Congressional offices, see if they have any incandescent bulbs around. Also, in their Congressional District offices. If they don’t they are killing the future of America’s energy.

Republicans for Environmental Protection also hoped to shame its GOP brethren into backing down.

“In the real world, outside talk radio’s echo chamber, lighting manufacturers such as GE, Philips and Sylvania have tooled up to produce new incandescent light bulbs that look and operate exactly the same as old incandescent bulbs, and give off just as much warm light,” said Jim DiPeso, the group’s policy director. “The only difference is they produce less excess heat and are therefore 30 percent more efficient. Same light, lower energy bills. What’s not to like?”

What’s not to like is that government has no place mandating which light bulbs can be manufactured. Perhaps in places like Venezuela and North Korea this would be acceptable, but not in the USA. They’re light bulbs, not crack cocaine. And those companies, or others, can tool up to produce incandescents. But, hey, if they can produce bulbs like they say, great! I’m all for it. If they are the same price. I have no problem with the concept of bulbs that produce less heat (living in North Carolina summers) and save energy. Saving money is good. But not by government decree. And not because elected officials were worried about globull warming, which was why they passed the bill in the first place.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.