This may be perhaps the first time I’ve embraced an article from the Yale Environment 360 forum, the opener reads:
Environmentalists have long sought to use the threat of catastrophic global warming to persuade the public to embrace a low-carbon economy. But recent events, including the tainting of some climate research, have shown the risks of trying to link energy policy to climate science.
Al Gore’s latest book where he had to photoshop in some hurricanes comes to mind.
The NCDC sponsored climate change report where they photoshopped in a flooded house also comes to mind.
And, yes even the snowstorms reportedly caused by global warming this winter are also reminders of how common this bogus linkage to weather is.
From:
Green think tank tells environmentalists: Leave climate change science behind
By Ben Geman
Leaders of a contrarian environmental think tank, The Breakthrough Institute, have a way to get beyond the climate science wars: Break the link between global warming research and the push for low-carbon energy.
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, in a new essay in Yale Environment 360, [Titled: Freeing Energy Policy From The Climate Change Debate] argue that environmentalists are too eager to link natural disasters and dangerous weather to man-made climate change.
…
They write:
Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy. Efforts to use climate science to threaten an apocalyptic future should we fail to embrace green proposals, and to characterize present-day natural disasters as terrifying previews of an impending day of reckoning, have only served to undermine the credibility of both climate science and progressive energy policy.
The essay also suggests that climate advocacy and research have become too intertwined, with environmentalists seeking to represent the science as “apocalyptic, imminent, and certain.” The science has been harmed as a result, they argue, stating:
Greens pushed climate scientists to become outspoken advocates of action to address global warming. Captivated by the notion that their voices and expertise were singularly necessary to save the world, some climate scientists attempted to oblige. The result is that the use, and misuse, of climate science by advocates began to wash back into the science itself.
…
The Yale Environment 360 website has a comments section below the articles. Look for a lively response to their new piece.
Roger Sowell (10:42:09) said:
I will go read the article, but I wonder if this is the same in China, and whether it’s because some players in the energy marked decided to make life difficult for other players in the energy market and used their tame politicians and certain ‘environmental groups’ and their hysteria to cause this to come about.
NK (06:34:24) :
Thanks for the kind words. You should know that my hobby is trading. I have to keep my eyes open. It’s an ideology in its own right if you will.
NK (06:34:24) :
But don’t be so hard on “girl”… she’s right when she says the New Orleans disaster is partly due to the deterioration of the wetlands. You take water for irrigation out of a river and it will deliver less sediment to its delta, and the land in the delta slowly sinks, everybody knows that, the same thing is happening in Bangladesh.
Her only mistake is that she seems to think that “decarbonizing the economy” will somehow help. I blame this mistake on a lack of information on her part, not on ignorance.
As DirkH has pointed out above , we can clean up fossil fuel emissions . Indeed , we’ve done a good job here in the US . We’ve done such a good job , in fact , that about the only major effluent left from burning fossil fuels is co2 . Unfortunately , the greenies have obsessed on fossil fuels for decades , so they had to find something hideous about co2 emissions . Hence the advancement of the AGW theory . Fortunately , the wheels seem to finally be falling off that one .
DirkH–
you are very welcome.
PS: I am not criticizing openunatedgirl, I am just pointing out that her comments show an adherance to a fixed ideology, carbon AGW, to the exclusion of rational analysis. my criticism is for the third group I detest, the rent seekers who want treasure and power from controlling the rest of our free choice of energy supply.
cheers
Not so.
EIA – 2016 Levelized Cost of New Generation Resources from the Annual Energy Outlook 2010
Nuclear is slightly cheaper than hydroelectric, and significantly cheaper than any form of wind, let alone solar power. Nuclear is even cheaper than a couple of forms of natural gas, and one form of coal. On the other hand, it is more expensive than several forms of coal and natural gas, and slightly more expensive than biomass and geothermal.
As for New Orleans, best everyone do a little historical research. There is no good location for a city at the mouth of the Mississippi, not when the city was founded in 1716, and not today. The geology and hydrology are terrible.
Lasciate speranza voi che entrate….
Mr Sowell,
I have worked my entire career at a nuclear plant and you are in part correct about the costs. Nuclear is expensive to build and cheap to operate. Currently constructed nuclear plants are the cheapest base load generation available save hydro. This is, of course, because coal and gas pay much higher fuel costs and those costs vary significantly year to year and month to month.
I am also skeptical of anyone who claims to know how much it costs to build a nuclear plant in the USA today. We have not attempted to build one in 30 years so in my opinion any estimate is a complete WAG. Although I certainly would agree it will be more than a similar sized coal or gas plant. What you get is more price certainty for the future. Nat gas is currently about 4.00, even at that relatively low price it is easily twice as expensive to operate a nat gas plant today than it is a nuke. That is why they are always some of the last resources dispatched as load rises.
Wind and solar don’t even get to play in this discussion because they are not dispatchable and never pay off their capitol cost absent subsidies and mandates. If we build these facilities then we will use them when they are producing power – which we have no control over.
The fact is that GREEN arguments touch the feeling hearts of many people, though the majority of them ignore some simple things as the more you recycle the more uses will have any item, so hurting production economy and decreasing jobs
Or CO2 it is NOT BLACK SOOT or it is what we exhale, etc.
I read it.
Nordhaus, Ted, and Michael Shellenberger. “Freeing Energy Policy From The Climate Change Debate.” Opinion. Environment 360, March 29, 2010.
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2257
That dog won’t hunt.
You’ve been had by the nuke folks. The cost of nuclear that you usually see are the variable costs: fuel and operations and maintenance. They do not include capital recovery, which can be enormous. Unless, of course, your utility is an investor owned one and sold its nuclear plants for cents on the dollar. The new owners have virtually no capital recovery costs. But did the unrecovered costs disappear? Nope. You have a neat little item in your bill with some innocuous title where you’re still paying. They spread it out over 20 or 30 years to minimize it, but these sales of nuclear generation happened in the mid-90’s.
As to new nuclear costs, well the two that Southern Company are going to install with federal loan guarantees, cost about $7,000 per installed kilowatt of capacity. Each unit is 1,200,000 kw so do the math. When you figure in the cost of capital for these guys along with variable costs you get a very different picture.
Now, Southern California Edison is installing two solar thermal units, each of 750,000 kw at a cost of $4,000 per kilowatt. Since they have thermal storage, these units operate 24/7, not just when the sun is shining.
And if you care, while the operation of nuclear is relatively emission free, mining the ore, converting it to UF6, enriching it (using enormous amounts of TVA coal power), fabrication, spent fuel storage and ultimate disposal are by no means emissions free.
Paul (11:03:05) :
There are so many reasons to become better stewards of our beautiful earth… I just purchased an energy efficient washer not because I buy into global warming, but because it saves energy, it uses less water, and frankly, it lowers my drying time. Doing these things is logical for me personally. FYI, newegg.com has a sale on “green” energy savers. I might just buy a solar panel for my house that would run my fridge and another 2 outlets during a power outage.
I’ve been on a few recent large appliance quests, most notably one to replace a 30-year-old G.E. top-load washer. An awful lot of stuff out there is designed to make the casual shopper feel good about how “green” they are. But I’d argue that a low-flow toilet with a faulty flush mechanism (another story) looks no prettier than a tradional one sitting on a mound of trash in a landfill. And I’d guess a trashed Energy-saving washer is about as green as an older model. A big question is: which lasted longer?
It seems many of the washers may deliver on the promise to use less water and less electricity using just the right settings, but their durability, thanks to sensers and easily-fried electronic elements, appears to be a very big question. Most of the salesmen I talked to just shook their heads at the notion of a 30-year-old washer; they just aren’t designed to last that long, and the “consumer advising” agencies many of us have come to rely on are not reliable. See, here, on the recent Energy Star Fraud:
I have posted to Yale 360 several times and often they have either edited my posts dramatically or simply didn’t post them. It is obviously an organization funded with our tax money dedicated to keeping the flow of “green” coming.
Okay, the “Greens” have given up trying to support manmade warming and instead are trying to convince us that spending hundereds of billions on power that is the world’s most expensive, requires tax credits and grants to build and is wildly variable requiring 100% back-up from fossil fuel plants, cannot measurably clean the air or reduce carbon dioxide either…..and to top it off treats birds (mostly raptors and bats, many endangered) as if they were milk shakes in a Hamilton Beach mixer.
A truly Piriac victory.
Mr Shearon,
I am most definitely including levelized capitol cost in total nuke cost. As does the EIA report referenced by Larry D.
Regarding solar thermal generation you are factually incorrect. There are two ways to make electricity from the sun. PV cells take sunlight and turn it directly to DC current and solar thermal focuses the sun’s rays on a body filled with a fluid (can be water) to create steam. The steam is then used to drive a turbine to make electricity. This is thermal solar energy and it most definitely only works when the sun is shining. Even if you could “store” the energy of the sun for later use, you can not store more energy than has been incident upon your particular part of the globe.
Well scrub that Yale site. Nothing more boring than looking in a mirror that feeds back only one’s own reflection.
Too bad they have the same disease that “Real Climate” has.
Hey chaps, censorship automatically brands you as a bunch of losers; incapable of taking part in a debate.
Layne Blanchard (17:02:24) :
“So, essentially: The fraud isn’t working, time to throw in the towel, and just admit the real motive..>…… an irrational hatred of hydrocarbon fuels…. oh, and a death wish to shut down all civilization.
… the first in a 12 step process?”
I though it was the first in a Ten step process –
Ten Steps to Dictatorship by Naomi Wolf
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external threat. check – CAGW and world Financial meltdown
2. Create a secret prison system – a gulag – where torture takes place that is outside the rule of law, perhaps employing military tribunals. Start by targeting people outside the mainstream of society. As the line blurs, more and more ordinary citizens get caught up in the noose. It’s always the same cast of characters: journalists, editors, opposition leaders, labor leaders and outspoken clergy. check – reports of military torture of prisoners and rumors of military type trials being considered on mainland USA
3. Create a paramilitary force – a thug caste. You can’t close down a democracy without one. You can send that paramilitary force to intimidate civilians. Then it doesn’t matter if you still have the essential institutions of a democracy functioning, because people are too intimidated to push back. check – Blackwater
4. Create an internal surveillance apparatus aimed at ordinary citizens. You don’t need to surveil everyone. If everyone thinks they are being surveilled, that’s inhibiting. check – cars with Ron Paul bumper stickers are stop by police check points as Terrorists
5. Infiltrate and harass citizens’ groups. That helps ensure citizens won’t have the trust level to work effectively together. Boy are we seeing this. Food and Water Watch, Organic Consumers all have ties to Rockefeller and the UN so they SUPPORT corporate take over of our food supply.
6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens. This will frighten them. check farmers/co-ops targeted and all those roadblocks and license checks as well. And do not forget the torture and deaths by tazer of innocent people.
7. Target key individuals: lawyers, people in the press, academics, people in the media, performers, even civil servants, so people see there are repercussions if they stand up against you. Again Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin supporters are on the terrorist watch list.
8. Restrict the press. Investigate, intimidate and imprison reporters. Accuse them for treason.. Start using the words of a closing society: terrorist, enemy of the people, sabotage, espionage, treason. Over time, replace the real news with fake news. Derry Brownfield kicked off the air and two Florida reporters fired, not to mention John Munsfield’s story about e-coli contamination at Con Agri being pulled at the last minute. Reporters knocked down and tazered at political demos. Also Wiki leaks is supposed to have a video of reporters being murdered????
9. Expand the definitions of espionage and treason so more and more people are included. Recast criticism as espionage and dissent as treason.
The list is now over a million and that doesn’t include bumper stickers. I was just told by an ex-secret service guy that ALL ex-military, ex-CIA, ex-FBI…. are now on the “Homegrown terrorist” possibles list
10. Suspend the rule of law. Subvert it by decree and/or declare martial law. Is that what the tea parties are about, to start a major confrontation?
Boy can’t you have lots of fun with this list and the scuttle butt drifting around on the internet….
“”” Ed Shearon (15:14:50) :
You’ve been had by the nuke folks. The cost of nuclear that you usually see are the variable costs: fuel and operations and maintenance. They do not include capital recovery, which can be enormous. …..
…..
Now, Southern California Edison is installing two solar thermal units, each of 750,000 kw at a cost of $4,000 per kilowatt. Since they have thermal storage, these units operate 24/7, not just when the sun is shining……
And if you care, while the operation of nuclear is relatively emission free, mining the ore, converting it to UF6, enriching it (using enormous amounts of TVA coal power), fabrication, spent fuel storage and ultimate disposal are by no means emissions free……
So presumably (as judged by your arguments) SoCal Edison, is building these two solar plants entirely using free green clean renewable (solar) energy, sicne you didn’t mention anything about the energy capital costs of their plants.
One thing we know for sure is, that we started off with nothing but free clean green renewable solar energy; it was even quantized and came in chunks called “figs”. But it barely served to sustain just a few of our ancestors; and they didn’t become successful, until they discovered stored chemical energy; and eventually the fossil fuel form of stored chemical energy.
So no matter how you want to cut it, and jigger with the economics calculations; along with the pollution and other environmental costs; we can say assuredly that fossil fuel worked; it got us to where we are; whereas free clean green renewable solar energydid not and could not.
And if you want to figure out the per capita costs of the energy and pollution clean up and other environmental factors, and then compare that to all the damage our few ancestors did to the fig trees; I have no doubt that we are way out in front of their achievements.
If you want your grandchildren to go back to clambering around in fig trees for renewable energy; be my guest.
Do you have any idea what the total pollutant output of a silicon production factory is; not to mention the noxious materials that must be obtained and controlled in the fabrication of free clean green renewable PV solar energy; at a rate of maybe 10 Watts per Square foot (tops).
I’m waiting with bated breath to see the first solar energy plant replicate itself using its own energy output; and have something left over to sell on the open market against its competition.
Of course if you have some other non-solar free clean green renewable energy source that I haven’t heard about yet; well maybe that could be a winner; sell you house and bet on it.
Mr Lynn (05:26:56) :
R. de Haan (21:29:14) :
What every person on the planet should know!
Access to cheap and safe energy should be a human right! . . .
“Point of clarification: Let’s not make the mistake that the socialists do with ‘healthcare’: access to goods and services produced by others is never a ‘right’. It may be eminently desirable, a wish devoutly to be achieved, but not a right”.
Mr. Lynn,
I have made this point to prevent Government from enslaving it’s populations by charging excessive energy taxes and “Cap” policies.
I did not state energy should be made available for free! I only said it should be available to everybody on the planet at an affordable price!
In the case of shale gas, available in 75% of the world’s sediments we have the opportunity to generate affordable electricity all over the world with explortion companies and distributors still making good profits.
I don’t agree with your “Health Care” example because in this case Government is forcing Americans to buy Health Care. If they refuse they will be fined, if they can’t pay the fine, they go to prison and they will have a criminal record!
Besides that, if Government is in a position to force people to buy health care, what will be next? Will they be forced to buy a car from Government Motors?
Anyhow, thanks for your support for the remaining content of my posting.
R. de Haan (17:10:51) said:
Hmmm, the words I have seen suggest that the IRS does not have the power to enforce the fines associated with not buying health care … possibly an oversight on the part of the Democrats, but who could possibly have figured that out given that the bill was some 2000+ pages.
““”” Ed Shearon (15:14:50) :
You’ve been had by the nuke folks. The cost of nuclear that you usually see are the variable costs: fuel and operations and maintenance. They do not include capital recovery, which can be enormous. …”
The capital cost of wind is 1 1/2 times that of nuclear. The cost of manpower for wind is also 1 1/2 times nuclear. The cost of solar is higher.
The arguement that nuclear fuel is energy intensive is provably false. The fuel is a very minor cost. the cost of producing kilowatt hour of nuclear energy is the lowest cost of any power except water power and is a fraction of wind or solar. Another major cost of wind or solar is the requirement to run high power lines to remote locations which, in many cases, doubles the capital cost. Nuclear plants have to be constructed near water sources which coincindentally is where most people live and work. ……..and, of course, nuclear fuel can be recycled as it is for France at the Hague in the Netherlands. A concern is the by-product plutonium which Carter outlawed as being to easy to convert to weapon grade material.
There is no logical reason not to utilize nuclear. We could also continue to utlize coal and clean it by desulphurization and with flyash precipitators. We could burn nutural gas which is pretty clean. I agree there is no economic or ecological reason to build wind and solar. They are pork projects. They clean no air by any measurable amount and they cannot shut down one fossil fuel plant.
Pork, pure and simple.
I understand, and agree with, your reasons. And I understand that you did not say energy should be free to all.
My point is that it is common today, especially on the Left, to assert that human needs create ‘rights’ which can be met only by government: the right to food, to shelter, to a job, to healthcare—and energy? What’s next? A good car? An LCD TV? And I wanted to emphasis that this conception is alien to the concepts that inform the American Experiment.
Our system of restricted and republican (small ‘r’) government is based on the notion of ‘natural rights’, to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” which, as Prof. Walter E. Williams points out, are inherent in our natures and cannot be given by other citizens or government (though government can prevent us from exercising them).
Human needs for goods and services can be satisfied by individual and group endeavor, but not by government, unless the government takes from some and gives to others, because government creates nothing on its own. So a ‘right’ to something enforced by government inevitably becomes a strait-jacket of rules and penalties imposed in the name of ‘fairness’ (hence the ‘mandate’ to buy health insurance).
It ought to be the policy of our government to encourage private industry to provide cheap and plentiful energy for everyone, and the government can best do so by getting out of the way and giving the markets and entrepreneurship free rein. The world has coal, natural gas, uranium, thorium, and other resources in abundance, and the technologies for utilizing these are improving every day.
While no one has a ‘right’ to cheap, abundant energy, no government should have the right to curtail our production of it. It is the key to the continued progress of human civilization, and to the development of the third word. The trick, in this Republic make sure we elect people who understand this imperative, and will not seek to curtail human freedom and enterprise in the name of providing for its citizens what they should be providing for themselves.
We don’t disagree.
/Mr Lynn
Correction (last sentence of penultimate paragraph): The trick, in this Republic, is to make sure we elect people who understand this imperative, and a government that will not seek to curtail human freedom and enterprise in the name of providing for its citizens what they should be providing for themselves. /Mr L
Doug Badgero (16:08:50) : – you might want to check your figures for fully-costed nuclear power from a new power plant in the US. Here’s a link:
http://energyguysmusings.blogspot.com/2009/02/nuclear-power-costs-2008.html
Jon:
New nuclear costs between $6,800 and $7,200 /kw. See http://southerncompany.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=2044
Other generation, $/kw installed (the capital costs):
New wind costs $1,208
Solar electric $4,751
Solar Thermal $3,149
“advanced” nuclear (does not commercially exist & same number predicted in 1986) $2,081
http://www.jcmiras.net/surge/p130.htm
Facts are pesky things, Jon.
Mr Sowell,
I provided no figures to check. I referred you to an Energy Information Administration report that LarryD referenced. It shows quite clearly that all in costs for nuclear are competitive with other power sources. Especially when you consider future price uncertainty with coal and gas. That said, it would be foolish to build nuclear for anything but base load generation. They must operate at near full capacity to pay for their fixed capitol costs. That is the unavoidable fault of wind and solar. They cost a fortune to build but cannot operate above about a 35% capability factor. That is the mistake Mr Shearon makes for wind and solar – capitol costs must be adjusted for both capability factor AND the cost to build backup power sources for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine (probably gas). The EIA report does not make the capability adjustment mistake. However, it only mentions the non-dispatchable nature of wind and solar in passing.
Note that EIA estimates the all in cost of NEW nuclear generation at about 11cents per Kwh. It is very easy to play with these numbers by simply adjusting the cost of capitol (interest rate assumptions) or future predictions for the cost of coal and oil to make one source look better or worse than another. That is why different studies from different ideological viewpoints come to very different conclusions. There is risk associated with any choice.