From home of the weather station that started it all, Marysville, CA their small town newspaper writes a scathing opinion on the California Air Resources Board.
They get it. The problem is that people that make up CARB are like clueless Al Gore clones. With a recent 340% error exposed, CARB is going along like nothing has happened. The problem is CARB chief Mary Nichols, who sees herself and her organization as above the democratic process.
Our View: Air board’s arrogance damaging
California seems intent on traveling a road to self-destruction paved with government mandates and regulations that drive businesses and jobs out of state while discouraging new job creation. A prime job-killing, business-punishing scheme is the insistence on achieving radical environmental goals, despite their real-world economic liabilities.
The California Air Resources Board has adopted a mandate that utility companies produce 33 percent of their electricity from so-called renewable resources by 2020. That’s a drastic increase over the previous 20-percent requirement, which the state still is nowhere near achieving. For some perspective, Congress, firmly controlled by a Democratic majority, refused to hike its renewable requirements even to the 20-percent level.
Compounding the state air board’s error is its arrogance. Even the state Legislature, controlled by left-leaning Democrats, failed this year to impose such an over-the-top requirement. But neither Congress nor the state Legislature’s reluctance dissuaded the Air Resources Board’s unaccountable bureaucrats from going where elected representatives fear to tread.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that air board boss Mary Nichols says the 33-percent standard is important because it “sends a strong, positive message to the market.” The market will get the message, alright. That’s part of the problem.
The message is that California energy prices will soar, on top of the added costs of huge taxpayer subsidies that will be needed to finance so-called renewable energy sources. Wind, solar and geothermal energy are all economically infeasible without massive subsidies.
Like the huge amounts of taxpayer dollars already wasted in government subsidies for the ethanol industry, other renewable-energy endeavors are likely to face similar fates. In Spain, where large tax-financed subsidies spurred its solar industry, 50,000 subsidized solar entrepreneurs now “face financial disaster” as the government realizes it can’t afford to continue propping up the industry with price guarantees, Bloomberg reports. Not only can’t Spain afford to continue subsidies that paid 10 times the wholesale price per kilowatt-hour, but for every new “green” job created by the subsidies, more than two normal jobs were lost.
Without generous tax breaks and subsidies, wind power costs $149 per megawatt hour compared with $100 for coal, according to estimates from the Energy Information Administration.
======================================================
Read the full editorial here
IMO, CARB is a clear and present danger to the livelihood of people of California, it is unchecked bureaucracy gone mad.
Addendum:
Since November 2nd, I’m getting a 3x increase in SPAM inviting me to move to/incorporate my business in Nevada. Given what lies ahead for business in California, the idea has merit.
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At least CA has the ballot initiative process.
And, there is the ability to recall the governor, which I’m sure even democrats will be itching to do before 2011 is half over?
Help me with the rule, though: Does the lt. governor take over if there is a recall of the governor? It might be best we drop the whole notion of recalling Brown, if that is the case.
As for bailing out CA, I’m afraid we’re already doing that. CA has been kept afloat ever since Obama took office by feds quietly buying their worthless bonds as pointed out by Pat in “tips and notes to WUWT” on November 3.
Gary P says: Wrote
November 13, 2010 at 7:03 pm
“I feel almost as bad for California now as I did about Zimbabwe when Mugabe sent his thugs out to take over the farms owned by white people. Zimbabwe use to be a major food exporter. Mugabe’s thugs did not know how to run a modern farm. Now they are starving. Life expectancy has dropped from over 60 to about 33. Of course sources like Wikipedia blame it on a drought, brought on no doubt, by AGW.
The high population density of coastal California cannot exist without energy. I wonder how low the life expectancy will drop if this continues. When electricity rates skyrocket and the poor start dying in heat waves for lack of air conditioning, the moonbats can blame it on AGW and double down again and require 66% of electricity come from the raptor Cuisinarts.”
I don’t feel bad for Californians, sorry Anthony, except for many people like you, but we are prepared to take care of you people when the time comes.
watch JESSE VENTURA’S CONSPIRACY THEORY S02E04 – POLICE STATE, FEMA CAMPS
http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/watch-jesse-venturas?xg_source=shorten_twitter
You left out a minor detail — No, it is not nonsense and has been known and experienced for many decades. It has happened to all fuel classes. BS&W is Bottom Solids and Water, and it accumulates to some extent in virtually all storage tanks.
should read:
No, it is not nonsense and has been known and experienced for many decades in hydrocarbon fuels which cannot carry condensate water out of the tank. It has happened to all fuel classes. BS&W is Bottom Solids and Water, and it accumulates to some extent in virtually all storage tanks.
That is a problem unique to hydrocarbon fuels that cannot absorb any significant amount of condensate water. Once you start adding even small amounts of alcohol (see bottle of HEET gas line anti-freeze), or 10% ethanol added gasoline, this is no longer the case as the fuel can absorb and carry the water out of the tank and it can never collect into a sludge in the bottom of the tank. E85 has such a high water capacity that it will very quickly completely dry out a water contaminated fuel tank, and prevent the formation of that layer of stagnant water, bacteria that like to feed on the hydrocarbon fuel and water and rust that accumulates in gasoline and diesel fuel tanks. You are blaming a problem that belongs to straight hydrocarbon fuels on the fuel that will actually prevent the problem from occurring in the first place.
Larry
I was looking at Appalachian Anthracite. I believe it’s what is traded on the exchanges. I believe it’s up somewhere over $60.00/ton, right now.
In any case, it will go up more than wind does, I betcha.
My ideas are usually not on the “winning” side politically, and I might often feel like Charlie Brown at football time, but I think I have a good 250 years of tradition on my side. As a historian (and psychoanalyst) I have read about all the Great Awakenings that have been part of the American tradition and the myriad utopian (always failed) ideas and communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Also I acknowledge that 2010 is not too far from millennial panic of Y2K. Therefore, I am going to relax a bit while I suffer Southern California living (I am well prepared for “survival” emergencies) waiting for the idiots’ time to be over. Yes, we may take a few hits along the way; the entrenched rent(tax)-seekers will not leave the teat voluntarily. This cannot last much longer because California will run out of money as the new Congress prevents repetitive payouts for failure and sloth. We must return to responsible living. This will happen. No one can shake my faith in the American people — this assurance goes all the way back to the colonial period. The U.S. of A. will live in reality even if it takes a while in coming; we have the strength and the tenacity. We can tell what energy source gives the most bang for the buck so long as we have the free market in which to test each one. For even more hopefulness, WUWT was created in California. The truth shall make us free — this is an Enlightenment sentiment, not a religious one. Thanks, Anthony for your strength and tenacity.
Kum Dollison says: wrote
November 13, 2010 at 7:53 pm
“You can hate “Green” all you want; but the fact is: Oil is going away. Your choices will be Ethanol, or Batteries. You Will get to choose.”
In this event, the profits of big oil go away by having nothing to sell. Isn’t this what you want in the first place? The profits of big oil to go away?
I just “got” a TV commercial.
98% of California dairies are family owned.
The corporate farmers, who HAVE to be worried about continuously making a profit and their long-term prospects, have already left!
And of family-owned farms, I know it’s not uncommon for the farmer to hold down a full time job to “afford” to keep running their family farm, or at least a part time one. They’re used to living make-or-break, trying to keep up with debt payments, with a lifestyle worse than that of those “in poverty” on public welfare. Moving the operation, as in selling the farm and buying one elsewhere, is rarely an option due to the rise in land prices. There won’t be enough cash left after settling up the debts to outright buy the new farm, and who’d give a mortgage to a mere farmer?
What it looks like to me, the dairy farming businesses have left, those remaining can’t leave and will keep operating as long as they can.
Oh, that remaining 2%? Come on, it’s Kalifornia, they could be “owned” by communes!
☺
Add to my previous comment;
The big oil companies will always find oil to sell. That is their business. The Queen of England and Queen Beatrix will make sure of it as they own big chunks of the business. The earth is constantly replenishing it’s supplies with new oil. You just need to find it.
RE: California seems intent on traveling a road to self-destruction paved with government mandates and regulations that drive businesses and jobs out of state while discouraging new job creation.
That about sums it up. California is deeply in debt and the Bozos in Sacramento keep making things go from bad to worse. Our unemployment is 12.4%, exactly what it was 1 year ago. Pity the news media in the People’s Republic Of California will never tell the truth to their viewers, nor will they ever connect the dots. If the voters knew how badly the people in Sacramento are screwing them, the Bozos in power making this mess would loose their jobs.
I shall put it simply for KUM. I hope somebody can answer
Ethanol from corn, !8 gallons per acre
Bio diesel from palm oil 1340 gallons per acre
Which is more efficient?
Ignoring the politics, I am still scratching my head
I just thank God every day for the complete and total economic collapse of the United States of America.
It seems to me to be the only way to put an end to the happy horse schit that we have to put up with every day from our government.
“hotrod ( Larry L ) says:
November 13, 2010 at 8:09 pm”
Larry, It is sad you can’t read. The actual post discussed your point :
“Since ethanol has an infinite ability to mix with water (see bartender for more guidance) it is theoretically and actually possible to reach a water concentration in the fuel where it will not burn, though this is unlikely in the 12 gallon tank on most cars.”
But fuel line freezeup is possible in all fuel classes, including alcohol. Just put a bottle of any 80 proof in the freezer. There is a water concentration that will freeze, and someone somewhere at the needed temperature will experience it. You also have to deal with the fuel separation issues laid out in the cited paper.
You may be personally enamored of converting food to fuel, and you may make as many claims as your heart desires, but you can’t impose your alternate reality on the actual economic world.
This is similar to the NYC liberal who said GWB could not possibly be elected because no one I know voted for him.
Oregon is California’s Mini-me we even have greenie retread governor…
Not sure where you got that number for ethanol yield from corn but it is totally in outer space. The palm oil production is also highly suspect.
Argonne National Labs issued a report in 2002 that put the corn yield per acre at 125 bushels per acre and the ethanol yield (ignoring all the other co-products produced) at 2.66 gallons per bushel, which converts to 332.5 gallons of ethanol per acre.
http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/AF/265.pdf
A more recent report 2010 gives higher numbers due to the continuing improvements in both farming output and the ethanol production systems.
They site current corn production at :
158.6 bushels of corn per acre
2.77 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn
439 gallons of ethanol per acre
http://www.fapri.missouri.edu/outreach/publications/2006/biofuelconversions.pdf
This site lists palm oil biodiesel production at a much lower value as well, at 635 gallons per acre.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html
There is no one magic bullet when it comes to bio-fuels, each local will have to find the most productive crop for their local climate, soils and infrastructure. Corn for ethanol makes sense in certain parts of the U.S. it makes no sense at all in dry land farming areas that do not have either the annual precipitation or the soils to grow high productivity corn at low production costs.
Likewise ethanol or bio-diesel will never completely replace hydrocarbon fuels. First there is no need to, because current technology can produce synthetic crude oil at prices near $90 BBL if local regulators will not actively stifle the operations.
Ethanol is a very good amendment to gasoline, it increases its octane, stretchs the supply directly by substation and it allows lower quality raw gasoline to be used as transportation fuels without out expensive processing to improve their octane. This is also expands the supply by widening the range of raw fuel stocks that are cost competitive.
It (E85 or high ethanol blended gasoline) are also a superior fuel in internal combustion engines when compared to straight gasoline, they burn cleaner, and make more power, the engines run cooler at a given power level, and allow use of very small displacement highly turbocharged engines that simply cannot run on common gasoline.
Since E85 will tolerate boost pressures of 20-35 psi without detonation and burn cool enough that you don’t need exotic engineering or materials to keep from melting the engine it will make possible cars that at low throttle have the fuel consumption of a motor cycle but can make over 400 hp under wide open throttle for acceleration, with engine sized near 1 liter displacement.
Too many people try to couch this discussion in either or terms — that is not reasonable. Each situation will define an ideal fuel and engine design for the task, and each local will find different bio based fuels that use otherwise waste streams like food waste or specialize crops ranging from high starch content corn, to algae based bio-diesel.
It makes no sense to throw out the baby with the bath water and insist on exclusive use of any fuel or fuel source. Sound science devoid of political agendas clearly points to a mixture of many different fuel streams being the most cost effective and efficient means to achieve both strategic fuel self sufficiency and low impact transportation fuels that make effective use of existing infrastructure without creating new choke points for rare metals in batteries and electric motors that just move our strategic vulnerability from gasoline and diesel fuel to components for electric cars.
Larry
We would need to dam every river in the state to meet that “renewable” requirement unless “renewable” includes nuclear power with recycled fuel.
And is one of the things causing me to seriously consider moving away from California.
Well, Grey, you’ve got me scratching my head as well.
Average corn yield this year was approx. 155 bu/acre. Last year it was about 165 bu/acre. Let’s use 160 bu/acre. Poet gets 3 gal of ethanol from a bushel of corn. That’s about 480 gal/acre. BUT, you get about 20 gal of corn oil (for biodiesel,) and you get enough Feed Value back in your distillers grains that you’ve, in essence, only used about 60% of your livestock feed (that’s what field corn is – livestock feed.)
So, you divide 500 by .6 and you come up with 833 gallons per acre. Oh wait, I’m forgetting about the 80, or so gallons of ethanol they will be getting from the cobs, and part (approx. 1/3) of the stover – And the aprox 6 Million BTUs of lignin for electricity generation yielded by the cellulosic process.
Palm oil (used for biodiesel, not as a substitute for gasoline) yields, on average, about 600 gallons/acre.
Andrew, I don’t give a whit about CO2, but if I did I would say that the CO2 that’s released from producing ethanol will go right back into growing the next year’s crop. No CO2 is “Added” to the atmosphere. When you burn fossil fuels you’ve taken carbon out of the ground (from whence it will Never return,) and released it into the atmosphere. Quite a different thing, I’d think.
Toss long winded rationalizations around all you’d care to – the diversion of a staple pillar of the human food chain for automotive fuel has got to be the single dumbest idea concocted by humans lately. The effects, particularly in the third world, with precarious food supply issues as it is, has rendered fatal consequences, in addition to unjustifiable price increases for everyone, on a global scale.
The biggest problem I have with rabid environmentalism is that it seems that the absolutely stupidest ideas or non-solutions are the ones that appear to be acceptable to those of that mindset – and again, almost invariably to the detriment of successfully seeking out workable, net gain for humanity innovation.
This movement and mindset has virtually sabotaged useful investigation into the overall systemic mechanics of our climate, with the fixation upon CO2 and human activity, to the almost utter disregard of any other factors. Likewise, the push for ‘renewables’ has been more of a jihad against complex hydrocarbons (and to an extent nuclear), instead of a positivist search for viable alternatives. And no, the current ‘wind solutions’ are not viable, as much of Europe is discovering, but for which the light bulb has yet to illuminate for many in America. Quite simply because they’re doing it wrong, with frankly bad and inadequate designs, a lack of consideration for the entire energy cycle, and an insistence upon appearances over results.
The ‘urgent discussions’ on these issues are trapped in a false ‘urgency’ created by those most impassioned about it, not actual circumstance, and as a result, we have a situation wholly the making of highly emotional and seemingly erudite utter morons.
Thanks.
Several years ago, while Craig Barrett was still CEO of Intel, a company founded and based in California, he stated in an interview that any CEO of a company that expanded a manufacturing facility in California should be fired by the company’s board of directors. That was at least 5 years ago and the state’s business climate has only become worse.
Woe to we non-lunatic Californians. I’m close enough to a public employee pension retirement to be very very frightened about what is happening in this state.
Christopher says: wrote
November 13, 2010 at 1:11 pm
“You have to understand. I dont even like Beck but he is correct is in his mantra. If you want change in a established country, you have to collapse the original system first. Its not some unknowing-bungling bureaucracy going awry here. Its a well thought out, well funded organization built with a purpose other than the one they front as being for. This group is designed to cause anger and dissatisfaction among the general population. After all Revolutions never occur when things are stable.”
Christopher,
Do all my previous post in this thread put together help you out in understanding the way things really are? I think not. You only have half of it.
First of all, the system was designed to fail at some point in time. Yes, it is by design.
The Hamiltonian monetary model always fails at some point in time. We have history that proves it out. That system fails every time.
The founders of our country wanted to set up a system that would last a lot longer than the previous systems. It was the Jeffersonian model that revolved around a plan that would insure that the new model would not break down so easily as the previous ones.
In order to understand the the monetary and governing model we use today, the best teaching tool I have found to date would be the Renaissance 2.0 videos. I would highly recommend you watch all 6 lessons.
http://www.youtube.com/user/councilonsper#p/a/u/0/l37RhdFGVsM
Social engineering by unelected bodies created by regulations that allow modification without recourse to voter influence. Growing citizen unrest, with ever higher utility charges, outlawing cheaper fuels, so that they can be exported and burnt by your overseas competitors, aided by liberal extorted (carbon) taxes that enable them to buy what was your coal (cheap energy source) at a price subsidized by your taxes and any wonder the anarchists (and others) are waiting in the wings, rubbing their hands with glee!!
Welcome to my world in Australia duped by the myth of greening the world by bankrupting our industry! And all done with a straight face and the conviction they are saving the world by sacrificing the ability of those that could actually make a difference.
Since November 2nd, I’m getting a 3x increase in SPAM inviting me to move to/incorporate my business in Nevada. Given what lies ahead for business in California, the idea has merit.
Hard to think of a reason why you shouldn’t consider that. Perhaps a religious analogy?:
Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. C.T. Studd
I have wondered if the green movement in California is from unions. Maybe it’s their way of getting non-union businesses to leave California so they can have a monopoly. Maybe while we are saying it’s bad news that businesses are leaving California they are saying it’s mission accomplished.
James Barker says:
November 13, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Maybe CARB can mandate buying the Spanish equipment at bankruptcy sales. Huge savings on hardware would make the costs somewhat better 🙂
Apparently much of the Spanish and Greek wind-power equipment is broken and hard to maintain. Broken-down turbines would not be a bargain at any price!