Guest post by Robert Bradley, Master Resource
I have been studying the global warming debate from a physical scientific and political economy basis for 20 years. And I remain amazed at how the energy/climate alarmists will not concede (are ‘in denial’) that the human influence on climate can be positive, not only negative, from an ecological and economic perspective.
The work of leading climate economist Robert Mendelsohn calculates net positive externalities for much of the world from anthropogenic warming at the bottom of the canonic IPCC temperature range. And climate scientist Gerald North of Texas A&M convinced me that the models would eventually get to a warming range of 20C, plus or minus 0.250C, for a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas in equilibrium. (Dr. North was my paid consultant back in my Enron days, tasked with helping me figure out just where the middle ground was in the contentious debate.)
Mendelsohn plus North: a net positive externality from manmade greenhouse gas emissions. And a win for fossil fuels even before getting to the political economy question of comparing ‘market failure’ against ‘government failure’ to evaluate the case for government intervention.
Now to the renewable energy debate online at The Economist magazine where I was invited to oppose the motion: “This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.”
In my opening statement, I argued that renewable energy was doomed by physics for reasons that were first comprehended by British economist W. S. Jevons in his 1865 classic, The Coal Question.
Noting the taxpayer and environmentalist backlash against wind and solar facilities, as well as the inability of intermittent energies to exist without fossil-fuel blending/firming, I found myself squarely back at the premise to the motion: that fossil fuels were bad.
With peak oil and peak gas waylaid by the shale revolution, and the statistics of less pollution alongside greater fossil-fuel usage, the question then got back to global warming (my rebuttal statement). My closing statement summed up my case for the increasing sustainability of fossil fuels, not only the failure of renewable energy.
Economist debate moderator, James Astill, is upset. After all, we should all know that the human influence on climate is severe and bad and government must do something! He complains:
In my previous offering, I confess I underestimated how relaxed our opposer, Robert Bradley, was about global warming. I thought he did not consider it a problem. It now seems he is rather in favour of it. “A moderately warmer and wetter world, natural or manmade,” Mr Bradley writes, “is arguably a better world.”
I said “moderate warming,” Sir. And I said “arguably,” Sir. Why is your world so black and white, and black in favor of energy statism? Given the public and political backlash against climate alarmism and forced energy transformation, and the very comments and voting cast in this forum, perhaps it is time to debate rather than assume.
Astill continues:
This shows how far Mr Bradley has strayed from the question in hand: concerning the desirability, or otherwise, of subsidising renewables as a means to stop the world burning fossil fuels. I do not blame him exactly. It stands to reason that no one untroubled by the prospect of global warming would bother himself with wonky, expensive renewables. But, alas, that does not describe this house. It assumes that a way to get the world off fossil fuels must be found.
Astill is missing the energy forest for the politically correct trees. Compared to dilute, intermittent, and environmentally invasive wind and solar power, fossil fuels are socially advantageous. And even assuming high climate sensitivity to GHG forcing, ‘market failure’ must be balanced with ‘analytical failure’ and with ‘government failure.’ No more assuming the problem, the solution, and perfect government implementation of the ‘solution.’ The era of magical energy postmodernism must end!
I invite readers of WUWT to visit, read, and vote. I like my case. As I conclude my final statement: “The best energy future belongs to the efficient and to the free.”
Realism and optimism, anyone?
Petrossa: I love the phrase ‘renewable energy’.
It’s no worse than “hot dog” or innumerable other examples. The technologies listed will produce fuel and electricity as long as the sun shines.
“…as long as the sun shines.”
That’s the problem. Isn’t it?
Jon doesn’t realize environmentalism is an esthetic perspective. There is no difference between environmentalism and my preference for Mozart over Lady Gaga. Jon might also want to ponder how anything we as humans do be considered as harmful to Gaia being as we are a product of the same Nature that created cute fuzzy polar bears. Jon’s esthetic sense is dark and nihilistic; he sees humans as being separate from our natural environment, harmful and at odds with it. This self-loathing makes no sense to me yet it is emblematic of the Green philosophy poisoning our civilization.
The NO votes have pulled ahead! Now it’s 51/49 “No”.☺
I voted “No”. One thing that was perhaps overlooked in the debate (I confess to not reading all of it, only the closing statements and some of the comments) was the issue of scale – that is, the huge (almost unimaginable) scale on which “renewable” energy sources would have to be built to supply our current and future energy needs. This was admirably covered in David McKay’s excellent Sustainable Energy: without the Hot Air. (http://www.withouthotair.com/)
The scale argument alone is enough to put solar, wind and tidal energy out of contention as anything more than bit players, IMO.
“This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.”
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So to cut matters short Robert Bradley agrees to debate this question but then instead tries to debate some whole bunch of other questions.
And then tries to game the system with support from the WUWT readers.
Someone please hand Lazy a hanky.
LT, in case you haven’t noticed, the tide is turning. Even at the alarmist Economist the CAGW narrative is failing.
RE: LazyTeenager: (November 16, 2011 at 8:03 pm)
“This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.”
I expect this “weaning process” involves a staged population reduction to 19th century levels and a return to the minimal environmental impact of a Jane Austin period lifestyle.
Dave Springer says:
November 16, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Curiousgeorge says:
November 16, 2011 at 11:38 am
” Is this some kind of self-imposed guilt trip for being a successful species?”
“We’re not particularly successful yet. ………About the only metric where we are numero uno is in pavement and a thousand years after we’re gone pretty much every sign we were here will be gone too except for footprints and machinery left on the moon.”
Why the negative ‘waves’, Dave? Your comment even sounds kinda like a guilt trip…….
There are +2000 year old roman roads, viaducts, and coliseums strewn across Europe. OK. That’s 2 eye blinks. And I choose to believe that the lunar rover, footprints, LEMs, and flags on the moon will someday be added as US National Historic Parks! That is, if we can restore the economic and national vigor to the US of A! Let’s start with the least expensive forms of energy available and get this wonderfully inventive industrial machine rolling again!
We don’t need no negative waves, Dave!
OddBall – ‘Negative Waves’, Kelly’s Heros
This Nut likes the way Odd Ball thinks!
As a chemist I am in favor of not using hydrocarbons for producing electricity if there are better alternatives. The stuff is too useful for things like plastic.
Hydro is probably the best alternativebut the possibilities in the USA are exhausted or “Protected”
Windmills aka bird and bat shredders cost more in energy to manufacture than they will probably produce. http://www.windpowerfraud.com/
Solar Panels: The first problem of course is they only work during the day and therefore need some sort of storage (battery). However there is another problem everyone over looks and that is the fact that solar panels have to be manufactured and use things like copper, indium, gallium, selenide, or Cadmium Telluride. The rare earths have to be mined and currently the main supplier is China who is limiting the supply. So you are still stuck with a “Finite supply” problem as well as the importing problem. (Tellurium is one of the rarest minerals found in the earth’s crust.) On top of that Cadmium Telluride is a carcinogen ( http://www.osha.gov/dep/greenjobs/index.html) and Cadmium is highly toxic and a carcinogen.
Biofuel might be useful for supplementing vehicle fuel but I rather see it as compost for growing crops. (use the methane?)
So unless Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat is for real, we are left with Nuclear as a large scale energy producer. And if we are going to go nuclear investing in a good thorium nuclear design only makes sense. That is why India, Russia, the USA and China are all working on Thorium and the UK was considering it.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/energy/nuclear/is-thorium-the-nuclear-fuel-of-the-future
(Updated 11 November 2011) World Nuclear Assoc. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf62.html
Thorium in the USA (September 23, 2011) http://www.investmentu.com/2011/September/thorium-the-future-of-nuclear-power.html
Even the Guardian UK has a neutral to positive article on thorium (1 November 2011) http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/01/what-is-thorium-nuclear-power?INTCMP=SRCH
LazyTeenager says:
November 16, 2011 at 8:03 pm
“And then tries to game the system with support from the WUWT readers.”
I came. I read. I voted. What’s your beef, Lazynager?
They asked us to read, comprehend, and participate in their on-line, non-scientific poll. It’s similar to the UNIPCC reports, except only an ‘select group’ was invited to vote in that non-scientific poll! The Economist’s poll was at least openly offered and honestly responded to.
Aw, just forget it. You will never learn. Besides, it’s time to throw a big oak knot on the fire in the wood stove (it’s below normal cold here, as most of the year has been) and get to bed.
‘To sleep, perchance to dream… ‘
For Robert Brown
When I built my new farm house in central Alberta 8 years ago, I considered solar panel power as an option in addition to thick double insulated walls and a geothermal water to water heat exchanger. I priced out solar photovoltaics with consideration of the need for storage at night and during blizzards and consulted with a relative who provides solar systems for locations remote from power lines. I live 110 km from the nearest city but only a few metres from a power line serving oil wells in the area. All in, the cost of PV’s inverter and batteries and housing was in the 6 figures. It would NEVER pay for itself. In fact, it would never pay for the interest on the capital. Not in this location with low winter light and 40 below temperatures. The interest on the capital would be more than the annual cost of electricity from the grid. The decision was simple. Maybe prices have dropped dramatically in the last 8 years, but I doubt they have dropped that much. Maybe if one had different well pumps, different refrigeration and different appliances and LED lighting it could be made to work, but not in a conventional house that you might want to sell someday. Perhaps it could work in the southern US, but not in this climate where snow often makes my existing PV panels inoperative.
( I have several PV systems around the farm for aeration, pumping and fencing applications. )
(And I just checked module prices on the Internet – it’s still a 6 figure project.)
Philip Bradley says:
November 16, 2011 at 3:14 pm
…..Some of us understand that all of our food comes from dirt. Characterizing power as to whether its source is ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ makes as much sense as characterizing food as coming from a ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ source.
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The super market predators are trying to make food not come from “Dirt” too.
Food Safety’s Scorched Earth Policy: http://farmwars.info/?p=1284
Talk about being unfriendly to the environment as well as idiotic! Unfortunately the law passed and now the bureaucratic regulation writers are getting ready to make this type of policy law.
(Environmental types take note we can still kill the idiocy at the federal register level as each regulation comes up.)
The warming from CO2 is going to come in real handy for our ancestors at the scheduled start of the next ice age. I can’t think of a better gift for them. Think of the future and future generations.
Voted No!
Jon says:
November 16, 2011 at 8:21 am
“And I remain amazed at how the energy/climate alarmists will not concede (are ‘in denial’) that the human influence on climate can be positive, not only negative, from an ecological and economic perspective.”
I’d be interested in some “positive” ecological impacts that humans have had on our planet … can you list any?
Well Jon, WW III would have large negative enviromental results. So far the 110 PPM juman caused additional CO2 has allowed crops worldwide to grow 10% to 15% more food on the SAME amount of land with the SAME amount of WATER. Future CO2 increases accelerate this benefit, while any warming is reduced. Sp, without the current human caused benefit enjoyed by all things green on the planet, right now water and food wars (likely WWIII) would be in process.
The most certain way to increase the capacity to deal with enviromental issues, reduce population, increase standards of living, is to make energy as cheeply as possible, and follow common sense anti monoply regulations within a free market while investing in and improving alternative energy technology WITHOUT mandating that it be used, waiting until the market accepts it do to it as efficiency and the freemarket dictates. Anyone claiming the invisible hand of Adam Smith is not real is in denial of human nature. The harms of CO2 are hypothetical, the BENEFITS are KNOWN.
“Such is the nature of the Tyrant, when he first appears he is a protector.” Plato.
Yes we are part of this planet .. a natural part … but with no controls on our population other than what we choose to impose on ourselves (barring the odd pandemic). There are many examples of species on planet earth that have suffered serious declines because of over population, resulting in habitat degredation. We are doing great harm to the environment around us and we will eventually have to pay the bill. My comments were nothing to do with environmentalism etc … just common sense!
p.s. Mariss … how can you read so much into my question … your world is obviously fictional!
Does anybody know the barrel of oil equivalent of a ton of biomass? How many tons of biomass would it take to make a serious impact on our oil usage? How much land would it take to grow that much biomass?
The problem with biomass is two-fold. The first problem is we don’t currently have any way to economically convert biomass into usable fuel. The second issue with biomass is the is the energy-density is too low. Fossil fuels are compact, energy-dense fuels. Biomass is voluminous and has a very low energy-density. It takes a lot of biomass to replace a barrel of oil. It takes a lot of land to grow that biomass and even if we’re talking about not using cropland, it’s still a lot of land area. Of course you have to harvest it, process it and distribute it.
@Robert Brown says:
November 16, 2011 at 11:48 am
I haven’t the time to refute you point-by-point in detail here. I’ll just summarize by saying you’re premises are almost all incorrect and it’s therefore no wonder you’re conclusions are wrong.
Scarcity – Which is scarcer, fossil fuels, which the USA and the possess in abundance, or the rare earth elements alternate energy requires?
Equity – Collectivism has failed, in every incarnation. You can make a commune work, but only if dissenters and misfits are free to leave and be replace by new recruits.
Economic fascism, which is what Mussolini created in order to overcome the shortcomings of socialism, failed as well, but many modern countries are trying to make it work, anyway. The conceit of the progressives is that it could be made to work, if only the right people (such as yourself), were in charge.
Jon, you can find one example of what we (i.e. the humans) can do against overpopulation in the PRC: Their one child policy. The whole concept of “overpopulation” is frequently used to justify a variety of things and has nearly as many flaws to it as the concept of CO2 driven CAGW. Malthus was wrong in his time, and he still is wrong now! This planet couldn´t care less about the species which populate it, it is only us (humans) who might care. And if we were to “suffer serious declines because of over population” – well, we then would have to do something about it. At present, people suffer NOT because of exhausted resources, but because of a seroiusly flawed, unbalanced distribution of resources. The above is of course a side-step from the topic – the renewable energy debate at the Economist.
The PRO side in the Economist debate uses the BEST preliminary PR effort to claim that even the sceptics admit global warming. This shows just what the BEST effort is good for (so far)! I also find it astonishing that the one journal who was most committed to “Free market – free trade – low key government” has now changed sides and opines for subsidies, governmental interference with the market. Who would have thought this.
I’ve sent several messages to the Economist, challenging their approach to AGW and asking why they made a “house” decision to support the concept. No answer of course.
In early 2007, the Economist published an even-handed article, stating both sides of the issue. At they end, though, they suggested that we phase out fissil fuel plants and that we had enough time to do so before we approached the 540 ppm of CO2 that “scientists suggest is an acceptable upper limit.” Now, they defend the AGW concept at every turn. Why? Will they regret doing that at some point?
Jon says:
November 17, 2011 at 4:37 am
Yes we are part of this planet .. a natural part … but with no controls on our population other than what we choose to impose on ourselves (barring the odd pandemic). There are many examples of species on planet earth that have suffered serious declines because of over population, resulting in habitat degredation. We are doing great harm to the environment around us and we will eventually have to pay the bill. My comments were nothing to do with environmentalism etc … just common sense!
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If you bothered to look you would find the best way to halt over population and the protection of the environment is to promote western industrialized civilization including access to cheap energy.
Poor third world countries are agrarian societies that depend on agriculture as the primary means for support. For these farmers, children are unpaid help. For example my Ex was driving a tractor by the age of five. This means a large family is seen as a positive were children add to the family’s fiscal bottom line.
In an industrial society most live in the city or suburbs where children are a drain on the family finances. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a middle-income family may spend $226,920 to raise a child born in 2010 to the age of 18″ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-09/u-s-child-born-in-2010-may-cost-226-920-to-raise-usda-says.html
The CIA’s total fertility rate (TFR) by country shows this is true. The listing goes from Niger with a TFR = 7.60 to Japan (1.21) Taiwan (1.15) Singapore (1.11) Hong Kong (1.07) and Macau (0.92)
The replacement rate is 2.1 and 105 out of the 222 countries listed, like the EU countries, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and China, are at or below 2.1. Another 35 are below 2.5. These include Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and the like. The other large well known country, India is a TFR = 2.62
The countries with the high birth rates are generally Africa, S.E. Asia and the middle east to Asia. Most are desperately poor with a high death rate for children and malnutrition for those who live. “In developing countries, almost one out of every 15 children will die before they reach the age of five” http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/child_hunger_facts.htm
The UN reports ““Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most troubling geographic area…. 1 in every 6 children dies before age five…. Nearly 10 million children under five died worldwide in 2006, according to a new report. That is a daily rate of 26,000 deaths.” http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jan2008/mort-j31.shtml
Also “the total fertility rate (TFR)…gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age.” This means the numbers maybe skewed in countries were women die of famine, childbirth complications, disease or low class status. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html
If only they would bring back Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom to Nick at Nite maybe we wouldn’t have so many people with such unreal ideas of nature. Nature is never in balance for very long, if ever.
How is it when a herd of deer overbreeds, it’s natural. When humans do it, it’s unnatural?
Name a species that doesn’t expand to it’s limits. Name a species that voluntarily controls it’s population. Name a species that doesn’t have an impact on the environment.
As an old subscriber to The economist, I normally read their online debates. I voted against their motion and enjoyed Mr Bradley`s clear arguments against it. BTW, the voting closed narrowly in our favor.
In the debate of CC The Economist is clearly biased in favor of CAGW. A little strange, since the title of the magazine is “The Economist!?”
For many years, I was subscribed to New Scientist as well but I couldn`t stomach their pro CAGW bias and I canceled the subscription three years ago. I hope, The Economist will not push me so far again…