Guest post by David Middleton
Vox’s David Roberts actually wrote a useful article. Since there is a slim chance that Hillary Clinton might be America’s first woman and second Marxist President, her views on climate and energy are worth examining. Thankfully, Mr. Roberts’ article contains plenty of material worthy of ridicule… And I like ridiculing people like Mr. Roberts and Mrs. Clinton. So, without further ado…
Media coverage of the Democratic primary has not shed much light on Hillary Clinton’s proposals for climate change and clean energy policy.
But oh, she has proposals. Lots of them! I read the white papers. And I called the campaign to talk through some of the specifics and the broader political thinking that informs them.
Her plans haven’t gotten much press — not as much as, say, her gaffe about coal miners — but they are exhaustive. In fact, they are quintessentially Clintonesque, rich with wonky detail, conversant with the policy levers available, and careful, always, to stay within the bounds of the politically possible (as she sees it).
I’m going to break this down as a series of numbered lists — not one, not two, but five lists of three:
- The three key facts the campaign took as starting points
- The three overarching goals of the plan
- Three numerical targets by which the success of the plan will be judged
- Three strategies to get there
- Three issues (e.g., fracking) environmentalists are keen to hear more about
All the juicy policy stuff is in part four, so skip down there if you just want the nuts and bolts.
The three key facts the campaign took as starting points
1) Climate change is a serious problem that requires hitting the targets promised in Paris.
Clinton agrees with Bernie Sanders (and exactly zero of the 17 Republicans who ran for president) that climate change is “an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time.” According to the campaign, meeting that challenge means, at a very minimum, hitting the greenhouse gas targets President Barack Obama pledged before the international community at the Paris climate talks: 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
[…]
3) The next president must do more, and Congress won’t be much help.
The measures Obama has put in place do not currently have the US on a trajectory to hit its 2025 goal, much less the more ambitious goals that lie beyond it. So the next administration must do more.
And Congress — or at least the House of Representatives — is likely to be controlled by Republicans in 2016, which means comprehensive climate and energy legislation will be off the table. As campaign chair John Podesta told National Journal last year, “In the short term, the chances of this Congress becoming a real partner with an administration” on climate change policy are “small.”
And as Clinton has said, “Climate change is too urgent a threat to wait on Congress.” So she’s developed a strategy that doesn’t require waiting.
The three overarching goals of the plan
[…]
2) Make sure the transition works for all Americans.
A transition of this scale will not work without broad political buy-in. That means engineering a shift to clean energy that, in Clinton’s words, “doesn’t leave anyone out or behind.”
According to the campaign, that means a number of things: economic development for coal communities, a focus on low-income households and communities of color, expanding union density in the clean energy space, and helping states figure out net metering and retail rate design issues.
Coal communities are particularly important to Clinton, who mentions them on the stump frequently. She just returned from a two-day tour through Appalachian coal country, in which she spoke at length about her plan to “revitalize coal communities.” That plan was one of the first pieces of energy policy she released.
[…]
Let’s pause here for a moment.
This:
“The next president must do more, and Congress won’t be much help… And Congress — or at least the House of Representatives — is likely to be controlled by Republicans in 2016, which means comprehensive climate and energy legislation will be off the table.”
Plus this:
“Make sure the transition works for all Americans. A transition of this scale will not work without broad political buy-in. That means engineering a shift to clean energy that, in Clinton’s words, ‘doesn’t leave anyone out or behind.'”
Equals mind boggling idiocy.
Congress is elected by the people she expects to “buy in” to the destruction of our economy in a Quixotic effort to end the natural variability of Earth’s climate. The House of Representatives is the most directly elected branch of our Federal government. The people she expects to “buy in” are electing people to Congress who won’t authorize the trillions of dollars of new welfare programs (“economic development for coal communities, a focus on low-income households and communities of color, expanding union density in the clean energy space, and helping states figure out net metering and retail rate design issues.”) she expects to dole out in exchange for the “buy in.”
The phrases “bread and circuses” and “you can’t get there from here” come to mind.
Back to Fantasyland…
Three numerical targets by which the success of the plan will be judged
Clinton pledges that within 10 years of her taking office, the US will (quoting from her campaign website):
-
“Generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Hillary’s first term.” (That would mean installed solar PV capacity of 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020, up 700 percent from current levels and well beyond most forecasts.)
-
“Cut energy waste in American homes, schools, hospitals and offices by a third and make American manufacturing the cleanest and most efficient in the world.” (The campaign estimates this would save Americans about $8 billion a year in energy and health care costs.)
-
“Reduce American oil consumption by a third through cleaner fuels and more efficient cars, boilers, ships and trucks.”
I could have shortened this list to one item:
- You people need to stay home and freeze in the dark!!!!!
This is even more mind boggling in its idiocy than the “buy in” bit…
“Generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Hillary’s first term.” (That would mean installed solar PV capacity of 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020, up 700 percent from current levels and well beyond most forecasts.)”
140 GW of solar panels will generate about as much electricity as 35 GW of coal- or gas-fired generation. This wouldn’t even be a “drop in the bucket”…
While I have no idea what Donald Trump’s plans are regarding energy and climate change, Mrs. Clinton’s are worse than those of the current occupant of the White House.
References
Statistical Review of World Energy 2015, BP
Electricity Generating Capacity, U.S. EIA
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Key starting point number one does not even bother to mention human caused climate change. That is the major sleight of hand fail that thinking people need to confront. Key starting point number two is more egregious because 99 percent of energy policy under Obama has been targeting large tax credits to the rich for the over priced rooftop version of solar and overpriced electric vehicles for the rich. If anyone calling the shots in the policy adventure had any brains or fairness, they would have steered CARB and DoE to more practical variants of vehicles and solar to be much further down the road than today. If they had bothered to think, we might not have another truck and SUV buying rush that we currently have. A middle ground approach with enhanced hybrids with larger batteries and community- or utility-scale solar instead of the 2x or 4x cost versions on the roof would have done 10x more by now. But then the standards for U.S. and German energy policy making any sense is so low it’s understandable, especially from an advocacy-driven development process.
Cue the flying monkeys.
BTW, CARB objectives for automakers offering zero emission vehicles diverted billions of industry dollars that could have helped with common sense solutions for the masses like incremental hybrid development and community- or utility scale solar for the masses in place of solar for hedge fund manager rooftops.
She was for climate change before she was against it. Or was that the war in Iraq?
BTW, memories, eh?
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205
I think you forgot to mention that she wants to outlaw Fracking…now that would be a big deal if it actually happened…
she wants to outlaw Fracking
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only two reasons the US has been able to cut down on coal use:
1. economic meltdown
2. fracking to replace coal with methane.
without option 2, you are left with only option 1.
Since I work the Gulf of Mexico, primarily the Plio-Pleistocene plays, where “fracking” isn’t really essential (at least not on a shale scale), I should be a supporter of Bernie or Hillary, because a fracking ban would kill the shale plays and drive oil and natural gas prices through the roof… Oddly enough, I am not a Bernie/Hillary supporter
And when all of Hillary Clinton’s command economy wet dreams fail, a bunch of families will have to move in together to share expenses, not unlike that scene in “Dr. Zhivago.”
It is a “sure thing” that Lady Hillary’s plans will make things worse.
There is a chance that “The Donald’s” results might not.
communities of color
===========
white is a color
First of all it’s party policy not Hillary. The only aspect that concerns a particular leader is the number of times per week beating the climate drum and the severity of the stupidity reading the advocacy scripts available to her. So let’s be grown up and get away from the notion of picking individual leaders in a beauty contest. It’s strictly party line doctrine on an eight year plan. Oh and the science was manhandled long ago to fit the political objectives along with a few Grubber-type science names to fill in the blanks. The useful idiots have all be assigned their respective duties by the Ministry of Truth.
I read an article recently where the author pointed out that the initial calculations of the Planck effect climate sensitivity of CO2 was too much by a factor of about 20. What was neglected was the fact that adding that much CO2 to the atmosphere will lower the dry lapse rate which is a cooling effect. So instead of a Planck effect sensitivity of more than one degree C it is really less then .1 degrees C, a trivial amount. Then one must factor in feedbacks which must be negative for the climate to have been as stable as it has been over the past 500 million years. enough for life to evolve. With a climate sensitivity of CO2 actually near zero, and attempt to reduce CO2 in our atmosphere will have no effect on climate. So what Hillary wants to do will have no effect on climate. Then there is the question: who is going to pay for all that Hillary wants to do? I estimate that the money the federal government is borrowing today will end up costing the tax payers more than 12 times the amount borrowed to repay it over the next 170 years. Hillary is applying for the job of the federal government’s CEO. She needs to present her plan for the federal government to get out of debt. The tax payers have a right to know how much all this federal borrowing is really costing them.
LOL “slim chance”
“Her plans haven’t gotten much press — not as much as, say, her gaffe about coal miners…”
That wasn’t a gaffe, unless David Roberts believes that telling the truth about what you actually think is a gaffe. Is there anyone who thinks Hillary doesn’t really want to put coal companies out of business?
“…expanding union density in the clean energy space…”
Now there’s a hint about what they’re really up to. If they can use taxpayer money to create a vast clean-energy sector and make sure it is fully unionized, they couldn’t care less how much it costs or how much reliable energy it produces. It will allow them to buy votes with tax money, which to them is limitless and free. In fact, the more useless clean-energy companies are, the more dependent they will be on government funding, the more employees will vote Democrat, and the more their unions will kickback some of the money to Democrats as political donations to keep subsidies flowing. Why would Democrat politicians like Hillary use their own money to buy votes when they can get taxpayers to do it for them?
She could better finance 35GW of nuclear power plants. They should cost something in between $175bl and $245bl, and be something in between 21 and 31 all-American-made big-size reactors (e.g. AP1000 and ABWR). Not to mention the chance to implement small modular reactors industry, for smaller communities or to supply power to energy-thirsty industrial plants (e.g. steel mills, chemical plants, desalinization plants). A big but affordable plan to be in 8 years.
Ah sorry, I forgot that she will better follow environmentalist lobbies like Greenpeace rather than “enviromentalist-scientists” like Hansen or Lomborg…
The first major step in both Obama’s and potentially Clinton’s efforts to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions does not rest with politically correct but large irrelevant wind and solar energy. It rests with an attack on coal-fired electricity generation and, through this, on both consumers of that electricity (whose costs will rise substantially) and the domestic coal producers who will lose their markets (at least until they find new ones in the several developing countries that are greatly expanding coal-fired power generation). Surprisingly few people are aware of how widespread is the use of coal for power generation in the U.S. Over 35 states make extensive use of it, with the largest users being Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and West Virginia. In terms of coal producers, Wyoming is by far the largest, distantly followed by West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Montana, Texas and Indiana. This gives an indication of the states whose people would be most adversely affected by a continuation of Obama climate policies.
Bob Lyman
And, if you are familiar with US politicas, the producing states, and the consumer states, regularly vote republican in presidential and local elections, and hence are the natural target for Oboma’s (and Bill Clinton’s and Hillary Clinton’s) enthusiastic efforts at detroying their jobs, their lives, and their economies.
However, Obama and Clinton donors WILL CONTINUE to get subsidies and support in their economic practices: Warren Buffet donates tens of millions annually (and gives publicity work worth billions to his Washington enablers) and employs thousands of union robot voters in his railroads now dragging Canadian tar sand products across the United States. Further, those railroad trains drop their oil off at union-robot-manned wharves, shipping ports, ships, and canals and canal tank farms at each storage and transshipment point.
Why was Keystone pipeline used to promote CAGW hysteria?
The Keystone pipeline is a pollution threat?
No, the pipeline was opposed BECAUSE it would provide the “wrong kind” of jobs to the “wrong people” voting in the “wrong states.”
…“an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time.”
More like, “an urgent opportunity and the defining excuse of our time.” As codswallop goes, this one sleeps with the fishes.
Hilary Clinton Climate Change
Has she got any Emails on her Private Server about the subject