At the Crossroads III: Energy and Climate Policy Summit.
Our country stands at a crossroads of two incompatible forces. On one side is the historical opportunity our country now has to become the world’s energy superpower while restoring vigorous economic growth and full employment. On the other side is coercive federal and state policy to supplant fossil fuels and thus block the energy boom and the economic resurgence it promises. Join the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Heritage Foundation on December 8, 2016 in Washington, DC for: “At the Crossroads III: Energy and Climate Policy Summit.”
We will soon have a new President and new Congress. At the Crossroads III will bring together national policy makers and leading energy experts to learn what the future will hold and to develop strategies for what will likely be the most decisive fight in our generation – the fight for the American dream as we know it.
The schedule. crossroads-summit-2016-agenda-updated-12-1-16 (PDF)
Watch the livestream starting today from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m EST.
Hopefully we are on the verge of a new era of climate realism
The “crossroads” is a false dilemma caused by fallacious arguments about the importance of GHG.
Since cutting all US CO2 will only make a few hundredths of a degree difference in one hundred years, there is no crossroads, nor fork in the road.
FALSE PROBLEM.
Climate change was, is, and always will be a political scam with different political agendas for different actors and with political ideology goals.
The climate part is just a means to that end to dupe an otherwise naive public. The anomaly temperature of the Earth is a meaningless concept scientifically.
So the problem IS real. And climate scam must be eliminated like a boil or a single tumor, before it kills the host.
We have to change the narrative to do that, its not that we are anti-environment, in fact most of us are more interested in protecting the environment than the eco-loons are.
No it’s not a crossroad or a forked road. The Washington beltway is just an overgrown round-about – endlessly looping – going nowhere. “May they ride forever ‘neath the streets of Washington – may they never, no never return!”
The next big energy plays are the –
separation of hydrocarbons from sand and plant derived matter using solvents (all will be less expensive than tight and shale oil extraction down hole). Such solvents are benign to the environment.
a new understanding of anti-matter for positron/electron annihilation.
hydro electrical generation from major untapped sources of potential energy.
carbon based super caps and flow batteries for power stations.
Windmills and solar cannot ever compete with these new forms of energy without political interference. They are simply far cleaner, far less expensive in both capex and opex and fit into existing grid infrastructure and distribution models. They also allow us to migrate to other planets.
Geoff, check out recent developments in ceramic super capacitors. They far exceed what the carbon based ones can hope for. Prof Krstic is one working on this. Under 20 kg of ceramic holds more charge than a 535 kg Tesla battery. Lithium is toast.
Trump has a way to bring back the control of the destiny of the Western nations. Just go for being the Wests energy supplier. Cheap energy will bring back manufacturing it will curtail the Saudi and Russian problems that they bring to the West.Go Trump, Go energy Go USA.
Cheap energy is a good start.
It won’t do any good unless he also solves the tax and regulatory problems that are much more expensive to business.
In Ontario, Canada, wind turbine construction is exempt from Ontario building codes and inspections. And no Ontario government inspections after construction.
At Barbara,
The government of Ontario is probably the most corrupt and incompetent that our country has ever seen.
Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) are the answer to that problem.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Letter by Dr. Richard Mann, an engineer, Dec.5, 2016
Re: An infra-sound study at U.Waterloo, Canada
https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~mannr/Letter%20to%20Erica%20Clark.pdf
Barbara~ Those 600-foot-tall turbines in our area just became active two months ago…. and one of them is already going clunk-CLUNK-clunk about every ten seconds or so.
It’s not just infra-sound that can cause “noise” problems for nearby residents but also other “noise” produced by wind turbines as well.
Now an engineer and others are working on infra-sound which is a scientific study that is underway.
What’s the time now?
I make it: 08:39:24EST – and I can hear the odd “background” voice – but no real sound and no picture.
I’m now overhearing a conversation in which it appears they are talking about an event from 9:30 to 10:45
According to post below it is central time. It is now: 07:59 Central time.
I’m seeing folks milling around smartly now.
Oh and we’re going to need a refocus on real science, real science education, and identification skills for recognizing fake science to go with globalized advocacy for politicized science.
A fight for cheap energy? A must. Our standard of living had been improving for almost 3 centuries in line with energy getting cheaper and cheaper. Until now.
All sources of energy are free; what makes energy costly is the labor needed to change that potential energy into a usable form – heat or electricity. In other words, the highest productivity per employee wins. Consider, for example, that 130 employees are needed in solar plants where just one suffices for the same electricity production in nuclear plants. Counting about $100,000 per employee for salary and benefits = $13 million extra expenses. In summary:
Nuclear 2000 kW per employee
Fossil fuels 1300 kW/e.
Wind 250 kW/e.
Solar 15 kW/e.
Person pedaling bycicle generator: 0.2 – 1.0 kW/e
Anti-matter 2,000GW per employee
OMG! You’re planning on using employees as fuel!? You’re heartless!
Proceedings start at 8:30AM, according to the schedule. This is taking place in Texas – in the CENTRAL time zone – folks. Adjust yourselves accordingly.
Me thinks it was stated in the above, that one should:
“Join the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Heritage Foundation on December 8, 2016 in Washington, DC for: “At the Crossroads III: Energy and Climate Policy Summit.””
And that would be Eastern Standard Time, which is right this minute …. 9:20 AM.
So, given the above “time stamp” on my post, that “time stamp” is signifying the Mountain Time Zone, to wit:
http://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/united-states-time-zone-map.gif
Hmm… I would have thought ‘renewable’ is the world energy boom going on…
India is installing huge amounts of solar, as is China…
There is no way that the US coal power industry is going to revive (especially given competition from natural gas).
The Netherlands just announced no more non-EVs after 2035… US will be left in backward isolation.
You are either a comedian or you are seriously deluded.
Our friend Griffy is going to need a 12-step program to get him off the Greenie Koolaid.
Here’s a smallish, but important interview with someone who actually knows what they’re talking about ..
There are many fortune 100 companies going renewable -this article gives some indication (of these companies, 22 have committed to powering all their operations from renewable energy).
https://cleantechnica.com/2016/12/07/renewable-energy-demand-among-fortune-500-100-companies-growing-quickly/
If you think that’s a biased site, go check directly on some company websites.
Proctor & Gamble and General Motors don’t seem like lefty/green concerns to me…
Isn’t that cute, Griffie actually believes that whatever is in a press release must be true.
What was the price of natural gas in 2003 ?
What was the price of natural gas in 2008 ?
How many rigs are currently drilling for natural gas ?
How many rigs were drilling for natural gas in 2008 ?
No idea. google it.
Standard & Poor and the Economist Intelligence Unit have both published reports in the last month saying Trump cannot revive US coal power, largely due to natural gas…
Griffie actually believes that the world never changes. Whatever is true today, will be true 100 years from now.
Ah, the sounds of comedic interlude in the morning.
Great start – I’ll be smiling all day!
Just to be clear, my above is @Griff.
‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands…’
On with the community singing!
One of my favourite cartoons has two cavemen talking:
We live in something close to utopia. Why? One necessary condition is cheap reliable energy. Solar and wind aren’t going to provide that without major breakthroughs. We’ve been working on those technologies long enough that all the low hanging fruit has been picked. Everything obvious has been tried. The necessary breakthroughs aren’t coming any time soon.
The greens push a simple self-sufficient life. The problem is that such a lifestyle pushes one back toward the stone age. It usually results in greater pollution and greater human misery. It’s a lesson learned by the hippies in their countless communes.
Just about the simplest household technology is the toaster. It should be possible to build your own toaster … right? Someone did it from scratch. He even smelted his own ore. I leave it to you to judge the results. Self-sufficiency is highly overrated.
Greenies love the Hundred Mile Diet. It’s been debunked by scrupulous research documented in Locavore’s Dilemma. Small and local produces worse results by almost any criterion.
We live in utopian conditions because of technology and cheap energy. We would be gobsmackingly nuts to throw that away based on green pipe dreams. We would also be churlish to deny the same benefits to our brothers and sisters in the third world.
If America is left in isolation, it will not be backward isolation.
Ah, reminds me of the Chatterbox radio station in GTA III:
We’ll let the market determine that, rather then central planners trying to dictate what is best for everyone. Remember how poorly that always works out?
It really is fascinating how Griff keeps repeating the same disproven lies over and over and over again.
It’s almost as if his handlers have forgotten to reprogram him with the latest lies.
Mark, his handlers are still crying foul and re-electing people like Pelosi ( the gift that keeps on giving to the GOP)
Its just me – I have no handlers.
Your repeated insistence on this I could consider offensive, but I think it speaks more of your lack of counter argument, so I won’t bother complaining.
Griff complains that I have only refuted this argument 29 times, and this is the 30th time he has presented it.
India is installing huge amounts of solar…….
Griff, India imports almost 50% of it’s energy needs, gas, coal, petro…and that’s expected to double in the next 10 years
I don’t think so.
It plans for example to halt coal imports by 2020.
It is installing huge amounts of solar, isn’t it?
Griffie, the coal isn’t going away. One of two things is going to happen.
1) More people shift to gas, causing demand to increase, which in turn causes gas prices to rise.
2) Sometime in the future, gas reserves start dropping as it is used up, causing the price of gas to rise.
When either 1 or 2 occurs, people will start shifting back to coal.
Basic economics, something which your average leftist never manages to understand.
One thing people tend to forget about NG is that the infrastructure has to be in place. Running pipeline, just for starters ran about $4 million/mile 5 years ago, so could be around $5 million now. Here in New England, for example, there is a demand for NG, but due to various difficulties in getting pipelines built to supply it, it’s not happening. Currently, New England imports LNG, which is much more expensive. More here:
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/new-england-need-natural-gas-pipeline-capacity/
The bottom line is, we very definitely still need coal, and I see a resurgence in coal under the Trump administration.
Gas exports will push N American prices toward world levels and coal will become very, very competitive!
You and your fellow travelers are feeling the pressure I see. All the Fortune 500s will be switching back to fossil fuel reality now that they don’t have to curry favor and won’t be angling to cash in on gov renewables largess. Oh you may be right that gas will be super abundant and cheap enough to push coal into hibernation. So be it. This is in fact rationality at its best and how things are supposed to work. Make solar even cheaper, more reliable and with reduced land surface requirements (that is a cost, too) and the market will welcome it without a fuss. The giant has awakened and this will be for a long time.
Gary
you can put solar on your roof, on your factory roof, over your parking lots… there is no land surface requirement issue with solar.
Sure you can Griffie, however that roof top will only create a few percent of the electricity needed. Especially if you don’t live in an area with much solar potential. You know, the places where most people actually live.
@Griff
Given that energy costs are a major factor in the production of so many things, it actually would be the rest of the world that would be left backward. Then it wouldn’t just be people from third world countries who are desperately trying to immigrate into the US–people from those formerly advanced countries would also be trying to move into countries that wisely rejected greenist delusions.
Of course none of the above will happen. When people in greenist democracies realize how much better off people are becoming in countries with sane energy policies, they’ll ditch those delusions so that they won’t be “left in backward isolation.” Perhaps they’ll call it a “Grexit” whenever that comes to pass in a given country.
Well, installing solar allows companies to fix their costs for a 25 year period … they seem to find that very attractive.
and don’t forget the other side of sustainability is they also reduce demand by LED lighting and demand reduction measures. check out what Walmart have done…
Sure they can Griffie, so long as the government keeps paying 3/4ths the cost of that installation.
Of course fixed cost assumes that the thing lasts as long as warranted and that it never needs any maintenance.
But who cares for the real world, we have a fantasy to sell.
See the ‘other side of the coin’ before you panic about the climate.
Trump has the opportunity to become the greenest world leader in the world, he just has to follow the lead of Peter Thiel, his Technology adviser. I’m already seeing some signs that is taking place. Gen. IV nuclear is the long term future of electrical production and cheap industrial heat. Save the oil for transportation, and natural gas for industrial feed stock.
The welcome and introductory remarks start at 9:15 (EST), and the program starts at 9:30.
There is an answer that might satisfy both camps. Nuclear power and molten salt reactors running on thorium, as Kirk Sorensen preach. Half price of current nuclear or a third cheaper than natural gas, and estimated development costs in single digit billion $ and it scales very well indeed.
IT’S JUST STARTED!
The price is not the only criterion. I.e. clean air is another. (I don’t count CO2 to the pollutants!)
Here in the west, coal was cleaned up 30 years ago.
Of some note as this live feed is running.
EDFGroup
The French massive electric power generation, transmission , distribution company. 80% of market in France and 30% of England.
They operate 80 to 90 nuke plants.
Huge new problems that include the steel forged as important parts of all or most of the plants (to much carbon)
which makes the steel to brittle!
Most of their nukes are nearing 40 years old and needing phased out.
They have shut down up to 18 to 20 if nuke plants ! They are using coal now
more than in the 1970’s/1980’s.
The also own a huge share of the wind mill farms here in U S.
See articles on the company in
The Economist Magazine in Nov and Dec.
The companies who made the steel in question may have faked the reports on the steel and this French power company was in on the cover up.
One large steel forge company in France and one in Japan!
Only way this company stays afloat is Goverment tax money!
France is buying power from other countries to keep from having black outs. Germany as we know is in power trouble.
The Climate Change Fraud has wrecked many things and the pain is going to be huge!
Why?
This rings a bell! Back approx. 20-25 years ago they had a similar problem with nukes in Ontario, Canada which was determined by AECL Canada to be caused by embrittlement from neutron bombardment on heat exchanger tubes if memory serves. I recall it as expensive to the point they considered mothballing the plants.
Germany is not in the least in power trouble. (It has the world’s most reliable grid)
It has been enthusiastically exporting power to France during their recent nuclear troubles…
The French government will shut down all coal plants by 2023:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-close-coal-plants-shut-down-2023-global-warming-climate-change-a7422966.html
Once again, Griffie keeps pushing lies that were discredited months ago.
The only reason why Germany’s grid is stable, is because they have lots of inter-ties with countries that haven’t swallowed the Green kool-aide.
Its the electricity equivalent of Liebensraum.
North America is not Germany. The U.S and parts of Canada have some of the most violent weather in the world.
Mother nature can wipe out renewable energy projects here in a matter of minutes. Do you call renewable energy projects reliable sources of electricity here?
Maybe it’s time Germany minds its own business when it comes to renewable energy in North America.
I presume the are a sceptical crowd.
The most important step to take is to amend the Clean Air Act (and other environmental laws) to clearly remove CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the purview of those laws. That will stop the EPA and other agencies from using it as an excuse to micromanage our lives.
God Bless Sen. James Inhofe (R- Oklahoma!)
So far, enjoying the presentations.
Listen to Senator Inhofe a short time ago on the live stream. Glad to hear that he and Dr. Lindzen are good friends and that Dr Lindzen has the senator’s ear on AGW.
Oops, listened, not listen. And I’m still wishing that Trump would choose Lindzen for his science advisor or part of his science advisory panel.
He doesn’t have the necessary breadth. A better choice would be Rud Istvan (Ristvan). (Sp?)
“Make Climate Great Again”
OMGosh!!!!
Way funny!
I don’t know about that one, since it’s already great, but I like the one about “Keep It In The Ground Is Bananas”:
Build
Absolutely
Nothing
Anywhere
Near
Anything
Why don’t we lose 2lb in weight if we expire 2lb of CO2 – because C=12 and O=16 so 12/44 of the weight is carbon. But we eat hydro-carbons – so the weight of food is not just carbon – so not quite that simple.
MY APOLOGIES-this has been at The Heritage Institute in DC (Eastern time zone); not in Texas (Central time zone). Apparently, all previous confabs co-sponsored by the Texas Policy Institute were in Texas. This is the third they’ve sponsored on the subject of climate change policy, their first in DC, but a host says the next may well be back in Texas.
The final afternoon panel, a host from Texas says these talks and lectures WILL be posted online soon. I hope to catch what I missed there! And I trust our esteemed host here, Anthony Watts, will share that information when it becomes available.
Thank you.
CORRECTION: the co-sponsor is Texas Public Policy Foundation – not “Texas Policy Institute” like I wrote (above). Sorry.
You are referring to the Senator who sold his vote to Clinton in exchange for a ride on the space shuttle.
I respect the risks he took as a young man. As an old man he did lots of damage to this country.
Sorry, that was supposed to be in response to schitzree and his comments on John Glenn.
Speaking of The Right Stuff, I just saw that John Glenn has past away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/john-glenn-dies.html?emc=edit_na_20161208&nlid=51928484&ref=cta&_r=0
He will be missed.
I’ve long maintained that the advanced “Integral Fast Reactor” (IFR), developed by Argonne National Labs, represented a real breakthrough…it burns up weapons grade material and nuclear waste, is inherently safe, and would be carbon negative (for those who care). Unfortunately, Pres. Bill Clinton killed it off….
http://www.ne.anl.gov/About/reactors/integral-fast-reactor.shtml
I’m not a nuclear physicist or engineer (so maybe I’m wrong here), but isn’t GE-Hitachi’s PRISM reactor a type of IFR? If I am not mistaken, I believe it is going through the process of NRC licensing right now (which I know takes many years)…….
http://gehitachiprism.com/what-is-prism/how-prism-works/.
“…..PRISM is a pool-type, metal-fueled, small modular Sodium Fast Reactor. PRISM employs passive safety, digital instrumentation and control, and modular fabrication techniques to expedite plant construction. A PRISM has a rated thermal power of 840 MW and an electrical output of 311 MW. Two PRISM reactors make up a power block that combined produce 622 MW of electrical output…..”
I know sodium behaves very badly when exposed to air and/or water, and I don’t know how much of a safety risk sodium (as a coolant) presents for the PRISM reactor.
“Our country stands at a crossroads”
Which country is “ours”?
From a biggish but unimportant (in the grand scheme of things) conference.
https://youtu.be/j4ZS50TU9vQ
Can I thank those who organised the conference and those who spoke. As ever I love to hear about the science, but what I found most impressive was the contributions from politicians like Lamar, Inhofe, Palmer which I found to be very measured and positive.
Indeed, having done some research which happened to involve looking at dredging in the UK – and through it the attitude of the environmental agency in the UK, I see the same arrogant, dismissive abusive use of “science” as in the US EPA. In short these agencies, apparently across the globe, are lawless entities that seem to have grabbed power.
So, I will look with interest to see what you find in the US: because more than likely we’ll have the same issues in the UK.
If you are talking about dredging in relation to UK flooding, then note lack of dredging has little to do with the considerable increase in UK serious flooding since 2000
that is a result of a change to the UK climate bringing more rainfall of a more intensive nature across the UK.
As usual, Griff repeats the lies he’s been given. Meanwhile, those who know what they are talking about have come to the opposite conclusion.
Do you have data to back that up Griff? Because the simplest exercise on Google requiring but a few seconds reveals it to be patently untrue.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=annual+rainfall+history+uk&rlz=1C1SVEF_enGB439GB439&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=648&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8r42tzufQAhVrBsAKHazMBh0Q_AUICCgD#imgrc=_
Only one thing worse than being lil griffie. That’s being lil griffie’s shadow. What a sad creature.
v’