Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Politico claims that efforts to formulate a joint G7 statement on energy policy were abandoned, because President Trump would not agree to guarantee the USA would remain signed up to the Paris Climate Agreement.
Trump’s climate demands roil U.S. allies
Documents show the administration pushed other G-7 countries to embrace larger roles for nuclear power and fossil fuels. They refused.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA 04/11/17 07:14 PM EDT
President Donald Trump’s abrupt turnaround on U.S. climate policy is fueling tension with several of America’s closest allies, which are resisting the administration’s demands that they support a bigger role for nuclear power and fossil fuels in the world’s energy supply.
The dispute blew up at this week’s meeting of G-7 energy ministers, at which Trump administration officials pushed to include stronger pro-coal, pro-nuclear language in a proposed joint statement on energy policy. The fight had been simmering behind the scenes for weeks as the White House, Energy Department and State Department clashed with negotiators from other G-7 countries over the statement, according to an internal document obtained by POLITICO and interviews with diplomats.
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The feud comes as Trump, who often touts his “America first” approach to foreign policy, is considering whether to pull the United States out of the climate change accord that the Obama administration and leaders of nearly 200 other nations negotiated in Paris in 2015. Some Trump advisers have suggested that he should remain in the deal — but in return, should demand concessions to aid the fossil fuel sector.
G-7 officials, led by the Europeans, refused to agree to stronger language touting fossil fuels without assurances from the United States that it would stay in the Paris climate change agreement, according to officials briefed on the discussions.
The U.S. emphasis on coal “was seen as an issue for all of us,” one G-7 country negotiator told POLITICO, noting that Canada, Europe and Japan all expressed frustration about the Trump administration’s position. The United States’ refusal to discuss or mention the Paris agreement in the joint statement was EU’s “biggest” red line during the meeting, the negotiator added.
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Asked for comment, a White House official said Trump “has emphasized the value of the U.S. energy sector as a strategic tool in U.S. foreign policy.” The official added: “All U.S. energy resources and technologies, including coal and nuclear, should play an important role in achieving universal access to affordable and reliable energy.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/trump-fossil-fuels-g7-tension-237129
A lot of people mischaracterise President Trump’s policies as an attack on renewables. President Trump’s stated goal is to lower the cost of energy, and ensure US energy security. If renewables can compete on cost with coal and gas, as advocates frequently claim, they will remain a welcome component of the US energy mix.
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6 of the 7 sticking to Paris and CO2 reduction and renewables then…
“6 of the 7 sticking to Paris and CO2 reduction and renewables then…”
Yeah, but they are all having second thoughts and Trump’s position is just going to make them think some more about where they have been, and where they are going. Their finely laid CAGW-busting plans are starting to run up against hard reality.
Ha! ‘Consensus’ appeal…… with no consensus.
C’mon Griffter, that con game is soooo ‘over’.
Surely you can do better than referencing a nontreaty nonagreement, to constrain the essential food of all plant life, and by food-chain extension, all Life on planet Earth?
CO2 makes the planet GREEN! No batteries needed…..
Numerous coal fired power plants are already mothballed or slated for shutdown due to MACT and/or regional haze regulations. Perfectably viable generation sources taken off line by these thinly veiled radical environmentalist tools and the use of sue and settle tactics. If Trump is serious about saving coal jobs and communities, he needs to revisit these issues. It’s not “sustainable” to idle a 1400 MW coal fired generating unit and replace it with a 1000 turbine wind generating facility and news transmission lines backed by newly constructed gas fired power capacity. IMHO it’s wasteful and a poor use of existing resources, not to mention economically damaging; much like cash for clunkers.
“considering whether to pull the United States out of the climate change accord that the Obama administration and leaders of nearly 200 other nations negotiated in Paris in 2015.”
____________________________________________
200 nations want to participate; and only 4 are willing to pay.
“That may not sit well with Democrats and environmental groups, who have long argued against spending billions of dollars to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants when the same money could help speed the transition to wind and solar power.”
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But that sits well with reasonable people who have long argued against spending billions of dollars for environmental groups when the same money is needed for a transition to a healthy economy.
“G-7 officials, led by the Europeans, refused to agree to stronger language touting fossil fuels without assurances from the United States that it would stay in the Paris climate change agreement, according to officials briefed on the discussions.”
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Thei’re free to refuse.
“EU’s “biggest” red line during the meeting, the negotiator added.”
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EU + Obama are known for their red lines others should hold.
EU red line! LOL. Gee they are getting tough. They are now making red lines that won’t show in a sea of red.
” If renewables can compete on cost with coal and gas, as advocates frequently claim, they will remain a welcome component of the US energy mix.” —
what’s not to understand here!
This falls under the heading of – you have to poke a sleeping bear. Trump has made no secret of his desire to ignore (there is no pulling out since it was not ratified by the Senate) the Paris Accord. So their lame excuse of “not knowing” indicates pure political speak for “never trust what a politicians says”.
Their problem is Trump is not a politician.
All CEOs are politicians.
“All CEOs are politicians.”
Not all (e.g., Steve Jobs and Henry Ford); and the ones that are “politicians” aren’t politicians in the sense that politicians are.
its a “lemming thing” really
they all KNOW that the climate accord is going to harm their economy/manufacturing/social structures.
that IS the intent.
so
it isnt as much as an honest and real worry about Co2 n climate
as a control and power grab that harms the majority for the benefit of few.
and if anyone doesnt join in and lose with them?
tsk tsk, suddenly their deep commitment to climate matters goes right away!
Without CO2 life could not exist on this planet, it is the most essential chemical compound known to mankind. One has to think about the level of insanity that lead to CO2 being declared an “pollutant”.
Trump is a very practical man. He doesn’t get bogged down in the weeds. His position on energy is extremely practical and rejects political ideology. In essence, “whatever works” that meets current law and economic reality. As far as Trumps philosophical position on coal is concerned, it simply needs to compete with other energy sources on an equal footing. Unfortunately for “Big Coal”, the economics for its continued use are being turned against it as the supply of fracked natural gas plummets, the cost of scrubbers escalates, and the cost for physical transportation of it makes it less and less economical.
In Oklahoma, OGE coal fired power plants are being converted to natural gas. Even though these plants are relatively close to the Powder River Basin coal mines, established Regional Haze standards pit the cost of scrubbers against the cost of conversion to natural gas. The gas comes from Oklahoma and Texas where the transportation cost is a pittance. It simply comes down to basic economics that will end our reliance on coal. People just won’t pay higher rates to keep a miner employed when there is a significantly cheaper alternative.
Not true, and also a red herring on your part. All anyone asks is that coal be allowed to compete on an equal footing. And coal most certainly is competitive with NG, although not in every case. The key to a free market system is competition. Without coal, NG prices would tend to spike more, and also tend to rise.
I live in Oklahoma and have a coal-fired powerplant on the other side of town, and there was talk a few years ago about converting over to natural gas, but the problem was doing so would increase the price of electricity, and so noone around here wanted to do it, so it is still being powered by coal, our rates haven’t gone up, and I haven’t heard any talk about turning it into a gas-fired facility lately. Not saying that’s not happening somewhere in Oklahoma, but it’s not happening here.
Smart utilities have to weigh the cost of conversion over the savings and estimate a pay back that is reasonable. If the payback is over 20 years, they normally would not do it unless mandated (read: anti-free market) by government. The price of Nat Gas over time is NOT known, but then neither is coal. However, the proven reserves of coal are a lot larger than for Nat Gas. So the price (again, barring government interference) is more predictable.
In case anyone is interested, the Energy Information Agency has updated its info on U.S. energy use by source as shown below. These are preliminary end of year totals for 2016.
Source: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3.
“……In 2016, about 4 trillion kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity (1) were generated at utility-scale facilities in the United States.(2) About 65% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases), about 20% was from nuclear energy, and about 15% was from renewable energy sources. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that an additional 19 billion kWh (or about 0.02 trillion kWh) of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2016.(3)
Major energy sources and percent shares of U.S. electricity generation at utility-scale facilities in 2016 (1)
Natural gas = 33.8%
Coal = 30.4%
Nuclear = 19.7%
Renewables = 14.9%
Hydropower = 6.5%
Wind = 5.6%
Biomass = 1.5%
Solar = 0.9%
Geothermal = 0.4%
Petroleum = 0.6%
Other gases = 0.3%
Other nonrenewable sources = 0.3%
Pumped storage hydroelectricity = -0.2% (4)
Notes:
(1) Preliminary data for 2016.
(2) Electricity generating facilities (power plants) with at least one megawatt (or 1,000 kilowatts) of total electricity generating capacity.
(3) Small-scale solar photovoltaic systems are electricity generators with less than one megawatt of electricity generating capacity that are usually at or near the location where the electricity is consumed. Most small-scale solar photovoltaic systems are installed on building rooftops.
(4) Pumped storage hydroelectricity generation is negative because most pumped storage electricity generation facilities use more electricity than they produce on an annual basis……”
Don’t recall the totals for earlier in the year, but I would guess that coal-sourced electricity is down and NG is up. Solar has “soared” all the way up to 0.9% after being at 0.6% earlier in the year (I still laugh). Nuclear dropped slightly to 19.7% because of the nuclear plant shutdowns.
Note that they list pumped hydro for the first time. It’s negative because it uses more juice than it produces. Interesting and probably not good news for wind and solar advocates—at least at this point in time.
These numbers are a little bit confusing. It looks like hydro, wind, biomass, solar and geothermal are all grouped together as “renewables”. Perhaps if those 5 were indented.
Oh, that is why they add over 100.
Remove the 5 individual renewables from the list, and it adds up to 100. The 5 individual renewables also add up to what is listed on the Renewables line.
The numbers add up over 100%
33.8 + 30.4 + 19.7 + 14.9 + 6.5 = 105.3
That’s because the renewables are being counted twice. Once individually, and once again under the category of renewables.
Yes, I should have taken the word ‘renewables=14.9%’ out of the list. The five items listed below it are the breakdown of the renewables that add up to 14.9%.
Sorry about the confusion.
I like seeing the breakdown of renewables. Either as a separate list, or indented to show dependency.
I don’t understand Note (4). Pumped storage isn’t generation; it’s storage. Why is it even on the list?
But if the power required to pump is from renewables, does that still count when it is used?
Hmmm, from LLNL 2015 Electricity Generation sources:
Solar 0.25 – 0.66%
Nuclear 8.34 – 21.93%
Hydro 2.38 – 6.26%
Wind 1.81 – 4.76%
Geothrml 0.16 – 0.42%
Nat Gas 9.99 – 26.27%
Coal 14.3 – 37.60%
Biomass 0.52 – 1.37%
Petrol 0.28 – 0.74%
Couldn’t have changed that much in 1 year. Somebody is wrong. I’ll put my money on Lawrence Livermore Labs.
These “advisers” are nothing but snakes in the grass, attempting to lead Trump astray. I hope he doesn’t fall for it, and promptly fires them.
renewables compete? the other one has bells on.
Scott Pruitt needs to follow up and reverse the “endangerment” ruling by the EPA concerning CO2, ASAP, to be exact, yesterday.
+1 How hard and fast is the ruling?
He should wait until after the April 22 March for Science, to avoid their attracting more participants by a provocation.
Solar power has reliability problems because they stick generators where the sun don’t shine. Plenty of uninterrupted* full power from a geosynchronous satellite. Of course, environmentalists would complain about endangered vacuum.
* except 80 minutes for a few days each spring and autumn.
Here is the way the world really works. 1) Defense spending among the G7 relies on US spending a lot more on ultimate protection, 2) Trade gains depend a lot on US not playing the behind the scenes games they play like industrial development strategy of killing the competition with government support, 3) Buy votes to stay in power with travel and leisure benefits based on items 1 and 2 above, and 4) Support bad and sometimes faked climate science agendas because items 1 and 2 enable it in their budgets and they might get a bonus out of the deal with even weaker US competitiveness and cash payments to third party countries that might buy their exports and services. Anything else is in the misc. column.
Bravo Trump!
Since the US Senate has not ratified the agreement the US is not a party to the agreement. No US President has the power to guarantee that the US will be a party to any agreement. That power is a power of the Senate and resides only in the Senate.
Can posters on the West coast of the USA check the accuracy of this report ?
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/california-solar-energy-investment-prices-negative_uk_58edefe7e4b0ca64d91a7f47?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001
Total BS. We received “climate credits” on a couple of our bills. These “credits” were derived from moneys taken from cap and trade fines levied against businesses and utility providers and ostensibly for the homeowners to spend the savings on energy savings devices. But we could spend them on anything. A full on Socialist program designed to buy the minds of homeowners to the advantages of supporting Climate Change activities enacted by the state. A total Robin Hood program where the victims were businesses, industry, and energy producers.
Thanks Mark for the reply, but does it mean that California did indeed for a short period fall into a negative cost situation for power?
“…but does it mean that California did indeed for a short period fall into a negative cost situation for power?….”
Not that I’m aware of. It just means they had excess power that went to waste. It’s impractical to reduce output of a power station for “just a couple of hours” on a moment’s notice so I don’t know where the cost savings would come from. We still haven’t figured out what to do with the excess electricity returned to the grid by homeowner PV panels. We allow credits against their grid usage but without storage the power is wasted as far as I know. This is just another California propaganda fluff piece on how ‘Green’ it is.
Reliable , affordable energy lifts people out of poverty. That’s what matters.
All the bullshit from Global Warming could fuel the Planet for a billion years.