By David Wojick |July 7th, 2020|Climate|
The U.S. House “Selects Committee on the Climate Crisis” is a symbolic committee, not a real one. It cannot draft and introduce legislation, which is what House Committees do. It is more of a study group and as such it has produced a study.
Well sort of. The document in question is not a Committee report. It is not even a Committee staff report. It is just a report by the Democrat half of the staff. In fact technically it is just a report to the nine Democrats on the Committee.
But for a nothing little report it is very big, detailed and wildly ambitious. In fact it dwarfs all previous nut bar climate action proposals I have ever seen.
In a way the title shouts it all — “SOLVING THE CLIMATE CRISIS“.
The subtitle is truly grand — “The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America“. Not just a plan, it is “the” plan.
The Plan itself is a whopping 547 pages long. The table of contents has over 100 entries, poking into many different parts of our economy and society. The detail, while foolish, is impressive. There is not a lot of fluff here.
To begin with, much of it is about just two things. First, making electric power net zero carbon emissions by 2040, which cannot possibly be done. Second, converting most other forms of combustion usage and power, especially transportation and industry, to being heated and powered with electricity. This means that the new electrical grid, intermittently powered by wind and sun, will have to provide something like twice as much reliable juice as today’s fossil fuelled system. It cannot be done.
The impossible goal is for the entire American economy to be net zero emissions by 2050.
But that is all just on the side of stopping climate change. There is also a whole bunch of things about dealing with it, because the hot models say that no matter how much we restrict or impoverish ourselves, we got it coming.
Of course all these things cost big money, but hey that means jobs, right? Democrats think costs are benefits because somebody gets the money. Where all this money comes from is not a consideration.
For example, flood insurance should be based on computer projected floods, not history. Coverage and premiums will definitely soar then. We will insure against floods that have never happened, and never will.
There is even stuff about paying people who want to move out of the way of climate change. I am not making this up.
There is much, much more, roughly one page for every word in this article. Multi-billion dollar sentences are everywhere you look. If you want a quick summary that covers all the big ticket items, it cannot be done. Fortunately this monster comes in PDF so you can at least search for specific items, if you know the language.
Speaking of language, there is even a “Definitions” section, because they want words to mean just what they want. There are some real mouthfuls (because lawyers have big mouths?). Here is an example:
“Environmental justice (EJ)
The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies to ensure that each person enjoys (1) the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards; and (2) equal access to any federal agency action on environmental justice issues in order to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, work, and recreate.”
Given that some jobs, places, and recreations, are more dangerous than others, I cannot see how everyone can have the same degree of protection from all environmental and health hazards. But it sure sounds good.
In summary, this tome is meaningless as it lays there. But it reveals a great many wacky ideas that might show up in future proposed legislation.
Be ever vigilant.
David Wojick Ph.D. is an independent analyst working at the intersection of science, technology and policy. For origins see
http://www.stemed.info/engineer_tackles_confusion.html
For over 100 prior articles for CFACT see
http://www.cfact.org/author/david-wojick-ph-d/ Available for confidential research and consulting.
I love that “Definitions section”. That reminds me :
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Such an obvious circular definition does not , in fact define anything. Except perhaps, their level of ignorance. They do not even realise they that they are officially admitting they do not even know what it means themselves.
In my ten years as an air quality regulator, I came to the conclusion that “environmental justice” is basically about repealing the laws of economics. It just isnt fair that poor people can’t buy expensive land farther away from heavy industries, or that industrial proje ts that need a lot of land will try to by inexpensive land which tends to be found in poorer parts of town. No, to be fair we need to put that new refinery in an expensive neighborhood where the project proponent will find land too expensive to proceed at all.
If the Democrats really believed in what they say about “climate change/global warming’ we would be hearing a lot more from them about Nuclear Power. In reality ‘climate change/global warming’ is just a stalking horse for Democrats’ inner political obsessions and fantasies.
They are endorsing nuclear. See page 46. Amazing.
Nuclear power is a zero-carbon source of electricity that made up 20% of the nation’s electricity
generation in 2019 and more than half of all zero-carbon electricity.112 The nuclear power sector
supported more than 70,000 jobs in the United States in 2019.
113
Above, the majority staff for the Select Committee recommends that Congress establish a federal
clean energy standard that would allow electricity generated from existing nuclear power plants to
qualify for credits. Nuclear power plants, however, are not pollution-free. They generate radioactive
waste that lasts for thousands of years and for which the United States has not developed a
permanent disposal solution.
This section offers recommendations to ensure the safety and continued operation of the existing
nuclear fleet and invest in the next generation of nuclear energy technologies.
Sheer madness! It is like a new religion, a frenzied mania has taken over and we have let it happen. It is utter gobbledegook sky fairy nonsense. Please, can we all call it what it is.
I’m prepared to boast about being way ahead of the curve here. I’ve just (in the very name of just-ish, which is the way it’s pronounced after tee martwonies) decommissioned all of my internal combustion unicorns in favor of those actuated by electron flux generators that are thoroughly undispachable, ’cause it’s only fair to y’all. And while it’s true that the colorful sparkly bits aren’t what they used to be, that was bound to be the new normal that you and I must put up with the keep the world livable for one and all. I can tell you that I feel so much better now.
“fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, or income, with respect to …”
Hey wait a second. No mention of other vital parts of the intersectional soup? Some staffer is going to be publicly shamed for that egregious omission.
Indeed, the alphabet-phobe must be cancelled (fired from his/her/or any of the other 57 pronouns job, publicly reviled and shunned, and sent to a re-education camp) for that hateful omission. Sadly /sarc and reality aren’t too far apart.
No kidding! They completely left out Persons Sexually Attracted to Minors, which is the PSAM in LGBTQ++PSAM. Sacking and blacklisting is what’s called for here.
“First, making electric power net zero carbon emissions by 2040, which cannot possibly be done.”
This could most certainly be done, but of course only with nuclear power, which these idiots will never accept. The new leftist economy must only be powered by pixie dust.
Even with a crash program, we couldn’t build enough nuclear power plants in 20 years to completely power the US.
Certainly not with all the bureaucratic and legal hurdles each power plant would have to over come before they could even break ground let alone complete the building and getting up and running.
Cut out the red tape and the green groups lawfare, and it’s not impossible to build enough nuclear plants in 20 years, given enough money and man power (or person power for the snowflake generation) for the project.
Heck it could, in theory, be done in much less than that (the actual building of a plant is the least time consuming part of the whole operation, the red tape and legal wrangling is what eats up most of the time) – because plants don’t have to be built one at a time, you can simultaneously build as many as you have the money and labor for, but again that requires a lack of red tape and lawsuits designed to, at minimum, endlessly delay.
My assumption is that with a “crash program”, most of the red tape and bureaucratic road blocks would be gotten rid of.
Even with those gone, there are limitations.
The number of facilities that are capable of building reactor vessels are limited, they would have to be increased.
The number of skilled craftsmen are limited. More would need to be trained.
An entire infrastructure would have to be built up, not quite from scratch, but close to it.
I am very much in favor of nuclear power, however going from building one or two a decade to building dozens every year is a bigger challenge than many people realize.
Let’s go for it, but be realistic about what is possible.
Even with those gone, there are limitations.
Yes, hence the phrase ” given enough money and man power”. All those limitations come down to those two things.
Even with all the money and man power in the world, there’s a limit to how quickly new factories to build the stuff needed to build nuclear power plants can be built.
Again, these things don’t have to be done one at a time, with enough money and man power you can build as many as you want simultaneously. It really does all come down to money and man power, nothing else.
Heck, under current procedures, you couldn’t even obtain permits to build the nuclear plants in 20 years. And if you did, there’d still be ten more years of lawsuits to deal with before you either break ground or give up.
Indeed, it can be done. Simply turn off all fossil-fueled power generators. Of course industry would stop the next second & so would your refrigerators. But who cares about our modern ‘conveniences’ when we have such a big virtue to signal.
Nuclear is only good for baseline power, it cannot be easily scaled to meet demand. Nuclear could never be sole power source for an electric grid.
The climate agenda is simply about centralised control of civilization’s lifeblood: Energy.
On its way it leads to centralised control of Media, Education and any other potentially contrary narratives,
This is World War IV. Its happening now. Between globalists and independence
I’m guessing you have tested out high in critical thinking.
Why not equally beautiful healthy wealthy bright funny and happy too? The”just” claim is just preposterous, just by which standard, just to whom? We had this kind of ridicule in Europe some 40 years ago, remarkable to see it rise up in the country where you least expect it. And even more funny that the key parameter is the equality not the level, equal protection and equal access not high protecton and easy access.
And the reason for this?
Well, its because even if the US did get to net-zero, the rest of the world will not, in fact it will increase emissions, and so the US with its solar and wind powered grid, and its electric auto industry, will still experience all the consequences (assuming there are any) of global warming.
The fatal flaw in all these proposals is the idea that the US can somehow save the world by unilaterally lowering or eliminating around 10% of global emissions, while everyone else increases to wipe out the US reduction.
Even if the theory is correct, its a hopeless undertaking. The US is too small a proportion of the global economy for this to be effective.
When a politician comes to call and opens up the conversation with, “I’m a Democrat” Just remember the “a” stands for, anti.
The House Select Committee on Climate Crisis was set up by Speaker Pelosi after the House went Democrat majority after the 2018 elections. AOC wrote the draft for the committee formation, and her and several “squad” members staged a sit-in in the Speakers office to force adoption of the Committee. Looney Tunes writ large and proud of it!
Legislatures love to set goals 20 or more years into future. It gives them a sense of accomplishing something without being around to see the results, and thus makes them unaccountable for their folly.
Yep, they learned from their Soviet mentors that five-year plans are too risky.
I wonder if the “expert” I met via email last night is part of the Committee. Was listening to CBC and heard this nitwit from Rutgers talking about how climate change is like “a series of mushroom clouds.” Looked him up and folks, he’s a prof of philosophy, surprise surprise:
https://sasn.rutgers.edu/about-us/faculty-staff/david-e-mcclean
Yep, all about the intersection of race and climate…I wrote him and asked if he’d be good enough to provide me with his bona fides as a climate “expert,” and he wrote back to ask what mine were – good classic junior-high debate redirection, David! Never did tell me, but bragged about consulting with the Sec-Gen of the UN, and spent a bit of time calling his President an idiot, blah blah.
If this is the kind of person the UN is consulting with, it explains a lot. Be ever vigilant, indeed.
Further: I think we all ought to feel free to write these people and ask for the actual technical basis for their “expertise,” and more importantly what they intend to do to us in order to achieve their goals.
Write often, clog up their Inboxes, maybe keep them from finding those love letters from Secretariat-Generalissimo Guterres and the Reichsministerium für Wetterkontrolle. Let the bastards know we won’t go down without a fight.
“First, making electric power net zero carbon emissions by 2040”
As long as we have the word “net” in there, maybe it CAN be done. Net zero does not mean really really zero. It means you have to do some creative accounting.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/25/net-zero/
Alternate title:
“PAINTING A RAINBOW ON THE WATERMELON”
Shades of the old USSR, granting equality in everything translating to equally impoverished people except for the leaders.
It reads like a fairy tale, magic with no facts. It does present a warning if they gain total power.
. . . and just how much did it cost US taxpayers to get these 547 pages of trash?
From the article:
“Environmental justice (EJ)
The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies to ensure that each person enjoys (1) the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards; and (2) equal access to any federal agency action on environmental justice issues in order to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, work, and recreate.”
I wondered what they meant by Climate Justice. If the above is all there is to it, it seems pretty benign and general and sounds reasonable.
What’s the catch? Are they claiming the Democrats are the only ones who think it is a good idea to lookout for everyone?
They must think there is some Climate Injustice somewhere, otherwise why even bring it up? Where is the Climate Injustice that is implied by this position statement? I can’t think of any offhand.
You can’t have the words “environmental justice” in the definition of “environmental justice”. Just such nonsense.
Fabulous!
If I burn 1 kg of methane dominant natural gas (CH₄) in my so-efficient-it-uses-plastic-exhaust-pipes home HVAC heater, I get somewhere between 50 and 55 megajoules of heat. Real, useable heat. About 50,000 BTU in American terms. The heat utilization, given the coolness of the exhaust, is 99%.
Contrast that to 52.5 MJ of electricity. 52.5 MJ is (÷ 3.6 →) 14.6 kWh. We’re paying over 22¢/kWh in California at the moment for super-duper-(not-really)-clean-electricity. 22¢ × 14.6 kWh → $3.20 in electricity costs. A “therm” of natural gas costs $1.50, has 100,000 BTU of heat potential, so equalizes out at $0.78 to produce the same heat value. Moreover, the kilogram of CH₄ produces 2.7 kg of CO₂.
By comparison, with our methane-centric, but still hydropower, solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal California energy production, The Grid emits some ½ kg of CO₂ per kWh of power generated. (“PG&E emissions rate (electric): 0.524 lbs CO₂ per kWh.” from PG+E site).
So, using electricity to heat my house, apart from costing $2.42 more for this case, also emit 7.5 kg of CO₂. Almost 3× more than direct burning of methane / CH₄.
Does this make sense? No, not at present.
Today it makes sense to use relatively inexpensive natural gas to provide direct heating. Same goes for cooking energy. Same goes for hot-water. Solar heat-capture once was quite popular, but faded as the idiosyncratic leaks-and-surprisingly-low system-life characteristics undermined its broader utility.
Then… of course… according to the Ideal, that “carbon neutral” power is the goal. Power neutral being a code-word for carbon-capture-sequestration (CCS) and the advanced versions of that, along with creative accounting (subterfuge, work-arounds, usual regulatory mendacity) of counting forest planting, tree planting, fish farming and so on to ‘capture’ some of the CO₂ in theory. But hey, let’s go with the perfect world, where ALL the CO₂ is either captured, or bypassed entirely due to use of non-CO₂-generating sources. Hydro, solar, geothermal, nuclear, wind, and “perhaps” bioenergy options. No methane burning, no oil, no coal, no biogas.
OK. Let’s see. Less than 20% solar efficiency, less than 50% wind, more than 80% for hydro, less than 25% for geothermal. Nuclear higher than 37%. Bioenergy just appallingly low, around 10% with energy-to-harvest and energy-to-precondition built in.
Seems to me, with the additional overhead of the as-yet-unavailable (but certainly do-able) massive excess energy storage-and-release systems in place to cover leveling in a CO₂ neutral fashion, further dropping the numeric efficiency, from production to consumption; seems that the whole energy sector will have to generate a preposterously large increased amount of energy (peak) to meet the average (heightened, to CO₂ emitting equipment retirement) demand. Wasted energy. A lot more of it.
And more wasted energy means more expensive energy.
Sure, some of it might be mitigated by economies-of-scale. But are there enough hectares of available land to home the massive increase in PV? Are there also 25× to 200× as many untapped wind-power location resources?
I have calculated that there ARE! But there will be both an acquisition cost to fund building them, as well as the long-term heightened operations resources overhead.
BOTTOM LINE — in the future, with this kind of viewpoint of goals, means WAY more expensive power.
Good for civilization?
Probably!
But what to do when all our economic producer competitors mouth the sweet nothings and DO NOTHING to make their power CO₂ neutral? Without equally embracing the Zero-CO₂ policy and investment, the competitors can further lower their export costs to us, at the disadvantage of all the citizens and businesses here that DO take the recommended or mandated steps. Just look at China. A study in ecological mendacity.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
Just fyi, Democrats, The Congressional Action Plan for a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America was enacted September 12, 1787. It’s been working great ever since. Maybe you should read it sometime.
“The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy”
This is the real movement. Climate is simply the latest incarnation of the reason why.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/23/anti-fossil-fuel-activism-disguised-as-climate-science/