From: Climate Etc.

By: Judith Curry

Date: December 5, 2023

NETZERO is impeding progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals

“Working in global energy and development, I often hear people say, 'Because of climate, we just can't afford for everyone to live our lifestyles.' That viewpoint is worse than patronizing. It’s a form of racism, and it’s creating a two-tier global energy system, with energy abundance for the rich and tiny solar lamps for Africans.” – Kenyan activist and materials scientist Rose Mutiso

“To deny the developing world access to the very infrastructure that has propelled us forward, all in the name of an uncertain future, is not environmentalism, but neocolonialism masquerading as virtue.” – Earth Scientist Matthew Wielicki

100 years ago, the global population was 2 billion.  Over the past century, the population has increased to 8 billion, life expectancy has more than doubled, a much smaller percent of the global population is living in poverty, global wealth has increased by a factor of 20, agricultural productivity and yields have increased substantially, and a far smaller fraction of the population die from extreme weather and climate events.  Hannah Ritchie’s ourworldindata.org provides fascinating data on global progress.

And all this has occurred during a period where the global temperatures have increased by about 1ºC.  The UN has dropped the extreme emissions scenarios (RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5) from use in policy making, and the UNFCCC COP27 worked from an estimated 2100 warming of 2.5ºC.[1] The 2023 IEA Roadmap to NetZero Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) projects a rise in average global temperature of 2.4ºC by 2100.[2] When plausible scenarios of natural climate variability and values of climate sensitivity on the lower end of the IPCC range are accounted for, the expected warming could be significantly lower.

So our current best estimates of global warming by 2100 indicate that we will likely be close to, or within, the 2ºC target by 2100, based on our current understanding.   So we are looking at an additional 0.8 to 1.2ºC warming over the remainder of the 21st century, according to our current understanding.  Natural climate variability is of course a wild card that can cut both ways, but the portion of the 21st century warming that the UN is hoping to control is order of 1ºC.

The world has already shown that it can thrive under a warming rate of 1oC/century.  To support continued human development and progress in the 21st century, there is widespread international agreement on the UNSDG Sustainable Development Goals, which provides a ranked list of 17 goals.[3]  The goals related to climate and energy policy include (with numerical ranking): (continue reading)

NETZERO is impeding progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals

The Administration war on fossil fuels continues, with reduced lease sales, lease cancellations, new emissions rules for electric powerplants and gasoline and diesel vehicles and electric vehicle mandates.

The Administration has less than half a plan for the “all-electric everything” transition. Plans are in place for fossil powerplant shutdowns and reduced availability of oil and natural gas. However, there are no plans in place for replacement of the dispatchable fossil fueled generating capacity with dispatchable renewable generation or a combination of intermittent renewable generation and grid storage. There are also no plans in place for the timely expansion of grid capacity.

A recent study by Dr. Roy Spencer has determined that the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI) doubles actual warming. While the study focused on the US, it is highly likely that the effect pervades the entire global record.

A recent study by Drs. Roy Spencer and John Christy calculates that Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) to atmospheric CO2 is less than 1.9°C, rather than the 2.5-4.5°C projected in IPCC AR6. Based on this work, there is no climate crisis, existential or climate emergency.

Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. reports that the IPCC has determined that RCP 8.5 is implausible and should not be used as a “business-as-usual” scenario in future climate studies. Actual warming has been occurring at a pace lower than projected by RCP 4.5. However, governments and many climate scientists continue to use RCP 8.5 to create “scary scenarios” of future climate catastrophe.

IPCC AR6 reports that extreme weather is not getting more frequent or intense, though this position is contradicted by the AR6 Summary for Policymakers, numerous governments and environmental organizations and the media.

Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. reports that extreme weather damage is declining relative to global GDP, though the current dollar cost of the damage continues to increase. This increase is largely due to inflation of property values and the construction of additional infrastructure in areas prone to damage from extreme weather events.

Dr. William Happer and William Van Wijngaarden have determined that the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is essentially saturated, so that additional atmospheric CO2 will have minimal effect on global near-surface temperatures.

Dr. David Wojick reports that offshore wind development is currently being challenged by increasing costs, attributed to inflation, supply chain disruptions and greater-than-predicted maintenance costs and failure rates. US offshore wind development is also being challenged because of its adverse effects on marine mammals.

Robert Brice reports that public resistance to renewable development is increasing, with numerous rejections of proposed wind and solar developments.

The UK, Germany and other EU countries have begun delaying Net Zero mandates in the face of rapidly rising energy costs and threats of energy shortages.

The Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t reduce inflation, but is actually increasing inflation by rapidly increasing taxpayer funding for renewable generation infrastructure, electric vehicle charging facilities and electric vehicle incentives in the face of supply chain disruptions.

Meanwhile, electric vehicle inventories have grown to over 100 days as manufacturers increase production faster than growth in market demand.

Packaging, marketing, advertising and even incentives are meaningless “if the dogs won’t eat the dog food”. (HT: G. W. Myler)

From: Climate Etc.

By: Balázs M. Fekete

Date: November 14, 2023

Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?

For over three decades, the reduction of CO2 emission was the primary motivation for promoting the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. Concerns about the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels were considered particularly during energy crises, but these concerns died out quickly as discoveries of new fossil fuel reserves such as the shale revolution in the US that appeared to secure energy supplies.

An under-appreciated paper by Murphy et al. (1) offers very strong arguments that the energy transition is a must that has to happen in a short time. Anyone looking at Figure 1 from this paper should be more concerned about running out of fossil fuels than climate change. It is almost certain that the spike on Figure 1 will only last for a few centuries irrespective of the exact location of the star, and fossil fuel era will be only a fraction of the history of human civilizations. This period will not last long enough to deserve the proposed anthropocene[1] designation. The industrial era might rightfully be called a geological event that triggers post-anthropocene, but by no means will it last long enough to qualify as geological age or epoch.

Murphy et al. (1) demonstrates vividly how short the energy transition has to be via a seemingly absurd calculation based on the modest 2.4% annual growth rate () of energy consumption (originally observed in the US that the global energy consumption follows now). This growth rate conveniently corresponds to a 10-fold increase per century.

On a similar basis, a crude estimate of the declining limp of Figure 1 might be established by considering present day carbon concentration as a “fuel gauge”. If the total amount of fossil fuel buried under ground is proportional to the difference in atmospheric CO2 concentration at the time when fossil fuel formation started 500 millions years ago:  (17) and the pre-industrial era:  then the contemporary  carbon concentration suggests that the fossil fuels burned so far is  of the total reserves. The remaining 92% will be exhausted in  if the energy consumption continues to grow at the present rate. (continue reading)

Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?

The US federal government has set a goal of transitioning the US energy economy to a fossil-fuel-free, “all-electric everything” energy economy by 2050. This transition would require an approximate tripling of the US electricity grid by 2050 to accommodate the energy requirements of the residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and agricultural loads currently served directly by fossil fuels as well as anticipated electric load growth. The expense of converting existing fossil fuel end uses to electricity would be the responsibility of the end users.

Expanding electric generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure and maintaining reliable electric service is the responsibility of the electric utilities, under the oversight of the state utility commissions and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as well as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Most electric utilities coordinate generation and transmission planning through Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) or Independent System Operators (ISOs).

Utilities, their RTOs and ISOs, FERC and NERC have begun to realize that the transition sought by the Administration is a goal without a plan and that there is no reasonably achievable plan which would achieve the Administration’s goal on the desired schedule. The “canary in the coal mine” was apparently the realization that existing fossil-fueled generation is being retired faster than it is being replaced; and, that the Administration’s schedule for shuttering the remaining coal and natural gas generators is incompatible with the operation of a reliable electric grid, no less with accommodating the electric demand and consumption growth associated with the transition to “all-electric everything”.

The transition requires not only the addition of the intermittent renewable generation capacity to replace the existing fossil-fueled generation but also the addition of the intermittent renewable generation to replace the existing direct fossil-fueled end uses, plus storage to compensate for the intermittency of the renewable generation and the seasonal variation in renewable generation performance. The renewable generation must have the capacity to meet the demands of the grid under peak demand conditions, but also the capacity to recharge storage to assure that it is available to replace the output of the renewable generators when they are unavailable because of weather conditions or maintenance and repair.

The renewable generators are currently only willing to accept responsibility for providing power to the grid when weather conditions permit their operation. The renewable generators have taken the position that the responsibility for providing, operating and maintaining the storage necessary to compensate for their intermittency and seasonal capacity loss lies with the utilities and their RTOs and ISOs. That is not the most efficient approach to storage, nor is it the appropriate assignment of responsibility for providing reliable generation.

The utilities, RTOs and ISOs are realizing that they have been set up to fail; and, that they will be held responsible for that failure because they were told in advance what they had to do and on what schedule. The Administration will clearly accept no blame for the failure, despite the fact that it provided no plan for its success. The renewable generators will also accept no blame for the failure, since they aggressively offered the utilities vastly increased capacity and they cannot control the weather which controls their generation.

Anything is possible if someone else is responsible for achieving it.

From: Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

By: Roger Caiazza

Date: October 1, 2023

New Climate Reality is Passing New York By

Note: For quite a while now I have put my Citizens Guide to the Climate Act article as the top post on the website because it summarizes the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act). This post updates my current thoughts about the Climate Act and will replaces that post at the top of the list of articles on October 2, 2023

There is a new climate reality and it is passing New York by.  New York decision makers are going to have to address the new reality that proves that the Hochul Administration’s Scoping Plan to implement the Climate Act will adversely affect affordability, reliability, and the environment.  This post highlights articles by others that address my concerns.

I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good by increasing costs unacceptably, threatening electric system reliability, and have major unintended environmental impacts.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible using zero-emissions electricity. The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation. (continue reading)

New Climate Reality is Passing New York By

“Loss and damage refers to the negative effects of climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation efforts.”, UNEP

The UN established the Loss and Damage fund at COP27. The first trickle of funding for the Loss & Damage Fund occurred at COP28. The Loss & Damage Fund represents “the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” for the wizards of climate attribution and their vaunted (unvalidated and unverified) climate models.

The Loss & Damage Fund is intended to fund the incremental cost of severe weather events resulting from the effects of climate change, not to fund the total costs of severe weather events. Weather events are not new. However, the UN and numerous national governments assert that climate change is making weather events more frequent and more severe. Available data suggests that severe weather event frequency and intensity are either stable or declining slightly globally. That, however, does not mean that some aspects of some specific weather events might not be affected by climate change. For example, it has been suggested that a specific tropical cyclone was stronger, or moved at a different speed, or caused greater rainfall as the result of climate change; or, that a specific drought was more intense or of greater duration.

The challenge for the Loss & Damage Fund is to estimate the percentage of the physical loss and damage caused by a specific severe weather event which is attributable to climate change. Clearly, it is not possible to know the exact impact that climate change had on a specific severe weather event. Therefore, the Fund would be required to rely on attribution studies to estimate the extent of the climate change impact of each severe weather event.

It is not clear that there will be an effort on the part of the Fund to discourage actions which would increase the potential loss and damage from a severe weather event, such as construction of new infrastructure in areas prone to loss and damage from severe weather events, such as coastal regions exposed to the risk of tropical cyclones or flood plains.

There is currently no evidence that climate change has affected the loss or damage resulting from severe weather events, though that is frequently asserted by UN officials and the heads of governments of nations which have experienced significant losses. It is frequently asserted that the growing magnitude of financial losses from severe weather events is proof of the effects of climate change. However, when these financial losses are normalized based on Gross Domestic Product, there does not appear to be any trend of increased losses.

There would almost certainly be an effort on the part of affected nations to maximize the effects attributed to climate change by the attribution studies. It appears likely that the UN would be disposed to be generous in the attribution process, since it is already generous in attributing severe weather loss and damage to climate change. The wizards of climate attribution would be hard pressed to perform the role of “honest broker” under these conditions.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Judith Curry

Date: November 17, 2023

A bad recipe for science

Politically-motivated manufacture of scientific consensus corrupts the scientific process and leads to poor policy decisions

An essay with excerpts from my new book Climate Uncertainty and Risk.

In the 21st century, humankind is facing a myriad of complex societal problems that are characterized by deep uncertainties, systemic risks and disagreements about values. Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are prominent examples of such wicked problems. For such problems, the relevant science has become increasingly like litigation, where truth seeking has become secondary to politics and advocacy on behalf of a preferred policy solution.

How does politics influence the scientific process for societally relevant issues? Political bias influences research funding priorities, the scientific questions that are asked, how the findings are interpreted, what is cited, and what gets canonized.  Factual statements are filtered in assessment reports and by the media with an eye to downstream political use.

How does politics influence the behavior of scientists? There is pressure on scientists to support consensus positions, moral objectives and the relevant policies.  This pressure comes from universities and professional societies, scientists themselves who are activists, journalists and from federal funding agencies in terms of research funding priorities. Because evaluations by one’s colleagues are so central to success in academia, it is easy to induce fear of social sanctions for expressing the ideas that, though not necessarily shown to be factually or scientifically wrong, are widely unpopular.

Activist scientists use their privileged position to advance moral and political agendas. This political activism extends to the professional societies that publish journals and organize conferences. This activism has a gatekeeping effect on what gets published, who gets heard at conferences, and who receives professional recognition. Virtually all professional societies whose membership has any link to climate research have issued policy statements on climate change, urging action to eliminate fossil fuel emissions. (continue reading)

A bad recipe for science

The 2023 hurricane season has not provided many opportunities for the wizards of instant climate change attribution to assess the impacts of climate change on the performance of individual tropical cyclones. Perhaps this represents an opportunity for them to refocus from “separating the fly specks from the pepper” and apply their vaunted models and analytical skills to understanding why tropical depressions, storms and cyclones form and what determines how they move and develop after they form. The 2023 hurricane season certainly offers some interesting study subjects.

Hurricane Hillary, which formed off the coast of Baja, California made landfall in southern California as a tropical storm and saturated portions of southern California and Nevada. Hillary was an unusual, but not unprecedented storm. What caused this storm to form and what caused it to track through the US Southwest?

What caused tropical storm Otis to form and then rapidly intensify to Cat 5 before making landfall in Acapulco, Mexico?

What caused Hurricane Idalia to form and what caused it to make landfall in a portion of Florida which has not ever experienced a hurricane landfall? What caused it to turn East and move into the Atlantic?

What caused Hurricane Lee to move up the East coast of the US and only make landfall as a tropical storm in Maine and Nova Scotia?

What caused tropical storm Ophelia to form and then to make landfall in North Carolina and move North through the US Northeast?

Why did so many 2023 storms stall or turn North in the mid-Atlantic and then dissipate?

To put these questions in the format preferred by the climate change attribution wizards:

• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical waves which formed in 2023?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the location at which tropical waves developed?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical waves which developed into tropical disturbances?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical waves which developed into tropical depressions?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical depressions which developed into tropical storms?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of tropical storms which developed into hurricanes?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of hurricanes which developed into major hurricanes?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on the number of these major hurricanes which made landfall?
• What impact (if any) did climate change have on rapid intensification?

It is interesting to ask these questions against the background of a less active than normal hurricane season with only two landfalling hurricanes; and, in a year in which a rare, but not unprecedented, tropical storm made landfall in southern California.

Asking these questions in a year of below average tropical cyclone activity in all of the basins prone to tropical cyclone development might seem strange and perhaps a bit unfair to the climate change attribution wizards, but they must be asked and hopefully answered.

From: Climate Etc.

By: Balázs M. Fekete

Date: November 14, 2023

Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?

For over three decades, the reduction of CO2 emission was the primary motivation for promoting the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. Concerns about the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels were considered particularly during energy crises, but these concerns died out quickly as discoveries of new fossil fuel reserves such as the shale revolution in the US that appeared to secure energy supplies.

An under-appreciated paper by Murphy et al. (1) offers very strong arguments that the energy transition is a must that has to happen in a short time. Anyone looking at Figure 1 from this paper should be more concerned about running out of fossil fuels than climate change. It is almost certain that the spike on Figure 1 will only last for a few centuries irrespective of the exact location of the star, and fossil fuel era will be only a fraction of the history of human civilizations. This period will not last long enough to deserve the proposed anthropocene[1] designation. The industrial era might rightfully be called a geological event that triggers post-anthropocene, but by no means will it last long enough to qualify as geological age or epoch.

Murphy et al. (1) demonstrates vividly how short the energy transition has to be via a seemingly absurd calculation based on the modest 2.4% annual growth rate () of energy consumption (originally observed in the US that the global energy consumption follows now). This growth rate conveniently corresponds to a 10-fold increase per century. (continue reading)

Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?

The stated goal of the US Administration’s renewable energy transition is to replace all dispatchable fossil-fueled electricity generation and all direct fossil fuel usage with renewable electricity to reduce CO2 emissions. Logically, the first fossil-fueled generation to be replaced would be coal-fired generation, since it emits the largest quantity of CO2 per unit of electricity output.

There has yet to be a successful demonstration of an electric grid powered predominantly by renewable generation. Potential approaches to such a demonstration have been proposed here, here, here and here. However, each of these demonstration proposals would have involved a very extensive and expensive program.

The demonstration challenge proposed here would be a far simpler and less expensive demonstration, not of an entire renewable grid, but only of the direct replacement of a coal-fired generator with renewable generation plus storage sufficient to render the renewable generation the dispatchable equivalent of the displaced coal-fired generator.

Coal-fired generators are historically available to generate electricity at their rating plate capacity approximately 85% of the hours of the year. Therefore, a 100 MW coal-fired generator would be available to generate approximately 745,000 MWhrs (8760 hrs * 0.85 * 100 MW) each year.

Wind generators are historically able to generate at variable capacities up to rating plate capacity as a function of available wind speeds. Total generation in any given month historically ranges from 23-43% of rating plate capacity, averages approximately 36% and may approach or be zero for periods of hours or days. Therefore, a wind generation system capable of providing 100 MW capacity generation 85% of the time would require rating plate capacity of approximately 300 - 400 MW and storage sufficient to store excess electricity generated when the wind is blowing for use when the wind is not blowing or is blowing at lower speeds.

Solar generators are historically able to generate at variable capacities up to rating plate capacity as a function of available solar insolation. Total generation in any given month historically ranges from 13–32% of rating plate capacity, averages approximately 25%, may approach zero during the day and will achieve zero at night. Therefore, a solar generation system capable of providing 100 MW capacity generation 85% of the time would require a rating plate capacity of approximately 300-700 MW and storage sufficient to store excess electricity generated during the day for use at night and during periods of low insolation.

In both cases, some of the excess generation capacity required during months when generation is low could be offset with long-duration storage, though that storage is not currently available.

The challenge presented here is to build a wind plus storage generation system and a solar plus storage generation system which demonstrate the ability to be dispatched in the same way as a coal-fired generator is dispatched for 85% of the hours of the year. Once this capability has been demonstrated, it should be straightforward to calculate the adjustments to generation and storage capacity required to replace a natural gas fired combined-cycle generator (~90% availability) or a nuclear generator (~95% availability).

The installed cost of the demonstration systems could then be compared with the installed costs of the coal, natural gas and nuclear generators. The cost per kWh delivered by each of the systems could also be compared.

TANSTAAFL – There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

From: Thunder Said Energy

Date: November, 2023

Thermal energy storage: cost model?

This data-file captures the costs of thermal energy storage, buying renewable electricity, heating up a storage media, then releasing the heat for industrial, commercial or residential use. Our base case requires 13.5 c/kWh-th for a 10% IRR, however 5-10 c/kWh-th heat could be achieved with lower capex costs.

Thermal energy storage solutions aim to help integrate solar and wind into power grids, by absorbing excess generation that would otherwise be curtailed, and then re-releasing the heat later when renewables are not generating.

Different storage media are compared in one of the back-up tabs of the model. However, one-third of the companies in our thermal energy storage company screen are pursuing molten salt systems, hence our thermal energy storage model focuses on this option. (continue reading)

Thermal energy storage: cost model?

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and much about which to be concerned.

We can be thankful that the much-predicted “climageddon” has not occurred and does not appear to be imminent, or even reasonable, despite the constant chorus of “climate crisis”, “existential threat” and “climate emergency” from the UN, governments and the sycophantic media.

We can be thankful that there are still no significant trends regarding the frequency, intensity or duration of “extreme” weather events, such as tropical cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods and wildfires.

We can be thankful for the continuing “global greening”, most of which is attributed to increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations and for the modest warming which has  extended growing seasons and expanded acreage suitable for farming and grazing.

We can be thankful that the alarmist interest in ”climate lockdowns”, travel restrictions and dietary restrictions have gained little traction in the US, though they are beginning to have an impact in the EU and UK. There is diminishing interest in “veggie burgers”,  virtually no interest in “Franken meat”, and revulsion regarding “bug burgers”.

We can be thankful that farmers in the EU and UK are aggressively resisting government programs to remove agricultural land from production and destroy meat and dairy animals. These programs are inconsistent with concerns about maintaining and improving dietary condition for a growing global population.

We can be thankful that the climate alarmist interest in “15-Minute Cities” has not yet resulted in a federal program to construct such cities in the US. The US experience with high density, multi-use developments has been less than encouraging.

We should be concerned about the growing pressure in the US and globally for the declaration of a “climate emergency”, which could empower global governments to suspend freedoms and impose mandates and restrictions.

We should be concerned about Covering Climate Now, the global climate propaganda cooperation of nearly 400 media organizations flooding the media with climate alarmism and effectively drowning out skeptical discussions regarding climate change.

We should be concerned about US “climate czar” John Kerry’s focus on agriculture and animal husbandry as a contributor to climate change and his calls for reducing that contribution.

We should be concerned about the Administration’s continuing “war” on the fossil fuel industry, including its efforts to choke off fossil fuel supplies by limiting exploration and production.

We should be concerned about the recent focus of US electric utilities, ISOs and RTOs on grid stability and reliability in the face of expanding renewable generation and declining conventional generation resources.

We should be concerned about suggestions that occasional grid blackouts might be acceptable as an approach to combating climate change, particularly regarding the impacts on customers with critical health issues, hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities and prisons. This concern could become acute if fossil-fueled on-site standby generation is banned.

We should be concerned about the rising cost of energy in the US economy and globally as investments in redundant renewable generation infrastructure increase. Rising energy costs have shuttered some manufacturing facilities in the EU and UK and have created energy poverty for growing portions of the population.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”, H. L. Mencken

From: Watts Up With That

By: Kevin Kitty

Date: November 5, 2023

Setting Utility Rates

Until about a year ago, I thought about public utility regulation as too boring, too far outside my education, and unrelated to my interests and experience to bother with. I was wrong.

Figure 1. The relationships among interest on bonds and dividends to preferred shares (collectively called debt) and return on capital to return to ordinary shareholders (equity)

What prompted my change of view was recognizing that a frontline in the war, if you will, to remake the electric grid will take place not in arguments about the reality of climate change, but when utilities decide to change the way they generate electrical energy and pay for these changes. The permission to make these changes, and how the ratepayer gets hit afterward, are decided in the public service commissions which by law have to make their deliberations substantially transparent to the public. In particular permission for changes are gained in hearings of public necessity and convenience; how the ratepayer gets hit is decided in rate cases. I plan to examine only rate setting in this brief essay.

My principal goal is this. Many of us are pretty certain that pouring more renewable energy into a network makes delivered energy more expensive and less reliable. We often point to a graph that shows costs rising with percent renewable contributions to generating capacity. Yet, our antagonists claim that adding energy from renewables should, and in fact does, reduce utility costs. They have data, too. We strengthen our case by demonstrating specific reasons, or lack thereof, for rising utility bills. The rate setting process ought to make those reasons visible.

I also suspect most people know little about rate setting and are unaware about its complexity. It’s important to understand this bit of the order of battle.

Where I live we are in the middle of a general rate case affecting one-half the state.  It calls for substantial rate increases (21.6% or over $140 million) and has become exceptionally contentious. It resembles rate cases that have been decided or are in progress across the U.S.[1] The application for this general rate case includes thousands of pages of exhibits and appendices. (continue reading)

Setting Utility Rates

Free Range: allowed to range and forage with relative freedom
(Merriam-Webster)

Residents of the developed nations have largely been “free range” people, free to live where they choose to live, work where they choose to work, travel when and where they choose to travel, eat what they choose to eat and buy what they choose to buy within their means.

Those freedoms were interrupted, to one extent or another, by government edicts in response to the COVID19 pandemic. Travel was restricted, “non-essential” businesses were forced to close, offices and schools were closed and employees and students worked and studied from home over the internet.  In retrospect, it appears that much of this interruption of individual freedoms was unnecessary and, in some cases, counterproductive.

The pandemic lockdowns, however, resulted in a small but measurable decrease in global CO2 emissions. Government officials and climate change alarmists realized that similar, more extensive and longer-term lockdowns had the potential to reduce CO2 emissions to assist in achieving Net Zero emissions goals. There appeared to be little concern regarding the losses of freedom which would result from such actions.

There is growing discussion regarding climate lockdowns of various forms, including travel restrictions. Air travel restrictions are already in place in France, requiring shorter trips to be taken by train.

A climate initiative proposed by a group of major city mayors has proposed banning meat and dairy consumption, banning personal vehicles and limiting clothing purchases to three items per year per person. Producers are conducting major promotions for “veggie burgers”, “Frankenmeat” and nut-based dairy substitutes, while some governments are taking actions to remove farmland from production and to destroy meat and dairy animals.

The New York Times has declared the end of vacations to eliminate the associated CO2 emissions. So far, that demand has not been adopted by governments.

Urban Planners are touting the benefits of 15-Minute Cities, discussed here and here. One obvious “benefit” would be elimination of the need for personal vehicles, since most products and services would be available in the 15-minute city. While those who are interested in living in a 15-minute city should have the opportunity to do so, those not interested should not be pressured into moving into a highly concentrated urban environment.

Governments are imposing bans on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and power equipment, natural gas and propane appliances, and fossil-fueled electric power generation and the use of fossil fuels in industrial production. In the US, the goal is to move to all-electric everything by 2050, with fixed dates for the elimination of coal (2030) and natural gas (2035) power generation.

The Ration Book shown in the cartoon below is unfortunately only a slight exaggeration of the measures which have been proposed to reduce CO2 emissions by restricting personal freedoms on a permanent basis.

There is growing pressure on the US federal government to declare a “climate emergency”, though there is clearly no such emergency. However, such a declaration would arguably empower the President to take many of the actions discussed above by executive fiat, avoiding the need for congressional action.

“Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”, Lord Acton

From: Climate Etc.

By: Iain Aitken

Date: October 31, 2023

Climate Change: A Curious Crisis

As explained in my new eBook, Climate Change: A Curious Crisis, the climate change ‘debate’ has long-since become a Manichaean, deeply polarized, ‘you are either with us or against us’ war of words in which both sides accuse the other of being closed-minded and refusing to accept the ‘facts’.

Instead of a respectful exchange of views and the seeking of mutual understanding and common ground we tend to find sarcasm and ridicule and ad hominem attacks, as mutually intolerant, entrenched positions have arisen based on different interpretations of the science and evidence and different perceptions of risk. What should have been a mutually cooperative, disinterested, value-free search for the truth (basically, ‘science’) has morphed into a combative, biased, value-laden promotion of positions and ‘point scoring’ over opponents (basically, ‘politics’). Lest they yield any dialectical ground to their opponents, ‘doomsters’ are deeply reluctant to admit (perhaps even to themselves) that climate change might actually be predominantly natural and benign – and ‘deniers’ are deeply reluctant to admit (perhaps even to themselves) that climate change might actually be predominantly man-made and dangerous.

So what is the doomsters’ story? One of the most prominent and vocal doomsters is António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, who, in August 2021, described the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report as ‘a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk'.

And in response to the news that July 2023 was likely to be the warmest July since records began he stated, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.’ So what is all this ‘irrefutable evidence’ of the climate crisis that has so convinced Guterres and his fellow doomsters? Let’s examine a few representative examples:

(1) We know, based on the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (e.g. by burning fossil fuels) will cause global warming to occur. (continue reading)

Climate Change: A Curious Crisis