The Week That Was October 30, 2010
Quote of the Week
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. –Carl Sagan
Number of the Week 24 to 1
This Week
By Ken Haapala
On Oct. 29, the French Academy of Sciences released a report declaring the global warming exists and is unquestionably due to human activity. The academy president declared the debate is over.
Former education minister Claude Allegre, who questioned the orthodoxy, signed off on what he considered a compromise report stating: "I have not evolved, I still say the same thing, that the exact role of carbon dioxide in the environment has not been shown."
The report recognized uncertainties in solar influence, clouds, oceans and atmosphere. Those who believe that human carbon dioxide emissions may have some warming effect, but are not the dominant driver of climate change, may find the report acceptable except that it gives carbon dioxide a principal role in climate change. We await the translation of the full report, but apparently there is no precision in the report. A vague statement, no matter how forcefully made, remains vague. **********************************
In an article published on October 12, Bjorn Lomborg discusses the change in the vocabulary of the global warming alarmists. No longer is global warming, or climate change, the major theme. Instead, it has been replaced by clean energy, clean jobs – a green economy.
Lomborg also discusses how much a green economy is costing his native country, Denmark. He believes that drastic carbon cuts are a poor response to global warming.
In another article for the Investors' Business Daily (IBD), Lomborg advocates committing streams of money to technical improvements in new wind and solar energy, as well as other technical innovations. Lomborg's comments are rebutted in a follow-up article in IBD by Willie Soon, Bob Carter, and David Legates who bring up a seldom mentioned issue: the benefits of increased CO2 Much is made of what economists call the external costs of carbon dioxide emissions, namely global warming which is always considered bad. But increased CO2 in the atmosphere stimulates more vigorous growth of plant life that benefits humanity and the environment. **********************************
The Department of Interior has approved the building of what is called the world's largest solar-thermal power plant on 7,000 acres of federal land in the desert of Southern California. The project is a venture by two German companies.
The first half of the project could be eligible for a cash subsidy of $900,000,000 from the stimulus bill. The cash subsidy program ends on December 31, 2010. Also, the companies are seeking Federal loan guarantees and, no doubt, an array of benefits from the state.
To put the cash subsidy perspective, it is useful to calculate the employment benefits. The administration claims this project will provide up to 300 new permanent jobs. This calculates out to $3,000,000 per permanent job.
At that rate it would cost about $20.27 Trillion to reduce the current unemployment rate (9.2% est. by US Bureau of Labor Statistics) to the rough average over the past 15 years of 5%.
$20.27 Trillion is about 1.4 times the entire gross domestic product of the US in 2009 (estimated to be $14.26 Trillion by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis). The expenditure is enormous, but does it benefit the citizens of California by providing affordable electricity?
As seen in other reports, there are additional solar projects in California which promoters are trying to start before December 31.
These stories indicate that even after subsidies, the cost of the electricity generated will be 30-70 percent more expensive than electricity generated by natural gas, the dominant electricity generating fuel in California.
The promoters of the projects consider a 30-70 percent increase in cost to be competitive – a clear consequence of the state's renewable energy mandates. Only in California! **********************************
THE NUMBER OF THE WEEK: 24 to 1 – the number of nuclear power plants under construction in China (as reported by the World Nuclear Association) compared to the number of nuclear power plants under construction in the US.
Green energy promoters stridently insist that we are in a race with China to develop green energy, namely solar and wind. Spain and Germany were in the race but dropped out and their green energy firms are suffering as the subsidies stopped.
The question seldom asked is China really in the same race? Over the next several weeks, The Number of the Week will explore that question. If China is in a nuclear power race it is clearly winning. Please see Nuclear Power in China under Energy Issues.
(Please note that the 104 nuclear power plants in the US have a very high average capacity factor of over 90 percent)
Ken Haapala is Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). **********************************
Why the Confusion
about Global Warming?
By S Fred Singer
No one denies that the Earth has warmed in the past century. So of course, the past decade must be the warmest – even though there has been no upward trend since the 1998 temperature peak.
Note the important distinction between temperature level (measured in deg C or deg F) and trend (expressed in deg C per year).
The dispute is, and always has been, about the cause of the warming. In fact, the major warming during the first 50 years of the 20th century and the latter part of the 19th century is generally accepted to be natural – a recovery from the Little Ice Age. But there's no credible evidence that identifies the most recent warming as human-caused.
On the contrary, while the UN's IPCC claims to be quite certain that it is anthropogenic, the independent NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) concludes that "Nature – Not Human Activity – Rules the Climate."
To read that report, go to
http://www.sepp.org/publications/
NIPCC_final.pdf.
In this connection note the obfuscatory language used by the EPA in turning down all of the “Petitions for Reconsideration” of its Endangerment finding on CO2:
"The scientific evidence supporting EPA's finding is robust, voluminous, and compelling. Climate change is happening now, and humans are contributing to it. Multiple lines of evidence show a global warming trend over the past 100 years. Beyond this, melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, altered precipitation patterns, and shifting patterns of ecosystems and wildlife habitats all confirm that our climate is changing."
Yet there is no evidence at all that humans are indeed contributing to warming in a significant way. We'll see you in court, dear EPA, and gladly examine your "compelling" evidence!
Fred Singer is Chairman, and President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)