Research & Commentary: Colorado Renewable Portfolio Standard

Colorado legislators are bucking the national trend and considering a proposal that would boost the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). The RPS requires utilities to obtain a specified percentage of their power from intermittent renewable sources by a certain date. Twenty-two of the 29 states with such mandates in place have considered changing those laws over the past two years.

Colorado’s current RPS requires cooperatives and their utility suppliers to get 10 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2020. SB 252 would increase the percentage, mandating 25 percent of their electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.

Supporters of the RPS say the mandates are necessary to reduce pollution, will lead to the creation of “green” jobs, and will only marginally increase electricity prices. However, there is little evidence the mandate will benefit the environment. Renewable sources such as wind and solar technologies are intermittent and thus require fossil fuel generators for backup. Running fossil fuel generators in this way can emit more pollutants than when used as primary power sources.

READ MORE:  http://heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-colorado-renewable-portfolio-standard

The Quiet Gold Rush

On the many splendors of Canada’s tar sands.

Alberta, Canada – While we are sitting on the tarmac waiting interminably for Newark’s permission to take off, the man in the seat to my right turns and asks me if I call Calgary “home.” I explain mildly apologetically that I don’t, that this will in fact be my first trip across the 49th parallel, and that — alas — I am stopping there only in order to connect with another flight. From the city’s sprawling international airport I will continue on up to Fort McMurray, the boomtown gateway to Canada’s tar sands.

“Ah,” he says, his interest piqued. “Actually, I’m in the oil business myself. I’ve been in New York for meetings.” Then he leans in. “Fort McMurray, eh? That’s a real gold-rush sort of place.”

READ MORE:  https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/344665/quiet-gold-rush

EU climate change policy in crisis after MEPs vote against high CO2 prices

The European Union's climate change policy is on the brink of collapse today after MEPs torpedoed Europe's flagship CO2 emissions trading scheme by voting against a measure to support the price of carbon permits.

The price of carbon crashed up to 45 per cent to a record-low €2.63 a metric ton, after the European Parliament rejected a proposal to change the EU emissions-trading laws to delay the sale of 900m CO2 permits on the world's biggest carbon markets.

The European Commission measure, known as "backloading" was aimed at artificially raising the price of EU carbon permits by restricting supply after they fell to a record low in January due the economic slowdown and contraction in manufacturing across Europe.

The rejection of the measure is expected to trigger further falls in the price of carbon, to as low as €1 and could herald the end of an EU system which was aimed encouraging investment in "clean" technologies by pricing high CO2 emissions from smokestack industry or coal-fired power plants out of the market.

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9997868/EU-climate-change-policy-in-crisis-after-MEPs-vote-against-high-CO2-prices.html

What I’d like to see this Earth Day: More fracking

Year after year, we are treated to a message of environmental doom and gloom and admonitions on Earth Day. On the back of this sentiment in wealthy countries, governments have invested billions of dollars in inefficient, feel-good policies – such as subsidizing solar panels and electric cars. But really, there are far better ways to improve environmental prospects for humanity and our planet. This Earth Day, we need more fracking, more wealth, smarter investments, and fewer inefficient subsidies.

READ MORE:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/what-id-like-to-see-this-earth-day-more-fracking/article11449919/

Oyster farmers support aquaculture leases for Inland Bays

Task force recommends legislation; clammers raise questions

 

Rehoboth Beach resident Andy Nowakowski has a passion for oyster farming.
It might be that his family has been raising oysters in Virginia for more than five years. Or maybe it's just the call of the water and salt air.

Whatever it is, the Cape Region native dreams of raising oysters in the Inland Bays, and new legislation could make that dream come true.

Nowakowski has attended nearly 30 meetings over the past year on developing an aquaculture industry in the Inland Bays. A task force organized by the Center for the Inland Bays unanimously approved a package of code changes to allow oyster farming.

While those involved in the task force see many benefits of promoting aquaculture, others – including active clammers – recall the devastation of the oyster industry in the mid-1970s, when disease and overharvesting resulted in the collapse of the industry. Since then, the state stopped leasing land in the Inland Bays; the bottom is now a public resource.

READ MORE:  http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/oyster-farmers-support-aquaculture-leases-for-inland-bays/985903

Overlapping wind energy initiatives spark claims of waste, as IRS increases tax credit

WASHINGTON –  A recent government report shows billions in taxpayer dollars are being swept away by pricey wind energy initiatives that often overlap, even as the IRS moves to up the value of a popular tax credit.

The Government Accountability Office recently identified 82 federal wind-related initiatives implemented by nine agencies in fiscal year 2011. The nearly seven dozen initiatives were fragmented across agencies and had overlapping characteristics, and several that financed deployment of wind facilities provided some duplicative financial support, the report found.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/08/government-report-finds-taxpayer-money-getting-blown-away-by-wind/#ixzz2RCLWy9J3

Another Solar Company Can't Take The Heat, Closes Despite $10 Million In Stimulus

A Pittsburgh, Pa. solar energy company has shut its doors four years after receiving nearly $10.2 million in tax credits from the Obama Administration as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Flabeg Solar U.S. Corp., a $30 million solar plant located near the Pittsburgh International Airport, opened its doors in 2009 and was said to provide 300 jobs. Now, just four years later, the plant has shut down and laid off more than 60 workers. In addition to this, 10 of its former employees have petitioned a federal judge for severance pay after they lost their jobs last month, according to PA Independent.

Robert Lampl, the attorney for Flabeg, said the company would probably seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from the workers who are suing over their severance pay.

READ MORE:  http://cnsnews.com/blog/joe-schoffstall/another-solar-company-cant-take-heat-closes-despite-10-million-stimulus

Coal Makes A Comeback in Europe

Europe’s declining competitiveness with U.S. industry has its leaders worried, but they admit having no hope of matching the shale revolution that is powering a revival of manufacturing across the Atlantic.

For Europe to remain in the game, energy taxes must be held in check and no new taxes levied, said the European Union’s energy commissioner, Gunther Oettinger.

Instead, Europe must use its energy more efficiently and the European Union’s 27 member countries should open their energy markets to cross-border competition, Oettinger said at a news conference last week in Brussels.

READ MORE:  http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/03/coal-makes-a-comeback-in-europe-as-conventional-gas-dries-up/

Fisker issues big layoff, employees hire firm that sued Solyndra

Fisker Automotive -- the electric-car maker that was granted a half-billion-dollar federal loan and on Friday dismissed about 75 percent of its remaining workforce -- is purportedly facing a lawsuit from the same firm that sued the government-funded Solyndra company.

Fisker laid off 160 of its roughly 210 employees Friday morning from its Anaheim, Calif., location, according to Automotive News.

Employees told the publication they were given no severance pay besides compensation for unused vacation days.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/06/report-obama-backed-fisker-lays-offs-workers-faces-suit-by-solyndra-related/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2QjECxB7D

US carbon emissions drop as gas displaces coal

A switch from coal to natural gas in electricity production helped drive down energy-related U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2012 to their lowest level since 1994, the federal Energy Information Administration said Friday.

The carbon emissions have fallen every year since 2007, with the exception of 2010, according to the agency.

Various forms of energy production and use — including power plants, refineries and tailpipes — create the vast majority of U.S. carbon emissions that are linked to global warming.

The biggest drop in 2012 came from declining use of coal, a fuel facing fierce competition from low natural gas prices, according to the EIA, which is the Energy Department’s independent statistical arm.

Read more:  http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/292083-us-carbon-emissions-drop-as-gas-displaces-coal

It’s the cold, not global warming, that we should be worried about

No one seems upset that in modern Britain, old people are freezing to death as hidden taxes make fuel more expensive 

 

A few months ago, a group of students in Oslo produced a brilliant spoof video that lampooned the charity pop song genre. It showed a group of young Africans coming together to raise money for those of us freezing in the north. “A lot of people aren’t aware of what’s going on there right now,” says the African equivalent of Bob Geldof. “People don’t ignore starving people, so why should we ignore cold people? Frostbite kills too. Africa: we need to make a difference.” The song – Africa for Norway – has been watched online two million times, making it one of Europe’s most popular political videos.

The aim was to send up the patronizing, cliched way in which the West views Africa. Norway can afford to make the joke because there, people don’t tend to die of the cold. In Britain, we still do. Each year, an official estimate is made of the “excess winter mortality” – that is, the number of people dying of cold-related illnesses. Last winter was relatively mild, and still 24,000 perished. The indications are that this winter, which has dragged on so long and with such brutality, will claim 30,000 lives, making it one of the biggest killers in the country. And still, no one seems upset.

READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9959856/Its-the-cold-not-global-warming-that-we-should-be-worried-about.html

Twenty-year hiatus in rising temperatures has climate scientists puzzled

DEBATE about the reality of a two-decade pause in global warming and what it means has made its way from the sceptical fringe to the mainstream. 
 
In a lengthy article this week, The Economist magazine said if climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, then climate sensitivity - the way climate reacts to changes in carbon-dioxide levels - would be on negative watch but not yet downgraded.

Another paper published by leading climate scientist James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the lower than expected temperature rise between 2000 and the present could be explained by increased emissions from burning coal.

For Hansen the pause is a fact, but it's good news that probably won't last.

READ MORE:  http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/twenty-year-hiatus-in-rising-temperatures-has-climate-scientists-puzzled/story-e6frg6z6-1226609140980

A sensitive matter

The climate may be heating up less in response to greenhouse-gas emissions than was once thought. But that does not mean the problem is going away

 

Austin - Last year, the Eagle Ford Shale had a $61 billion impact and supported 116,000 jobs across a 20-county swath of South Texas – a once sleepy region increasingly defined by an oil and gas boom.

The latest numbers from an ongoing University of Texas at San Antonio study continue to show a ballooning financial effect as the industry races to drill oil wells in the region.

The results of the study were released Tuesday at a meeting of the Eagle Ford Shale Caucus at the Texas Legislature, a group of South Texas lawmakers hoping to bring attention to the road, water, health and other infrastructure needs brought on by the influx of workers and truck traffic into the region.

READ MORE:  http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions

It’s payback time for our insane energy policy

An obsession with CO2 has left us dangerously short of power as coal-powered stations are forced to close 

 

As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us.

The grotesque mishandling of Britain’s energy policy by the politicians of all parties, as they chase their childish chimeras of CO2-induced global warming and windmills, has been arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history.

Three more events last week brought home again just what a mad bubble of make-believe these people are living in. Under the EU’s Large Combustion Plants Directive, we lost two more major coal-fired power stations, Didcot A and Cockenzie, capable of contributing no less than a tenth to our average electricity demands. We saw a French state-owned company, EDF, being given planning permission to spend £14 billion on two new nuclear reactors in Somerset, but which it says it will only build, for completion in 10 years’ time, if it is guaranteed a subsidy that will double the price of its electricity. Then, hidden in the small print of the Budget, were new figures for the fast-escalating tax the Government introduces next week on every ton of CO2 emitted by fossil-fuel-powered stations, which will soon be adding billions of pounds more to our electricity bills every year.

READ MORE:   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9949571/Its-payback-time-for-our-insane-energy-policy.html

 

Will DNREC Make a Ruling Based on Science?

Globally, sea levels are rising – as they have been since the demise of the last ice age more than 20,000 years ago. Our main questions are: How fast are they rising now and why? The ‘why’ is important as recent efforts to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions in Delaware are focused at halting sea level rise.

 

We must recognize that satellites cannot measure global changes in sea level very accurately. Adjustments made to data from the various satellites that have been in orbit since 1979 (i.e., Topex-Poseidon, Jason-1, and Jason-2) are substantial as the biases can be as much as 100 mm (4 inches) despite the fact that the altimeters used on Jason-1 and Jason-2 are exact duplicates. Carl Wunsch, an anthropogenic global warming proponent, wrote: “It remains possible that the database is insufficient to compute mean sea level trends with the accuracy necessary to discuss the impact of global warming – as disappointing as this conclusion may be.”

 

In Delaware, DNREC’s Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee (SLRAC) began with the premise that “sea level rise…will continue to occur at an accelerated rate due to global climate change” but vowed to consider and adjust their scenarios “as the IPCC and other peer reviewed publications produce updated scenarios and modeling techniques.” Despite the fact that the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration provides data to indicate sea level rise in Delaware over the past century has been 11.1 ± 1.0 inches at Lewes and 12.0 ± 2.3 inches at Reedy Point, the SLRAC has prepared for sea level rise of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 meters (19.7, 39.4, and 59.1 inches).

 

These figures are inconsistent with ten different peer reviewed articles published over the last two decades which clearly indicate sea level has not accelerated – meaning that rising levels of carbon dioxide have had no impact on the rate of sea level rise. But the SLRAC selected these levels despite the IPCC report in 2007 which indicated that sea level rise, even at the upper limit in its most extreme scenario would not exceed 0.59 meters (23.2 inches). Moreover, sea level rise along Delaware’s coast is mainly due to coastal subsidence, which cannot be addressed by draconian curbs on fossil fuel emissions.

 

As the State adopts California regulations and turns to ‘experts’ from outside the State without public hearings or votes from the State Assembly, we note that (1) there is no clear sign of acceleration in Delaware, (2) the current sea level rise in Delaware is largely due to coastal land subsidence, (3) there is no empirical basis to support a >0.5 meter (19.7 inch) rise in sea level by 2100, (4) models are inherently bad when it comes to forecasting sea level rise, and (5) addressing fossil fuel emissions cannot affect sea level rise in Delaware. We urge citizens to become informed and involved in this issue so lawmakers and policymakers are more aware of the facts and, like in North Carolina, such efforts can be thrown out for being unscientific.

 

David R. Legates is on the Advisory Council of the Caesar Rodney Institute

Download Document Here.

Too much green energy is bad for Britain

The Tory part of the Coalition is beginning to recognise some painful truths, but it is time for the Coalition to tear up its energy policy before the lights go out 

 

 With the worst snow conditions in the country since 1981, it’s worrying, to say the least, that gas supplies are running low. A month ago, The Sunday Telegraph warned in this column of the problems of an energy policy that puts expensive, inefficient green power before coal-fired and nuclear power. There have been a few signs that the Coalition is at last turning its attentions to the issue but, still, not nearly enough has been done. Now we are reaping the consequences. Because of a misguided faith in green energy, we have left ourselves far too dependent on foreign gas supplies, largely provided by Russian and Middle Eastern producers. Only 45 per cent of our gas consumption comes from domestic sources. All it takes is a spell of bad weather, and the closure of a gas pipeline from Belgium, to leave us dangerously exposed, and to send gas prices soaring. Talk of rationing may be exaggerated, but our energy policy is failing to deal with Britain’s fundamental incapacity to produce our own power.

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9949595/Too-much-green-energy-is-bad-for-Britain.html

Obama’s Energy nominee: We need carbon tax to double or triple energy cost

President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee regards a carbon  tax as one of the simplest ways to move the energy industry towards clean technologies, though he notes that government would have to come up with a plan to mitigate the burden this tax places on poor people, who would pay the most.

“Ultimately, it has to be cheaper to capture and store it than to release it and pay a price,” MIT professor and Energy nominee Ernest Moniz told the Switch Energy Project in an interview last year. “If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few decades, well, that could double; it could eventually triple. I think inevitably if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on the cost, it brings along with it a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push towards clean technologies in a conventional pollution sense; it brings along with it a push towards security. Because after all, the security issues revolve around carbon bearing fuels.”

READ MORE:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2525310

Obsessive-Compulsive Environmentalism

America’s massive and well-funded environmental industry is always in need of new worlds to conquer, or at least to attack with broom and dustpan. But the irony behind the modern-day environmental movement in America is that the more successful the movement is, the more petty subsequent goals necessarily become. There is no other choice. The big environmental organizations have mouths to feed and rents to pay just like any other business. They’re not going to offer up an attaboy to the nation and close up shop just because America has reached a level of environmental purity that would have been impossible to imagine just 50 years ago.

Risk, and more specifically the way that average American perceives risk, is the crux of the matter. So long as Joe and Josephine McOrdinary believe that substantial environmental hazards exist that threaten the well-being of themselves and their children, the environmental movement will continue to maintain traction and, most importantly from its perspective, a healthy balance in its checking account. The flip side of that scenario is the one that strikes terror into the hearts of Sierra Club fundraisers, for if the public ever perceives that today’s environmental risks are really pretty mundane, the good times will be over.

READ MORE:  http://spectator.org/archives/2013/03/22/obsessive-compulsive-environme

NJ town fines businesses for leaving lights on

Businesses in Paramus, New Jersey are getting tickets when they leave their sign lights on.

Paramus has a quality of life ordinance that fines businesses $200 or more, plus $33 in court costs, if their signs don't go dark after 11 p.m.

All stores must close by 11 p.m. in Paramus.

Business owner Kathy Billard and her husband own Alternate Heat on Route 17. She said she had no idea her sign was a problem until after she got fined.

"We've been her for 25 years and never had an issue," Billard says.

Her husband also says merchants should be allowed to pay the fine online or by mail instead of having to spend hours waiting in court.

40 businesses have received fine notices so far in 2013. 

READ MORE:  http://wap.myfoxny.com/w/main/story/87600057/

Wind farms are net carbon dioxide emitters

(NaturalNews) Large British wind farms will actually release as much carbon dioxide as fossil-fuel power plants, according to a study conducted by researchers from Aberdeen University and published in the journal Nature.

The source of the emissions is not the windmills themselves, but the land on which they are being constructed.

"Much of the cheap land being targeted by developers desperate to cash in on wind farm subsidies is peat land in remote wild land areas of the UK," said Helen McDade of the John Muir Trust.

"This [study] is a timely reminder that we must have independent and scientific assessment of the effects of policy and subsidies."

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039488_wind_farms_carbon_dioxide_emissions.html

Tides uses tax dollars to turn America to the Left

At the center of Washington, D.C., politics, a powerful group of left-wing activists has leveraged big money, high-level White House access and tax-code loopholes to create a lobbying organization dressed up as an educational nonprofit with the benign name of a laundry detergent.

The Tides Foundation is a favorite charity of such big-name liberal donors as Teresa Heinz Kerry (ketchup up heiress and wife of Secretary of State John Kerry) and Barbra Streisand. The two have given Tides more than $8.5 million over the years.

And Tides has a lesser-known benefactor: You. From 2009 to 2011, the most recent years for which data is available, the  government has given Tides some $28 million in grants paid for by American taxpayers.

READ MORE:  http://watchdog.org/72855/tides-uses-tax-dollars-to-turn-america-to-the-left/