CREATING JOBS AND DESTROYING WEALTH

Twenty states have set standards that require utilities to obtain some of their power from “renewable” resources like windmills and solar panels. California wants 20% renewable power by 2017 and New York 24% by 2013. California will succeed by conveniently defining hydroelectric dams as renewable. New York’s less inclusive definition gives it 0.2% renewable capacity today. Texas is ahead of schedule in getting to 2,000 megawatts (2% of capacity) by 2009.

Ask most people about renewables and you will probably hear about solar power and fuel cells. In reality renewables generate only 2.2% of America’s electricity. Thirty years of work on solar power and it still produces only 1% of that 2.2%. California has geothermal resources and Maine has wood chips, but almost everywhere else renewables mean windmills, helped along by substantial federal subsidies.

Of course, even if renewables are expensive they might reduce some of the global warming caused by CO2 emitted by fossil-fuel powerplants. There are uncertainties about whether warming will really be bad (think longer growing seasons) but let’s assume it actually will get several degrees hotter (choose your own figure). The nations that signed the Kyoto Protocols on global warming agreed to cut their emissions over the future. If each of them made the sacrifices of full compliance (the betting is that few will even come close), the world would end up only a tenth of a degree cooler. And if that big an effort gets no results, state and local government policies can only be empty gestures. Economic activity will shift away from them toward other areas or nations -- remember that China and India are exempt from the agreement.

Renewables may not help much with global warming, but the nation might still benefit from all the new jobs that will come from building and operating them. Recent work by Professor Lloyd Dumas of the University of Texas at Dallas predicts that happy result. Dumas cites research showing that if 20% of future power plants are renewable, they will create two to three times more jobs than if they all burn fossil fuels.

It’s the same argument we hear from consultants hired by local governments to estimate the employment that a tax-financed subway or stadium will create. Both they and Dumas conveniently forget that the money to pay these newly employed workers is unavailable for spending by consumers or investment by businesses. Workers who used to produce those goods move to other jobs, possibly after a spell of unemployment.

Even if new workers somehow materialize, electricity will be expensive. It takes skilled people to build and operate a megawatt of capacity, and more of them for renewable facilities than conventional ones. And more renewables are required to get the same output: clouds can make a solar panel ineffective, and calm air or gale force winds do the same for windmills. It takes about three solar generators or windmills to achieve the same dependability as a single gas-burning generator. Voila’ three times more jobs.

It is easy to invent policies that create lots of jobs -- just make delivery trucks illegal and create work for human porters. Want to create jobs, hire people to shatter window’s in homes and businesses and you would create a boon in the glass making industry. However, it wastes the skills and services of a labor force that could have produced things that people really wanted, just like a renewables policy.

All over the world, for several centuries workers have become more productive and their services have risen in value. Renewable power plants as currently constituted are just a high-tech method of throwing that improved productivity away.

Source







A COAL-FIRED FUTURE IS MOST LIKELY

Coal is the most geographically widespread and accessible hydrocarbon in the world. Its distribution is in marked contrast to oil and gas in that reserves are located in some of the major areas of energy consumption. As China and India have relatively poor oil and gas resources, coal is seen as central to meeting their future energy demand growth. Both countries have been expanding coal production at a rapid rate.

Since reserves are so widespread and prolific, in contrast to other hydrocarbons, coal scores high in terms of security of supply. It is also favored because of its low cost of extraction. The rise in oil and gas prices over the last three to four years has made steam coal look increasing economic as a power generation feedstock, while burgeoning demand for steel has increased the consumption of metallurgical coal.

Coal's failing is that it is dirty. Compared with gas, coal produces more carbon dioxide per unit of energy. However, the cost and location of coal, combined with expected growth in energy demand, have led policymakers in many countries to conclude that the world's future energy needs cannot be met without coal. The International Energy Agency projects that coal use will grow each year until 2030.

Such a scenario is incompatible with targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Faced with two possibilities--to replace coal with cleaner alternatives or make coal clean--policymakers are opting for the latter. Not least in this calculation are the political difficulties of attempting to run down national coal industries.

The power industry has already made large steps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations. Engineering firm Mitsui Babcock, for instance, is installing in China a supercritical boiler plant. A more efficient plant means less coal can be burnt for the same energy output, thereby reducing emissions per unit of energy produced. There is little doubt that the installation of more efficient coal plants is an important contribution to reducing emissions where it replaces existing coal-fired plants. However, when meeting additional energy demand growth, high-carbon-dioxide output capacity is still installed.

As a solution, some companies are promoting carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), which aims to capture carbon dioxide and store it permanently underground. CCS technology is not commercial at present, but companies such as Mitsui Babcock advocate building CCS-ready plants now so that CCS technology can be retrofitted once it is developed. However, there is no guarantee that CCS will ever be commercially viable on a large scale.

Source





Australian Leftist governments plan to stop cow farts!



The success of the Labor states' proposed carbon emissions trading scheme may hinge on stopping cows breaking wind. A joint discussion paper released by the states says agricultural emissions must be cut by 60 per cent and part of the solution is reducing flatulence in cows. Livestock produces more than 60 million tonnes of methane gas annually - the equivalent of 10 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The discussion paper was released this month to support the case for a state-based carbon emissions trading scheme.

Prime Minister John Howard has attacked the idea and Premier Peter Beattie, although supportive, is concerned about the impact of the proposed scheme on Queensland's coal industry. The paper says agricultural emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are a particular concern. "In order to achieve around a 60 per cent reduction in emissions by the middle of this century, agricultural emissions would need to be addressed at some point," it said. "Achieving emissions reductions in agriculture will require a significant research and development effort."

Reducing flatulence in cows is identified as one of the most promising research areas. In particular, it points to "preliminary rumen ecology" research being undertaken in Queensland. Scientists at the Department of Primary Industries are working on three projects. These include investigating whether bacteria found in the gut of kangaroos - which emit very little methane - could be used to reduce emissions from cattle and sheep.

Principal scientist Athol Klieve yesterday said three different types of bacteria had been isolated. "We have been looking at them in a fermentation apparatus . . . to see how well they can colonise, and see if they can reduce methane," he said. "There are promising indications that if we can work out a bit better the requirements they need to be able to persist in the rumen, they will be able to reduce methane emissions." Dr Klieve said the other two projects involved putting coconut oil and cotton seed in cattle feed. "It is known a lot of these liquid-based feed materials do reduce methane emissions," he said.

Source

***************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

*****************************************