An omen of what the Green New Deal would be like

Alistair Pope

Permit me to recount a short history detailking the reality of life without electricity, something I experienced in Dubai during the massive power outage of 2005.  The reports that followed made light of the incident as just a minor inconvenience. It wasn’t.  Rather, and the reason that nightmare comes to mind all these years later, is the recognition that I was experiencing the Green Dream, the ordeal we will likely suffer this coming summer as a stressed and diminished grid falters and fails.

Dubai back then had just witnessed a decade-long building frenzy and commensurate expansion of the population to such an extent that the electricity-generating capacity was barely adequate until, one day, it wasn’t adequate at all.

I had been in Dubai for ten days and was due to fly at 2am flight for London. As I had a lazy day to kill. I woke at about 9.00am, not because it was time to get up but due to my hotel room being uncomfortably hot.  My sweat was soaking the sheets. Clearly we had a problem, so I called reception and was told that the air conditioner was off due to an electrical fault, but it should be OK in an hour or so.  As I was sticky with sweat (I am male, so I sweat, not genteelly perspire) so I had a shower — or at least I began to have a shower.  Three minutes into my ablutions the water stopped. I was covered in soap and hair conditioner, so this was a problem.  I considered my choices, and in the end selected Option A which was to towel off the soap and dry myself as best I could. Option B would have been to rinse with water from the toilet bowl, which I rejected. As I later discovered, the toilet would have been the far better option.  I will explain at the appropriate time.

It was not yet 10.00am and the room was stifling.  The windows were sealed, so no chance of fresh air (or jumping out). I sat down to check my emails.  There were plenty, but none of my replies were leaving my outbox as the server was down.  I was out of contact with the world. About 30 minutes later the battery on my laptop expired, so that was that.

I packed and decided to leave my bags with the concierge so I could go to a cool restaurant in a cool mall for a cool drink of cool water.  Cool was becoming an obsession

Once packed, I left the room and dragged my suitcases to the lift, which wasn’t working.  I was not surprised to find that I could not return to my room, since the door was electronic and my card no longer worked.  Using the emergency telephone (totally inappropriately) as it was still working (don’t ask me why) I implored the reception desk for help.  They declined, saying all staff had been allocated to other tasks.  She offered no advice.

Oh well, it’s not really that bad, I thought, as I dragged my bags down 10-flights of stairs to the ground floor. The stairwells were not air conditioned, so the temperature must have been 50°C. This attempt at resolving my checkout problem turned out to be a near fatal move, as the ground floor door was electronically alarmed and sealed automatically when the power failed, surely a serious safety hazard and trap in the event of a fire!

Going back up ten floors, or even a few floors, was not an option. The floor hallways were not accessible from the stairwells without a pass key, as they were for escape (allegedly), not inter-floor travel.  Anyway, I found I was not alone.  At least 80 other guests were now jammed into the lower stairwell and in the same desperate position.  The people at the front were now banging with a panicked urgency on the steel door, and the stairwell behind me had already filled with as many as were in front.  I thought I caught a glimpse of Dante and Milton in the crowd as we wilted in the hellish heat, sealed off from cool water and rescue by that steel security door.  To our great relief, it eventually opened as a tradesman of sorts smashed the lock. By then the stairwell crowd was 200 strong, and together we surged in a staggering mob into the “cool” 42°C lobby, where we each given a bottle of cold water.  All were upended immediately and drained in seconds.

I had a late checkout arranged for 8.00pm, but when I got to the counter after another hour’s wait in an ever-lengthening queue, I discovered no electricity meant no bill, which meant no checkout and no credit cards. I was luckier than most as I was carrying several thousand in US dollars, so I could pay cash. But how much cash?  Now I found out what the absent staff were doing. Equipped with keys that bypassed the electronic stairwell locks, they were climbing to each and every of the 30 floors to check mini-bars. Nobody was leaving without paying to the last cent.

My bill was compiled manually as I sat on the carpet, there being no other seats available as every single guest, like me, had sought refugee in the Lobby.  Again, I was lucky as after only another hour they called my name and presented me with the handwritten bill, a (now warm) bottle of water and some sushi they were giving away before it spoiled. We agreed on the amount, I handed over the cash, checked out, gave my bags to the concierge and went to find a taxi. It was just after 3.00pm, 11 hours before my flight was due to depart.

Once more I was blessed by fortunate, as I had a taxi within 15 minutes, the usual swarm having vanished, but I presumed this was because the power outage had made them busier than normal as people followed my example and headed for the malls. Not so, as I soon found out.

I thought of rejecting the cab driver’s demand for the usual fare multiplied by five, but as no other taxi was in sight and with more people checking out the queue would only grow, so I agreed to the exorbitant demand. I realised the transport situation could only get worse, so I retrieved my bags and told the driver to head straight to the airport, where I pictured myself relaxing in the Business Class Lounge.  I could even have a shower! This was becoming an obsession as my skin itched from the soap and sweat and I found it impossible not to scratch like a mangy dog.  There are only so many poses you can adopt before everyone knows your crotch is the worst-affected area in need of serious attention.

I had driven the journey to the Dubai Airport dozens of times so I assumed it would be only a 20-minute journey at most, depending on the traffic. On this day it was nearly two hours before the airport finally came into sight, and then half as much time again until we arrived at the departures concourse. The drive from the hotel had been akin to a scene from a B-grade mega-disaster movie.  When the power and air conditioning failed throughout Dubai — not just our hotel, as we had been lead to believe — the entire population piled their families into SUV’s, turned on the air conditioning and drove aimlessly around. Those who ran low on fuel were soon reminded that petrol and gas pumps also need electricity.

And a lot of vehicles ran dry. Cars were driven until they stopped and left wherever that happened, usually in the middle of the road. Entire families then piled out and sat under trees, or, if there was no shade, lay down under their cars. My driver chased some people out of their shade, doing ‘whatever it took’ to collect his fare, even mounting the kerb and mauling the painstakingly watered and nurtured grass verge with his tyres before returning to the road and squeezing between abandoned cars.  No traffic lights were working so each junction was clogged – they were by far the favourite places to abandon automobiles no longer mobile.  We finally made it to the departure ramp three hours after leaving the hotel.

It was now only 8-hours until my flight, but things weren’t about to get any better.

This world-renowned mega airport had no power either! No fight details, no check-in terminals, no baggage conveyors and, apparently, no flight-control radar.  Fortunately, the control tower could still talk to the pilots, so they were able to divert 90 per cent of the air traffic to other airports. Again my luck held because they had already printed a hard copy of the manifest for my flight.  As the plane was already on the tarmac they would be able to take my bags, write the flight number on them and manually load them on to the aircraft.  However, as no intercom was working I had to stay within a designated area from midnight while waiting for my flight to be called.  I was assured that it was ready to fly.

At the airport nothing worked. No coffee, tea or cooked meals were available and all transactions were cash, but there was nothing for sale, not even water. As a business class passenger I staked out a piece of carpet for a bed, rather than taking a spot with the commoners on the polished floor.  Although it was still daylight, I rejected the idea of going to the Business Class Lounge, as it was deep in the bowels of the terminal and I had thought ahead about what it might be like trying to find my way back to the ticket counter in the dark. So stayed where I was.

Darkness fell, but there was no relief from the heat.  One serious improvement was that I could now scratch my head, armpits and crotch like a demented chimpanzee, and do so without the disapproving looks of my soap-free non-traveling traveling companions.

At midnight, right on the dot (just as the airline had told us), my flight was called. We gathered in the darkness, where the announcement was made that the flight would be delayed until the next day, as the air traffic controllers were only able to use the inadequate emergency backup system, the main system not having its own generator (something they have long since fixed).

All water from the taps stopped and bottled water ran out about 02.00am.  Surprisingly, despite the 40°C heat there was no riot, no robberies, no bad behaviour and no violence (as in New Orleans after Katrina), just a subdued resignation. The possibility of deaths from dehydration was, I suspect, quite real.  Airline staff with torches did distribute bottled water to women and children, but I did not see any men demanding their places in this modern version of Titanic’s lifeboat drill and I did not ask for anything for myself, though I knew I was seriously dehydrated.

Sometime between 04.00am and 08.00am power was partially restored and a semblance of civilised life began again.  However, the authorities had to manage the load, so the airport air conditioning was set at 28°C — still uncomfortable, but better than 42°C.  Also, the recovery of power meant they were able to pump water the refill the water tanks, bringing the taps and toilets back to life.  The toilets were a major problem, though, as nothing had been flushed for the past 18 hours. The low-paid foreign workers set uncomplainingly to work in those appalling conditions.  No sooner had they finished than the toilets went out of commission again as a backlog of desperate people filled them up faster than the system could cope.

Time crawled in a slow, sweaty, scratchy torment.  Finally, at noon the conveyors and terminals sprang to life and real, energy-guzzling civilisation returned. It was reported that fewer than a dozen CO2 producing humans had expired in the heat, thus returning their carbon to the Earth and ceasing their polluting, breathing ways. Surely a poor result from the perspective of the green-minded, who seem to think the world would be a far better place were humans not on it.

Suffice to say that at 2.00pm we were bussed to the plane where I found the smell of my fellow passengers more than somewhat unpleasant.  No doubt the feeling was reciprocated, as I had been in the same clothes in fearsome heat for over 30-hours. Our departure then endured yet another two-hour delay as two of the plane’s toilets were blocked to overflowing.

It was only after we took off that the pilot informed us that the control tower was supplementing radio communications with binoculars in addition to the emergency backup radar.  He said it was the first time in ten years he had made a ‘visual takeoff’, but he assured us that, as only 10 per cent of normal traffic volume was trying to get into the air, there was no real danger. Oh, good.

My relative good fortune (I hadn’t expired from heat fatigue) continued on my arrival in London for two reasons: first, I had an EU Passport, so I was not checked by Immigration.  Those with foreign Passports did not have an exit stamp from Dubai so were held for interrogation Second, my checked luggage was distinctive, so I found my bags with ease.  Neither mine nor anyone else’s had been security-checked in Dubai. Heathrow management was not pleased by this and put every bag through their own intense security screen.  It took me more than an hour to clear Customs, despite having nothing to declare.

My nightmare glimpse of the Green Dream had taken me 54-hours ‘bed-bed and ‘shower to shower’.  I had red soap burns on my skin and my crotch was raw from scratching.  I note by way of advise in regard to our coming summer that, when the power goes out, the toilet bowl option I rejected should be embraced. As the Greens keep telling us, we must adapt to our changing  world.

Within a few years of my experience, Dubai resolved the majority of their energy deficiencies.  They have built a massive oil-burning power station and provided backup diesel generators to all essential services.  They saw the problem and took the sane, appropriate action required to benefit themselves, leaving the planet to look after itself – something it is perfectly capable of doing.

SOURCE 





Cal EPA studying ways to sunset the California economy

California is about to take one giant step toward following Germany’s failed climate goals which should be a wake-up all for governments everywhere. Yes, you guessed it, our legislatures have authorized CalEPA in the 2019 – 2020 California State budget and Assembly Bill AB 74 to conduct studies and identify strategies to manage the decline of in-state crude oil production and decrease demand and supply of fossil fuel.

Germany tried to step up as a leader on climate change, by phasing out nuclear, and pioneered a system of subsidies for industrial wind and solar that sparked a global boom in manufacturing those technologies. Today, Germany has the highest cost of electricity in the world.

From Alberta to Australia, from Finland to France and beyond, infuriated voters are increasingly showing their displeasure with expensive energy policies imposed by politicians in an inane effort to fight purported human-caused climate change. Now you can add Chile to the growing list of countries whose governments are suffering a backlash as average people, tired of elites forcing costly climate policies down their throats with continuous proposals to raise public transport fares and energy bills.

Like Germany and a slew of other countries, California continues to make decisions based on their believe that intermittent electricity from renewable wind and solar will be the replacement to fossil fuels to run the 5th largest economy in the world. Like Germany, this has come at a HIGH COST to Californians.

With its green dreams of an emission free state, California has not even been able to generate enough of its own electricity in-state and imported 29% of its needs in 2018. The bad news is that imported electricity comes at higher costs and those costs are being borne by residents and businesses alike. California households are already paying 50% more, and industrial users are paying more than double the national average for electricity.

The future of electricity in California does not bode well as the State has chosen to not challenge the closure of the States’ last nuclear zero emission generating plant at Diablo Canyon, and 3 natural gas generating plants in Southern California.

The four upcoming losses of continuous generating electricity are:

1. PG&E’s Nuclear 2,160 megawatt Generating Plant at Diablo Canyon’s to be shuttered in 2024.
2. The 823 mw Natural Gas Power Plant at Scattergood in Playa Del Rey, to be shuttered in 2024.
3. The 575 mw Natural Gas Power Plant at Haynes in Long Beach, to be shuttered in 2029.
4. The 472 mw Natural Gas Power Plant at Wilmington, to be shuttered in 2029.

With NO plans for industrial wind or solar renewable intermittent electricity projects to generate “replacement” electricity in-state, especially with the huge land requirements for those renewables, there will be a need to import from other states. States with greater percentages of California’s electricity needs in the years ahead. And as you guessed it, more costs to the consumers and businesses who are already infuriated with high costs.

Could it be that our legislatures are also unaware that those unstoppable costs of more regulations, taxes and increased minimum wages targeted toward businesses are just passed through to the consumers of the services and products from those businesses? Those higher costs roll directly into housing, utilities, food, and entertainment if there’s any money left, and may be very contributory to California’s growing homelessness and poverty populations.

I know our legislatures want to sunset the oil industry, BUT imagine how life was without those fossil fuels before 1900 when we had NO militaries, NO vehicles, NO airlines that now move 4 billion people around the world, NO cruise ships that now move 25 million passengers around the world, NO merchant ships that are now moving $50 Billion dollars of products monthly through California ports, NO space program, NO medications and medical equipment, NO vaccines, NO fertilizers to help feed billions, NO tires for vehicles, and NO asphalt for roads.

Most importantly, before the 1900’s we had NONE of the 6,000 products that are manufactured from the chemicals and by-products from fossil fuels. Interestingly from each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, half is for those thousands of products and the other half for the fuels to run commerce.

We’ve had more than 100 years to find alternative or generic methods to manufacture the thousands of products we get from those deep earth minerals, and to manufacture the fuels for commerce and the military. By nearly every quantifiable measure, we are better off than our pioneer predecessors because of fossil fuels. In more than a century we’ve only come up with electricity that can be generated intermittently from sunshine and wind.

When we look at what intermittent electricity from wind turbines or solar panels CANNOT do, we see they are blatant failures to qualify as replacements for the fossil fuels that produce those 6,000 products. Of which are the basis of our lifestyles and of our numerous infrastructures. With manufacturing more than 60 million gallons of fuels every day to meet the demands of the states’ commerce and nearly 40 million residents.

I believe it’s easy to understand that wind and solar alone are obviously incapable of supporting the military, airlines, cruise ship, and merchant ships. As a reminder just in case you’re still living in the pre-1900’s, without transportation and the leisure and entertainment industries, we have no commerce.

Imagine if politicians would tell voters that their utopian vision of a world run on solar panels and windmills is a fairy tell? But instead, they have doubled down to sunset the economy with legislature verbiage that pre-determines the outcome of the CalEPA efforts to study ways to decrease the size of the in-state oil industry that’s driving (no pun intended) the California economy.

SOURCE 





You’ll Be Surprised Who Is Trying to Empower the Deep State at EPA

Some key House Republicans have chosen to support a Democratic bill called the Scientific Integrity Act. That nearly every House Democrat is a co-sponsor of the bill was apparently insufficient warning. 

Recently passed out of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, the bill actually has nothing to do with what one would reasonably think of as “scientific integrity.” It does nothing to ensure that federal scientists conduct legitimate science.

Instead, the bill is aimed at empowering deep-state scientists for the duration of the Trump administration.

In a nutshell, the bill requires that federal agencies set up formalized grievance procedures for federal scientists who claim they are being silenced by senior bureaucrats and political appointees.

Under the bill, the filing of a grievance would start a process that not only disseminates the underlying “science” to the public regardless of its merits, but also guarantees dramatic headlines of censorship and persecution.

Such claims of censorship are not new, but they’ve been greatly exaggerated.

Followers of the climate wars will recall, for example, during the Bush administration when NASA gadfly James Hansen ludicrously claimed the Bush administration tried to silence him. The truth is that Hansen had been talking to anyone who would listen to him, without any government interference.

Of course, the government has every right to rein in faulty, ideologically-driven science when it occurs. This year, for instance, the White House blocked a State Department intelligence employee from testifying about climate change and national security.

The media was appalled, but they conveniently overlooked the fact that a prominent scientist on the National Security Council staff had fact-checked the State Department employee’s testimony and found it in error.

Such oversight is important. The Scientific Integrity Act, however, would basically make it illegal for federal agencies to exert any control over the scientists that work for them.

The House Science Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., succeeded in mildly amending the bill so that “aggrieved” federal scientists can’t go straight to the media, but instead would have to follow agency procedures in doing so.

Having accomplished little, Lucas then rolled over and said, “With the adoption of my amendment, I will support passage of the bill and encourage all my colleagues to do so.”

Lucas and five other Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill.

House Democrats, of course, don’t need the support of Republicans to pass bills out of committee and bring them to the floor. But Lucas and the other Republicans he convinced to support him now make the bill “bipartisan.”

Besides aiding and abetting the Resistance against the Trump administration—which is supposed to be in charge of federal employees—the bill also allows Democrats to pose as the party of federal scientific integrity.

This does not comport with reality.

The Environmental Protection Agency has protected faulty science in the past. For example, during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama years, the EPA allowed taxpayer-funded scientists to hide scientific data on air quality research from Congress and independent scientists.

This data was then used by the Obama administration in its junk science-fueled war on coal, the principal cause of the coal industry losing about 94% of its market value between 2011 and 2016.

During the three previous Congresses, Republicans passed (with no Democratic support) a bill that would have prohibited the EPA from using such “secret science” as the basis for regulation. But without a filibuster-proof majority, they couldn’t pass the bill out of the Senate.

Since passing such a bill is hopeless for now, the Trump administration is trying to ban the use of secret science through an EPA executive action. But Democrats are again opposing the effort.

While House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, acknowledges that the proposed rule would require the EPA to “rely only on scientific studies that are reproducible from the data that is publicly released,” she nonetheless called the bill an “insidious” effort to “cripple” the EPA.

Inevitably, the science put out by the EPA and other agencies is going to be politicized. The goal should be to have a process that allows for both free scientific inquiry and proper oversight. The fact is there are some rogue, ideologically-driven scientists in the government who need to be kept in check.

If Republicans are going to support something called the “Scientific Integrity Act,” they should ensure that such a bill makes at least some actual progress toward that goal. This bill falls way short.

SOURCE 





The IPCC contradicts the Climate Emergency

Here is a recent screaming statement of the supposed climate change emergency: “Trump’s greatest dereliction of duty – – his disgraceful denial of climate change” in the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/05/trumps-greatest-dereliction-duty-his-disgraceful-denial-climate-change/

This alarmist diatribe says: “At a time when the international scientific community has concluded that we have 11 years to avert the worst of climate change, Trump and his Republican allies are working to intensify the threat, not deter it. A more egregious dereliction of duty is impossible to imagine. Trump’s denial mirrors the story of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Like Nero, Trump is helping set the flames. Democrats are raising the alarm. The contrast cannot be clearer.”

Here is the wildly false claim: “At a time when the international scientific community has concluded that we have 11 years to avert the worst of climate change…” This claim occurs repeatedly in emergency declarations.

This false claim refers to the IPCC SR15 report issued in October 2018. What the IPCC really said was we have the 12 years until 2030 to prevent the small difference in impact between 1.5 degrees of total warming and 2.0 degrees. With one degree already done this is just the difference between 0.5 degrees of new warming and 1.0 degrees. The question only came up because both targets are mentioned in the Paris Accord. The question thus arises, what difference this difference makes?

According to the IPCC this difference in impact is very small. It is certainly not “the worst of climate change” as the Post and other alarmists repeatedly claim.

Proponents of the climate emergency scare often cite last year’s IPCC SR15 report as their scientific basis, but it is no such thing. The widely proclaimed 12 year deadline is just for holding warming to 1.5 degrees, which the IPCC says is almost impossible. The IPCC numbers also say that exceeding that warming is in no way catastrophic. The difference between the impact of 1.5 degrees of total warming (just 0.5 degrees of new warming) and 2.0 degrees is tiny. Thus, the IPCC report actually contradicts the unfounded claim of a climate emergency.

Here is an example from the SR15 Summary for Policy Makers: “Temperature extremes on land are projected to warm more than GMST: extreme hot days in mid-latitudes warm by up to about 3°C at global warming of 1.5°C and about 4°C at 2°C, and extreme cold nights in high latitudes warm by up to about 4.5°C at 1.5°C and about 6°C at 2°C.”

Extreme hot days, which are uncommon to begin with, warm by up to about just one degree going from 1.5 degrees to 2.0 degrees of total warming. This is certainly not an emergency. It is probably not even detectable due to natural variability.

Note that the 3 degrees of hot weather warming at 1.5 degrees of total global warming and the 4 degrees at 2 degrees both include the one degree that is supposed to have already happened. Presumably, something like half of this impact has already occurred, so that is not part of the future impact emergency issue.

In short we are talking about just a tiny amount of impact as being the difference between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees of total warming. There is simply no basis for declaring an emergency in these IPCC numbers. There is nothing catastrophic in going to 2.0 degrees of warming instead of 1.5 degrees.

Note too that extreme cold nights warm even more, which is arguably a good thing. Given that extreme cold is reportedly more dangerous than extreme heat, going to 2.0 degrees might even be net beneficial. Richard Tol’s integrated assessment model actually says this.

The proponents of the scary emergency need to be called out on this contradiction. No IPCC science supports the climate emergency. What the proponents of climate emergency are calling for is all cost with no benefit.

The emergency is a fallacy.

SOURCE 





Australia: Blackouts risk to force states’ hand on coal

Blackouts particularly likely in "Green" Victoria

Energy Minister Angus Taylor will demand tougher energy ­reliability standards in a move that could trigger legal obligations on major retailers in some states, including Victoria, to source more power from coal, gas and hydro.

The intervention comes with the market regulator already warning of blackouts this summer in Victoria, which is under pressure to meet the current standard and will likely be forced to again seek emergency reserves during periods of high demand, with 1.3 million households forecast to be at risk of power outages.

Mr Taylor told The Australian that he would be asking for agreement on the tougher standards at a Council of Australian Governments meeting of his state and territory counterparts on Friday.

Victoria, which has placed a strong focus on renewables, has said it would agree to revised standards but wants to include a strategic reserve. The federal government claims this would risk pushing up prices.

Mr Taylor said the current reliability standard was too weak.

According to the Australian Energy Market Operator, under a revised standard Victoria would have a capacity shortfall of more than 435MW — the equivalent of a new gas-fired power plant — triggering a mechanism called the retail reliability obligation (RRO), which requires retail electricity companies to hold contracts or ­invest in generation to maintain reliability. South Australia is also likely to suffer supply issues this summer although it has moved to increase gas generation following statewide blackouts in 2017.

“As an energy minister with a strong focus on reliability and the price impacts of a shortage of ­reliable generation, I can tell you my tolerance is tested,” Mr Taylor will say in a speech to an energy summit in Sydney on Tuesday.

“Over the last year, my view has hardened. My view is that we haven’t got the reliability standard right. The system inherently ­accepts too much risk and relies on too many contingencies.

“In addition, given shortages in supply in many states at crucial times, well-targeted supply should reduce prices. I think we need to strengthen the standards, and quite likely trigger the RRO in a number of jurisdictions. In a world of limited resources, it is clear that Victoria is a state that needs the most reliable investment.

“SA has obviously had challenges but is now on track to recovery, and we’re seeing that in their falling prices. It is also clear that NSW, if not managed properly, could have gone down the wrong path.”

Mr Taylor repeated his claims that the problem was “starkest in Victoria” and said its shortfalls could have national flow-on effects.

He accused Victoria of seeking to blame others for its problems and said the Andrews Labor government had failed to replace ageing infrastructure and address price and reliability issues.

The AEMO had already warned that Victoria was not expected to meet reliability standard this summer. “Most announced new-generation projects are variable renewable energy generators, which often do not generate at full capacity during peak demand or may be positioned in a congested part of the network,” it said. “While providing significant extra energy during many hours of the year, these projects are forecast to only make a limited contribution to meeting demand during peak hours.”

SOURCE 

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