The Koonin Dessler debate
The debate I announced here between Steve Koonin and Andy Dessler took place Monday August 15th, it was very educational and illuminating. I will try and write more about it in a few days.
In short Andy Dessler said that economic models suggest that climate change is a negative for human civilization and not positive at all. But he avoided putting any numbers to this assertion.
Dessler believes that wind and solar produce electricity cheaper than fossil fuels, and that they can provide most of our power. Koonin counters that the only reason wind and solar are cheaper is that the cost of fossil fuel backup and the required changes to the U.S. grid are not included in the solar and wind costs. Koonin shows an estimate of $2.4 trillion to upgrade our electric grid to work with mostly wind and solar.
Koonin stated that the costs of climate change are minimal, and in 100 years will not be noticeable because the world economy will grow so much in that time. Climate change, even in the worse scenarios, only reduces growth very slightly, by 4% or less, and everyone will still be better off. He notes that in the past global warming and climate change have benefited mankind since people are much better off today and much more resilient to climate change than 100 years ago. He also points out that the poor of today should not be made to suffer because the elites (that is the U.S. and the western world) believe, without evidence and only based on models, that fossil fuels are polluting. He adds that solar and wind are not pollution free.
Koonin quotes U.S. economist Anthony Downes, who once said:
“The elite’s environmental deterioration is often the common man’s improved standard of living.”
At the end of this very interesting Oxford-style debate in the New York Sheen Center, these were the results:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/2022/08/15/the-koonin-dessler-debate/
**************************************************Talk about corporate welfare: Federal giveaways to wind, solar sectors are about to explode
The hype around the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, also known as the Manchin-Schumer bill, has been extraordinary. On Aug. 8, New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman published a piece headlined “Did Democrats Just Save Civilization?” in which he declared that “experts on energy and the environment are giddy over what has been accomplished” and the “world is a more hopeful place than it was just a few weeks ago.”
Five former Treasury secretaries declared that the measure will “help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation.” Meanwhile, Leah Stokes, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, claims the bill will “create manufacturing all across this country.”
Amid all the hosannas, precious little media attention has focused on exactly how the $370 billion in energy-related spending will be divvied up. But a look at the numbers published on Aug. 5 by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that this bill is not the vaunted “silver buckshot” that activists say will save us from catastrophic climate change. Instead, Manchin-Schumer is a 20 carat-gold blunderbuss that rewards, well, everybody. Electric vehicles (EVs), “climate justice,” hydrogen, carbon capture — a total of 68 energy- or climate-related line items are listed in the CBO report — and, yes, I counted them.
The handouts in the bill show, once again, the power of the NGO-industrial-corporate-Congress-media complex. But the CBO report also makes it abundantly clear that the cost to taxpayers of the federal handouts to the wind and solar sectors are about to absolutely explode.
According to the CBO, Big Wind and Big Solar could collect as much as $126.9 billion in new federal tax credits between now and 2031. If that occurs, the total cost of federal giveaways for wind and solar will more than double — and could total nearly $240 billion by 2031.
Before diving into the particulars in the CBO report, let’s back up to recall what the latest Treasury Department data on tax expenditures (published last December) reveal about existing energy-related tax breaks. The Treasury numbers show that between 2022 and 2031, the tax credits for solar and wind will cost the federal treasury $112.9 billion. The investment tax credit (ITC), used by the solar industry, will cost federal taxpayers about $60 billion. The production tax credit (PTC), which expired at the beginning of this year and is used by the wind industry, will cost nearly $52.9 billion. For comparison, the oil and gas sector will get about $29 billion in tax credits and the nuclear sector will get a paltry $3.4 billion.
The 35-page CBO report on Manchin-Schumer contains dozens of line items. It includes estimated outlays on numerous programs, including subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and Medicare. But the big costs in the bill are spelled out in the sections pertaining to energy.
Let’s look at the PTC-related provisions first. For those of you scoring at home, they are listed in the CBO report as Sections 13101 and 13701, which will cost roughly $51 billion and $11.2 billion, respectively. Thus, the cost of the new wind energy-related tax credits in Manchin-Schumer will total about $62.2 billion between now and 2031.
Now, the ITC-related provisions. They are listed as Sections 13102 and 13702 and will cost $13.9 billion, and $50.8 billion, respectively. Thus, the new solar-related tax credits in Manchin-Schumer will cost federal taxpayers about $64.7 billion between now and 2031. A bit of addition shows that the total cost of the new wind and solar tax credits will be about $126.9 billion.
That $126.9 billion in tax credits for wind and solar spelled out in the CBO report will be added on top of the $112.9 billion that was enumerated by the Treasury Department in its December tax expenditure report. Thus, under Manchin-Schumer, the subsidies for wind and solar will total a staggering $239.8 billion between now and 2031. That amounts to some $26.6 billion per year. Put another way, when this measure becomes law, solar and wind will get nearly as much in tax credits every year as the oil and gas industry will get over a decade.
Why should you care? First and foremost, you should care because these tax credits are just another form of corporate welfare. For years, advocates for renewable energy sectors have claimed that wind and solar are cheaper than traditional forms of electricity generation. To cite just one example, John Kerry, the Biden administration’s climate envoy, recently claimed that “Solar and wind are less expensive than coal or oil or gas. They just are less expensive.” If that were true, the wind and solar sectors wouldn’t need tax credits.
Furthermore, these tax credits are fueling land-use conflicts across America as rural communities fight back against the landscape-blighting sprawl of wind and solar projects. The Renewable Rejection Database shows that since 2013, more than 340 communities across the country have rejected or restricted wind projects. Communities are also rejecting solar projects. In March, NBC News reported that “at least 40” towns and counties have enacted moratoriums on solar projects since last year. Although NBC did not publish a list, the Renewable Rejection Database shows that 41 solar projects have been rejected in the U.S. since 2019. The latest example: Greensville County, Va., where the Board of Supervisors rejected a 123-megawatt solar project on Aug. 8 because it was not in “alignment with the county’s Comprehensive Plan.”
The punchline here is clear: Climate change is a concern, but it is not our only concern. Congress must be fiscally responsible. The CBO report shows that Manchin-Schumer contains unconscionable giveaways to the wind and solar sectors. If wind and solar are cheaper than conventional energy production, it’s time for them to prove it — without another $127 billion in taxpayer dollars.
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Why Solar Power Is Failing Amid Record-Breaking Heat
This summer brought record-breaking heat, with temperatures reaching as high as 40oC in the UK.
With heatwaves being reported worldwide, leading to wildfires and other environmental concerns, at least one energy sector is getting attention for its major producing potential – solar power. But with solar panels collecting energy from the sun’s radiation, the world’s overheating may (unexpectedly) be of little benefit to solar power production.
However, this is not stopping rising consumer interest as people are driven to invest in solar technology as they see both hotter summers and rising consumer prices. With some of the hottest summers on record for several decades in many parts of the world, it must be doing wonders for solar power, right?
As the world heats up, people may think that more sun will bring more solar energy, even if it has been negative for many other reasons. But soaring temperatures may be hindering solar power production as solar panels work optimally at around 25oC and start becoming less efficient when the heat goes above this. And even if the heat does not hamper solar production, it is also doing little to help it.
With record temperatures being seen across much of Europe this summer, as the U.K. reached 40oC in July, solar farms have been seeing positive output levels, with Solar Energy U.K. reporting on 20th July that the country’s solar power output had “met up to a quarter of the U.K.’s power demand”. But this is mostly down to the country seeing more days of sunlight rather than higher temperatures.
Of course, when there’s sun there’s solar power. But because of the way solar panels work, they become slightly less efficient, by around 0.5 percent, for any degree over or under 25oC. This means that peak production periods in much of the world often happen in cooler spring months rather than during the summer.
Although Solar Energy U.K. believes that significant disruptions would only be seen if temperatures were to rise to highs of 65oC or above. CEO of the firm, Chris Hewett, stated: “It’s marginally better for efficiency in the spring but essentially if you have more light, you produce more solar power.” He added, “You have to remember that solar panels work all over the world. The same technology we put on our roofs is used in solar farms in the Saudi Arabian desert.”
But uncertainty around what rising temperatures mean for solar panel productivity has not stopped interest in solar energy from picking up as the public sees the correlation between hotter weather and solar power production. As countries around the globe face rapidly rising consumer energy prices, utility bills are costing people hundreds, or even thousands, a year more. This has helped to shift public opinion in favor of the rapid construction of strong renewable energy sectors, as well as home solar technology installation, as they are seeing the limitations of oil and gas.
In the U.K., the number of searches on eBay for solar panels and solar power batteries increased by 54 percent and 134 percent respectively in June compared to the same period last year. Demand for products to track and reduce energy use, such as smart meters, has also increased. In 2020, a government report stated that around 970,000 U.K. homes had solar panels, just over 3 percent of homes, with power production increasing from 1 MW in 2008 to 11,730 MW in 2020. According to the U.K. credit company Experian, around 1.9 million households are expected to install solar panels or other renewable energy technologies in 2022, showing a significant boost in public interest.
While the heat waves being seen across the world may not be boosting solar production in the way many might have thought, they have encouraged public interest in solar technologies. As consumers face rapidly rising energy prices and see more hot, sunny days, many are now turning to renewable energies such as solar power as an alternative to help them save money and become more self-sufficient.
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Warmist deceit in Australia
‘Global heating pushing Australia’s Platypus towards extinction’. So reads a recent headline in Oceanographic magazine reporting a study released by researchers from the University of New South Wales and the University of Melbourne.
Relying on alarming projections of worsening, more frequent droughts, the researchers concluded ‘platypuses face increased local extinctions’, with numbers plummeting by up to 73 per cent.
But then, apocalyptic premises will inevitably result in catastrophic conclusions even when weather patterns are not unprecedented. Indeed, the five worst single years of recorded drought occurred before 1900. And, despite the latest floods, 2021 was only the wettest year since 2010 and, the sixth-wettest year since national records began in 1910. This was well before humans began emitting ‘dangerous levels’ of CO2.
But for catastrophists, if droughts and floods don’t do it, the Bureau of Meteorology’s ‘homogenised’ average land temperatures, which can’t be independently verified, are always a safe bet. They consistently record higher temperatures than more accurate lower-troposphere satellite observations. Satellites have been measuring temperatures since January 1979 and have observed no statistically significant global warming for a decade. No matter. The BoM knows there is a ready market for warming data.
But wait. Haven’t platypuses been around for 16 million years and wouldn’t they have survived more hostile climatic conditions than modern times? And, despite all the panic, isn’t the reality that the actual global rate of temperature increase is about one-third the projected centennial rate?
Still, studies which conclude climate change threats to wildlife survival, not least cuddly koalas, are career enhancing. But, as researcher Maria Nilsson and colleagues at the University of Münster, assert, Australian marsupials have also been around for a long time. They ascribe a migration scenario whereby possibly one group of ancestral South American marsupials migrated across Antarctica to Australia. This occurred prior to the landmasses separating during the warm Cretaceous period, some 80 million years ago when the poles were ice free. Volcanic eruptions and an asteroid put an end to that. Sea levels began to fall and temperatures started to drop. So extreme was the fall in temperatures that dinosaurs became extinct. But not marsupials.
And, it’s not just our fauna. The Great Barrier Reef has been a popular focus of climate catastrophists. Not as ancient as many wildlife species, the reefs have grown on Queensland’s south continental shelf for about two million years and for up to eighteen million years in the north. In their current incarnation they are probably 12,000 years old.
Over their entire existence, sea levels have changed many times. During the last ice age, which began around 2.6 million years ago, the sea level dropped more than 100 metres, making it possible to walk to the outer reef. When the ice age ended around 15,000 years ago, sea levels rose rapidly and new corals grew to form today’s reefs.
Despite this extraordinary record of survival, since the early 1970s activists have been predicting the end of the reef. The latest warning came in a study from James Cook University’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. It claimed the reef had lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change. The study’s lead author predicted ‘The northern Great Barrier Reef will never look quite the same again…. There is no time to lose – we must sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions ASAP’.
This call to arms was enthusiastically joined by the ultimate global warming cheerleader – the United Nations. It warned that should temperatures reach 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial times, 90 per cent of corals will be wiped out. It called for the reef to be put on a list of world heritage sites that are ‘in danger’. Its Unesco agency lectured Australia to take ‘decisive and immediate action to mitigate the impacts of climate change’.
Both JCU and the UN seem ignorant of the fact that Australia already spends per capita ten times more on renewable energy than the world average and four time more than China, Europe, the United States and Japan. And by making Australia a convenient scapegoat, they cravenly avoid exposing the real villain – Beijing, whose emissions in the last decade alone have grown by 25 per cent and now exceed all developed countries combined, almost matching them on a per capita basis.
Which makes the latest Australian Institute of Marine Science annual report proving coral coverage on the northern and central parts of the Great Barrier Reef is at its highest level since monitoring began 36 years ago especially unwelcome. It validates Dr Peter Ridd’s views whose scholarship countering the prevailing apocalyptic orthodoxy, had him fired from JCU.
That said, while the results are reliable, AIMS’s methods are outdated, which raises questions as to why, with $1.44 billion in government grants and pledges, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has not funded AIMS into the latest Japanese technology? Perhaps in ignorance lies financial bliss? True or not, blaming global warming for the projected decimation of the platypus, certain marsupial populations and, the Great Barrier Reef, has proven to be a lucrative source of funding for activists and rent-seekers.
It’s also an excuse for the federal government to institutionalise massive wealth transfers through a 43 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target. It knows this ambition is utterly unattainable but that a lie told often enough becomes the truth. So the enforced economic and social distortions which follow will enrich the few at the expense of the many and be justified on the familiar, yet dishonest, ground that the cost of emissions reduction is far less than the damages of inaction.
As US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi neatly summarised when supporting the Democrats’ historic climate bill, ‘How can they (Republicans) vote against the planet? Mother Earth gets angry from time to time and this legislation will help us address all of that’. In a world led by superstitious authoritarians, who will argue?
https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/who-will-argue-against-the-planet/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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