MATT RIDLEY EXPOSES THE GREEN ACTIVISTS PLANS AND FAILURES

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April 16, 2017 at 10:15PM

This Isn’t A March For Science This Is About Economic And Political Policy

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
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The complaint which is driving the ‘March for Science’ isn’t about an attack on science at all. Far from it, it’s one group of scientists not understanding that the policy they advocate is, by the scientific experts in the policy, considered to be a bad one which should be replaced. 

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” ― Michael Crichton

One of those who organises the Union of Concerned Scientists has penned an explanation of the March for Science to take place next weekend. And it’s entirely obvious that what he’s actually irate about isn’t science at all, it’s the political and economic policies being put in place as a result of science that irks him.

The two are not the same thing, not the same thing at all:

“So, why are they grabbing placards now? Because an unprecedented attack on science, scientists and evidence-based policymaking is underway in the US federal government.”

An attack upon science or the scientific method would be worthy of a march of course. But that really just isn’t what is being complained about:

“Nowhere is the attack more ferocious than on the issue of global warming, where the Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the modest but important policies put in place by President Obama.”

Ah, no, that’s not a complaint about science at all is it? That’s a complaint about political and economic policy. I am, for example, boringly mainstream concerning climate science. That warming climate is happening, we’re causing it and we should do something. And then I become equally boringly mainstream with what we should do about it–have a carbon tax. As Nick Stern, James Hanson, Greg Mankiw, William Nordaus, John Quiggin, Richard Tol, Marty Weizman, Sir Partha Dasgupta and just about every economist who has studied the matter agrees.

And the thing is, as the Stern Review itself, all 1,200 pages of meaty goodness of it, explains, because the carbon tax is the efficient method of dealing with this then the other methods, say, regulatory action like that from Obama, is not something we should do. For, if we deal with this problem the efficient way then we will either be able to solve more of it for the costs we’re willing to bear or, alternatively, solve it entirely at least cost. Using regulation, that less efficient method, means that either we’ll solve less of it because we’ll be so aghast at the cost, or we’ll be poorer once we have solved it.

That is, good economic policy tells us that the political action to deal with climate change should not be what Obama has been doing. Reversing those regulations is not thus an attack on science it’s an attack on bad policy. And do please note that this is true whatever we think of climate science itself. The truth of emissions causing warming has no influence at all upon the best method of reducing emissions and thus warming.

“My organisation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, with its more than 500,000 members and supporters, has joined with allies from the climate, environmental justice and labour movements to help organise both the March for Science and the People’s Climate March.”

Again, that’s not about science. That’s about economic and political policies.

There’s a much deeper point here too. Let’s say that we really do want to be ruled by science. Personally, I don’t think so, the people who tried scientific socialism didn’t give that sort of thing a good name really. But let’s say that we do want to be. OK, so, each scientist is an expert in their really rather small part of the overall endeavour. I know someone, in fact have funded some of her work, who is the world’s great expert on the extraction of rare earth metals from the wastes of bauxite processing. Excellent–that doesn’t mean that she’s therefore who I would turn to on how competition policy should be crafted so as to ensure rare earth supply for the US military, just to mention something that is doing the rounds at present. Similarly I’m absolutely delighted to take the world of that guy measuring atmospheric CO2 in Hawaii. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to be expert in how to change human behaviour in order to get that number going down again.

For we’ve another scientific specialty which deals with those sorts of things–economics. That’s what it is about, the allocation of scarce resources so as to meet humans wants and desires. And thus if we want to change the way that humans are allocating resources then that’s the science we’re going to have to use. It’s worth noting that pretty much all economists are against those uses of regulation to control emissions. Not because they don’t believe or trust the climate scientists. But because the economists have their own expertise. Not in climate science of course–but in what you need to do to get humans to change their behaviour.

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April 16, 2017 at 09:31PM

New Paper: 100% Renewable Energy Not Feasible, ‘Unsupportable And Reckless’ – Keeps Poor Impoverished

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Comprehensive Analysis Crushes

100% Renewable Energy Fantasy

While fully accepting the perspective that fossil fuel energy production and consumption must be dramatically reduced to save the planet from dangerous CO2-induced global warming, four Australian researchers have compiled a comprehensive rebuke of the premise that renewable energies (wind, solar, biomass, etc.) can ever supplant fossil fuels to become the dominant power source for the world.

The authors’ analysis zeroes in on the devastating conclusion that each and every one of the 24 previous attempts to substantiate the claim that a 100% renewable energy grid is achievable have failed to satisfy even the most basic feasibility criteria.

Further, a commitment to all-renewable energy sources means there will need to be a massive and unprecedented increase in grid extensions (for new power distribution systems), as well as realized plans for extreme and unrealistic land-use expansion (for biomass production especially) that would threaten ecosystem preservation, biodiversity, and land conservation efforts.

From a humanitarian standpoint, it is conceded that attempts to “decarbonize” energy sources seriously hampers efforts to provide electricity generation to the world’s most impoverished people. In fact, Heard and colleagues conclude that a commitment to renewable-only energy supplies “appears diametrically opposed to [the] eradication of poverty … and social justice for indigenous people.”

Again, these damning conclusions have been advanced by researchers avidly committed to reducing or eliminating fossil fuel energy production for the sake of mitigating global warming.  And yet even staunch renewable energy advocates cannot find a way to substantiate the claim that 100% renewable power generation is feasible.

A very brief summation of the highlights from the analysis — as well as the link to the full paper — is provided below.

Heard et al., 2017

Burden Of Proof: A Comprehensive Review Of The

Feasibility Of 100% Renewable-Electricity Systems

Of 24 Analyses Of The Prospects Of Achieving 100% Renewable Energy, Zero Met Basic Feasibility Criteria

“While many modelled scenarios have been published claiming to show that a 100% renewable electricity system is achievable, there is no empirical or historical evidence that demonstrates that such systems are in fact feasible. Of the studies published to date, 24 have forecast regional, national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible. We critically review these studies using four novel feasibility criteria for reliable electricity systems needed to meet electricity demand this century. [N]one of the 24 studies provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met. Of a maximum possible unweighted feasibility score of seven, the highest score for any one study was four. … On the basis of this review, efforts to date seem to have substantially underestimated the challenge and delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways.”

Reducing Fossil Fuel Consumption Will ‘Raise Problems’ For ‘Poverty Alleviation’

“Our review of the 100%-renewable-scenario literature raises substantial concerns. The widespread assumptions of deep cuts in primary energy consumption defy historical experience, are generally inconsistent with realistic projections, and would likely raise problems for developing countries in meeting goals of poverty alleviation.”

“[E]conomic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries is crucially dependent on energy availability. A reduction in primary energy is an unlikely pathway to achieve these humanitarian goals. To move beyond subsistence economies, developing nations must accumulate the necessary infrastructure materially concentrated around cement and steel. That energy-intensive process likely brings with it a minimum threshold of energy intensity for development. Across a collation of 20 separately modelled scenarios of primary energy for both India and China, Blanford et al. found a range of energy-growth pathways from approximately +50 to +200% from 2005 to 2030. None of those scenarios analyzed for these two countries — with a combined population of almost 2.5 billion people — suggested static or reduced primary energy consumption.”

100% Renewable Energy Demands Unrealistic Grid Extensions, Land-Use Commitments

“The remaining feasibility gaps lie in the largely ignored, yet essential requirements for expanded transmission and enhanced distribution systems, both to transport electricity from more sources over greater distances, and to maintain stable system operations. Fürsch et al. suggested that a cost-optimized transmission network to meet a target of 80% renewables in Europe by 2050 would demand an additional 228,000 km of transmission grid extensions, a +76% addition compared to the base network. … Rodríguez et al. [83] concluded that to obtain 98% of the potential benefit of grid integration for renewables would require long-distance interconnector capacities that are 5.7 times larger than current capacities. Becker et al. found that an optimal four-fold increase in today’s transmission capacity would need to be installed in the thirty years from 2020 to 2050. An expansion of that scale is no mere detail to be ignored.”

“Perhaps our most concerning finding relates to the dependence of 100% renewable scenarios on biomass. The British scenario is a typical example; even with the assumption of a 54% reduction in primary energy consumption, biomass requires 4.1 million ha [hectares] of land to be committed to the growing of grasses, short-rotation forestry and coppice crops (17% of UK land area). … The WWF scenario demanded up to 250 million ha [hectares] for biomass production for energy, along with another 4.5 billion m3 of biomass from existing production forests to meet a scenario of an absolute reduction in primary energy from today.”

“[I]n applying so many assumptions to deliver changes far beyond historical precedents, the failure in any or several of these assumptions regarding energy efficiency, electrification or flexible load would nullify the proposed supply system. As such, these systems present a fragile pathway, being conceived to power scenarios that do not exist and likely never will.”

Wind-Watch.Org Image “Steel Winds“

Summarizing Statements:  Proposition Of 100% Renewable Energy Must Be…’Discarded’

1.      “To date, efforts to assess the viability of 100% renewable systems, taking into account aspects such as financial cost, social acceptance, pace of roll-out, land use, and materials consumption, have substantially underestimated the challenge of excising fossil fuels from our energy supplies. This desire to push the 100%-renewable ideal without critical evaluation has ironically delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways. We argue that the early exclusion of other forms of technology from plans to decarbonize the global electricity supply is unsupportable, and arguably reckless.”

2.      “The realization of 100% renewable electricity (and energy more broadly) appears diametrically opposed to other critical sustainability issues such as eradication of poverty, land conservation and reduced ecological footprints, reduction in air pollution, preservation of biodiversity, and social justice for indigenous people.”

3.     “The evidence from these studies for the proposition of 100% renewable electricity must therefore be heavily discounted, modified or discarded.”

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April 16, 2017 at 09:22PM

China’s Gas And Coal Production Rising Strongly

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
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China’s natural gas production surged to a record last month and coal output rebounded as economic growth accelerated power use in the world’s largest energy user.

Natural gas production in March rose 8.2 percent from the average of the first two months of the year to a record 13.6 billion cubic meters, according to data Monday from the National Bureau of Statistics. Coal output rose almost 13 percent over the same period to average 9.67 million tons a day, the highest daily level since December, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the data.

The nation’s economy accelerated for a second-straight quarter as investment picked up and factory output accelerated in March. China’s power output last month increased 7.2 percent from a year ago, the fastest pace since October, Monday’s today showed.

“China’s fundamental demand for coal and natural gas has improved alongside better-than-expected economic growth in the first quarter,” Tian Miao, an analyst at North Square Blue Oak Ltd. in Beijing, said by phone. “The government’s investment in infrastructure has boosted power consumption while the move to replace coal with gas to fight pollution is also gaining some traction for gas demand.”

Government-enforced coal mining limits last year cut production by 9.4 percent, which nearly caused prices to double. Most coal miners will be exempt from limits this year as long as prices stay within a “reasonable range,” the National Development and Reform Commission said last month, referring to a domestic price level above 500 yuan a ton.

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April 16, 2017 at 08:42PM