Unrealistic Biden Administration energy mandates are destructive.
via CFACT
March 29, 2024 at 03:12AM
Month: March 2024
Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vaporized water. This extraordinary event occurred in January 2022 when the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted. While there was some sulfur dioxide associated with Hunga Tonga, the main impact was from water vapor. Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas, so the sudden 10% increase in stratospheric water vapor in a single day increased stratospheric opacity to outgoing infrared radiation. Unlike the lower troposphere, where the greenhouse effect is relatively saturated, the stratosphere, well above the Earth’s average emission altitude (about 6 km), experiences a much more pronounced effect from the addition of water vapor. Also, the increased stratospheric water vapor content enhances infrared emissions from the stratosphere, thereby cooling it significantly.
The extraordinary climate events of 2022-24 | Climate Etc. (judithcurry.com)
via climate science
March 29, 2024 at 02:44AM
The editorial pages of the Houston Chronicle, as well as news reports, did what they could to hype the “energy transition” before, during, and after CERAWeek. Chronicle business editorialist, the conflicted Chris Tomlinson, was particularly egregious in this regard. But just a bit of balance was achieved in the letters section, where an op-ed by Randall Morton, “Houston is making a losing bet on fossil fuels (Opinion),” (March 18), previously examined at MasterResource, received three rebuttals.
The letters follow:
Jim Lloyd, Lakewood, Colo.: Randall Morton painted a very grim picture for the future economics of Houston because of a lower demand for fossil fuels. Morton failed to account for several issues related to the principles of supply and demand. He simply needs to drive in the congested traffic of every large city. Millions of fossil-fueled cars are stuck bumper to bumper. These cars have a practical lifetime well past 2030.
The politically driven transition to electric vehicles will not be popular with drivers, many of whom will be willing to extend the life of their fossil-fueled cars to avoid buying an EV. Drivers like to occasionally drive long distances and do not like the anxiety of worrying about the life of an EV battery. The demand for fossil fuels will extend well into the future and the supply provided by the Houston economy will have to meet that demand.
There is hardly any demand for EVs: just look at the auto dealers’ inventory and the losses felt by EV manufacturers. In places such as California, supply is artificially high because of environmental mandates for EV sales. The other issue is the high demand for the materials needed to make the batteries, and the very limited supply of raw materials. Following supply and demand principles, the cost of batteries will skyrocket as material supplies don’t meet demand.
All of these factors will make the future of fossil fuel economies, such as Houston’s, flourish.
Joel Mohrman, Houston: Randall Morton’s op-ed urging Houston to abandon the fossil fuel industry and become a “New Energy Capital” misleads the reader. Morton claims the end of the age of fossil fuels is near, but is very vague on what will replace them.
He warns that Houston will end up like Detroit, seemingly unaware that Detroit did not fail because cars were no longer being bought. Detroit failed for many reasons, including because its government was awful.
The expense and lack of electric vehicle capability captures the problem of the green economy overall. Green power sources are more expensive and generally work less well than the systems they replace. Morton’s claim that renewables are cheaper is another sleight of hand. The cited figures do not include the costs of overbuilding and having backup systems (usually gas turbines) to solve the intermittency problem of renewables. You can’t run a modern economy only when the sun is out or when the wind blows.
We would not need subsidies and billion-dollar government giveaways if green energy and EVs were cheaper and better. Simply because something is new does not mean it’s better.
And in fact, these products aren’t new. Windmills have powered production since the 7th century and electric cars have been tried and rejected since the beginning of the [20th] century. Given poor green economics, it’s hard to understand green boosterism.
Perhaps Upton Sinclair had the answer. He said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary is dependent on his not understanding it.” Morton and other green apologists are not shooting straight with us.
Barbara Goodson, Kingwood: Regarding “Oil and gas,” (March 19): Thumbs up to Raymond Martin for pointing out the obvious in his rebuttal letter to Randall Morton’s op-ed. Kudos to the Chronicle for printing the facts. He points out that unless our society would like to return to the 1800s lifestyle, there is no current substitute on the market that can replace the continued need for petroleum products derived from oil and gas.
My husband still enjoys watching “Gunsmoke,” but we don’t want to live like that.
Final Comment
I used to be an op-ed contributor at the Houston Chronicle [1] until the paper went from Left to Progressive Left. I no longer even try to submit articles but have gotten some letters published (and other letters not published.) I do my part, however, by exposing the conflict-of-interest of editorialist Chris Tomlinson, a fossil-fuel hater, meat-hater, and Republican hater. Every little bit counts ….
———————–
[1] Some past editorials were:
- “ExxonMobil on Right Path” (June 14, 2009)
- “Climate-Change Alarmism Runs into a Reality Check” (January 9, 2009)
- “False Alarms and Climate Change” (March 30, 2008)
- “Al Gore’s Telling Whoppers Again” (June 4, 2006)
- “Shoppers: There is a Bright Side to Rising Gas Prices” (April 18, 2002)
- “President is Correct to Ignore Climate Alarmists” (May 14, 2001)
- “Fear Not: The Energy Malthusians Are Wrong” ( April 21, 2000)
The post EVs Not: LTE in the Houston Chronicle appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
March 29, 2024 at 01:02AM
CONTRIBUTOR
Liberals are touting a new study linking climate change and inflation, but economists say that the real causes are more likely to be massive government interventions in the economy purporting to save the climate.
Climate activists, including Climate Power — which is spending $80 million to support President Joe Biden in 2024 — have touted the study’s findings, while outlets including The Associated Press, ABC News, Axios, The Los Angeles Times and The Hill have also pushed the study since its release. Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee also promoted the study on X, formerly Twitter, stating thats its findings demonstrate another way “that climate change is raising costs for families and threatening our entire economy.” (RELATED: Inflation Reduction Act ‘Has Nothing To Do With Inflation,’ Biden Says)
Democrats and other defenders of the Biden administration have variously blamed Vladimir Putin, the pandemic as well as corporate greed or price-gouging for inflation.
“We find a rich response of inflation in different price aggregates to fluctuations in a variety of weather conditions. The strongest and most consistent signal arises from fluctuations in average monthly temperatures,” the study states. “Although larger in food prices, these impacts also translate into considerable effects on headline inflation. We find limited evidence for impacts on other price sub-components asides from weak evidence in the electricity sector.”
The study projects that food inflation could jump by as much as 3% annually over the next 10 years due to the impacts of climate change, especially increasing temperatures and heat waves. The study states that the food inflation Europe endured in the summer of 2022 would be amplified by between 30% and 50% by 2035 given the warming the study projects will occur by then.
“Inflation is a monetary issue. It has to do with the money supply. The Earth’s average temperature does not affect the amount of currency in circulation,” Ryan Young, a senior economist for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “Climate change policies, rather than climate change itself, do tend to increase inflation. They do this by increasing deficit spending, which central banks are more or less obligated to finance … Typical climate change policies have an additional, smaller effect on inflation by reducing productivity. Green products are often less durable and less efficient, and they take up investment dollars that could have gone to other uses.”
The U.S. money supply, or the total amount of money circulating in an economy, as of January 2024 reflected an increase of nearly $5 trillion relative to January 2020, just before the pandemic occurred, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Inflation has been a persistent problem for the Biden administration and the American economy since 2021, with the consumer price index (CPI) increasing by 18.5% since President Joe Biden took office. (RELATED: ‘Economic Disaster’: Biden’s Budget Dreams Would Add Even More Fuel To Sky-High Inflation, Experts Say)
The Biden administration has pursued “the most ambitious climate agenda in history,” proposing to reshape America’s power grid, cracking down on oil and gas leasing and seeking to force electric vehicles to eventually dominate the American auto market. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill, contained $369 billion for green initiatives, but Goldman Sachs projects that the actual price tag for those programs could ultimately reach about $1.2 trillion.
Europe has also seen massive inflation since 2021, and the European Union intends to spend hundreds of billions more euros on climate policy and initiatives through 2027, according to the European Commission.
Three of the study’s four authors — Christiane Nickel, Eliza Lis and Friderike Kuik— are affiliated with the European Central Bank, an institution that significantly underestimated inflation in 2021 and 2022 amid an energy crisis and massive fiscal stimulus in response to the pandemic. While the European Central Bank and several of its affiliated researchers were involved with the study, the paper does not reflect the official positions of the institution or the “Eurosystem,” the study notes.
“Climate change won’t drive inflation. It is so gradual that prices have time to adjust,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, the director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, told the DCNF. “The effects of warming are swamped by the far greater demand of upwardly-mobile people asking for air conditioning and other energy-intensive goods.”
“It is the solutions to climate change that drive up prices,” she continued. “Intermittent electricity, with wind and solar powering on and off with the wind blowing and the sun shining, and then backed up with gas that kicks in when wind and sun stop generating energy, is more expensive than continuous energy. That’s why electricity bills are rising.”
The authors of the study did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
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via Watts Up With That?
March 29, 2024 at 12:03AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 