My article from the March 2010 Reason on the Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” that triggers the regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is now available online. It begins:
On December 7, as delegates from around the world gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate conference, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that her bureaucracy would begin to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases deemed to be warming the planet. “Today, I’m proud to announce that EPA has finalized its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas pollution,” Jackson proclaimed. As a consequence, the agency “is now authorized and obligated to take reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air Act.”
“Reasonable” here is in the eye of the beholder. The 1990 Clean Air Act was designed for conventional air pollutants such as particulates and ozone smog, not for carbon dioxide. Applying those rules to CO2 will mean imposing costly regulations not just on cars and factories but on commercial buildings, churches, and even residences. All told, more than 1 million entities could become subject to new federal controls on greenhouse emissions.
The EPA power grab was no surprise; indeed, it was inevitable. The regulatory train was set in motion in 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote in Massachusetts v. EPA that the Clean Air Act applied to greenhouse gases. The EPA probably would have made the same move had John McCain been president, by court order if not voluntarily. Now that the train is picking up speed, it will be almost impossible to stop and difficult to control. If you think federal environmental regulation is costly and inefficient, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
You can read the whole thing here.
It’s worth noting that while I am very critical of plans to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, I believe such regulation is effectively compelled by the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts v. EPA decsion, and (as I note briefly at the end of the article) legal challenges to the EPA’s endangerment finding — such as that filed by Texas and others — are almost certain to fail. I’ll post more on this latter point in the next few days.
frissell says:
I’ve made a personal commitment to increase my carbon footprint to feed the plants and save us from global cooling. How do you suppose the coprophagous cretins at the EPA can prevent me from doing that?
Symbolic speech.
February 17, 2010, 10:34 pmBruce Hayden says:
What is getting scarier and scarier is that the EPA is apparently doing this despite the fast eroding “science” behind its mandate to regulate CO2.
February 17, 2010, 11:27 pmll says:
What a cheery article.
February 17, 2010, 11:38 pmBruce Hayden says:
The article brought up a lot of interesting points.
One is that CO2 levels are not local, or national, but world wide. If China, as expected, continues to raise its CO2 levels as it has been, and has indicated it will continue to do, the world wide levels are going up, regardless of what the U.S. does. Compounding this, of course, is that China is not unique here – India has also indicated a similar course of action. So, we will in essence have the EPA regulating something that it has no physical power to regulate.
Much of that is a direct result of classifying CO2, the natural byproduct of respiration by animals, and necessary for food production by most plants, as a pollutant. Compounding the absurdity is that plant growth (directly tied to food production) increases as CO2 increases, up to a point far far above any worst case scenarios of man caused CO2 level increases. And, all of the food we eat is directly or indirectly dependent upon plant growth. Thus, the EPA would implicitly be killing people through starvation by imposing these regulations – if they would work, which, as noted above, they won’t.
February 17, 2010, 11:43 pmBruce Hayden says:
Small correction:
February 17, 2010, 11:45 pmee says:
This is not (except for the most extreme environmental fundamentalists) about the environment. For those environmental fundamentalists, its a mechanism to impose their lifestyle preferences on others, more or less regardless of cost.
But mostly its about increased government control. With that of course comes huge opportunities for direct and indirect political payoffs.
As a side benefit, this will provide many well paying jobs for regulators, lawyers, lobbyists, government employees (there being rather a lot of overlap among these groups).
The economic damage will be severe – perhaps 2 million jobs by some estimates. And a level of government intrusion into private life that is hard to overstate.
One might hope that as the millions of jobs this will destroy actually begin to disappear, Congress will enact legislation to exclude CO2 from regulation.
February 17, 2010, 11:52 pmgeokstr says:
Yes, including a BBC interview with Phil Jones, head of the CRU, several days ago where he made a number of stunning admissions:
- there hasn’t been any warming in the last 15 years
- the Medieval Warm Period may have been warmer than now
- in his opinion, the science is not settled
- and more
Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
The interview was last week and not one mention of it anywhere on any US media except one dismissive report on CNN and, of course, the hated Fox.
But I’m sure Zuch will be here with several hundred comments to throw him under the bus and tell us what the warmists’ spin is on this in 3…2…1…
February 17, 2010, 11:54 pmJames In Perth says:
I am willing to take a bet on whether legal challenges to the EPA’s endangerment finding will prevail!
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/no_legal_option.pdf
February 18, 2010, 12:52 amzuch says:
What “fast eroding science”? It’s not going anywhere, but you never believed it to begin with. Fancy that….
Cheers,
February 18, 2010, 1:11 amzuch says:
I keep hearing this assertion (ad nauseam). Do you have any evidence for it?
Are we, shall we say, “shoving [something] down your throat”? That seems to be a common … ummm, ‘fear’….
Cheers,
February 18, 2010, 1:15 amzuch says:
Yes, indeed. “Let the freakin’ planet fry as long as I have a job.” Say, anyone notice that job growth (and economic growth) has been uniformly better under Democratic administrations? And notice that the people most worried about having or keeping a job are Republican? Wonder why…..
Cheers,
February 18, 2010, 1:23 amzuch says:
Still waiting for your bet.
I’ve got a icosahedron that came up heads 14 time out of 20 times. The null hypothesis is that this icosahedren is “fair” and has the same number of heads as tails. You can’t reject the null hypothesis at P<0.05, so you accept the null hypothesis.
I offer you this bet and I give you two to one odds: I bet the icosahedron will come up “heads” next roll.
Are you going to take that bet?
Cheers,
February 18, 2010, 1:31 amorca says:
Seattle just had its hottest January on record. It also had its hottest day on record just last summer.
February 18, 2010, 1:49 amConstantin says:
Because a huge chunk of the Democratic voting base is comprised of people who leech off of productive members of society, and having or keeping a job isn’t even a consideration for them because (1) they work for the government and their jobs are secure for life no matter what else happens in the world or (2) they’re on the public dole and figure getting a job is for suckers?
And I dispute your first premise.
February 18, 2010, 2:28 amNobody At All says:
He says nothing of the kind.
Incredible.
February 18, 2010, 2:42 am“The EPA’s Carbon Footprint” | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] here: “The EPA’s Carbon Footprint” [...]
February 18, 2010, 4:37 amNick says:
Jones said that from 1995 to the present there has been no “statistically-significant” warming. That the warming rates for four periods, since 1860, “are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.” That the warming period in the middle ages, in his words, “is most clearly expressed in parts of North America, the North Atlantic and Europe and parts of Asia,” and as for the south and the tropics, “There are very few palaeoclimatic records for these latter two regions.” That, in his words, “we need to consider all possible factors,” including large eruptions like El Chichon and Pinatubo, as well as the Sun. And that we shouldn’t be dogmatic, blinkered, blind. “There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.”
February 18, 2010, 4:44 amA. Zarkov says:
The oldest continuous temperature record for Central England shows about 1C warming since from 1659 to 2009. You can see the graph with a superimposed CO2 graph here. Prague’s Klementinum houses the world’s second oldest continuously operating weather station providing a virtually unbroken record of temperature at one location since 1775. Yet this valuable data is mysteriously missing from the Global Historical Climatology Network! See John O’Sullivan’s article at Climategate for details. Czech physicist Luboš Motl provides graphs and analysis of the Klementinum temperature record here. If you don’t believe Motl then download the data from the provided links and do your own plot. One can clearly see that the temperature went down during the Little Ice Age, and then started to climb in the late 19th Century. Bear in mind that the Klementinum record has not been adjusted for the urban heat island effect. Prague went from a population of 157,000 in 1850 to over one million today.
It’s difficult to reconcile the records for Central England and Prague with AGW. We have obviously had increases and decreases in temperature as great as we have experienced since 1950. Temperature fluctuates with or without industrialization.
February 18, 2010, 8:41 amBlue says:
Because remember the fundamental rule of the Global Warming debate:
Weather is only evidence when it confirms global warming…disconfirming weather events don’t count because they aren’t “climate.”
February 18, 2010, 8:59 amA. Zarkov says:
BBC interviewer Roger Harrabin asked Phil Jones,
Jones, replied in the affirmative, and added,
Let’s leave aside for the moment the possibility that Jones did not do the calculation properly. He’s telling us that he can’t reliably detect a non-zero slope for the 1995-2009 time period. This seems strange because he did detect non-zero slopes for time periods when there was less carbon being emitted into the atmosphere. If anything it should get easier and easier to detect trends if we are to believe that the temperature effect is accelerating due to ever increasing atmospheric CO2. The warmist retort would be that 1995-2009 is too short a period to detect the trend. A smaller sample size means less sensitivity for the statistical test. However compare 1910-1940 and 1975-2009. Only 4 years different (out of 30) yet the same trend. Does this make sense? I don’t think so because far more carbon was dumped into the atmosphere in the latter period. Why do we get the same slope?
Jones should have done a Bayesian analysis for the trend, which would have provided a distribution of values for the slope. This would avoid weaseling statements like “The positive trend is quite close to the significance level.” It would also make it harder for Zuch to confuse and mislead people.
February 18, 2010, 9:07 amB. S. Kalafut says:
Do tell.
I have neither seen new findings nor paper retractions that erode the science, nor anything in the popular press leading toward paper retractions, let alone anything that erodes the “big picture”.
I see that “lets pretend something has happened to the science” has become a newspaper fad, but I presume that people here know better than to get their science from newspapers.
February 18, 2010, 9:19 amPersonFromPorlock says:
What happened to the science is that it became corrupted by advocacy. If we have seen no retractions, it may be simply because ‘the science’ is still corrupt.
February 18, 2010, 9:34 amCarLitGuy says:
Zuch,
February 18, 2010, 9:55 ammy Icosahedron are labled 1 thru 20. One must know something more about the the model you are relying on before evaluating the significance of the persistent and highly improbable, but not necessarily impossible, “heads” observation you keep making.
Mike says:
Fast eroding science? I’m sorry, but that’s laughable. There are mountains of scholarly work in the area of climate change. The publication of some bad seeds and all of a sudden its “fast eroding?” Even if it affected 10% of people’s work in this area, you’re talking about a nearly insignificant impact, and it doesn’t change the volumes of data and research that still support the same basic premise. Get a grip.
That said, the only thing that is really undisputed is the non-existence of much peer-reviewed science on the OTHER side. What little material is there is frequently distorted by politicians and special interest groups that makes the issues of the recent past look benign.
February 18, 2010, 9:58 amSarcastro says:
orca, proving conservative prejudices through example since 2010.
February 18, 2010, 10:02 amSarcastro says:
orca, ladies and gents, proving conservative’s worst predjudices
February 18, 2010, 10:03 amsince 2010.
Nobody At All says:
Let’s look at the claims. This is reading comprehension, people.
1. “there hasn’t been any warming in the last 15 years.”
“Significance” is a way expressing our level of confidence that a given trend is not due to random variation. For example, it’s bottom of the third inning. Pujols struck out in the first and hit for a single in the third. For the period of the 1st-3rd inning, is Pujols hitting better? Well, the trend is positive, but statistically insignificant. There are too few at bats.
Jones is *not* saying that there has not been warming for the past 15 years. The trend is positive, in fact, but statistically insignificant.
2. “the Medieval Warm Period may have been warmer than now.”
There are 2 claims discussed here: (1) MWP was global, rather than regional; and (2) the temperature of the MWP is greater than today. Jones says that if MWP were both global and hotter than today, then today’s global temperature would not be hotter than the MWP. This is true, as a matter of logic.
But does he say that MWP was global? No. In fact, he describes why is *shouldn’t* be assumed to be global. Does he say that the global average temperature during that period is greater than today? Again, no.
3. “in his opinion, the science is not settled.”
This is actually *almost* true. Contrast:
This could stand for “science is not settled.” Does he mean to say that he believes AGW is not settled? No.
February 18, 2010, 10:07 amJMA says:
I love how in H and I his response is “no,” qualified by “See my answer to your question D”–a question he responded to by first saying it was outside his area of expertise.
Not the most helpful of answers. :(
February 18, 2010, 10:23 amHouston Lawyer says:
Enforcement of the EPA’s rules will surely result in a backlash by voters who have to pay the price extracted by such rules. Meanwhile we can just sit back and count the number of jobs being destroyed.
All of the global warmongers are getting increasingly shrill in defending their beliefs against the backdrop of outright fraud underlying the statistics they hold so dear.
February 18, 2010, 10:40 amMark Buehner says:
What part of “may have been warmer” does this violate? Are you suggesting anything in Jones statement ruled out the possibility? Are you denying that heretofore there had been much talk out of Mann et al that the MWP definitively did NOT happen. Changing from Not to May is a fairly important admission, is it not?
Furthermore, if Jones admittedly can’t explain the recent leveling off of warming over the last 15 years, why should we accept his confidence in the source of warming from the 50s to the 90s? I’m amazed at how 40 years is definitive data but 15 years is noise. I guess for a crew happy to use proxies for hundreds of years prior to 1960 but toss out everything after because it doesn’t line up with thermometer data, this is old hat. That which reinforces our assumptions is by definition relevant, that which doesnt…
February 18, 2010, 10:55 amMark Buehner says:
But at least an honest answer. Compared to James Hansen running around advocating locking up CEOs, this is a breath of fresh air. And this has always been a huge issue with AGW- yes, the earth is warmer. That is irrelevant. The question is how much warmer, why, and what does that mean for us. Climate scientists can answer the first two (to some degree) but they aren’t experts on the last one… and the last one is the only one that matters aside from scientific trivia. On the other hand the IPCC seems to have pulled out all the stops publishing environmental advocate ‘studies’ as evidence of how a warmer climate will destroy mankind very soon, which is a much huger assertion than anything about the actual temps at all.
Then again- small changes to this data matters, because we are talking about small changes. If global warming is in fact another 50 or 100 years off than was advertised, doesnt that have a HUGE impact on what we should be doing now? That is, of course, assuming what is being advocated is indeed out of fear of the crumbling of civilization instead of, say, initiating a bunch of social engineering that the same crowd just happens to have been advocating for the last century quite independently of climate change. Funny how they lined up though, huh?
February 18, 2010, 11:06 amNobody At All says:
First, could we please dispense with the chicanery that climate scientists ignore the MWP? The MWP has long been a subject of careful study – much more careful, I dare to say, than that of climate skeptics.
Second, the claim insinuates that Jones believes that there is evidence that the MWP was both global and warmer than today’s global mean temperature. If this were an SAT response, no credit would be awarded: Jones devotes 2/3 of his response cautioning against drawing such conclusions.
Again, this is not what was said. Please see the paragraphs in block quotes, above.
February 18, 2010, 11:10 amMark Buehner says:
Nobody At All- you don’t get to use your interpretation of what Jones meant as fact. Referencing it doesn’t help.
Even if I take your interpretation as gospel, seems to be quite a bit of hedging over what a year ago was settled science. Come on! If the MWP did exist, doesn’t it have profound implications for what we should be doing? That damn hockey stick kicked off a crap-storm of alarmism and now you’re saying these guys entertain the MWP? How do you square those two things?
February 18, 2010, 11:18 amwws says:
There are several ways in which this move can prove to be extremely valuable even if it does not ultimately win out in court.
Most importantly, it will force all the dodgy science into the light of day, and this should destroy the entire idea of “climate change” in the light of public opinion.
Second, it will garner sympathy because face it, all the EPA can do is raise costs and kill jobs. Everyone hates the EPA, and any administration in charge when the EPA does this will be destroyed in the next elections. Expect Congress to pull out the EPA’s teeth as soon as the pain starts to be felt. This lawsuit is an important tool in the vilification of the EPA, since most people aren’t yet aware of what they are about to do.
Third, it will lock up the process and should be able to effectively “freeze” (pun intended) any new regulatory action from the EPA for years – almost certainly long enough for a new administration to be put in place.
And 4th, and legally the most important – it provides the Supreme Court with the perfect opportunity to look at the new evidence which has come out (and also to re-gauge public opinion, which they always do without admitting that they do it) and overturn the disatrously wrong decision in Massachusetts vs. EPA.
So with that many levels of victory possible, this is an assured victory on at least one of them for those trying to grind this crazy train to a halt.
Obstructionist? Oh hell yes!!!
What do I want done about climate? Absolutely nothing at all! And I think that position is now easily achievable.
February 18, 2010, 11:23 amPintler says:
I agree with your pessimistic opinion of the likelihood of global carbon emissions reduction, but the position ‘our town will build a sewage treatment plant even though the town across the lake won’t’ may be both rational and commendable.
Carbon cycle basics: absent fossil fuels, organisms (you, me, redwoods) amass carbon as they live, and that carbon is turned into other organisms, or CO2 when they die. The net amount of atmospheric CO2 is unaffected, just as evaporation and condensation don’t affect the net amount of atmospheric water vapor.
Fossil fuels change that equation: you take carbon that has been out of circulation for millions of years, and convert it to atmospheric CO2 in the course of a couple of centuries. That has the potential [1] to raise atmospheric CO2, which has the potential [1] to cause climate effects.
Pollutants are defined by concentration: ozone, sulfur dioxide, and arsenic are all naturally occurring. They become pollutants when they rise to harmful levels. Saying CO2 is ‘naturally occurring’ isn’t useful – after all, breathing 100% CO2, like breathing H2O, is unhealthy, natural or not. Arguing that likely levels of CO2 aren’t likely to affect climate because _______ is valid; saying something can’t be a pollutant because it is ‘natural’ isn’t.
[1]I say potential because one can argue the climate science – climate is a complex system, and there are compensation effects and so on – but if converting all the C in fossil fuels to CO2 will result in a given CO2 level, and that CO2 level could reasonably cause harmful effects, then the global warming debate is one we need to have.
February 18, 2010, 11:28 amAndyM says:
Just as the recent blizzards in DC aren’t evidence of global cooling, warm weather in Seattle isn’t evidence of global warming.
Now repeat after me: “Weather is not climate. Climate is not weather.”
A month of unusually hot, cold, wet, or dry weather in any given place is completely consistent with all reasonable models of global warming, global cooling, or global climate stability. Climate models deal with predicting the averages over long time spans (minimum years, and usually decades or more), across the entire globe. Most global warming models even have predictions of particular locations getting colder (if a model predicts shifts in ocean currents, for example, the warm water that currently circulates up across the atlantic and keeps England relatively temperate might stop, leaving it suddenly having a climate similar to the bits of scandanavia directly east of it…).
Whether you believe in global warming or not, please educate yourself as to the basics of what climate scientists are saying before commenting. You make yourself look like an idiot when you post in complete ignorance.
February 18, 2010, 11:57 amlgm says:
Mr. Alder, please give your positions more explicitly.
You say that you believe AGW. Does that mean you believe we should actively try to prevent it? Bear in mind that actively doing anything costs money. If you believe in doing little or nothing to prevent climate change, you seem to be advocating driving off a cliff.
You don’t like the EPA regulating greenhouse gasses, but doesn’t the Clean Air Act mandate that. True, the drafters of the Clear Air Act did not envision greenhouse gasses, but the framers did not envision the internet. One has to interpret old law in new situations. Do you believe Massachusetts v. EPA was wrongly decided, or are you just grousing?
You write: “Applying those rules to CO2 will mean imposing costly regulations…” Do you recognize that all regulations are costly. The very purpose of the Clear Air Act was to force spending for clean air. Is it right to spend to avoid ozone but not right to spend to avoid climate change?
February 18, 2010, 12:09 pmSuperSkeptic says:
How sympathetic is Sotomayor to all this climate business? And on standing?
February 18, 2010, 12:11 pmDangerMouse says:
You have to understand that when discussing global warming, you’re really not talking science anymore, you’re really talking religion. Oh, the global warming believers would like you to think that it’s all science. But it’s really just an appeal to authority. It’s to get you to accept their religion.
If it were science, then it’d be a lot more convincing, and there wouldn’t be fraud, and all the purging of nonbelievers, and the language of religious denunciation re: “deniers,” etc. And most importantly, MOST importantly, real scientists would accept criticism and skepticism as part of the scientific process and the refining of theories and testing of hyoptheses. Instead, legitimite criticism and skepticism is denounced as heretical. The language and the actions of the global warming believers betray them. Its all religion to them.
And it’s all religion to people like zuch, orca, etc. You’re dealing with True Believers, so there’s no need to pretend that this is a rational conversation.
February 18, 2010, 12:11 pmorca says:
Haha, The folks who don’t believe in the Theory of Evolution are now telling us how science works?
February 18, 2010, 12:26 pmSarcastro says:
You have to understand, that when talking to people who disbelieve global warming, you’re really not talking science anymore, you’re really talking religion. Oh, the global warming believers would like you to think that it’s all rational skepticism. But it’s really just dismissing stuff as religion.
If it were skepticism, then it’d be a lot more convincing, and they wouldn’t dismiss all date cause some was fraudulent, and all the denunciation of others as cultists, and the “lets not argue data, lets just say religion and then declare victory!” And most importantly, MOST importantly, real skeptics would criticize and not create a narrative delegitimizing the other side, but would be an active part of the scientific process and help to refine of theories and come up with testable hypotheses of their own. Instead, attempts at dialogue are denounced as religious or something. The language and the actions of the global warming skeptics betray them. It’s all religion to them.
This works with any political argument, be it gays or guns or torture or civilian trials of terrorists or global warming or what-have-you. Just say “You’re dealing with True Believers, so there’s no need to pretend that this is a rational conversation” and then you win.
WOLVERINES!
February 18, 2010, 12:28 pmShelbyC says:
I dunno. I believe in tornados and hurricanes, but I don’t believe in spending a lot of money to prevent them. Before we start spending a lot of money to prevent global waming, assuming the hypotheses are correct, should we have evidence that we can effectively prevent it?
February 18, 2010, 12:29 pmA. Zarkov says:
Phil Jones left out a key piece of information about the statistical test he used: its power. Briefly the power of a statistical test is the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis at a specified alpha level when the alternative is true. He’s using an alpha level of 5% because he says he used a 95% level of significance. His null hypothesis is: zero warming trend. His alternative: something like a warming trend greater than 0.16 degrees C per decade. If the test he used has little power than the failure to reject the null hypothesis and declare victory means little. On the other hand if the test has a lot of power then we should take the failure to reject as highly suggestive that the observed trend is simply an artifact of the random variation in temperature. Why would he use a test with little power? I suspect he doesn’t know how to do the power calculation, which is much harder to do, and he got surprised. So why didn’t he just shut up about it? Let’s stand back and evaluate the interview.
If you read the BBC interview with Jones carefully you will see that strictly speaking he really hasn’t said too much. He left himself a lot of wiggle room from a purely scientific stand point. However the public does not understand the nuances of statistical inference, and will take his statements as almost an admission that we have had no warming since 1995. In terms of public relations, his interview is a disaster for the warmists. Why would he do this? Either he’s naive or he’s a rat deserting a sinking ship. What counts is perception. After the Climategate emails AGW is now in a defensive mode. The UK press is hammering them and the US press is quiet. Al Gore is in hiding, and the Obama people keep saying the science is settled. But the public is rapidly losing confidence in Obama and everyone around him like his crackpot science adviser Holdren. If Congress turns over in November they will pull the funding plug on AGW. With funding gone AGW will wither away.
February 18, 2010, 12:42 pmAnthony says:
Sure there would be. The science is plenty convincing if you understand basic physics and thermochemistry, and science is usually not intended to to convince laypeople. Most science is actually unconvincing without a fair amount of background, it’s just that your average person has no motive to disbelieve things like quantum mechanics because it has no discernible effect on their lives. You get fraud in any field where there’s money or reputation at stake, and that includes science. You get terms like ‘deniers’ in any politicized debate, and there’s zero question that global warming is politicized.
Let’s look at another point, since it came up in the thread and it’s another example of not having the background to understand a scientific statement:
This does not mean that there has been no warming. It means that, if you showed the curve to a statistician, he would find that there is a slightly over 5% chance (he didn’t say how much, but given ‘quite close’, it’s probably in the 5-10% range) that the warming trend is a statistical accident. That still means there’s a 90-95% chance that the warming trend is real, and this sort of result is common when dealing with short time periods and noisy functions.
February 18, 2010, 12:45 pmPubliusFL says:
INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
February 18, 2010, 12:46 pmA. Zarkov says:
Why don’t you tell us why you in particular believe in AGW. Please don’t give me the “consensus” argument which avoids the question. Tell us the evidence you find compelling. Is it what the GCM models say? Or the surface temperature record etc. If you say “all of it” that’s a non-answer too. Then you will sound like Palin who when asked which was her favorite founding father said “all of them.” If more than one piece of evidence convinces you then give us a list.
February 18, 2010, 12:49 pmBlue says:
Anthony, no real statistician would take an arbitrary date range like he did and try assert anything about it, not at least without a prior judgment about why that specific timeframe was meaningful.
February 18, 2010, 12:52 pmorca says:
I’m neutral on AGW, but I find it hard to take the Exxon/Palin side of the debate seriously.
February 18, 2010, 1:01 pmA. Zarkov says:
No. See my comment of the power of a test. What you want is a Bayesian calculation for the trend, then from the posterior distribution you can make the kind of statements you want to make. The Neyman-Pearson hypothesis testing paradigm uses a very convoluted logic because they don’t consider the unknown quantity (in this case the trend) as something random. Therefore they can’t make probability statements about a “fixed but unknown quantity.” Instead they make statements about the estimators, which don’t necessarily imply what you think. It’s confusing, but blame Neyman. Unfortunately his paradigm became the dominant one in statistics. But the Bayesians are gaining strength because with modern cheap computing we can simulate the posterior and sample from it.
February 18, 2010, 1:14 pmB. S. Kalafut says:
Evidence? Or at least give an example: “I believe _____(paper of your choice)______ is corrupted by advocacy due to ______(reasons)________.”
February 18, 2010, 1:20 pmA. Zarkov says:
Ok fair enough. Let me tell you that I started out as accepting AGW, but then with more study I became agnostic, which I think is your position. Then with more detailed study, I came to reject the idea that AGW is serious enough to spend huge amounts of money on. I think we need a full audit of the whole thing by a neutral disinterested qualified party. Peer review is not an audit. Peer review, especially when compromised, is not enough to risk damaging our economy. In any case Exxon will make money because we can’t give up fossil fuels. That will one day be obvious and there will be hell to pay.
February 18, 2010, 1:20 pmorca says:
Compared to say, the Iraq war, the amount of money being discussed to combat AGW is trivial.
February 18, 2010, 1:24 pmB. S. Kalafut says:
IMO people who do not understand radiative balance have no business having an opinion. It’s amazing, how many of the denialists would have there be no greenhouse effect, or have the spectroscopic properties of CO2 and methane be in question. Some of them do not realize that their arguments imply this, but they do.
February 18, 2010, 1:30 pmPintler says:
First, I think you are too dismissive of consensus. The closest I have come to personally verifying the atomic theory is high school chem labs. I haven’t done any tinkering with DNA, but those geneticists sure seem to make pretty good predictions, not to mention making glow in the dark frogs or what have you. I haven’t seen anything smaller than protozoa personally, but a lot of doctors and microbiologists seem pretty sold on the whole ‘virus theory’ business. And all of those fields have had cases of misconduct.
The basics of global warming seem pretty well grounded in simple physics: the infrared transmittance of CO2, the frequencies at which sunlight arrives and heat is reradiated and so on. Sure it’s a complex system, with feedback loops inside of feedback loops. Maybe the scientists are wrong. But on one hand I have the best guess of a lot of smart people who have spent a lot of time investigating the subject, and on the other I have, no offense intended, a bunch of amateurs like myself. As a betting man, my money is on the scientists.
Secondly, people propose that all the scientists are in cahoots, or enforcing some kind of orthodoxy. That’s the same charge the Intelligent Design folks make. It doesn’t work for ID, and it doesn’t work for global warming. Scientists dream of overthrowing the conventional wisdom – that’s how you get to be a legend like Darwin or Einstein, and win Nobel prizes. Science doesn’t have a history of suppressing contrary results for very long. Atoms are immutable and indivisible, right – until someone brought data that could be best explained by atoms being very much divisible. Diseases were caused by living microbes, and then someone isolated the cause of TMV to a something that could seemingly reproduce but also be crystallized. None of those things, which contradicted existing theories, were suppressed – and their discoverers got fame if not fortune.
February 18, 2010, 1:38 pmBrianMac says:
Slightly off-topic, but I’m amazed that null hypothesis significance testing retains any credibility.
February 18, 2010, 1:44 pmA. Criminal says:
I predict a spate of CO2-themed parties.
Take a look at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange
The sections ‘Science’, ‘Recent Climate Change’, ‘Future Climate Change’, and ‘State of Knowledge’ all have just one reference: the 2007 IPCC report; you know, the one claiming that Al Gore will melt away by 2035.
February 18, 2010, 1:54 pmJonathan H. Adler says:
lgm –
I’ve answered all of these questions in my many posts on climate change policy. In short:
I believe that AGW is a sufficient concern to justify policies that could reduce the risk in a cost-effective fashion. So I have repeatedly advocated the adoption of a revenue-neutral carbon tax and policies to accelerate innovation in the energy sector. I also believe industrialized nations have an obligation to those nations that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such that we should seek to indemnify them in some way.
I believe Massachsuetts v. EPA was a terribly wrong-headed decision that, among other things, misinterpreted the Clean Air Act.
JHA
February 18, 2010, 2:14 pmDangerMouse says:
Sarcastro, you can do much better than that. Honestly, it’s almost as if you’re not trying anymore. Sad.
February 18, 2010, 2:18 pmBruce Hayden says:
So, you buy into the appeal to authority.
The problem is that it is far more complex than you are claiming there. Sure, we can all agree that CO2 is a “greenhouse” gas. But that is about as far as there is consensus these days. For one thing, those feedback loops within feedback loops are at the center of the problem. To simplify an awful lot – is the feedback negative, positive, or very positive. The primary AGW models assume very positive, but recent research appears to refute that. And without a lot of positive feedback, the issue pretty much disappears into the noise. We (man) just doesn’t understand the world climate all that well yet. It is a horribly complex system, and we are still on a very steep learning curve.
I am not sure that they have found the emails from the Intelligent Design people yet, but we have seen enough of them for the warmist leaders to at least suspect a conspiracy.
Keep in mind that almost all of the funding has been going towards either proving AGW, or showing its affects, assuming AGW, for quite awhile. Scientists don’t work in a vacuum, but rather need such funding to survive and thrive, esp. in academia. So, the fact that AGW has not been disproved yet does not mean that it is accurate.
Oh, and Intelligent Design hasn’t been disproved yet either. Evolution through genetic mutations is pretty well proven. But the problem is that there are major genetic jumps in the genetic record, requiring up to maybe a dozen mutations that cannot yet be explained. Some are barely statistically possible. Which is to say that with the knowledge of how mutations work in evolution, it is plausible that evolution alone was responsible, but because of the statistics involving mutation rates, etc. are pretty close, the alternate hypothesis cannot yet be ruled out.
Lest anyone take me for a AGW denialist ID believer, my position on both is agnostic. I lean against ID, but am not able to completely discount it yet.
February 18, 2010, 2:21 pmDotar Sojat says:
ee is stil correct.
February 18, 2010, 2:28 pmBruce Hayden says:
It might cause climate effects and it might not. Or, at least climate effects that we have to worry about.
But to some extent you do simplify. If you grow trees, for example, the carbon is sequestered often for hundreds of years, and so it isn’t neutral as far as the atmosphere goes. Sure, when the tree finally dies, falls down, and completely decays, the carbon formerly sequestered will maybe go back to the atmosphere, as long as it doesn’t get buried, and become, for example, soil.
I frankly don’t know the percentage of carbon in plants and animals that ends up back in the atmosphere when they die. Clearly not all of it, since not all of it is combined with oxygen. And most of it that gets buried won’t, so since we pretty much still bury a lot of us humans, we pretty much effectively sequester the carbon in our bodies upon death (unless we are cremated).
February 18, 2010, 2:54 pmBruce Hayden says:
Yet the work in those very same papers cannot be replicated because the choice of data, manipulation of data, justification thereof, and the computer programs for the models used have never been released, and indeed, the scientists involved have evaded FOI(A) requests to produce such on two continents. This level of release is standard in many areas of science, but apparently the main models and their data are so proprietary when it comes to disclosure that they can be kept from public review.
No, I don’t expect to see any papers yanked. But two of the major researchers have been under investigation (though the Mann investigation seems to maybe be a whitewash by his department chair).
I called the acceptance of the science behind AGW fast eroding above. And I think it is. Six months ago whenever the subject of AGW came up, those who bought into it were effective at shutting down their opposition by reference to the “consensus”. You just have to go back in the archives of this blog to see that. But now? Since the release/hacking of those emails and code? Nary a week goes by now that we don’t get more revelations about hanky panky or cut corners, etc. in the case for CO2 caused AGW. Last week we heard that several more of the IPCC conclusions came from environmental advocacy groups using less than scientific methods.
You may be able to argue that the bulk of the research still supports CO2 caused AGW. Maybe. But the trend I think is clear – the consensus is fast eroding and my prediction is that in a couple of years we will look back and wonder why we all thought it was such a big thin.
We shall see. Only time will tell whether you are right, or I am.
February 18, 2010, 3:17 pmAnthony says:
Which makes a difference between ‘low amounts of AGW’, ‘medium amounts of AGW’ and ‘large amounts of AGW’. There is room for argument about the quantity of change, but claiming that it doesn’t exist is physical nonsense.
February 18, 2010, 3:28 pmA. Zarkov says:
First one bad policy does not justify another bad policy. Moreover war spending is not necessarily an ongoing world-wide cost making all economies necessarily less efficient by raising the cost of energy.
February 18, 2010, 3:30 pmorca says:
It will be if the war profiteers get their way.
Why get so upset about what is essentially another 5 cent bottle deposit?
February 18, 2010, 3:41 pmA. Zarkov says:
A consensus with regard to well established physics fundamentals is far different from a consensus (assuming there is one) on AGW. Today an appeal to consensus on the Special Theory of Relativity is acceptable, it would not have been in 1906. Moreover the consensus on fundamentals involves theories that are either laboratory testable or can be falsified by an definitive observation. General Relativity is a good example. Before the eclipse data, GR was a hypothesis, after the observations at Mt. Hamilton GR enjoyed universal acceptance because the observation confirmed the prediction. Not only that, the theory was developed independently of the observation. Not so with GW. AGW is more like the dark matter hypothesis. Far from proven no matter how many people might like it.
February 18, 2010, 3:41 pmHan Solo says:
Save the planet!
Reduce your government footprint!
February 18, 2010, 4:19 pmPintler says:
My hunch is that CO2 released from 6 feet under is going to make it to the surface in rather less than millions of years. A tree binds carbon for its lifetime, but at any given moment an old tree has just fallen, a new one has sprouted, and so on. A climax forest is in a steady state, carbon wise. Digging up coal/oil and burning it faster than it is deposited is not steady state.
I take your point, but my impression is that dark matter, string theory, etc are not nearly as universally accepted by physicists as GW is by atmospheric scientists. Also, whether dark matter is or isn’t there is of academic interest; nothing bad will happen whichever way that turns out. With GW, some of the outcomes that are reasonably possible are pretty bad; it’s like being diagnosed with prostate cancer – the outlook is unclear, there are good and bad outcomes, and the treatment is pretty ugly.
I don’t object to anyone saying that the science is still fuzzy – I don’t think any scientists are making plus/minus 10% predictions. I do think that people who dismiss the whole concept as a pointy headed conspiracy are the kind of people who, well, believe in intelligent design. That is not an evidence based world view.
February 18, 2010, 4:39 pmsubpatre says:
Doesn’t anyone else see this?
February 18, 2010, 4:49 pmA. Dawson says:
The problem with environmental arguments is that they are almost entirely utilitarian and there are no absolutes that are untouchable.
This is especially true when it comes to individual liberties.
When environmentalists couch the argument in these terms… thing you have, own, use, or even think is sacrosanct.
What a great way to convince people to give up their liberties / rights in the name of the “greater good”… eh?
February 18, 2010, 5:53 pmA. Zarkov says:
How do you know the cost of AGW remediation? If we are going to use much less hydrocarbon fuels then somehow they need to be much more expensive, or else nothing will happen. You seem to be assuming that the demand for energy is highly elastic; I don’t think that’s true.
February 18, 2010, 6:14 pmA. Zarkov says:
I don’t know that’s the case. Remember most scientists only contribute a small part to the overall picture. They might think their specific contribution is ok without accepting the grand hypothesis of AGW.
February 18, 2010, 6:16 pmorca says:
That’s not true. There’s plenty of people who would use less carbon if the were given the tools.
February 18, 2010, 6:28 pmA. Dawson says:
It’s funny how people argue for the merits of the technical aspects of AGW on a law blog. I do have a point of view on the technical aspects… but does anyone understand the underlying philosophical logic (utilitarianism) that underlies the the argument?
You guys are arguing about whether it’s an orange or an apple… but your neglecting to see exactly which market the fruit is being sold in.
February 18, 2010, 6:55 pmBrianMac says:
A.Dawson:
Do you really mean utilitarianism? Can you support that, or do you mean consequentialist?
February 18, 2010, 7:53 pmNobody At All says:
Out of curiosity, where will you get the prior distribution?
Whatever your problem with frequentist statistics, Jones isn’t misapplying it here. He’s not, e.g. attributing a cause or filling in blank data; this is a fairly routine application of frequentist statistics.
February 18, 2010, 8:07 pmNobody At All says:
I would think that multiple moral/ethical philosophies could argue for or against any number of policies w/r/t AGW. For example, suppose that you are a libertarian grounding individual rights in the innate dignity of the person. (e.g. a labor theory of property rights, flowing out of the ownership of self, etc.) You refuse to, for example, convict an innocent person if deterrent effect of doing so would increase aggregate utility by makes everyone safer. Just as such a philosophy could support property protection in the form of post-hoc remedies for nuisance, it could also support pre-nuisance injunctive or other remedies. Such a philosophy could easily be applied to AGW as it affects the use of property.
While moral/ethical philosophy is interesting as applied to this subject (and, I would encourage Professor Adler to post more frequently on the subject; he is quite thought-provoking), the factual circumstance also matters.
February 18, 2010, 8:18 pmElliot says:
I look forward to the further posts. Will you address the specific justification for classifying carbon as a dangerous gas? I have heard for years about the consensus, settled science, IPCC, and completed debate. But it all seems to be falling apart now. i don’t think generalities work anymore.
February 18, 2010, 8:28 pmA. Zarkov says:
I would use a non-informative prior, or a Jeffrey’s prior. I like Jeffrey’s priors because then the prior does not depend on the parameterization. But you do violate the likelihood principle with Jeffrey’s priors, and that’s a downer. Sometimes life is difficult. In any case from a Bayesian viewpoint there is almost always an implied prior with frequentist methods.
I didn’t mean to say the Jones misapplied frequentist statistics. But the way he expressed himself was confusing and misleading because he seems to be making probability statements about a fixed (but unknown) number. So he’s making Bayesian like statement from within a frequentist framework.
February 18, 2010, 9:12 pmA. Zarkov says:
I don’t know what you mean. No one “gives” me anything; I have to pay. We have a hydrocarbon based economy. How can we possibly switch to something else without increasing costs? Almost everyone heats their house with natural gas or oil. What are they going to use instead? We generate about 70% of our electricity from hydrocarbon fuels. What’s going to replace that? Our whole transportation fleet, cars and trucks depend on a portable high energy density storage medium– gasoline, diesel or natural gas. What going to replace that and how much will it cost? I hardy think the costs of a significant reduction of carbon emissions are trivial.
You need to provide somewhat more detail in your responses if you want to be understood.
February 18, 2010, 9:21 pmorca says:
100 mile per gallon cars aren’t that far out. I bet they sell pretty well.
February 18, 2010, 9:47 pmBrett Bellmore says:
The problem, of course, is that the basic physics predicts a fairly small temperature increase, with each additional ppm of CO2 having less effect than the last, because CO2′s absorption is already close to saturated in the relevant frequency range, and that peak has a close to rectangular shape. Say you’ve hung a black curtain over HALF the window. Ok, maybe it did darken the room significantly. Hang another over the same half of the window… Is the room going to end up twice as dark? Nope. It will hardly get any darker at all.
Whereas all the scary predictions assume that each additional increment of CO2 causes at least as much warming as the last, and several times as much as the direct effect of the CO2 could be responsible for. The positive feedback necessary for this to be the case is rather extreme, and not very firmly grounded. These aren’t based on calculations from the fundamental physics, they’re derived from CO2 measurements vs global temperatures, and are terribly sensitive to the accuracy with which both have been measured. Adjustments for factors such as the urban heat island effect are being questioned, and these adjustments are almost entirely responsible for the high feedback coefficient.
The Court may have said that the EPA is required to regulate CO2, but it’s still under an obligation to regulate it based on sound science, and in ways which actually stand some chance of achieving the aims of the law. THAT is where the regulations are vulnerable. If the science isn’t sound, or the regulations manifestly won’t have any positive effect, the EPA may be in trouble.
February 18, 2010, 10:40 pmBruce Hayden says:
Well, no. If the feedback is negative, then there may be no AGW. And there seems now to be a lot more reason to believe that the feedback is much lower than used in the models ultimately used by the EPA, and it may indeed be negative, than the contrary hypothesis.
February 19, 2010, 12:50 amA. Zarkov says:
I’m not sure we can get to 100 mph cars. The maximum efficiency of a steel engine based on thermodynamic considerations is about 32%. Really good internal combustion engines reach about 28% and the average is about 25%. So we are already near the limit of efficiency in the engine. We can then make the car lighter or more aerodynamic. Hybrids get more mileage by achieving what amounts to a better torque converter. In other words, the engine is operated around the peak of the torque-rpm curve. The also have lighter engines and shut down on idle, so the engine is not turning when the car is idle. Regenerative breaking also helps. There is not much left we can do to squeeze out more efficiency. Battery cars are very expensive, and have limited range. Use of heating or air conditioning will really drain the battery. So absent a breakthrough in battery technology, we are near the edge of mpg. Trucks are another matter, and much more difficult to improve. We are not going to get a lot of carbon emission reduction in this direction. The big ticket items are space heating and electricity generation. There is no way we are going cut our carbon emissions back without serious consequences.
Shutting off immigration and deporting people would help a lot. A smaller population means less energy consumption. We don’t need any new technology to do that. Deport all the illegal aliens and everyone on a green card and we lose at least 30 million energy consumers.
February 19, 2010, 1:04 amBruce Hayden says:
I just waded through this long (238 pages of pleadings) Petition to Reconsider the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act. Yes, it was filed by Peabody Energy Company, which obviously has a stake in the matter. But it goes into gory detail about how the EPA relied on the IPCC report instead of doing its own work, and that IPCC report is fatally flawed by the shenanigans of the Cabal/ Hockey Team as disclosed in those released/hacked emails, etc. from CRU. Towards the end, it even points out how some of those non-peer reviewed environmental advocacy papers that ended up in the IPCC report ultimately were mentioned in the EPA findings. It also goes into gory detail on how the Cabel was able to abuse the peer review process and some of the limitations of that process, even when conducted ethically and honestly. And while obviously an advocacy document, it is heavily documented, with some 513 footnotes. I would suggest that any here who have a serious interest in this area, and in particular, the potential EPA regulations, should read it.
February 19, 2010, 1:05 amBruce Hayden says:
I was reminded when reading that Peabody Petition that the CRU couldn’t reproduce their own results from scratch either because they had apparently trashed much of their older data, including what original data points were utilized, and how they were manipulated, (allegedly) due to storage constraints. This was emphasized by the Harry Read Me files, where Harry spent quite some time trying to do just that – reassembling the CRU databases.
It isn’t really whether they are right or wrong, but rather that we just can’t depend on their results. This is most obviously the case with the Hadley/ CRU databases, but also I think with a lot of other stuff that is still being hidden from the public.
February 19, 2010, 1:22 amSarcastro says:
[
.
My former career in physics is reaffirming itself. Love me some thermodynamics - order out of chaos and all that. Might you have a link to a source for that analysis?]
February 19, 2010, 11:05 amPubliusFL says:
It would help a lot for U.S. CO2 production, but when you’re talking about global climate change what really matters is global CO2 production. And you’ll be shifting those 30 million consumers back to developing nations which will rely disproportionately on less efficient technologies as they modernize over the coming decades.
February 19, 2010, 12:03 pmA. Zarkov says:
In your thermo class they probably gave you a formula for the maximum efficiency of a heat engine operating on the Carnot cycle: 1- T2/T1. But real heat engines don’t operate on reversible thermodynamics, they are closer to Endoreversible thermodynamics. So the formula becomes: 1-sqrt(T2/T1). The Chambadal-Novikov efficiency. The exhaust gas temperature is about 700F for an automobile engine and convert to Kelvin = 644K. Use 70F for the external temperature = 294K. You get 32% as the maximum theoretical efficiency. See this article on the physics of automobile engines. We could bump of the efficiency by replacing the steel with some kind of ceramic and running the engine hotter.
February 19, 2010, 12:18 pmA. Zarkov says:
Yes but they consume much less so their net CO2 emission drops. There is a report on this somewhere, but I don’t have it handy. It makes sense, the US emits a lot of carbon because we use a lot of energy per person to have a high standard of living. Do you think they emit much carbon in Haiti?
February 19, 2010, 12:22 pmNobody At All says:
To clarify, if you were to grant AGW for the sake of argument, are you saying that your preferred policy response would be poverty?
February 19, 2010, 12:38 pmPubliusFL says:
That’s true today, but I mentioned modernization over the coming decades. In, say, 50 years, how will the emissions reductions accomplished by the developed world by switching to 100mpg cars compare to the emissions caused by the increased per capita energy usage of all the rest of the world moving to something more closely approximating a first world standard of living? Will we just say “we got ours, but no cars for y’all until y’all can afford the latest ceramic engine technology like us”?
February 19, 2010, 12:50 pmA. Zarkov says:
Not for the U.S.
February 19, 2010, 1:11 pmNobody at All says:
1) Why would poverty be your preferred policy?
2) Upon what principle would you allocate it?
February 19, 2010, 1:18 pmA. Zarkov says:
I not sure I understand you. I’m just saying if the U.S. wants to reduce its carbon emissions it should at least stop further immigration from the Third World. We are under no obligation to keep a million people per year from immigrating here. That will also decrease the world’s net carbon emissions. What happens in 50 years is another question. For the long run we should switch to nuclear power for electricity generation. We should continue research on high energy density batteries. What the Third World does is its business, we are not their keepers.
Of course I don’t think AGW is problem, but if you do you should want to curtail immigration.
February 19, 2010, 1:19 pmA. Zarkov says:
It’s not preferred. It is just one thing we can do along with many others.
February 19, 2010, 1:21 pmNobody at All says:
Then let me rephrase:
1) Under what circumstances would you respond to AGW with a policy of poverty?
2) By what principle would you allocate it?
February 19, 2010, 1:25 pmA. Zarkov says:
If I really believed that AGW was a true existential treat to the planet and there were no other options.
February 19, 2010, 1:38 pmNobody at All says:
And upon what principle would you allocate the burdens of a policy of poverty?
February 19, 2010, 1:44 pmPubliusFL says:
What I’m questioning is whether reducing our own emissions would have very much impact on AGW if we do not become the keepers of the Third World, and how we could do THAT for the cost of a 5-cent bottle deposit (to use orca’s cost estimate for AGW mitigation). Unless, of course, that cost estimate does not include the opportunity costs to Third Worlders of keeping them in poverty. The U.S. uses a lot more energy per capita than all but a handful of other countries, but the U.S. share of the world’s energy budget has been shrinking and will continue to shrink. Considering that we’re talking about the global climate and the time scale on which climate change occurs, if we’re not planning for 50 years out (and more), what’s the point?
I’m not sure what to think. It may well be a problem, but there seems to be substantial doubt about how big a problem, over what time frame, what can be done in response to the problem, and how much it will cost.
February 19, 2010, 2:19 pmleo marvin says:
Wouldn’t it be even more efficient to use the illegal immigrants as fuel? Win-win!
February 19, 2010, 3:21 pmA. Zarkov says:
What’s their energy content?
February 19, 2010, 5:17 pmStephen Lathrop says:
As a thought experiment start with the assumption that energy from carbon-free renewables costs 2X the use of carbon fuels. That would make the cost of remediation (compared to present costs) no higher than the cost to conserve 50% of present energy use. Technology to conserve at or near that level already exists, and in many cases is not comparatively costly. For example, a Toyota Prius at 50 mpg gets about twice the mileage of a typical automobile on the road in the U.S. today. A Prius is not an expensive automobile. Presumably the successful Prius technology will soon be more widely applied.
Note also that that conservation cost will be largely in retrofit of present buildings, and replacement on a normal retirement cycle of vehicles etc.—meaning that it will maybe be more like a one time expenditure than a continuing drag on the economy. On this reasoning there would be little reason to fear an open-ended financial catastrophe.
Of course we don’t know what the cost of renewable energy will be, but can be fairly certain that it will be less than it is today. On the other hand, the cost of carbon-based energy seems certain to increase. On the day the curves cross, the cost to switch becomes zero. The next day the cost is in not switching.
This all seems fairly obvious. Which raises the question of why the ruckus? My assumption is that it has something to do with how the money to pay for energy flows through the political economy, and who ends up with the swag.
February 20, 2010, 11:12 pmA. Zarkov says:
I think it costs a lot more than that. Electricity from coal cost about 4 cents per kwh, whereas say wind turbines comes in at over 16 cents. Fossil fuel energy has two important attributes. The feedstock is both plentiful, and cheap. The capital investment is also cheap and can run on a continuous duty cycle. A coal fired power plant is basically a big boiler than you can run all the time. On the other hand, turbines don’t turn all the time and their output performs as the cube of wind speed. This means you need either storage or a big grid. When you start doing the numbers for wind and look at the capital investment, you realize pretty quickly this can’t work. The Achilles heal of the whole alternative energy enterprise is the cost of capital.
The Prius has about the same mpg as the 1985 Volkswagen Diesel. If you do a cash flow analysis, you will see that unless gasoline exceeds $5 per gallon, the Prius can’t compete with an equivalently sized conventional automobile. In other words, you can’t recover the extra cost of capital unless gas gets a whole lot more expensive.
Wind turbines are about as efficient as they are ever going get with current materials. Betz’s law tells you the maximum theoretical fraction of the wind energy than can be recovered is 59%. Current technology is close to that. Then we still need some kind of liquid fuel to run the transportation fleet. We might one day get a battery than can substitute for a gas tank, but when that will happen is speculative at this time. On the other hand, oil can only get so expensive. Beyond something like $50 per barrel, coal-to-liquid fuel becomes economic. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a proven technology for doing that. We can also use natural gas in automobiles and trucks and our proven reserves keep increasing. Since the US is awash in coal and natural gas, I think there’s a cap on the future cost of energy.
February 21, 2010, 3:13 pmNobody At All says:
A few things about coal:
– I take it that $4/kwh is a fully-depreciated plant, all creditors reimbursed, etc.? i.e. This primarily represents O&M costs? If you give me a free wind farm, I can get a pretty low levelized cost, too. A new coal plant will be between $5-8/kwh, depending upon the price of coal, overnight costs, and the cost of capital (generously subsidized by ratepayer guarantees.) The unsubsidized levelized cost of a new onshore wind farm in the U.S. depends on the capacity factor of the resource, capital costs, etc., but can be anywhere between $6-$12/kwh, with $8-9/kwh being a good bet. Citing a cost double this ($16/kwh) is a tell-tale sign that you don’t have the first clue of what you’re talking about.
– A coal plant isn’t just a big plant that you *can* run all the time; it’s a big plant that you *have* to run all the time – its variable output is minimal. If its output is offset in an economic dispatch (by, e.g. natural gas, or wind) its levelized $/kwh rises steeply, due to ramp-up, ramp-down inefficiencies. IPPs don’t build coal plants for many reasons; a primary one is that they can’t get financing because banks are scared that their dispatch will be severely interrupted over their useful service life (e.g. by natural gas, or wind); on a project financing basis this makes the project uneconomic. So they’re built through government subsidies provided by service monopolies.
– Your misapplication of Bentz’s law is also telling. The levelized cost of a wind plant depends on many considerations – e.g. making the materials of the same strength cheaper, or using less of them (does Bentz’s law apply to material design?), the capacity factor higher (does Bentz’s law apply to taking advantage of higher or lower wind speeds, predicting the weather, or adding transmission lines to resource-rich areas of the country?), and the cost of capital (does Bentz’s law apply to getting capital on a project financing basis for a relatively new technology (e.g. 10-year mass utility-scale deployment), at the same price as for a much more mature technology (e.g. 30-90 mass utility-scale deployment)? I think not.
February 21, 2010, 4:26 pmA. Zarkov says:
That’s not 4 dollars per kilowatt hour that’s 4 cents. The cost of 4 cents per kwh for coal fired power plants is a common figure. You can buy electricity retail for $0.0462 in Kentucky. Getting the true cost of wind turbine electricity is more difficult. This reference says,
I used T. Boone Pickens numbers for the cost of the big wind farm he was promoting. Obviously my 16 cents is an estimate, but I think it will turn out to be realistic.
You misunderstand my argument about Bentz’s law. It sets a limit on the energy you can extract from wind. To get better efficiency you need to increase blade size until material or other limits set in. So currently wind turbine efficiency is materials limited not design limited. In other words, research is not going to give us a significantly more efficient turbine unless materials improve because current designs are very good and near the theoretical limit. All that other stuff, such as land cost, wind speed etc count. How you configure a farm counts. We would get bogged down in a blizzard of engineering details to try and bring them all in. If wind turbines were so great they wouldn’t need subsidies. I watched the wind turbines shut down at the Altamont pass after the tax subsidiarity was taken away. Altamont is one of the best places in the country for a wind farm.
February 21, 2010, 8:02 pmNobody At All says:
The link doesn’t purport to list wholesale prices, or even the wholesale cost of generation from a particular source (coal), much less wholesale cost of generation from a *new* plant of a particular source. It lists retail prices from 2004, which is the cost of electricity as delivered (generation, transmission, distribution).
You are trying to determine the price of new coal generation by looking at the retail price of electricity, as delivered, the price of which includes generation by plants whose investors have already met their IRR, creditors that have been repaid, etc., and are operating on an O&M basis. Want to compare the O&M costs for coal versus wind? Be my guest. But please don’t think, for a minute, that you have any pricing that anywhere approximates what an investor would consider a valid comparison.
I’m not going to take the time to lead you through a valid levelized cost comparison might be made (tonight), but if you’d like, take a look at the wind market prices (starting at p. 33 of the pdf, p. 26 of the market report). This is *not* the levelized cost, but as a rough cut, take the power price, and add $21 for the production tax credit. At least that’ll get you in the general *ballpark*. While you’re in there, take a look at how representative a wind farm constructed in the early 1980s is for one constructed 2010.
February 21, 2010, 9:06 pmelectronic display says:
The regulatory train was set in motion in 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled by a 5–4 vote in Massachusetts v.
June 14, 2010, 2:11 am