Fox News: After Climate-Gate, U.N. Submits to Independent Review (emphasis mine):
In an apparent slap at the embattled chief of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has ordered a newly formed outside scientific panel to review its "procedures and practices" — and more significantly, its management.
The hastily assembled panel will be headed by Prof. Robbert H. Dijkgraaf, head of the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-chairman of the InterAcademy Council. The investigation will be carried out by the Council and will be composed of unpaid volunteer scientists. The panel's formation, it was acknowledged at a press conference Wednesday, was a direct reaction to criticism of the way the IPCC put together its last report on climate change.
The Council is composed of the heads of national science academies in 15 countries, according to Dijkgraaf, a theoretical physicist.
The IPCC is a U.N.-funded organization that gathers and publishes authoritative reports on the state of climate research. Governments and policy makers rely on its findings to battle climate change, because it is expected to present the best analysis and assessment of data available.
But the IPCC has faced a torrent of criticism since November, when leaked e-mails raised doubts about its handling of data and its fairness. At least five significant errors have been reported in the panel's findings, and its credibility has been severely undermined both among scientists and the public.
What this guy did was a fifth-grade science experiment. You can decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen by using copious amounts of electricity. It's called electrolysis and was discovered around the turn of the last century. What most 12-year-old science-fair entrants do is use a battery to provide the electricity. What this scientist did was to use a solar cell to provide the electricity.
First, thermodynamics require that more energy is require to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen than can be reproduced when they are recombined. Second, even with his new catalyst for the electrolysis step, efficiencies currently available for solar panels (producing oxygen and hydrogen) and fuel cells (recombining them), and even those in the near future, are so low that this is not a viable method.
What I can't believe is that this guy (a) has been at this for 25 years and this is his result; and (b) has received $4M for what is an elementary school science fair entry.
One of the interesting side effects of last year's stimulus bill was $400 million in funding for ARPA-E, the civilian, energy-focused cousin of DARPA. And in this week's first ever ARPA-E conference, MIT chemist Dan Nocera showed how well he put that stimulus money to use by highlighting his new photosynthetic process. Using a special catalyst, the process splits water into oxygen and hydrogen fuel efficiently enough to power a home using only sunlight and a bottle of water.
Like organic photosynthesis, Nocera's reaction uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and energy. However, whereas plants create energy in the form of sugars, this process creates energy in the form of free hydrogen. That hydrogen can either be recombined with the oxygen in a fuel cell to generate electricity, or converted into a liquid fuel.
In about four hours, water treated with Nocera's catalyst can produce 30 kilowatt-hours of energy. Moreover, the process is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that Nocera has no problem envisioning a day when each house generates its own fuel and electricity from photosynthesis.
Heaven and Earth author Ian Plimer no longer welcome to address the Royal Society of Artists, lest it be construed that the Duke of Edinburgh endorses his views.
Plimer's reaction: “Strange that those who preach environmentalism at the Palace are feted as concerned scientists with no political agenda whereas those who try to speak rationality are regarded as political.”
. . . The report said that "California green businesses have increased 45% in number and 36% in employment from 1995 to 2008 while total jobs in California expanded only 13%."
Which sounds impressive. But let's give it some context.
While Next 10, a self-described "independent, nonpartisan organization focused on innovation and the intersection between the economy, the environment, and quality of life issues for all Californians," looked just at green jobs, the state's independent Legislative Analyst's Office looked at what the Global Warming Solutions Act will actually do to the overall economy. The picture is not rosy.
"It seems most likely to us that implementation of (the global warming legislation) will result in the near term in California job losses, even after recognizing that many of the programs phase in over time," wrote legislative analyst Mac Taylor, who questioned the reliability of the Air Resources Board's optimistic estimate.
The analyst declined to project the long-term effects, saying they were unknown. But the reasons for the job losses — higher energy prices, changes in the types of energy used, vehicle fuel standards, business contractions and relocations, regulatory compliance — aren't likely to change. This strongly suggests that job losses will go on beyond the near term.
At one time, California was known for its overflow of original ideas that helped move the country forward. Sacramento's global warming bill, however, is a mistake the rest of the states, as well as Washington, should learn from.
President Obama plans to boost the effort to develop Alaska's natural gas resources into the executive office of the White House, according to legislators who visited Washington, D.C., to discuss energy issued with other legislators.
Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, recently nominated legislative aide Larry Persily for the Obama appointment as federal coordinator. Persily has support from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, as well.
He is now awaiting confirmation by the Senate, after having been approved by the Senate Energy Committee.
Senate Majority Leader Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, said a top Obama administration official, former Alaskan Pete Rouse, told Alaska legislators in Washington that Obama would be more than just verbally supporting the Alaska natural gas pipeline.
"Mr. Rouse said the president was planning to elevate the Alaska gas line coordinator's office effort into the executive office of the president once Mr. Persily is in place and is official," he said.
After returning from Washington, Ellis told colleagues on the Senate floor Monday that Persily was likely to win confirmation and be well-placed to give Alaska's views on the gas pipeline.
"I guess the president is quite impressed with Larry Persily," he said.
Persily declined to comment on the possibility of the elevation of the coordinator position.
"The White House was pretty clear with me that I should not speculate about what that job may or may not be," he said.
Rep. Berta Gardner, D-Anchorage, said the message she and others received from the Energy Council meetings was that Obama would raise the coordinator's profile.
What exactly does "raise the profile mean?" Conservatives for Palin argue that it means "take credit for the work of others":
It's not a surprise that Obama might want to take credit for Palin's gas pipeline. After all, as Palin has pointed out over and over, America needs a source of clean, reliable energy that comes from domestic sources, thereby increasing our national security. But AGIA needs the free market to work. Much as he may wish to claim credit, Alaska's gasline should not become an Obama public works project.
Of course, it might also mean "Find out more about it to help your Green buddies sue to stop it." Only time will tell.
Wind power has made incredible inroads into the U.S. energy system thanks to big, efficient machines standing hundreds of feet tall. But the future of wind power may be underground.
In the abandoned mines and sandstones of the Midwest, compressed-air storage ventures are trying to convert the intermittent motions of the air into the kind of steady power that could displace coal.
Compressed-air energy storage plants use compressors to store electricity generated when it’s not needed. The air, pumped into large underground formations, is like a spring that’s been squeezed and when it’s needed, it can deliver a large percentage of the energy that it received.
The first and only such plant in the United States went online in 1991, and though the technology didn’t take off, it did prove that it worked. And now, combining cheap wind energy and compressed-air storage could create a potent new force in the electricity markets.
“This is the first nonhydro renewables technology that can replace coal in the dispatch order,” said David Marcus, co-founder of General Compression, a new company that received $16 million in funding from investors including the utility Duke Energy to build a full-scale prototype of their energy storage system, which would be deployed with arrays of wind turbines.
The dispatch order is how grid operators decide which power plants to switch on. They have to balance the amount of generation and consumption or they risk the grid’s stability. The amount of power people use goes up and down, but it stays above a certain level all the time. To meet that need, utilities buy consistent always-on power from the large, cheap coal and nuclear power plants that are the backbone of the electric grid.
Someone's feeling a little sensitive about the "Louisana Purchase"...
"That’s such an offensive question, it’s just offensive," said Louisana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, after being asked what she would "need" to see to support a climate bill during a hallway encounter in the Capitol Tuesday.
"It’s not what I need, it’s what I believe what the people that I represent believe. It’s not what I need."
Remember our friend "Dr." Tom Karl, the first appointee to head the nation's new Climate Service? He was "Dr. Karl" — thanks to a 1970s PhD, or so he had written — until, well, he wasn't?
Today, plowing through 1,500 pages of e-mails just dumped on me by NASA — to, I get the feeling, forestall the inevitable litigation they knew became ripe this week — I see the following e-mail from the good doctor to James Hansen. The footer jumped out at me. [See the PDF here.]
Now, imagine the moment when Mr. Karl proudly calls down to IT to announce that he wants the tag "Dr." now placed before his name on the footer. Possibly right after he hung on the wall his new Doctorate. Erm, Honorary Doctorate. Ah, of, er, Humane Letters. In 2002.
How so very sad it would have been to observe that moment. Almost as bad, I guess, as when he erroneously put down the "Ph.D." on that CV I found previously. Something to do with a federal grant (uh oh). Yet it really does capture the "climate science" field as it has boomed from a sleepy backwater of geology to the capo di tutti capi of taxpayer-funded boondoggles, on similar pretense.
And equally fitting that Dr. Karl be the first head of this new ClimateCorps (no, sadly, that's not pronounced "corpse"). This reminds me of several more gems I have stumbled across in today's review — please be patient — all telling me how we should look forward to years more of the sort of accuracy and integrity we have come to expect from our climate comrades.
Detroit — As we reported here two weeks ago, tort cronies at ABC and Congress have been using a trial lawyer-paid academic to claim that Toyota electronics are causing episodes of “instant acceleration.” The MSM finally caught up to the news Monday — but not because they were curious. Toyota had to report it for them at a news conference.
Of course, Toyota’s own paid engineers should not be taken as gospel truth either — except that their findings confirm those of independent studies (here and here).
The Toyota engineers found that the tort stooge, Prof. David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, had “re-enacted” Toyota’s defect by stripping insulation from wires connecting the accelerator pedal to the throttle — then connecting them to nearby wires normally too far apart to touch. It’s a procedure that can be duplicated on many vehicles.
“Dr. Gilbert’s demonstration is not evidence of a design flaw or a safety risk,” engineer Chris Gerdes of Stanford put it diplomatically. “Dr. Gilbert provides no evidence that his scenario occurs in the real world.” That’s sugarcoating it. What ABC did was fraudulent.
ABC reporter Brain Ross demonstrated “instant acceleration” in a Toyota Avalon, reports Gawker.com, “by splicing in staged footage to make it look scarier.” Oh? Please go on.
“One of the things that makes it look scary,” continues Gawker, “is that when the acceleration occurs, Ross’ piece cuts to a close-up shot of the Toyota’s tachometer spiking up to 6,000 RPMs in the course of a second. But . . . the tachometer footage is faked.”
Faked.
“ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider confirmed to Gawker that the tachometer shot was indeed taken from the parked car and spliced into Ross’ death ride.” In other words, Ross took footage of a parked Toyota revving to 6,000 RPM — then falsely portrayed the shot as having occurred while he was driving the car. ABC insists this was necessary because the actual footage was too “shaky.”
As for Gilbert, the Wall Street Journal — in a typical dispatch — doesn’t get around to informing its readers that he is a paid shill for the tort lobby until graph 16. Gee, maybe that should be in the lede?
After CBS’s faked “runaway acceleration” in Audis in the ‘80s and NBC’s rigged “exploding gas tank” GM pickups in 1992, you would think the MSM would learn. But today’s left-wing journalists see themselves as watchdogs of industry, not government. As a result, they will even stoop to Ross’s tricks to turn the public against a company. They are expensive tricks. An AP analysis estimates Toyota’s legal costs could accelerate to $3 billion or more.
There is much hair-pulling these days about the loss of investigative resources as Big Media downsizes. But as the Toyota case (and Climategate) proves, the real investigative journalism is often being done by non-MSM sources.
According to a study from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, for every “green job” created by Spain’s solar subsidies, 2.2 jobs in other sectors were destroyed and $758,471 was spent to create each green job. Germany is also paying dearly for their solar subsidies. A study commissioned by the Institute for Energy Research (IER), found per worker subsidies for solar industry jobs are as high as $240,000.
Yeah, let's do that "green jobs" thing here in America, too.
EPA chief Lisa Jackson is clinging to Obama's green-jobs talking points in pushing back against legislative proposals from Sens. Lisa Murkowski and John D. Rockefeller. From Reuters:
"Supposedly these efforts have been put forward to protect jobs," Lisa Jackson told a meeting at the National Press Club. "In reality, they will have serious negative economic effects."
Jackson said industry needs clear signals from the U.S. government on greenhouse gas regulations. Otherwise investors would have "little incentive" to put money into clean energy jobs. The country would fall further behind other countries in the race for clean energy, which would hurt the economy, she added.
Jackson said if EPA's regulation of greenhouse gas emissions was stopped, rules to make cars and light trucks become more efficient would be put on hold. That would leave "American automakers once again facing a patchwork of state standards," that could hurt profits at the companies which have experienced hard times already.
Jackson signaled there was room to compromise with industry in order to get a bill putting a price on carbon emissions. The U.S. energy and climate strategy should include incentives for offshore oil and natural gas drilling, as long as the environment is not hurt, she said.
"The energy strategy has to be varied and should include offshore drilling when it can be done in a way that is protective of the environment," Jackson told reporters at the National Press Club.
Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joe Lieberman, an independent, are working on a compromise climate bill that could include incentives for offshore petroleum production and nuclear power. The bill faces an uncertain future amid opposition from energy-rich states.
Jackson said she has met with Graham and Kerry on the bill and that it should also include incentives for alternatives, like offshore wind power, and energy efficiency.
The budget watchdog was responding to a request by Republican state Senator Dave Cogdill to study the effects of California's 2006 climate change law, which mandates changes to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
California's environmental vanguard approach is being hotly debated in the state ahead of a November gubernatorial race and in the midst of an economic downturn that has pushed unemployment to recent records. Many other states and the federal government are watching closely.
"We believe that the aggregate net jobs impact in the near term is likely to be negative," said the report, dated March 4. "Reasons for this include the various economic dislocations, behavioral adjustments, investment requirements, and certain other factors," it said.
The total effects on the economy near- and long-term are likely to be modest, since energy costs are a relatively small share of expenses for most people living and doing business in California, it said.
The state agency responsible for implementing the law is working on a revised economic analysis after a first draft met widespread criticism. That revision is expected this month. The Legislative Analyst's Office based its comments on the original version.
The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global settlement.
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon.
She also gave warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.
“To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult,” she said. “Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen . . . but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty.”
Her pessimism echoed that of the outgoing United Nations climate change chief, Yvo de Boer. He told the FT as he resigned last month after four years of seeking an agreement that he could not see a treaty being signed this year.
A must read for anyone who thinks the government can just wave its magic subsidy wand and create jobs and energy. New York Times:
PUERTOLLANO, Spain — Two years ago, this gritty mining city hosted a brief 21st-century gold rush. Long famous for coal, Puertollano discovered another energy source it had overlooked: the relentless, scorching sun.
Armed with generous incentives from the Spanish government to jump-start a national solar energy industry, the city set out to replace its failing coal economy by attracting solar companies, with a campaign slogan: “The Sun Moves Us.”
Soon, Puertollano, home to the Museum of the Mining Industry, had two enormous solar power plants, factories making solar panels and silicon wafers, and clean energy research institutes. Half the solar power installed globally in 2008 was installed in Spain.
Farmers sold land for solar plants. Boutiques opened. And people from all over the world, seeing business opportunities, moved to the city, which had suffered from 20 percent unemployment and a population exodus.
But as low-quality, poorly designed solar plants sprang up on Spain’s plateaus, Spanish officials came to realize that they would have to subsidize many of them indefinitely, and that the industry they had created might never produce efficient green energy on its own.
In September the government abruptly changed course, cutting payments and capping solar construction. Puertollano’s brief boom turned bust. Factories and stores shut, thousands of workers lost jobs, foreign companies and banks abandoned contracts that had already been negotiated.
“We lost the opportunity to be at the vanguard of renewables — we were not only generating electricity, but also a strong economy,” said Joaquín Carlos Hermoso Murillo, Puertollano’s mayor since 2004. “Why are they limiting solar power, when the sun is unlimited?”
Puertollano’s wrenching fall points to the delicate policy calculations needed to stimulate nascent solar industries and create green jobs, and might serve as a cautionary tale for the United States, where a similar exercise is now under way.
White House Easter Egg Roll to Be Environmentally Friendly
(Fox News) - This year’s White House Easter Egg roll will be eggs-actly what the bunny ordered. The environmentally concerned bunny, that is.
A White House announcement Monday said the eggs at this year’s April 5 roll will be made from paperboard that contains no wood fibers from endangered forests, is recyclable and features vegetable-oil based inks and a water-based coating.
What’s more, they’ll come in purple, pink, green and yellow and feature the stamped signatures of both President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
Israel is expected to unveil plans this week to build a nuclear power plant, reports say.
They say an announcement will be made by Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau at an energy forum in Paris.
Israel is facing a crisis over electricity supplies, but environmental objections have blocked efforts to build a new coal-fired plant. . . .
'Joint project'
Mr Landau is expected to tell the conference in Paris that Israel is considering building a nuclear power plant, reports say.
He has reportedly discussed the possibility of co-operating in the project with French Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, together with neighbouring Jordan.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that he is going to push international financial institutions to "eliminate the ostracism of nuclear energy in international financing".
In a powerful speech at the opening of the plenary session of the International Conference on Access to Civil Nuclear Energy in Paris on Monday, the President pointed out that the economics of civilian nuclear power required an initial investment of billions of euros followed by very low operating costs, which requires long-term funding at reasonable rates. For many countries, this creates a barrier that prevents them adopting nuclear energy.
"Civil nuclear energy is an economic choice .... Frankly, I do not understand why international financial institutions and development banks do not finance civil nuclear energy projects. The current situation means that countries are condemned to rely on more costly energy that causes greater pollution," he said.
"I propose to change all this. The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the regional development banks must make a wholehearted commitment to finance such projects."
Two things. One, if Sarkoy's plan were embraced, France would benefit economically as it's a leader in nuclear power. And that's OK. Two, the U.S. is trying to do just this with the Bush, and now Obama, loan guarantees for nuclear plants.
There's still the chance that a government shuts down a nuclear project once it's been completed, which wouldn't eliminate the risk of these World Bank type loans. It would be taxpayers who would ultimately would eat the loss rather than a private bank.
For all the rhetoric about moving to a green economy and billions in new spending to subsidize development of renewable energy resources, the fact remains the nation will be almost totally dependent upon energy generated from burning of fossil fuels — chiefly coal, natural gas and oil — for the foreseeable future.
So the need to develop America’s bountiful fossil fuel resources will only intensify as our economy grows and those of emerging world economic powers like China and India similarly expand. But President Obama is moving national energy policy in exactly the opposite direction.
Instead of aiding exploration and development of available fossil fuel resources, the administration appears to be doing everything possible to slow or even stop it.
American Solutions’ Steve Everley offers an illuminating partial listing of examples of the Obama energy policy of delay in action . . .
NOVA has produced an extremely informative hour-long show called Extreme Ice. For example, the first section of the show, titled “In Extremis,” explores how:
"Around the world, glaciers and ice sheets have begun breaking apart and accelerating toward the oceans faster than ever imagined possible. With his Extreme Ice Survey, photographer James Balog is trying to alert the world to this unsettling fact."
Sudden Acceleration of Washington Falsehoods [Henry Payne]
Detroit — Overwrought, tort-fed accusations of automakers designing “killing machines” have historically been based on half-baked, even fraudulent, manipulations of data. When Audi was accused of making runaway cars in the 1980s, 60 Minutes doctored accelerator pedals. In 1993 NBC used hidden rockets strapped to the bottom of GM trucks to make them explode to “prove” GM’s side-saddle gas tank design was unsafe.
Now the other shoe is dropping in the Toyota “sudden acceleration” case.
Turns out that House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D., NY) falsely represented “smoking gun” legal documents alleging Toyota deliberately withheld documents that proved it was guilty.
My Detroit Newscolleague Christine Tierney reports:
(The documents) seemed deeply damaging to Toyota at first glance. But . . . this week, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House committee, said his staff discovered “factual misrepresentations” in Towns’ (allegations). For instance, Towns cites a memo (Toyota whistle-blower Dimitrios) Biller wrote on Dec. 6, 2006, suggesting that Toyota preferred to settle cases rather than disclose information it kept in so-called “Books of Knowledge.” Towns quotes Biller as saying: “Toyota concludes that it would be better to pay a premium to settle this case and avoid producing the ‘Books of Knowledge.’” But Issa's staff said Towns left out a crucial part of the sentence. The full sentence is: “Toyota concludes that it would be better to pay a premium to settle this case and avoid producing the ‘Books of Knowledge’ before Toyota and its counsel had an opportunity to inspect those materials.” Issa's staff also found that the phrase “sudden unintended acceleration” had been injected into a passage that referred to a suit alleging transmission problems.
Concludes Issa: “Based on staff review and analysis of the documents . . . (Towns) frequently misquotes and mischaracterizes the underlying material, in one extreme case, actually altering the subject of the underlying document."
In other words, the chairman is lying. When does the recall of defective, tort-bought congressmen begin?
— Henry Payne is an editorial writer and cartoonist for the Detroit News.
The Unbearable Lightness of Solar Power [William Tucker]
To see the absurdities that await us in our energy future, look no further than the front page of today’s business section of the New York Times for the story entitled “The Newest Hybrid Model.”
The article features a dramatic photo of 500 acres of solar panels sitting next to an innocuous looking natural gas plant in Indiantown, Fla., owned by Florida Power & Light. The natural gas plant — which occupies no more than 15 acres — produces 3,800 megawatts of reliable electricity. The gigantic 500-acre solar complex next to it (that’s about three-quarters of a square mile) will produce 75 MW of electricity AT ITS MAXIMUM, i.e., on a hot summer afternoon. (Fortunately, this is the time when electrical demand peaks.)
What is the purpose of all this? The Times explains:
The solar array . . is an experiment in whether conventional power generation can be married with renewable power in a way that lowers costs and spares the environment.
The solar array certainly isn’t going to lower the costs of natural gas. The question seems to be whether it is the solar collectors that are saving the environment from natural gas or the natural gas that is saving the environment from being blanketed with hundreds of acres of solar collectors.
While other solar projects already use small gas-fired turbines to provide backup power for cloudy days or at night, this is the first time that a conventional plant is being retrofitted with the latest solar technology on such and industrial scale.
Translation: Many solar arrays are now installing natural-gas plants for backup when the sun doesn’t shine. This one will dispense altogether with the fiction that solar can stand on its own and has a 500-acre solar array tacking an additional 2 percent generating capacity onto a stand-alone gas plant. For some reason, this is supposed to be a big advance.
At a cost of $476 million, the solar project . . . will be second-biggest [in the world] after the 310-megawatt Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert in California . . . built in the 1980s.
At $476 million, it also means that building a 1000-MW solar array — the size of an average coal or nuclear plant — would cost $5 billion, putting it right up there with the most expensive reactors and coal plants with carbon capture. But the solar panels only generate electricity one-third of the time. “We’d love to tell you that solar power is as economical as fossil fuels, but the reality is that it is not,” says Lewis Hay II, CEO of Florida Power and Light, which has built the complex. “It’s not a level playing field for renewable versus fossils right now.” Indeed.
Why would anyone build such a monstrosity? The reason is simple. State legislatures have decided, in their wisdom, that “renewable energy” is the future. (In fact, there is no such thing as renewable energy — that’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics.) Therefore, the legislatures are marching us in that direction.
Such facilities serve only two purposes: 1) To satisfy the whims of state legislatures; and 2) to create pretty pictures for billboard ads and the covers of annual reports. In both they are a triumphant success.
Environmentalists vs. Thailand’s Economy [Greg Pollowitz]
BBC:
Thailand's economic prospects could be put in jeopardy because of a continuing dispute at a huge industrial complex.
Recent figures on GDP and exports have been encouraging for the Thai government.
But economists and investors are warning that two major factors have the potential to derail Thailand's nascent recovery.
One is political instability. The other is the legal morass at Map Ta Phut.
Map Ta Phut is one of the biggest petro-chemical hubs in the world.
It is the size of a small town built of gleaming steel pipes, storage tanks and chimney stacks, jutting out into the sea; an industrial peninsula clearly visible from the white sand beaches and fishing villages on either side.
Map Ta Phut has been driving Thailand's industrial growth for decades.
But last September the Constitutional Court put the brakes on.
Local environmentalists successfully argued that several new projects were in breach of pollution laws.
The laws were part of the 2007 constitution, but because there have been so many changes of government in Thailand in recent years, the regulations were never properly established.
Companies could not possibly comply.
Thailand's political turbulence left a legal loophole which was successfully exploited by the environmentalists.
Michael Fumento has a good piece today up at Forbes:
Some global warming skeptics have been using the remarkably cold winter and record snowfalls to attack the idea of global warming. Believers are crying foul. "You're confusing weather with climate!" they insist.
And they're right. But they invented the game a long time ago and have been deftly playing it ever since.
Among the complainers is Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who last year won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. "The Earth is really, really big," he condescendingly but correctly observes in a nationally syndicated column. "It's so big that it can be cold here and warm elsewhere — and this is the key concept — at the same time. Even if it were unusually cold throughout the continental U.S., that still represents less than 2% of the Earth's surface."
Says Robinson: "Those who want to use our harsh winter to 'disprove' the theory that the planet's atmosphere is warming should realize that anecdotal evidence always cuts both ways." He notes that crews had to bring snow to the ski runs at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver because the winter there has been unusually warm. Meanwhile, "Revelers participating in Rio de Janeiro's annual carnival," he says, "sweltered in atypical heat, with temperatures above 100 degrees."
Adds Robinson, "Fortunately, the custom during carnival is not to wear much in the way of clothing." To which I add, "And unfortunately I have yet to attend this event, but there's always next year."
Everything Robinson writes is true, but he neglects to say that the warmists never hesitate to use any unusual phenomena to assert their case. "Any?" you ask with incredulity. "Any!" I respond with assurance. Including all sorts you might expect to read in the satire newspaper The Onion.
Indeed, it was precisely to include things like extreme cold and heavy snow under the rubric of "global warming" that the preferred term became "global climate change."
A huge list of phenomena warmists have attributed to "global climate change" can be found at this Web site. One glance blows you away. It includes everything from "acne" to "yellow fever," with "short-nosed dogs endangered" in between.
Others include: brain-eating amoebae, brothels struggle, cannibalism, circumcision in decline, Earth to explode, earth upside down, football team migration, Garden of Eden wilts, invasion of king crabs, Italy robbed of pasta, killer cornflakes, Loch Ness monster dead, mammoth dung melt, opera house to be destroyed, seals mating more, spiders invade Scotland, squid larger, squid tamed, UFO sightings, Vampire moths, violin decline, witchcraft executions.
I knew it! Those Clearasil lobbyists are secretly at work trying to end the Obama Energy Tax.
A special report from the U.S. Department of Energy shows only 5% of planned weatherization improvements utilizing stimulus funds have been completed one year after the program started. Some states haven't completed any of their planned improvements.
Delaware, which received $13.7 million for weatherization efforts such as caulking and insulating, has completed 34% of it's planned improvements, the highest percentage of any state.
While the state's size does play a role, Delaware's stimulus "czar," Lt. Governor Matt Denn says the state's culture of cooperation helps too.
"There are a number of small states that haven't done nearly as well as Delaware has, not even a fraction as well as Delaware has," Denn said. "So, having small size and knowing one another and having worked with one another in the past certainly helps, but I think it's also the quality of the people who are doing the work."
As for other states in the region, Pennsylvania has done less than 2% of it's weatherization, while New Jersey has done less than half a percent.
Four Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to halt spending on a renewable energy program in the economic stimulus package until rules are in place to assure that the projects use predominantly American labor and materials.
The senators said that more than three-fourths of $2 billion spent on wind-energy projects supported by the stimulus package had gone to foreign companies. They said that effectively undercut the purpose of the stimulus program — formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — which is to jump-start the American economy and create jobs here.
“A critical Recovery Act priority is investment in the domestic renewable and clean energy industry, not investment in foreign manufacturers,” the senators wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Tuesday. They asked Mr. Geithner to apply a buy-American provision to future energy projects funded under the act.
The letter was signed by Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana.
The senators introduced legislation on Wednesday that would require that stimulus funds go only to clean-energy projects that rely on materials manufactured in the United States and create a majority of jobs here. The current law requires a “Buy American” provision only for government projects, not private enterprises.
Around 50 ships, including large ferries reportedly carrying thousands, were stuck in the ice in the Baltic Sea Thursday and many were not likely to be freed for hours, Swedish maritime authorities said.
"Around 50 commercial vessels are waiting for help from ice breakers (and) we have had as many as six large passenger ferries stuck, but have managed to free two of them," Johny Lindvall of the Swedish Maritime Administration's ice breaker unit told AFP.
He said that two large Viking Line ferries that regularly shuttle thousands of passengers between Sweden and Finland were among the four ferries still stuck in the ice.
According to the TT news agency, the two ferries were the Isabella and the Amorella and were in total carrying 2,630 passengers.
A good read over at Reason's "Hit & Run" blog on the Center for American Progress's climate-change attack dog Joe Romm and his reluctance to debate University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke Jr.
An excerpt:
The Breakthrough Institute's Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are calling out the Center for American Progress' climate change blogger, Joe Romm. The pit bull of self-styled climate change "realists," Romm is notorious for his take-no-prisoners and damn-them-all-to-hell style of "scientific" debate. Now it appears that Romm is ducking a debate over global warming policy and science with University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke, Jr.
The last few months have been rough for Joe Romm. Forced to spin Copenhagen as a success, climategate as a skeptics' conspiracy, and cap and trade legislation as world-changing, Romm has started making increasingly wild accusations against working journalists and academics.
A telling moment came last week after Revkin wrote on the Times blog Dot Earth, that one test of the IPCC's credibility is whether it will choose Pielke to co-author the next IPCC report on climate change and natural disasters. Revkin noted that Pielke has one of the longest, if not the longest, list of peer-reviewed publications on the matter.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) will today introduce legislation to put a two-year moratorium on the EPA's decision to begin regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial sources.
From the Washington Post'sPost Carbon blog:
Rockefeller's bill, one of several recent congressional efforts to curb the EPA's authority to address climate change under the Clean Air Act, highlights the resistance the administration will face if it attempts to limit carbon dioxide through regulation. Obama and his top deputies have repeatedly said they would prefer for Congress to set mandatory, nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions, but the EPA is moving ahead with plans to do so if legislation fails to pass this year.
"Today, we took important action to safeguard jobs, the coal industry, and the entire economy as we move toward clean coal technology," Rockefeller said. "This legislation will issue a two-year suspension on EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources — giving Congress the time it needs to address an issue as complicated and expansive as our energy future. Congress, not the EPA, must be the ideal decision-maker on such a challenging issue."
Republicans, too, have repeatedly tried to rein in the EPA's climate authority — Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has introduced a resolution of disapproval that would overturn the agency's scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and House Republicans introduced their own version of the resolution this week. But Rockefeller's effort is especially significant because it points to growing unease among Democrats over the prospect of the administration tackling climate change without explicit congressional approval.
NB: I always do a double-take when I see Senator Rockefeller, who goes by "Jay," referred to as "John D. Rockefeller." If the John D. Rockefeller had ever heard of the EPA, we would never have heard of John D. Rockefeller.
"The world's coral reefs will begin to disintegrate before the end of the century as rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere make the oceans more acidic, scientists warn."
"The research points to a looming transition in the health of coral = ecosystems during which the ability of reefs to grow is overwhelmed by the rate at which they are dissolving."
"More than 9,000 coral reefs around the world are predicted to disintegrate when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reach 560 parts per million. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today stands at around 388ppm, but is expected to reach 560ppm by the end of this century."
The Knoxville News Sentinel was all on board with UT-Knoxville's plan to give Al Gore an honorary Doctor of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (which is such a mouthful it sounds as if Gore invented it himself). Yesterday, the paper editorialized on what a good choice UT-Knoxville had made, if somewhat defensively:
Here's a suggestion to those objecting to the University of Tennessee's plan to confer an honorary doctorate on Al Gore Jr.:
Get over it.
It seems not everyone has gotten over it, though. Check out the News Sentinel poll asking readers whether Gore deserves the honor. As of the top of the hour, 96 percent of its 7,800 or so respondents say no.
Doubtless that will make no difference and Gore will receive the honor. Now the question is: Will he start calling himself Dr. Al Gore?
To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.
In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consumes 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.
Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.
In the modeling, it turned out that issuing tax credits could backfire, while taxes on fuel proved beneficial.
After all, didn't Sen. Lindsey Graham say so? The South Carolina Republican's recent remarks — or snippets of them — have ricocheted around Capitol Hill and beyond in recent weeks, lending momentum to the notion that the congressional effort he is helping lead no longer plans to implement a system that requires companies to buy and sell emission credits.
But Graham's remarks appear to be more political than substantive. Indeed, cap and trade remains very much a part of the debate on what legislation will look like when the closed-door negotiations are finished.
Graham was quoted Saturday in The Washington Post telling environmentalists "cap-and-trade is dead." The New York Times carried a similar quote in January that the senator later clarified, explaining he was referring to the large-scale, House-passed climate bill and a Senate counterpart approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee (Greenwire, Jan. 27).
In fact, Graham remains committed to putting a price on carbon emissions. And the proposal he is working on with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is likely to utilize the cap-and-trade mechanism when it comes to the electric utility industry, and later to manufacturers.
As a fan of most of the bands on the Best of Bonaroo free download I jumped at the opportunity to get some free music. Sending an e-mail to express your concerns over energy and the environment is something we should all do. But I wasn't too keen on Music for Action's preferred text:
Dear Senator: You have a unique opportunity to confront climate change and spur the growth of a clean energy economy. I urge you to seize this moment and lead America to reduce pollution, invest in energy efficiency, and create green jobs.
With your leadership on this issue, we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and limit global warming. You have a chance to show voters like me – and nations around the world – that our country is making climate change, energy efficiency and new economic opportunities a top priority.
There are no excuses when it comes to our planet's future. This Congress, and this generation, will be judged by the action we take or fail to take. Please show the courage and resolve to make climate change a primary item on your agenda.
I look forward to receiving your response and learning where you stand on this critical issue. It's time to define our decade.
Fortunately, Music for Action gives you the option to " PROVIDE YOUR OWN TEXT REFLECTING YOUR PERSONAL VIEWS." I took them up on that offer and I think readers of Planet Gore should, as well. My rewrite:
Dear Senator: You have a unique opportunity to confront the lies perpetrated by the global alarmist fear mongers. I hope you will take into serious consideration all forms of energy including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal when legislating anything related to energy. I urge you to seize this moment and lead America to begin tapping its natural resources so that it may become a stronger player in the rich markets of oil, natural gas and coal.
With your leadership on this issue, we can reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy and maybe even help pay down our national debt. You have a chance to show voters like me – and nations around the world – that our country will not succumb to the narcissism and over the top arguments made by global alarmist fear mongers and rent seekers.
There are no excuses when it comes to our nation's future. This Congress, and this generation, will be judged by the action we take or fail to take. Please show the courage and resolve to make use of our natural energy resources, especially oil and natural gas, and to make it a primary item on your agenda.
I look forward to receiving your response and learning where you stand on this critical issue.
It's time to define our decade and let the fear mongering global alarmists know we will not fall for their group think and ill informed assumptions.
General Motors has blamed a supplier partly owned by Toyota for a faulty car part that led to the recall of 1.3m Chevrolet and Pontiac cars in North America.
Bob Lutz, GM's vice-chairman, yesterday told the BBC in Geneva that the supplier — separately identified as JTEKT, a joint venture between Toyoda Machine Works and Koyo Seiko — had not met "all requirements for reliability and durability".
His criticism came as Toyota, its reputation battered after recalls affecting more than 8m cars and trucks, sought to re-assure US lawmakers at the third congressional hearing in the past 10 days into the safety and reliability of its vehicles.
The Toyota issue has also raised questions about broader US auto safety policy, with some lawmakers calling for a re-examination of the government's oversight of the industry. Ray LaHood, US transportation secretary, said yesterday that regulators may require all automakers to install "brake override" systems on new vehicles.
Well, part of him, at least. From over on The Feed:
Knut, the world's most famous polar bear, is being threatened with the removal of his most precious assets.
Rejected and left to die by his mother, separated from his beloved keeper, gawped at by hundreds of thousands of visitors as he struggled through teething and adolescence, Knut has had a raw deal in his short life.
Berlin Zoo has made millions of euros out of merchandising the bear, who memorably posed with Leo di Caprio on the front cover of Vanity Fair, while Knut has had to make do with a daily bucket of herring.
Now, to add injury to insult, German animal rights activists are demanding that he be castrated. It does not get much worse than that.
