Category Archives: Electricity from Coal

Gasland Part II Reviewed

Posted on July 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

Gasland Part II, a sequel to “Gasland “, was released 28 June (a limited release according to Rotten Tomatoes).  It carries the same theme that fracking is bad. The documentary “stars” are Josh Fox, the director and Dennis Kucinich, former US Representative from Ohio. Can’t imagine that Kucinich is going to bring people into the theater.   The documentary has not yet appeared in the “Box Office” top 50 grossing films.  TheAmericanInterest.com reviewed the documentary with it’s posting “Gasland II: Muddying a Fractured Debate”.   The reviewer tries to play it down the middle saying that the movie and the movies critics tend to go over the top.  But he writes this:

Gasland II is chock-full of errors and falsehoods. Some might be unintentional (Fox readily admits that he’s a “theater guy,” not an engineer or chemist), but at least one seems to be a case of deceit. At one point, Fox throws up a graph purportedly showing the high rate of cement casing failures in fracking wells. Its steeply ascending red bars make for an alarming picture, and as he triumphantly explains, “[gas companies’] own documents showed that cement encasings failed in five percent of wells immediately upon drilling, and that the failure rate increased over time; that over a thirty year period, fifty percent of wells failed.” But the caption to the graph, barely visible in the film explains that it’s showing sustained casing pressure (SCP), a condition that can lead to cement casing failure. Worse, the graph showed the SCP only for offshore wells, explicitly stating, “[t]hese data do not include wells in state waters or land locations,” a fact conveniently left out of the film.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Alarmism, Coal, Electricity, Electricity from Coal, Environment, EPA, fossil fuels, Fracking/Shale Gas

President Obama’s Climate Change Fantasies

Posted on July 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

The noted environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg thinks that President Obama has some fantasies about climate issues.  Lomborg posted on usatoday.com “Obama should confront climate change fantasies”.  In reviewing the President’s recent speech on his new climate policies, he lists these four:

  • Renewables are a major part of the solution today. No, they are almost trivial. Today, the world gets 81% of its energy from fossil fuels – by 2035, in the most green scenario, we will still get 79% from fossil fuels. Wind and solar will increase from 0.8% to 3.2% — impressive, but not what is going to matter.

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Posted in AGW, CO2, Coal, Domestic Energy, Electricity from Coal, Environment, fossil fuels, Fracking/Shale Gas, solar cells, Windpower

Kyoto Did Not Level The Playing Field, But Obama’s New Climate Policies May Do That

Posted on July 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

President Obama’s outlined his new climate policies in a recent speech.   My take away from the speech is that it is a way to increase Federal revenue by taxing carbon use.  And it is mainly done through new regulations developed by his EPA.  Congress just a well go home because they never see the need to challenge the usurping of their powers.    The consequence of these policies will be significantly higher electricity prices, and the poorest among us will be the primary victims of this action.  Once again, in the name of the environment,  he will forego focusing on bringing about  the nation’s recovery.   Interestingly, one posting suggests that this will level the playing field between the US and Europe.  That was the basis for the European’s support of the Kyoto Treaty, but it did not work for them because the US chose not to enter into the Treaty.  A posting on notrickszone.com by Peter Gosselin titled “Obama Is Merely Leveling The Energy Playing Field With Europe – Declares An End To Cheap American Energy is interesting to get his view from Europe.  He writes:

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, cap and trade, carbon tax, Coal, Domestic Energy, Electricity from Coal, fossil fuels, Fracking/Shale Gas, Government Regulations, Renewable Energy

“The Magic Washing Machine”—–Limiting Energy Access To The World’s Poor Is Wrong

Posted on April 2, 2013 | 1 comment

You have to give credit to the Green NGOs in that they are much more upfront about their goals than most of the Global Governments. Greenies want to stop development of all fossil fuel sources and they would like to see the nuclear industry dismantled and no new nukes built.  The Obama Administration is not quite that ambitious, at least for now, although there is not much difference in their objectives. Examples of goals the Administration have announced are: kill coal,  minimize (and in some cases prevent any) use of Federal lands for accessing the mineral resources and raise the price of gasoline and electricity.
Who is it that will feel the most pain, if this cabal is successful?  It will be the poorest among us, of course.  They justify their actions by saying that the Earth will really, really, really go to hell if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels.  And besides they add, we will have wind and solar farms takeover the job of supplying power.  Wind and solar farms are not ready for prime time and who knows if they will ever be. The experience around the world demonstrates that when and if these renewables do replace fossil fuels, the power supplied will be more costly than that supplied by fossil fuels.  No help for the poor here.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Alarmism, Electricity from Coal, Energy Development, Environment, Famine, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, Nuclear Energy, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower

Chinese Will Not Reduce CO2 Emissions

Posted on March 18, 2013 | 2 comments

You have probably seen something in the newspapers to the effect that the Chinese are planing to put in place a carbon tax to manage their emissions.  If you really follows this issue, you  know that the Chinese have made other promises regarding carbon control but they haven’t followed through. Reuters says that the Chinese may get around to putting this program into action but it wont be until the next decade.  The program as described by the Chinese news agencies is laughable. The plan would start at the equivalent of $1.20 per ton and work up to $8 per ton of carbon. The Brookings Institution says this is “puny” and will fail to provide incentives for companies to reduce carbon. What the Chinese are serious about is creating jobs for their people. They have 1.3 billion people with a per capita GDP of $9,100 versus the US’s GDP of $49,800. They will continue to pretend they are serious about reducing CO2 emissions hoping that the US ruins its economy by enacting a “carbon tax” or “cap and trade”.  After 16 years of no global temperature increase, when are the greens going to admit that CO2 is not a major factor?
cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, cap and trade, carbon tax, China, CO2, Electricity from Coal, Environment, Global Temperatures, IPCC

China’s Coal Consumption Nearly Equals The Rest Of The World

Posted on January 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

Chinese usage of coal is about equal to the usage by the rest of the world.  Two blogs, one for the present and one for the future make it clear that North America, Europe and Australia could stop using fossil fuels and it would not make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
The Daily Beast posted “China’s Coal Usage is Blowing the Kyoto Protocol to Shreds”.   Remember the Kyoto protocol?   The chart below shows that China current coal consumption nearly equals the consumption of the rest of the world.
chinacoalconsumption1359572543820.cached
Tallbloke’s Talkshop shows a chart of  projected world coal-fired capacity based upon data from the World Resources Institute.  China and India will be installing  77% of the projected 1,401,334 MW of  new coal-fired capacity.  Click here to see the graphic of projected world electrical production from coal.
cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, China, CO2, Coal, Electricity from Coal, Environment, fossil fuels, Kyoto