Category Archives: fossil fuels

Bloom Box Surcharge Increases 570%, Stunning Delaware Utility Customers

Posted on August 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

In 2012 the Governor of the State of Delaware, Jack Markel, entered into a long-term contract with Bloom Energy.  The contract obligated Bloom to begin manufacturing their “Bloom Boxes” in the closed Chrysler Assembly plant.  Delaware was obligated to subsidize Bloom to the tune of the difference of the cost of the electricity produced by Bloom Boxes and the cost of open market electricity.  That subsidy rose from $0.67 in October 2012 to $3.83 for September 2013, a 570% increase, where it increases each ratepayers month’s bill. Delaware has mandated a requirement to buy renewable energy produced electricity that grows to 25% of the total energy used in the State by 2025.  The open market electricity price has been dropping due to the increased availability  of  natural gas from fracking operations around the Nation. The natural gas is becoming the major source of energy for producing electricity.   Natural gas is not considered a “renewable” form of energy.  But the State passed an exception to their renewable energy law that allows  Bloom Box energy  to be called “renewable” even though these boxes use natural gas as their energy source.  The irony here is that the electricity  produced using natural gas the standard way, the electricity is much less expensive than electricity produced by Bloom Boxes.   But remember, the State has a law  that demands the use of “renewable” energy produced electricity.

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Batteries, Climate Alarmism, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, Electricity, fossil fuels, fuel cells, Renewable Energy, solar cells, US Manufacturing Companies

Is Greenpeace Behind Destruction Of Field Trials Of Golden Rice?

Posted on August 18, 2013 | 2 comments

Philippines’ environmental groups destroyed a “Golden Rice” development test plot. Golden Rice is genetically modified rice that is being developed to combat vitamin A deficiency in the developing world.  The Hellen Keller International organization says the around 670,000 children world-wide will die each year from vitamin A deficiency and about 350,000 will go blind from the lack of vitamin A.  It is reported that one cup of Golden Rice will supply half an adult’s recommended daily intake. The International Rice Research Institute reports that: “The rice has been modified by adding extra genes that turn on the plant’s ability to produce beta-carotene, which humans can convert into vitamin A.”

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, crop yields, Environment, fossil fuels, NGO's eg Greenpeace/WWF, NGOs greenpeace, Nuclear Energy, Windpower

Svensmark Theory—Cosmic Rays Contribute To Lower Global Temperatures

Posted on August 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

The previous posting closed with: Low Sunspot numbers and low F 10.7 indicate low solar activity.  How this activity translates to cooler weather is not clear.  The correlation between low activity and cooler weather has been know for several hundred year (or perhaps longer— recently read that the Chinese recorded Sunspot numbers many century’s ago and reported this correlation.)

One possible explanation is the Svensmark theory. This theory begins with high energy galactic cosmic rays (GCR) entering the Earth’s atmosphere where they collide with atmospheric molecules of oxygen. The collisions shatter the molecules and the resulting particles become nuclei for cloud droplets from which clouds are formed. Clouds reflect a significant amount of the Sun’s radiation back into space.  The weaker the Sun’s magnetic field (low solar activity),  the more GCR enter the atmosphere.  The more clouds, the more cooling.   This is opposed to the situation where the Sun’s activity is high, fewer GCR result in fewer clouds.

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Posted in AGW, Ap index, CO2, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 25, Solar Flux, Sun, sun and climate, Sunspots

July EV Sales Down But Still Some Hope For 100,000 Sales By Year End

Posted on August 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

July sales for the leaders, Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf were off compared to their June sales.  The Volt sold 1,788 in July versus 2,698 in June.  The Leaf sales were 1,864 in July versus 2,225 in June.

The table below shows the models having sold more that 1000 vehicles year-t0-date.  (Tesla would be in this table but they only report sales quarterly.)

MODEL JULY SALES YEAR-TO-DATE SALES
Nissan Leaf 1,864 11,703
Chevy Volt 1,788 11,643
Toyota Prius Plug-In     817   5,035
Ford  C-Max Energi    433   2,915
Ford Fusion Energi    407  1,991
Ford Focus Electric    150  1,050

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Posted in Batteries, CAFE Standards, Electric Vehicles, fossil fuels, Green Jobs, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

Department Of Energy Forecasts 2040 World and US Energy Use/Source

Posted on July 26, 2013 | 1 comment

The Department of Energy (DOE) projects that global energy consumption will increase 56% between 2010 and 2040 from 524 quadrillion Btus to 820 quadrillion Btus.

worldenergyconsump

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Alarmism, Domestic Energy, Electricity, Energy Development, Environment, fossil fuels, Fracking/Shale Gas, Renewable Energy, solar cells, Windpower

Administration’s Agencies And Radical Greens Collude On Policy

Posted on July 25, 2013 | Leave a comment

The EPA has devised a system to write policy that favors the radical green NGOs.  The EPA is able to, in effect, legislate.  This is done by using the courts to issue Consent Decrees outlining policy “agreements.   Once issued, the agreements set out in the Consent Decrees are very difficult to get changed.

Back in the 1960tys, activist groups began what is now called “reform litigation”.  Initially these litigated cases were to pursue the litigant’s idea of needed prison reforms.  But with time, reform litigation spread and it is getting major use by the EPA and radical greens to shape environmental policy.  Here is how it works  according to Bob Beuprez’s posting “How the EPA connives with Greens on Policy”:

How have these overtly political groups obtained such access to policy decisions that have the power to destroy industries and eliminate jobs? The answer lies in the “sue and settle” legal technique.

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Posted in AGW, Domestic Energy, Environment, EPA, fossil fuels, Fracking/Shale Gas, Government Regulations, IPCC, Oil and Gas Exploration

Joe Bastardi Says Obama’s Energy Policy Based On Easily Disproven Assumptions.

Posted on July 24, 2013 | 3 comments

Joe Bastardi, Chief Forecaster at WeatherBell Analytics LLC says that the EPA has based the Administration’s energy policy on three easily disproven assumptions.  In Bastardi’s posting “Evidence That Demands A Verdict” he list the following:

There are three lines of evidence the EPA uses to back their environmental policies.

  1. Greenhouse Gas Trapping Hot Spot Theory.
  2. The so-called unusual rise in GAST (Globally Averaged Surface Temperatures).
  3. Assumed validity of climate models, used for policy analysis purposes. (See, for example, SOUTHEASTERN LEGAL FOUNDATION, INC., ET AL., Petitioners, v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, ET AL. Nos. 12-1268, 12-1269, 12-1272.)

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Posted in AGW, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, Environment, EPA, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, IPCC, NASA/GISS

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

Finally–Prominent Global Warming Scientist Expressing Doubts About Climate Models’ Forecasts

Posted on July 11, 2013 | 1 comment

Man-made global warming forecast of high temperatures and high sea levels, for example, that indicate global catastrophes to come are the product of computer models. That the projections of the future by these models do not match reality has not escaped the skeptics.  Up until now, this fact has been ignored by most of the warmers.  However, a posting in “Nature, International Weekly Journal of Science” published 10 July 2013 quotes leaders of the man-made global warming theory casting doubts on the products of these models. Gavin Schmidt, Kevin Trenberth, Doug Smith, Stefan Rahmstorf, and Noel Keenlyside are expressing doubts.  If you actually follow the science and not the press releases, you know that these scientists are solidly in the warmer category.

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Posted in AGW, cap and trade, carbon tax, Climate Alarmism, Climate Models, CO2, Environment, fossil fuels, Global Temperatures, IPCC, Sea Ice

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