Month: September 2009

Unexpected admission from the OECD

ClimateWire reports that a new paper by economists at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that:

… if OECD countries acted alone on climate, containing global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the benchmark expected in Copenhagen — would be impossible.

So even if you believe in the global warming alarmist fairy tale, since India and China have vowed not to cut emissions at the expense of growth, nothing will be achieved by the developed world committing economic hara-kiri over CO2.

ACORN to get cap-and-trade cash in NY

Democratic legislators in New York want to give ACORN part of the $112 million that the state has raised from the sale of carbon allowances through the Northeastern Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

ACORN is the “community organizer” enterprise that has been exposed by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck as little more than a ground-based campaign for socializing America.

According to a report in ClimateWire:

… Groups like ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, would receive some of the $112 million in carbon revenue to train workers in weatherization programs and to enroll residents in the programs.

“The organizations, such as ACORN, that would be eligible to receive this money were strong political supporters of the very same people that were pushing to get the bill passed,” said Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Republican state Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, who voted against the measure.

Skelos sent a letter yesterday to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo asking him to freeze all state money going to ACORN and its local affiliate, citing the U.S. Senate’s vote on an amendment Monday to deny the group federal housing grants. The vote came after two ACORN employees were videotaped in Baltimore giving tax advice to two actors posing as a pimp and prostitute…

Imagine how much money Democrats would funnel to ACORN if a national cap-and-tax regime is enacted.

Treasury: Cap-and-trade costs taxpayers $200 billion annually

From the Washington Times:

Officials at the Treasury Department think cap-and-trade legislation would cost taxpayers hundreds of billion in taxes, according to internal documents circulated within the agency and provided to The Washington Times…

A memo prepared by Judson Jaffe, who works in the Treasury’s Office of Environment and Energy, referenced President Obama’s remarks on energy policy in his State of the Union Address and said, given the president’s plan to auction emissions allowances, “a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually.”

These figures differ from other cost estimates for the legislation produced more recently by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.

“These are candid, internal discussions of what they are telling each other and what they won’t tell you,” said Christopher C. Horner, a CEI senior fellow who filed the request.

Kudos to Horner.

The new French disease: Carbon tax-itis

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has announced plans to strong-arm France into adopting a carbon tax in order to “save the human race” from global warming.

According to the AP:

The tax would be initially based on the market price for carbon dioxide emissions permits, which is now euro17 ($24.74) per ton of carbon dioxide, Sarkozy said. At that level, the government expects to raise euro3 billion, which will be entirely returned to households and businesses through a reduction in other taxes or repaid via a so-called “Green Check,” Sarkozy said.

The result would be a shift of the tax burden from other revenue sources to energy derived from fossil fuels in an effort to discourage their use.

Gasoline, diesel fuel, coal and natual gas will be subject to the tax, but not electricity, Sarkozy said. France generates most of its electricity via nuclear power, which doesn’t emit greenhouse gases.

The tax would add 4.5 euro cents to each liter of diesel, 4 cents to each liter of gasoline and 0.4 cents for each KWh of natural gas consumed, Sarkozy said. The tax is intended to rise gradually from this level, Sarkozy said.

France emits about 1.4% of global manmade CO2 emissions.

If France stopped emitting CO2 altogether for the next 90 years, the total amount of atmospheric CO2 avoided would be on the order of 1.8 parts per million.

Sacre bleu!

The twisted green mind…

The ad below was developed by the World Wildlife Fund, allegedly in an attempt to dramatize the death toll from the  2004 Asian tsunami. The ad’s caption reads:

“The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it. www.wwf.org.

Thw WWF’s message is, of course, a subliminal warning about the much-dreaded global warming.

Following the Asian tsunami, I wrote a column for FoxNews.com — “Enviros Surf Tsunami Tragedy” — pointing out how the greens were trying to exploit the tragedy by linking the tsunami to global warming.

The greens complained to FoxNews.com about my column to no avail. (See note at end of column.)

Now, more than four years after the tragedy, the greens are still lyin’ and denyin’.

Click here for the story in The Guardian.

WWF-ad-comparing-911--and--Tsunami

Government Electric: GE lawyer to become top federal environmental litigator

The Senate Judiciary Committee held the confirmation hearing yesterday for Ignacia Moreno to become the top federal environmental litigator at the Department of Justice.

Moreno is currently a top environmental lawyer for General Electric.

If she’s confirmed, which will probably happen later this month,  we guess this will just more of… well… as GE recently put it in a memo soliciting PAC contributions from its employees :

“The intersection between GE’s interests and government action is clearer than ever.”

[Click here for YouTube video of Steve Milloy discussing this point with Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly.]

Apparently, it’s not enough that GE CEO Jeff Immelt is already on President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board — and getting stimulus money in return.

Of course, maybe GE just wants to make sure that it doesn’t get sued when its Hudson River cleanup project backfires.

Does GE now stand for “Government Electric”?

Water rationing via the IntelliH2O water meter

Capstone metering will begin marketing the “first intelligent water meter for residential use” this month, reports SmartGridToday.

The meter’s upside seems to be the ability to use water flow to generate and store its own power in a rechargeable battery.

The meter’s downside is that it will allow local water companies to remotely “monitor and restrict water flow due to conservation program requirements.”

Not a good trade-off.

World’s largest solar scam uses ‘low cost’ labor to produce ‘high cost’ electricity in Mongolia

First Solar, Inc. will build the world’s largest solar field in Mongolia, reports the Wall Street Journal. A few interesting points:

  • The field is slated to produce 2 gigawatts of power — equal to the output of two coal-fired power plants.
  • The field will take up 25 square miles (16,000 acres), as compared to about 200 acres for two coal-fired plants.
  • Unlike coal plants, however, no electricity will be produced at night– so the field will need to be backed up by conventional (most likely coal-fired) power plants.
  • The estimated cost of such a field in the U.S. would be on the order of $6 billion — twice as much as the cost of two coal-fired power plants. Keep in mind that back-up coal plants (at additional cost?) would be needed to back up the solar field. But First Solar expects the costs to be much lower as it would be using “lower-cost Chinese” (slave/child?) labor.
  • First Solar expects China to place a $0.15 – 0.25 tariff (tax) on the electricity produced by the plant — about tripling to quintupling the consumer price of electricity in China.

Is this considered renewable because there seems to be an endless supply of green chicanery?

Taxpayer subsidies kill birds

Robert Bryce writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that while ExxonMobil was recently fined $600,000 for killing 85 birds over a period of five years, the wind industry kills an estimated 75,000 to 275,000 birds per year.

While wind is a very small part of the U.S energy portfolio, the wind lobby wants to increase wind’s share of that portfolio to 20% — through taxpayer subsidies and higher electricity rates.

Let’s summarize: the wind industry kills birds, rips-off consumers and taxpayers and does nothing to improve the environment. Now that’s “progressive.”

Click here for Bryce’s column, “Windmills are killing our birds.”

Missouri utilities warn of price spikes from climate bill

Missouri utilities say the Waxman-Markey climate bill will cause electricity prices to spike in 2012, according to an August 31 letter to Sen. Roy Blount (R-MO).

The letter says that rates:

  • Would increase 12-26% in 2012
  • May go up as high as 50% before utilities switch into gas
  • May goes up by as much as 77% after utilities switch to gas

Missouri electricity is currently 80% coal-generated.

Unfortunately, they suggest six ways to improve Waxman-Markey, including more free allowances, more time, price caps, emergency off-ramps, fewer restrictions on offsets.

Renewable welfare: $251,000 per job

Taxpayer provided welfare for the renewable energy industry became a lot richer yesterday as the Departments of Treasury and Energy announced that they were making $502 million in “grants” available to firms in lieu of earned tax credits. Apparently the tax credits weren’t worth anything since the industry has no profits.

The $502 million of stimulus funding supposedly will provide 2,000 jobs according to the feds.That’s only $251,000 per job — and all so that consumers can pay higher prices for electricity.

Whoever is being stimulated by this spending is pretty perverse.