Would you sweat out a heatwave for $2.50 per hour?

Following up on yesterday’s story about Baltimore Gas & Electric’s program to install 2 million Obama-meters in homes, BG&E says that on peak days (i.e., very hot days when there’s a lot of demand for air conditioning), its Obama-meters helped…

… lots of customers cut power use [between 2p-7pm] to 30kwh from 40kwh… [earning a rebate of] $12.50 for that day,

according to a report in SmartGridToday.

So that works out to being paid $2.50 per hour to sweat at home — much less than the minimum wage, which is scheduled to rise to $7.25 per hour on July 24.

Of course, if you went to the shopping mall or visited neighbors with air conditioning on those days then it would be money-for-nothing.

Imagine if entire neighborhoods gathered in one air-conditioned house on “peak days” (house-pooling?) everyone could save $12.50, less the cover charge for the home in which everyone “pooled” to play that new board game, Cap and Charade.

Will Obama sacrifice the EIA’s credibility?

Carbon Control News reports that,

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is hoping to complete within the next few weeks an analysis of the massive House climate bill that could reshape the climate debate and ultimately determine the stance of several hesitant lawmakers…

Moderate Democrats from coal-reliant states are among those being most fiercely courted by climate bill backers, and they likely will be looking for some reassurance from EIA that implementing a cap-and-trade program will not cause their constituents’ electricity rates to sky rocket.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), a key fence-sitter, said avoiding “a spike in energy prices” was one of his top two concerns with the House legislation. “I don’t think we’re entirely there, for coal states,” he told reporters July 7.

We predict that the Obama administration will force the EIA to cast aside its objectivity and provide the “reassurance” that wobbly Democratic Senators seek.

Wind weakens UK energy security

Excessive reliance on wind power jeopardizes the UK’s energy security says, the business advocacy group CBI.

According to a report in the Financial Times, CBI warns,

Britain will see rapid growth both in wind power and in new gas-fired power stations – needed when the wind is not blowing.

That will make the country more dependent on imported gas, from Russia and elsewhere, more exposed to volatile commodity prices, and less able to cut the CO2 emissions produced by burning fossil fuels.

Instead, the CBI wants more help for investment in new nuclear reactors and “clean coal” power stations that can capture and store emissions.

It’s too bad that CBI doesn’t yet understand that, if CO2 emissions are all it’s worried about, then coal is already “clean.”

The high price of California’s low-carbon law

A new study commissioned by the California Small Business Association projects the following impacts from California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006:

On average, the annual costs resulting from the implementation of AB 32 to small businesses are likely to result in loss of more than $182.6 billion in gross state output, the equivalent of more than 1.1 million jobs, nearly $76.8 billion in labor income, and nearly $5.8 billion in indirect business taxes…

The total AB 32 cost of $182.649 billion in lost output is one and a half times the total budget for the state of California. Given that the total gross state output of $1.8 trillion for California in 2008, the total lost output from AB 32 costs to small businesses is almost 10%. Accordingly, the total cost of AB 32 is $49,691 per small business in California.

These costs could be coming to a state near you courtesy of Waxman-Markey.

'Terminator' of California's economy
'Terminator' of California's small businesses

Insurers re-open debate on climate disclosure

Now that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at increasing corporate disclosure requirements concerning the much-dreaded global warming, the insurance industry is ironically rethinking the wisdom of its own disclosure rules that were just passed this spring, according to a report in ClimateWire.

According to the report,

There’s debate, however, about whether insurers are seeing their risks increase from climate change. Their emissions are low compared to electric utilities and other industrial emitters. And many of the large insurance companies have been dealing with fluctuating weather for centuries, said Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group.

“The reality is, insurers have been aware of climate risk before most people talking about it today were born,” he said. “There is no evidence today, last year, a decade ago, a century ago — ever — that variability and volatility in climate is something that should lead to greater oversight of insurance companies.“

In a related insurance industry story, today, Carbon Control News reports,

The insurance industry is raising concerns that companies facing likely greenhouse gas (GHG) limits will file claims against years-old insurance policies to pay for compliance costs by arguing their liability stems from releases that occurred during the coverage term, before policies excluded pollution coverage.

With climate compliance costs projected to be in the hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, policyholders are going to seek third parties such as insurers to pay those costs, one informed source says. “The costs that you are going to talk about are going to be enormous,” the source says.

If the insurance industry had only followed Robert Hartwig’s advice to start with…

Chemical industry sells out America? (Pt.2)

On July 10, this blog criticized the American Chemistry Council for trying to ameliorate rather than to kill Waxman-Markey.

Unhappy with that characterization of its efforts, an ACC spokesperson e-mailed us requesting a correction:

We have specifically expressed concerns and noted that the bill needs work. ACC is not supporting nor opposing the House climate bill (that has moved to the Senate). We are neutral on the bill as a whole and have specific, pointed concerns that we have expressed about the bill.

But unless ACC means that the “work” that the bill “needs” is its utter destruction, then no correction is warranted.

There is no upside to making energy more expensive and handing over control of our economy to Marxist-socialist greens. Even if ACC succeeded in its effort to enact a Waxman-Markey lite, such a bill would still establish a mechanism for the future ratcheting-down of its provisions.

ACC’s claim of “neutrality” on Waxman-Markey is embarrassing. It doesn’t know what side its on? It doesn’t care?

To its ever-lasting infamy, Sweden claimed neutrality during World War II. Is that the sort of legacy the chemical industry wants?

Chemical industry meatballs
Chemical industry meatballs

GE’s green credit cards fail

General Electric has pulled the plug on its Earth Rewards MasterCard program due to lack of interest, ClimateWire reports.

A first-of-its-kind program, card users could set aside 1 percent of the value of their purchases for carbon offset projects.

GE had no comment on whether more carbon was actually stored in the plastic cards themselves than by dubious offset projects. 🙂

Why we should love James Hansen…

… at least for now.

Yes, NASA’s James Hansen is the ultra-global warming alarmist. Yes, he has called for war crimes trials for global warming “deniers.” But right now, Hansen should be a our best friend.

Like us, Hansen opposes the Waxman-Markey bill. He calls it the “counterfeit climate bill” and likens its cap-and-trade provisions to a Ponzi scheme.

It now seems that if Hansen had his way, he’d put Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey on trial along with the other “deniers.”

Sure, our reasoning differs from Hansen’s — we think Waxman-Markey is a junk science-fueled Marxist-socialist political power grab sugar-coated with a corporate welfare honey pot, while Hansen believes that Waxman-Markey is too little, too late in terms of stopping the dreaded global warming — but we do have the same goal for now.

If Hansen gets his way and Waxman-Markey is made more stringent, then the big businesses that have so far enabled the bill will withdraw their support. Without their support, Waxman-Markey is dead.

Yes, we would like Waxman-Markey to fail for the right reasons, but if it fails for the wrong reasons, that also works.

Eileen Claussen, head of the green Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told ClimateWire that she wished Hansen would stay out of the politics business.

What is he thinking? Who does he think will vote for [a more stringent clampdown on greenhouse gas emissions]?

Apparently Hansen’s meddling in politics was OK as long as the greens found him useful. Now, he’s just a thorn in their side.

Go Jim, go!

Jim Hansen: A denier's best friend
Jim Hansen: A denier's best friend

Top Obama scientist favored forced abortions

From World Net Daily:

The man President Obama has chosen to be his science czar [i.e. John Holdren] once advocated a shocking approach to the “population crisis” feared by scientists at the time: namely, compulsory abortions in the U.S. and a “Planetary Regime” with the power to enforce human reproduction restrictions.

Obama-meters on the way…

Baltimore Gas & Electric is leading the way to electricity rationing, courtesy of President Obama.

The utility announced to day that it filed with local regulators an application to install 2 million so-called “smart meters” in the homes of its residential customers.

Smart meters allow local utilities to control electricity use in your home.

Using a $200 million Department of Energy grant — part of the $787 billion Obama Stimulus package enacted earlier in the year — BG&E plans to charge customers for the balance of the costs.

BG&E claims that benefits to consumers (about $5 per month) will amount to about three times the cost of the meters.

Not only is this benefit trivial, it’s pretty phony. It comes from you using less electricity or using electricity at less convenient times — things you can already do without the meter. What’s the benefit from doing less or being inconvenienced?

We don’t know about you, but we’re not interested in selling our freedom to use electricity as we choose — especially for a lousy $5/month.

Also, consider that, since smart meters allow two-way communication, each meter represents a node from which a hacker can gain entry to the grid and wreak havoc.

The ultimate purpose of the meters is to allow local utilities to ration electricity as demand is rising faster than supply, a phenomenon that can be traced to the greens blocking construction of new power plants and transmission lines. Rolling power outages are already being planned for the Baltimore-Washington area starting as early as 2011-2012.

Smart is the new dumb.

Waxman-Markey cuts steeper than thought

Waxman-Markey’s emissions reductions goals will be more difficult to meet than previously thought, warned the electric utility industry in a July 6 letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV).

Edison Electric Institute chief Tom Kuhn wrote,

“H.R. 2454 would require a reduction of GHG emissions of 3 percent below 2005 levels by 2012–only three years from now. In reality, accounting for growth in electricity demand since 2005, the 2012 requirement is closer to a 10 percent reduction in projected GHG emissions. Achieving this near-term reduction would impose an abrupt and significant price increase on electricity consumers. The House bill also would require a very aggressive 17 percent reduction in GHG emissions below 2005 levels by 2020. Again, we support a more reasonable and achievable 2020 target that will help cushion the cost impact on our consumers.”

So does EEI oppose Waxman-Markey? Amazingly, the answer is no. Instead EEI suggests: (1) price collars,

“We also strongly support inclusion of a price ‘collar,’ consisting of both a floor and a ceiling on emissions allowance prices, in climate legislation. This critical consumer protection measure would help limit economic harm to energy consumers, U.S. workers, and the economy, while discouraging market manipulation and encouraging technological development.”

(2) more free carbon allowances,

“Under H.R. 2454, allowances would sharply decline from 35 percent to zero over a five-year period from 2025 to 2029. Such a swift phase-out will lead to abruptly higher energy prices for consumers. Instead, we recommend a longer phase-out period of at least 15 years to help protect consumers from sudden energy price shocks.”

and (3) greater ability to participate in the fraudulent carbon offsets market,

“In addition, a number of improvements are needed in the offsets provisions. In the early years, offsets will be one of the few tools utilities will have for meeting targets. Quantitative restrictions, such as the 20 percent discount for international offsets, should be eliminated both to bolster the supply and to lower the price of domestic and international offsets. Moreover, a number of severe qualitative restrictions should be either eliminated or eased in order to assure a full and affordable supply of offsets.”

Like the American Chemistry Council’s Cal Dooley, EEI’s Tom Kuhn is ready to sell-out America to get a deal that he naively thinks will work for his industry.

EEI's Tom Kuhn: Trying to buff the Waxman-Markey turd into a popsicle.
EEI's Tom Kuhn: Trying to buff the Waxman-Markey turd into a popsicle.

Waxman-Markey pays: Exelon expects billions

Chicago-based utility Exelon Corp. expects that Waxman-Markey will boost its profits by $1.1 billion (39 percent), according to a report in Restructuring Today (July 13).

Because of its nuclear fleet, the largest in the U.S., Exelon will have plenty of carbon credits to sell to other emitters.

Exelon is trying to exploit its potential Waxman-Markey boon in its efforts to acquire Princeton, NJ-based NRG Energy, which is expected to spend $1.3-2.3 billion to reduce its carbon emissions under Waxman-Markey and which opposes the takeover.

In a letter to NRG shareholders, Exelon said:

We are offering you securities in a company… whose value rises rather than declines as carbon is priced into the marketplace…

Ironically, both Exelon and NRG are members of USCAP, the industry-environmentalist coalition lobbying for greenhouse gas regulation.

So not only will Waxman-Markey cut into fossil fuel-based NRG’s profits, it may very well mean the end of the company.

It makes you wonder what NRG CEO David Crane was thinking when he joined USCAP. If he thought that it’s better-to-be-at-the-table-than-on-the-menu, he was wrong since now he has two problems (carbon regulation and takeover) instead of one or even none.

BTW, if you want to see which regions of the country will be paying more for electricity thanks to David Crane’s bad judgment, click here for a list of NRG’s generation facilities in Texas, the Northeast, South and Southern California.