Dodging Crucial Energy Choices

You know the adage, "Follow the money." When looking at energy issues, we like to pay attention to what the money people are saying--specifically the investment types. Their insights provide an interesting view into America’s energy situation.

Our favorite energy investment advisor is Byron King whose work is published in the Whiskey and Gunpowder Newsletter and the subscription newsletter he edits, Outstanding Investments. (If you have not read any of his previous postings here, we encourage you to check them out too.) For our purposes here, we have edited out all of Byron’s investment advice as we have no business offering such information. However, we do believe you will find his review of history and energy to be very helpful to your understanding of today’s energy situation.

This posting is a bit longer than what we typically post here. You may need to print it out to read at your leisure. Whether you read it here or on paper, we do hope you’ll post your responses. Do you agree with Byron’s assessments? Is his history correct? We always enjoy Byron’s input. We hope you do too!

Will Americans have to read by candlelight and bike to work?
We will if the country dodges crucial energy choices--and time is running out
Remember how President Obama bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia? That was bad enough. This is worse: Abdullah is playing Obama for a fool.

That bow Obama made to Abdullah at a summit in London says everything about how the Saudis have made us their oil slaves. Think about it, the American president, bowing and scraping to a foreign monarch--the king of a country where women can’t drive and criminals are beheaded in public. Worse, we’re becoming more dependent on the Saudis for energy, because Obama wants to close off even more of the USA to oil exploration.

If some well-informed experts are right, Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are a fraction of what they've been telling us. Why does it matter? Because everyone has believed for decades that Saudi Arabia's oil supply is virtually unlimited. That's what the Saudis have said over and over again for more than 30 years. If an oil shortage threatens to cause a recession or a market crash, we can count on the Saudis to come through. So people think. But one of America's top oil experts warned that the Saudis don't have anything near the oil reserves they claim. They already pump less oil than most "experts" think. Here's the real kicker, Saudi oil production is about to drop sharply. And it will keep going down for good. Other experts have analyzed the numbers and come to the same conclusions. If the charges are true--and I believe they are--we could be facing oil at $150 per barrel and gasoline at $6 a gallon or more. The oil is running out. It's as simple as that.

That's not what you hear from so-called experts. If you ask government officials, our intelligence agencies and even powerful Wall Street financiers, they tell you the opposite.
They say the Saudis could quickly double their oil production from the current level if they wanted to. And given a few years, they think the Saudis could produce four times as much oil as they do now.

The intelligence agencies and the conventional "experts" are dead wrong. The oil isn't there. The oil and gas shortages we've seen lately are nothing compared with what's on the way.
When the truth comes out, it will send shock waves through the world economy. Everyone will find out too late--when gasoline soars to $5 or $6 or more per gallon.

Americans used to run Aramco, the huge oil company that manages the Saudi fields. But in 1979, the Saudis booted us out and took over. And then a funny thing happened, The Saudis started keeping everything a secret. No one knows for sure how much oil they've got in the ground, or how much they produce each year or how much they could produce if they wanted to push it to the max. It's all secret. Experts try to figure out how much oil the Saudis sell by monitoring tanker traffic in and out of the world's ports. That's how little we know for sure.

After the Saudis took over, their figures for proven reserves kept going up and up and up--even though they didn't find any major new oil fields! In 1979, the Saudis adjusted proven reserves upward by 50 billion barrels. Then eight years after that, their proven reserves magically grew by another 100 billion barrels. Their estimated reserves increased by 150% in nine years--to a total of 260 billion barrels. And they didn't find a single major new oil field!

For 16 years, from 1979 through 2005, they've claimed they own 260 billion barrels of proven oil in the ground. The figure never goes down, even though they pumped out 46 billion barrels during that period. Let me see...260 minus 46 equals 260. Saudi math!

Based on these bogus figures, the Saudis claim they can produce as much oil as the world wants for the next 50 years. As recently as 2004, they claimed their reserve estimates are actually conservative. That's why most of the world's governments and intelligence services believe the Saudis could pump 20 million barrels of oil a day if they wanted to. Trouble is, we've got no proof except their say-so. If it were true, we wouldn't have a thing to worry about. But it's not.

Before Aramco's American owners were shown the door in 1979, they told Congress that Saudi Arabia had proven reserves of 110 billion barrels. There have been no major new discoveries, so 110 billion barrels was probably about right. And since then, about half of that has been used up. So why do the Saudis insist everything is just fine and they have 260 billion barrels of reserves? One reason is they wanted to discourage non-OPEC nations from looking for more oil or switching to alternatives. It was a devious plan, and it worked perfectly.

But that wasn't the only reason the Saudis lied about their reserves. They did it because everyone does it! Everyone in OPEC, that is. In the 1980s, OPEC's claim of total reserves magically leaped from 353 to 643 billion barrels without a single major discovery. Industry experts call it the quota war. You see, OPEC had to limit how much oil each member could sell, because prices were too low. The quotas were based on... each member's oil reserves!

That's right: The amount of oil OPEC would let a member pump depended on how much that member had in the ground. So it paid for OPEC members to claim the biggest reserves they could. And that's what they did.

The Saudis alone jacked up their estimate by about 100 billion. Kuwait added 50% to its reserves in one year, 1985. Venezuela doubled its reserves in 1987. Iraq and Iran doubled their estimates, too. What's more, OPEC members did like the Saudis and kept their reserve estimates the same year after year, as if no oil were being pumped out and sold. Everyone claimed to have a bottomless well.

Now, if you're like me, you believe America should base its energy decisions on the real world, not on a fantasy.

Let's Look at how Much Oil There Really Is
In the 1970s, when Western managers were still in charge, they believed for a time that Saudi output could reach 20 million barrels a day. But by the time the Americans lost control in 1979, they figured the peak would be 12 million. They also predicted that peak production would last only 15–20 years. 1979 plus 20 is 1999. We're past the peak, if these men were right. But we already know they were too optimistic. The truth is that Saudi production never got to 12 million. "In all probability, output peaked in 1981 at an unsustainable level of about 10.5 million barrels per day," according to Matthew R. Simmons, a leading oil industry authority.

In 2004, Saudi officials claimed they boosted production to 9.5 million barrels per day and maintained that level for five months. It's almost sure they were lying. The International Energy Agency is the group that keeps an eye on these things for the developed, oil-importing countries. The IEA could find no sign the Saudis were selling more oil. As far as anyone can tell, they pump only around five million barrels a day, and that's all they've pumped for years.

In spite of being lied to at least once, the IEA, the US Department of Energy and other forecasters believe the Saudi claims. ALL their projections of our energy future ALWAYS assume the Saudis could produce 15–20 million barrels a day.

The lies have worked. Not only do Western politicians believe them, but so do many oil industry experts and investors with huge amounts of money at stake. They've been had.

Our whole economy is at risk. America was so prosperous the last couple of decades, a lot of people forget what the energy crisis of the '70s was like. Let me remind you: The price of a barrel of oil shot up 400%. Long lines formed at gas stations practically overnight. Folks had to pay four times as much for a gallon of gas, and there came a week when one out of every five gas stations in the United States had no gas to sell at any price. The US had three major recessions within 10 years after the first oil crisis in 1973. And those recessions were deep, with double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates and double-digit inflation. Think 10–12% unemployment. Think 15–18% mortgage rates. Got the picture? That was the ‘70s. Not fun.

My take is that a similar crisis will rock the nation before we solve our problem with clean coal, liquefied natural gas, oil from tar sands, high-mileage cars and safe nuclear plants. More than likely, the politicians will quarrel for years before they do what has to be done.

The Great Coal Rush
While the oil runs out, there's still plenty of coal. The world has enough coal to last for 300 years at current rates. Coal already accounts for more than half of our electricity. But coal is dirty, right? And there's no way it can power cars, right? Wrong, and wrong again. Coal can be cleaned up AND it can power your SUV. However, it's not cheap to do. It's only worthwhile when a barrel of oil costs more than $30.

The US and China both have a growing problem with the price of oil and with the unstable countries they have to buy it from. Meanwhile, the US and China both have HUGE reserves of coal. Add in Australia and Canada and you've got four countries that you could call the OPEC of coal. They own just about all the coal there is.

The US alone has 254 billion tons of proven coal reserves, or about 25% of the world total. Compare that to Saudi Arabia, with 24% of the world's oil (if you believe it).
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy is doubling every 10 years and has a lion's appetite for electricity. The Chinese will have to give up that growth rate or build hundreds of new power plants, one or the other. They have no choice.

Electricity could be China's biggest roadblock to growth. Already, blackouts and brownouts happen every day all over the country. Factories by the thousand are forced to shut down from time to time. Many are allowed to operate only during off-peak hours. Children in some cities do their homework by candlelight. With an economy that grows 8% or 9% every year, and electric usage soaring at the same rate, the Chinese have no choice but to build hundreds of new power plants. And most of those plants are going to run on coal.

In the United States, we have a power crisis of our own. We're at the limit of our generating capacity. We have our own brownouts during peak-demand times. We, too, need to build hundreds of new power plants. Yet the public still doesn't want nuclear power.

You do the math: We face a crude oil shortage, nuclear power gives people the willies, we've got plenty of coal in the ground, we've got a choice between more power plants or deep recession and unemployment. Everything points to coal.

How Oil Could Go Beyond $150 in 24 Hours
If you want to bury your head in the sand and pretend Saudi Arabia has plenty of oil, be my guest. However, very shred of evidence points to no Saudi buffer for world oil markets. And that's a real problem because oil consumption soared from 52 million barrels a day to 82 million in the last 19 years, and it's expected to grow to 120 million in the next 20--if the oil can be found. Very doubtful.

There are three ways oil could race past $150 a barrel: It may get there gradually, or on a faster pace of a year or two, or overnight, literally within 24 hours. Pick any one of the three. No matter how you look at it, it's a sure thing the days of cheap oil are over. We're never going to see $30 oil again, and we may never even see $50 oil. Soon oil in the $100s may very well return to stay.

"You never really run out of oil," says a Houston energy consultant named Henry Groppe. "But many years ago we ran out of $2 a barrel oil, then we ran out of $25 oil, and now we're running out of $40 oil."

Saudi production could fall over a cliff almost overnight. There could be a deep, sharp reduction in Saudi oil production literally any day. It's guesswork, but energy expert Matthew Simmons says, "It will take energy forecasters and policymakers by total surprise. Not a single serious energy plan devised in the past three decades has envisioned such a scenario." He's told interviewers that Saudi output could drop 30–40% from the already low level of just 5 million barrels. Simmons doesn't claim to know for sure, but I believe he's right.

In the big oil crisis of 1973, oil went to $100 in current dollars. Back then, the problem was just political. Angered by US support for Israel, the Arab oil producers cut our supply. After things calmed down, there was plenty of oil. This time the problem is real and there's no quick fix. There's a sword hanging over our heads, and most people don't even know.

I've spotted three trends to watch that could crash markets and cause a recession.

Hurricanes
You already know that the 2005 hurricane season was the worst on record, and the one before that was almost as bad. In 2005, there were 27 tropical storms. Weather experts could hardly believe it, but the last one formed in December, a month after the "end" of the hurricane season. It's not as weird as a blizzard in July. But it's close. Worse, the storms are more powerful than ever before. It seems that a tropical storm is more likely now to become a deadly Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane.

Two reasons for the monster storms: The first reason is there's a normal cycle of low hurricane activity followed by a period of high hurricane activity. Each phase can last for several decades. Clearly, we're in the high phase, and it will probably go on for years. That's bad enough, but it's normal. But now you have to add the danger of climate change.

Bear in mind that climate change can be caused by either human activity or natural causes. And either way, the jury is still out. Despite what you may hear from the mainstream media, the case for global warming is far from closed. But global warming believers are already blaming the monster hurricanes on climate change. They may be right. The level of hurricane activity we're seeing has no precedent in the hundred years or so that scientists have been counting and categorizing storms. Meanwhile, a big chunk of our energy industry is located in the worst possible place.

Americans have largely banned oil and gas drilling and liquefied natural gas ports from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They don't like oil refineries, either. Plus, it's well known that the Gulf of Mexico is energy rich. So America ended up with a huge part of its energy infrastructure located on the Gulf Coast. A lot of it was knocked out by Katrina and Rita. As I write this, the Gulf coast energy industry is still not back to normal.

If there is a hurricane season like 2005, it could be the end of some 20% of America's oil and gas industry. And it could all happen in 24 hours.

It's hard to picture that oil companies are going to keep on investing in a region where they get knocked out every year. And the onshore plants can't be moved to Boston and San Francisco, where they're not wanted anyway. We could be staring at a permanent loss of a large part of our energy industry.

War and Revolution at the Chokepoints
World oil supplies are so tight the price could go through the roof if we lose just a couple of million barrels of daily production out of the world total of 82 million. Production is running full tilt and consumers snap up every barrel that comes out of the ground. There's no buffer (despite what the Saudis claim). A sudden leap to $150 a barrel, not to mention $150+, could tip us over the edge--and into a deeper recession. The immediate cause could be war or revolution in an oil-producing country.

Toss in another bad hurricane season at the same time and it could be the end of our way of life.

Saudi Arabia itself is a prime candidate for revolution. You might think al-Qaida's main target is the United States, but in fact the main target all along has been control of Saudi Arabia. The World Trade Center was just a stop on the road to Riyadh, as al-Qaida sees it.
But my own pick for disaster is Nigeria. This African country is the world's No. 12 oil producer, and a big supplier to the United States.

Nigeria is seething with revolution. The government--if you want to call it a government--admits that thieves steal as much as 200,000 barrels of oil a day and sell it on the black market. Off the record, experts put the bootleg oil as high as 650,000 barrels a day. That kind of oil generates huge sums of cash, and a lot of the money is plowed into arms for the rebels. There's no shortage of poor, hopeless young men willing to use the weapons. Three Nigerians out of five live in poverty.

Caught in the middle of all this are big oil companies like Shell and Chevron. In some parts of the country their facilities have been shut down and they've been kicked out. If you want to get punched in Nigeria, just tell a native you work for Shell.

Terrorism
You won't be surprised to learn terrorism is the third wild card that could create an instant crisis. In fact, a former CIA director recently joined some former oil executives and government experts in a risk-analysis exercise. They forecast three very likely events that could bring the roof down on our heads. One of them was civil war in Nigeria. The other two were both terror incidents.

Intelligence agencies know the terrorists have especially targeted oil facilities and infrastructure. It's an international game of cat and mouse in which the terrorists are looking for a weak point day and night, high and low, while we try to find them and stop them in time. It's only a matter of time until they succeed. It's like a thief checking every door in the neighborhood every night. One night, he'll find a door that's not locked.

Are you getting the picture? The good scenario is that the oil price will merely hover around $150 over the next few years. The worst scenario is that it will go there--then much higher--next week, or next month or next year.

The Natural Gas Bottleneck
When oil started getting pricey during the 1970s, America switched to natural gas in a big way. Natural gas now supplies about 24% of our total energy needs, including a big chunk of our electricity. The move made sense. We had plenty of natural gas, and what's more, it's a clean-burning fuel that cuts down on pollution. But like any kind of fossil fuel, there's only so much of it. Now we're running out.

After the big hurricanes of 2005, everyone can see the US is vulnerable. We didn't have the gas supplies we needed when we needed them. That was a cold, expensive winter for a lot of Americans.

America has placed vast areas off limits to drilling. Not only millions of acres of federal lands, but also most of the offshore areas on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. These gas-rich regions are off-limits even though natural gas doesn't create spills. If there's an accident, it just escapes into the air. And drilling rigs are mostly out of sight of the resort properties on the beach. The regulations have left only the Gulf of Mexico, aka hurricane alley, for offshore drilling and natural gas production.

If you saw your heating bills shoot up this winter, you'll be frustrated to learn there's plenty of gas worldwide. It's a byproduct of oil wells, and if an oil field isn't close to a big population center or a pipeline, the gas is just flared off. The rest of the world burns off as much as 2.5 trillion cubic feet of what is called "stranded" natural gas. That's equivalent to 1.7 billion barrels of oil totally wasted every year! The problem is that gas, unlike oil, is hard to transport. You can't build pipelines across oceans. And big oceans separate North America from the cheap gas that's now going to waste.

Because of the bottleneck problem, the price of natural gas is much higher in North America than in the countries that are swimming in the stuff.

There's an easy solution to our natural gas shortage, and it's been around for years. It's called liquefied natural gas, or LNG. If you turn natural gas into a liquid by supercooling it, you can transport 600 times as much gas in the same space. One LNG tanker can carry as much as 600 ships hauling natural gas in vapor form. And despite what you may have heard, LNG is safe. With 40,000 LNG tanker voyages spanning the last 45 years and crossing 60 million miles of ocean, there hasn't been a single major accident. Not one. No explosions, no fireballs, no gruesome casualties. Sorry, Hollywood.

As things stand now, the US gets only 1.5% of its natural gas in the form of LNG, but with the energy crunch, things are going to change. The government's Energy Information Administration believes LNG will provide about 17% of our total gas supply by 2030. That means a 11-fold increase in LNG. Better yet, that's going to be a higher percentage of a bigger market, too. The EIA projects total gas consumption — LNG and vapor combined — will boom 30% in the next 10 years. And meanwhile, a fierce bidding war has broken out among Europe, Asia and the US for every available ounce of LNG.

The boom was actually under way before the current energy crunch hit. LNG trade soared 55% in the 10 years ending in 2004. This little market is growing like crazy. Some analysts even predict LNG will surpass King Crude to dominate the world's energy markets. The CEO of Shell says within 10 years, gas will be a bigger part of the company's business than oil. Natural gas is quickly becoming the energy of choice internationally. Natural gas demand will also become a cheaper and more viable energy source.

The Worldwide Boom in Nuclear Power
After a couple of freak accidents several decades ago, Americans decided they wanted nothing to do with nuclear power ever, anywhere. The accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island killed nuclear power in the United States. We're just about the only people with that attitude. The rest of the world took a look at the safety problems, solved them and forged ahead. France now gets 77% of its electric power from nuclear plants. Japan and South Korea get 39%--and the two of them have more than 20 new plants on the way.

Belgium, Sweden, Finland--they've all gone nuclear. It seems like everyone but us is building nukes.

China plans to boost its nuclear power capacity by 500%. In fact, for the past 40 years, nuclear has been the fastest-growing power source in the world. And now it's really taking off. What's more, all the hundreds of plants worldwide have logged thousands of reactor years without a single accident. You see, Asians and Europeans have discovered something Americans refuse to see: Nuclear power is safer, cheaper and cleaner.

The Chinese are charging ahead with a new type of nuclear power plant. I predict utilities will build hundreds, and maybe thousands, of these new plants all over the globe. Electricity will become super-cheap. And eventually we'll see an economic boom worldwide like we've never seen before:
*The new plants will be walk-away safe. A meltdown is not just unlikely, it's impossible.
*There's no danger of radioactivity venting into air or water.
*There's no chain reaction involved.
*No need for huge cooling towers or water. No billion-dollar pressure dome.
*Almost no waste, and what waste there is can be stored safely on the premises.
*No need to fear a terrorist attack.

The technology uses an alternative way to harvest the energy of the atom--a way that Americans discovered and then rejected decades ago. The Chinese plan to mass-produce the reactors. The plants will be modular and factory made, built to last 40 years, ready to ship anywhere in the world and assembled like Legos. A Chinese scientist boasts, "Eventually these new reactors will compete strategically, and in the end, they will win. When that happens, it will leave traditional nuclear power in ruins." The man has reason to be cocky. They've already tested the prototype by turning off the coolant and letting the plant cool down by itself. That would be totally unthinkable with a conventional reactor.

Byron King earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, graduated cum laude from Harvard University, served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, and is a regulator contributor to the Whiskey and Gunpowder investment newsletter.

How Environmentalists Are Killing American Energy

We've all seen it on television. America is in a deep recession. The national unemployment rate according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics has risen to 10.2%. People are losing their jobs, struggling to pay the bills, and what are environmentalists doing in response? They are systematically waging war against job-creating sources of affordable energy while promoting a fanatical religion known as "global warming".

CARE's most recent blog guest, Edwin X Berry, PhD, has been gracious enough to provide our readers with insights on how extreme environmentalist groups are Turning Off The Lights In America. He begins by telling us how an aluminum plant has recently shut down in Montana due to environmental regulations and outlines how the Environmental Protection Agency has been working diligently since 1988 to spread global warming propaganda. He tells us how credible scientists have been silenced for fear of losing their government jobs and updates us on how the EPA is trying to declare carbon dioxide as a pollutant. That's right! When you exhale as a human being the federal government wants to declare you a pollutant! He finishes off by building the case that global warming is a religion rather than a scientifically-based theory.

His writing is provocative, his determination is admirable, and his writings are credible as Doctor Berry is a respected atmospheric scientist. We at CARE strongly believe that this piece will help change your view of the global warming debate in America. Please read on!

How they are turning off the lights in America
On October 31,2009, the once largest aluminum plant in the world will shut down. With it goes another American industry and more American jobs. The Columbia Falls Aluminum Company in Montana will shut down its aluminum production because it cannot purchase the necessary electrical power to continue its operations.

How did this happen in America? America was once the envy of the world in its industrial capability. America's industrial capacity built America into the most productive nation the world had ever known. Its standard of living rose to levels never before accomplished. Its currency became valuable and powerful, allowing Americans to purchase imported goods at relatively cheap prices.

America grew because of innovation and hard work by the pioneers of the industrial revolution, and because America has vast natural resources. A great economy, as America once was, is founded on the ability to produce electrical energy at low cost. This ability has been extinguished. Why?

Columbia Falls Aluminum negotiated a contract with Bonneville Power Administration in 2006 for Bonneville to supply electrical power until September 30, 2011. But, responding to lawsuits, the 9th US Circuit Court ruled the contract was invalid because it was incompatible with the Northwest Power Act. Therefore, the combination of the Northwest Power Act and a US Circuit Court were the final villains that caused the shutdown of Columbia Falls Aluminum.

But the real reasons are much more complicated. Why was it not possible for Columbia Falls Aluminum to find sources of electricity other than Bonneville?

We need to look no further than the many environmental groups like the Sierra Club and to America's elected officials who turned their backs on American citizens and in essence themselves, for they too are citizens of this country. These officials bought into the green agenda promoted by the heavily funded environmental groups. Caving to pressure, they passed laws and the environmental groups filed lawsuits that began turning off the lights in America. The dominos started to fall.

They began stopping nuclear power plants in the 1970's. They locked up much of our coal and oil resources with land laws. They passed tax credits, which forces taxpayers to foot the bill for billionaire investors to save taxes by investing in less productive wind and solar energy projects.

In 1988, the Environmental Protection Agency called a meeting of atmospheric scientists and others with environmental interests. I remember well the meeting I attended in the San Francisco Bay Area. The meeting was in a theater-like lecture room with the seating curved to face the center stage and rising rapidly toward the back of the room. Attending were many atmospheric scientists whom I knew from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Stanford Research Institute and some local colleges.

The room became silent when a man walked up to the lectern. He told us that the next big national problem was global warming. He explained how human carbon dioxide emissions were trapping the earth's radiation like a greenhouse and causing the atmosphere to heat beyond its normal temperature. He said this will lead to environmental disasters. He finished by saying the EPA will now concentrate its research funding toward quantifying the disasters that would be caused by our carbon dioxide.

The room was silent. I was the first to raise my hand to ask a question, "How can you defend your global warming hypothesis when you have omitted the effects of clouds which affect heat balance far more than carbon dioxide, and when your hypothesis contradicts the paper by Lee * in the Journal of Applied Meteorology in 1973 that shows the atmosphere does not behave like a greenhouse?"

He answered me by saying, "You do not know what you are talking about. I know more about how the atmosphere works than you do."

Not being one to drop out of a fight, I responded, "I know many of the atmospheric scientists in this room, and many others who are not present but I do not know you. What is your background and what makes you know so much more than me?"

He answered, "I know more than you because I am a lawyer and I work for the EPA."

After the meeting, many of my atmospheric science friends who worked for public agencies thanked me for what I said, saying they would have liked to say the same thing but they feared for their jobs.

And that, my dear readers, is my recollection of that great day when a lawyer, acting as a scientist, working for the federal government, announced global warming.

Fast forward to today. The federal government is spending 1000 times more money to promote the global warming charade than is available to those scientists who are arguing against it. Never before in history has it taken a massive publicity campaign to convince the public of a scientific truth. The only reason half the public thinks global warming may be true is the massive amount of money put into global warming propaganda.

The green eco-groups have their umbilical cords in the government's tax funds. Aside from a few honest but duped scientists living on government money, the majority of the alarms about global warming - now called "climate change" because it's no longer warming - come from those who have no professional training in atmospheric science. They are the environmentalists, the ecologists, the lawyers and the politicians. They are not the reliable atmospheric scientists whom I know.

Nevertheless, our politicians have passed laws stating that carbon dioxide is bad. See California's AB32 which is based upon science fiction. (For readers who take issue with me, I will be happy to destroy your arguments in another place. In this paper, we focus on the damage to America that is being caused by those promoting the global warming fraud.)

In the year 2000, America planned 150 new coal-electric power plants. These power plants would have been "clean" by real standards but the Greens managed to have carbon dioxide defined legally as "dirty" and this new definition makes all emitters of carbon dioxide, including you, a threat to the planet. Therefore, using legal illogic, the Sierra Club stopped 82 of these planned power plants under Bush II and they expect it will be a slam dunk to stop the rest under Obama.

And now you know the real reason the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company had to shut down. America stopped building new power plants a long time ago. There is now no other source where the company can buy energy. Our energy-producing capability is in a decline and it is taking America with it.

I used to belong to the Sierra Club in the 1960's. It used to be a nice hiking club. In the late 1960's the Sierra Club began turning its attention toward stopping nuclear power. Then I quit the Sierra Club. It continues to prosper from the many subscribers who think they are supporting a good cause. What they are really supporting is the destruction of America brick by brick. The Sierra Club and similar organizations are like watermelons - green on the outside, red on the inside. They are telling us we have no right to our own natural resources, and in doing so they are sinking America.

Inherent in ecology are three assumptions: "natural" conditions are optimal, climate is fragile, and human influences are bad. Physics makes no such assumptions. By assuming climate is fragile, the global warming supporters have assumed their conclusion. In fact, the climate is not fragile. It is stable. The non-adherence to physical logic in the global warming camp is what makes many physical scientists say that global warming is a religion.

So we have a new age religion promoted by environmentalists, incorporated into our laws and brainwashed into our people that is now destroying America from the inside.

Like a vast ship, America is taking a long time to sink but each day it sinks a little further. The fearsome day awaits, when America, if not quickly recovered by its real citizens, will tilt its nose into the water to begin a rapid and final descent into oblivion ... her many resources saved for whom?

Edwin X Berry, Ph.D., is an atmospheric physicist affiliated with the American Meteorological Society.

References:

* R. Lee: "The 'greenhouse' effect" J. Appl. Meteor. 12, 556-557 (1973)

Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner: "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics," Version 4.0 (January 6, 2009)

International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275-364.

http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb/23/2303/S02179792092303.html
Page 37: "Lee's paper is a milestone marking the day after which every serious scientist or science educator is no longer allowed to compare the greenhouse with the atmosphere."

Nuclear Power: Safer Than Ever

To help set the record straight on how safe nuclear power is, CARE has enlisted the aid of Michael Fox, a regular contributor to the CARE blog and a retired nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor with nearly four decades of experience in the energy field. Professor Fox builds the case that since the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nuclear power has become considerably safer and should continue to be used in America for decades to come.

Some of the safety improvements discussed include: Reduced average number of "significant reactor events" over the past 30 years, fewer industrial accidents per 200,000 worker-hours, improved worker protection versus radiation exposure, reduced amounts of low-level nuclear waste produced by plant operations, and improved power plant operating capacity. Professor Fox also discusses lessons learned from Three Mile Island such as the need for enhanced training for reactor operators, the use of site-specific control simulators, and the well-established "culture of safety" throughout the nuclear industry. We have the utmost repect for Professor Fox and our readers can learn much from his expertise.

Safety Improvements in Nuclear Energy

An unrecognized improvement in U.S. nuclear plant safety shows that the lessons of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident still are being taken seriously. Nuclear power wouldn’t be making a comeback in this country unless that was the case.

Industry-wide data compiled by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), a utility organization that monitors nuclear plant safety and operations, shows a dramatic improvement in nuclear plant performance over the past 30 years. Among the changes is a reduction “to nearly zero” of the average number of significant reactor events, especially unplanned reactor shutdowns.

All safety indices show improvement since post-TMI reforms took hold. For example, in 2008 the industrial accident rate dropped to only 0.13 industrial accidents per 200,000 worker-hours. Efforts to protect workers from radiation exposure and to reduce the amount of low-level nuclear waste produced from plant operations have also been successful.

Not surprisingly, the reliability of nuclear plants has risen along with the industry’s safety and operating record. In 2008, the median capacity factor of the 104 U.S. nuclear plants was 91.1 percent, meaning that plants were operating more than 90 percent of the time. That was the ninth consecutive year that the capacity factor was in the 90-percent range. By contrast, in 1979 the average capacity factor at nuclear plants was 56 percent.

The TMI accident occurred just three months after Unit 2 began operating when a valve malfunction compounded by human error in responding to the problem led to a loss of cooling water in the reactor core, exposing the uranium fuel assemblies and causing them to partially melt. One of the lessons that the accident taught us was that the signals on the control panel of a reactor needed to be improved so as to give the operators a clear picture of the state of the reactor at all times. Also, reactor operators needed better training, and weaknesses in some of the specific reactor designs had to be corrected.

Among the many changes that were made following the accident was the installation of site-specific control room simulators at every nuclear plant. The simulators are used as part of a continuous training program that INPO conducts for reactor operators. The goal is to ensure that a serious accident can never happen again.

One of the more important outcomes of the accident was the formation of INPO to conduct independent evaluations of plant operations and share reactor operating experience and lessons learned across the industry. INPO has used this data to set challenging benchmarks against which safety and plant operations can be measured. Though the results of its evaluations are not made public, INPO makes them available to plant managers. And lessons learned are shared among nuclear plant operators in this country and worldwide.

After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, the World Association of Nuclear Operators was established with a mission patterned after INPO’s. Much of the credit for establishing both organizations goes to the late William Street Lee, who was chairman and chief executive officer of Duke Power Co., headquartered in Charlotte, NC Bill Lee, as he was known by colleagues, did much to instill a culture of safety throughout the nuclear industry that continues to this day.

That attention to safety is much in evidence at the TMI plant. Though Unit 2 was lost due to the accident, TMI Unit 1 has continued to operate.

Over the past decade Unit 1 has achieved one of the highest capacity factors in the country and has held four world records for continuous operation by pressurized water reactors, including a 689-day cycle that ended in October 2005.

The improved performance of Unit 1 – and other nuclear plants around the country – has enabled electricity companies to reduce the use of fossil fuel plants, particularly plants fueled with costly natural gas. But it has been the seriousness with which companies have taken safety that’s led to the renewal of operating licenses at nuclear plants and plans for building new plants. Let’s hope nuclear power will be available to meet America’s energy needs well into the future.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a retired nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor. He is the science and energy writer/reporter for the HawaiiReport.com. A resident of Kaneohe, Hawaii, he has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. His interests and activities in the communications of science, energy, and the environment has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. Dr. Fox is listed by the Heartland Institute as a global warming/climate change expert. He is also the Senior Fellow for Science at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.

An Informed Voter's Opinions on Cap and Trade

Typically here at Comments About Responsible Energy, we feature opinions, current energy news, and have made available a cadre of experts who willingly share their insights with us. Upon reading, you are invited to add you comments or questions.

In the CARE Newsletter, The PowerLine, we frequently post questions from the “audience”—either an audience member from one of Marita’s speaking engagements or something that comes in via e-mail in response to the newsletter. We solicit the answer from an appropriate expert and post both the question and answer there.

But this posting is different. It is from a CARE Newsletter Reader and it does have questions. And we are inviting our various experts to comment on it. But we’ve chosen to post this piece here in the Blog because we think the author’s comments and questions may reflect some of what you are thinking. We invite you—expert or not—to respond to the thoughts and questions posted here. Tell Criss where she is right—or where she is off base. If you know the answers to her questions, please offer your insights.

My feelings on cap and trade can best be expressed by the following:
The root purpose of the Cap and Trade bill appears to me to be reducing greenhouse emissions and steer the U.S. away from fossil fuel dependency; the ultimate goal being reducing the emissions by 20% by the year 2020. It accomplishes this via various taxes, surcharges, fines and the like and then distributing these funds to the development and deployment of “renewable” energy sources.

When I look at gas, oil and coal I realize that they give us electrical energy, transportation/shipping fuel and a ton of by-products like: plastic, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, more than 50% of all our composite materials, including fabrics, air and water filters and even pencils. Until recently these fossil fuels have been the most cost effective sources of these energy needs. We humans have known, consciously, as a whole, that these fuels put poisons into our air, water and soil. We have also been aware that they kill humans since at least the 1800’s. No government taxes in any country developed or made available these fuels and all their various uses to the masses, rather free enterprise did that. Governments did not really get involved until it was admitted just how deadly these poisons from burning these fuels can be. IE: There were thousands of deaths from these poisons. Also all three of these fuel sources are an earth resource. They are finite as far as we humans are concerned because it takes the earth millions if not billions of years to produce them. Worldwide consumption rates to these fuels are increasing each year. This means eventually they will become consumed to extinction. We humans currently, nor in the near future, have a way to make our own version of these fuels, en mass, quickly and cost efficiently.

I do not want to put any more poisons into our air, water and soil. So any replacement energy source will need to be cleaner than our existing ones. Nor do I want to rely on another finite earth resource for energy as eventually that too will be consumed to extinction. So they should be as renewable as possible. Nor do I want to have the new energy source to be more dangerous than any existing fuel source to harvest, refine, distribute and burn or utilize and dispose of in any way. Nor do I want to be charged to develop these new energy sources or to put these new sources into production. I believe that the private enterprise sector should do that. And the new sources must be at least as cost effective as the existing energy sources.

The existing alternatives to gas, coal and oil are hydro, solar, wind, geo-thermal and nuclear.

I rule nuclear out because it is based on another finite earth resource--uranium, which is rarer than gas, oil or coal. Rarer than diamonds. Plus it has some safety and security issues that have yet to be resolved. The large plants are almost as cost effective as existing gas, coal and oil, but the cost of safety and security make it uneconomical. Then there is the fact that it only addresses, on a large scale, just one energy need--electrical. It does not address transportation, other than large sea vessels, nor does it address all the by-products. Its safety and security issues also means that additional poisons can and have been, released into either or our air, water or soil. And radiation poison scares me as much as any other natural or man-made disaster or poison, if not more so.

I rule out solar and wind because again they only address electrical energy and do not address transportation or by-product. Yes there is some research to use electrical airplanes, but the successful ones so far are for one or two people and not mass transit or cargo. And yes we do have some electrical vehicles, but they too are not ready for economical en mass deployment (being small they are a safety risk to occupants up against say a dump truck, nor do they have the oomph to plow thru a snow drift). When implemented for large scale electrical production there are some environmental issues and they are not as cost effective as gas, coal and oil production plants in our current business economic model (mega bucks, mega profits, mega quickly). Although, these are very good and cost effective on a small non-commercial production scale, so much so that the energy companies are doing everything in their power to push the price up and they must perceive this as a threat to their mega bucks.

I rule out hydro energy as again this is mostly electrical energy and has some safety and security issues of its own to be resolved. Mainly concerning the dams themselves. They disrupt the natural flow and ecosystems of the river they are implemented on and there is the risk of dam failure which could result in deaths from flooding. Nor does hydro address all the by-products. They are however almost as cost effective as gas, coal and oil without the poisons.

I rule out geo-thermal as they only address electrical and are not quite as cost effective as our existing gas, coal and oil, very close but not quite. Nor do they address transportation and by-products.

My research also indicates that if the U.S. achieved its Cap and Trade Bill goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, the actual result worldwide would be barely over 1%. If all the other countries of the world did the same and reduced by 20% by 2020 the overall worldwide lowering of greenhouse gases in the air would still be in the single percentage points, almost double digit, but single.

Then there is my opinion that physiologically it does not induce or entice people to reduce and conserve their existing fossil fuel usage. Yes it does tax and fine or surcharge if we do not lower our consumption but it does so in a very negative way and not a positive way. Philologists have long been proponents of the quickest and longest lasting behavior changes occur thru positive reinforcement and not negative. IE: Give people a tax break if they lower their consumption (individual or company), taxes stay the same if they stay at the same level as today and then taxes go to a higher percentage rate if they increase consumption over today.

When I compare this research information against the bill, the bill does not address my requirements or priorities. It charges (taxes, fines, surcharges) me to make drastic changes to the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions but does not result in an overall reduction worldwide that is beneficial to humans, et al verses the cost of doing so. Nor does it address finding, developing and deploying en mass cost effective replacements to the electrical, transportation and by-product needs to get off coal, gas and oil. Nor does it address the issue of how to use our existing energy sources more effectively and cost efficiently. And last but not least it does not address the energy infrastructure which is over 50 years old, is falling down around our feet and looses approximately 20-30% of the energy we currently produce via transmission and conversion from AC to DC and DC to AC losses. We need a suite of replacements and no one alternative available today accomplishes enough to charge me to death for their deployment.

I am against the cap and trade bill as it exists today because it basically accomplishes nothing but charges the crap out of me.

My "debate" questions are really asking why everyone seems to be debating the disputed facts concerning greenhouse gas emissions and not zeroing in on the real issues:

Oil, Coal, Gas and Uranium are finite earth resources and will eventually become extinct. Doesn't really matter when they get used up, they will be used up and the longer we take to reduce or eliminate our use of them the faster they will be used up.

Other than people with a suicide wish--I doubt there is anyone who wants more poisons in our air, water or land. So cutting greenhouse gases is not really the issue--cutting all poison emissions is the real issue.

Our energy infrastructure or GRID is so old it is falling down around us. Just putting a computer program on it to re-route surges and drops does not fix this aspect. We need a new, more efficient and cost effective TRUE SMART GRID. We need to stop loosing energy we currently produce to transmission and energy type conversion as well as the physical aspects of the power lines being just too old and tired to keep up with today’s demands.

We need replacements for our electrical energy needs, our transportation (personal and bulk) energy needs and we need replacements for all the by-products that existing fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal, now give us.

Our current US Business Economic Model for Mega Bucks, Mega Profits, Mega Quickly (instead of just bucks, profits and quick) are killing research, development and deployment of any true changes to our existing mass energy systems and enterprises that can get us off these dang blasted finite earth resource fuels.

Our current US Government and energy businesses seem to think that we the American Citizens should pay for this development and deployment of new sources and fixes through taxes, fines, surcharges and debasement of our dollars. Sorry but they created the problem, it was not just us citizens, this needs to be free enterprise.

There seems to be an avoidance of the fact that NONE of the existing alternatives to coal, gas and oil will FIX our true energy issues or the environmental ones either and no one wants to go broke via any means to pay for the fix either. So why do we keep debating all this other crap instead of really brain storming for ideas to fix this mess?

Criss--An Independent, Informed Voter

Colorado’s Conflicted U.S. Senator, Mark Udall

Two of Al Gore’s leading global warming suckers in the U.S. Senate are Mark Udall, D-Colo., and John McCain, R-Ariz.

To his credit, McCain has always been a nuclear energy advocate. Sen. Udall, true to his family’s tradition of being in lockstep with Big Enviro, hasn’t. But he’s beginning to give nuclear energy favorable lip service. Is Udall, like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in his old days in Congress, talking out of both sides of his mouth?

Here is John Dendahl’s commentary with an open letter to Sen. Udall. If the Senator responds, we’ll be sure to let you know.

If Not to Speak Out of Both, Why Have Two Sides to One’s Mouth?
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., is reported to be among those twisting arms for senate votes on the economically ruinous cap-and-trade scheme already passed in the U.S. House. Hollywood Henry Waxman’s is one of the names on the House bill, and few could name a Member of Congress who deserves more “credit” for laws burdening the U.S. economy and restricting the individual rights of U.S. citizens.

Members of Congress like Udall are exempt from mainstream media criticism for conflicts of interest. However, Udall has one here in spades. His wife, Maggie Fox, is CEO and president of something called Alliance for Climate Protection, founded by Al Gore with money from his global warming horror movie. Typical of Big Enviro’s big bucks “charitable” [i.e., organized under Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code] organizations, the Gore/Fox alliance has a companion lobbying organization, the Climate Protection Action Fund. Fox is CEO and president of that as well.

Gore is reported already to have amassed a huge fortune in a market for trading carbon credits, and that’s before any law has been enacted limiting carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the purported reason for any such limits--the claims that the climate is warming and that atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from human activities is the cause--has been reduced to pseudoscience making mischief comparable in scope to eugenics.

Just for the sake of changing the course of the argument, however, why not inquire of Udall and others in the global warming camp as to what sources of, say, electricity they propose as alternatives? “Renewables” like solar and wind is the stock answer. After decades of subsidies, and now laws mandating their use, these sources remain well under one percent of national electric output, and they obviously cannot run 24-7 even when they work.

The correct answer, of course, is nuclear. Udall has whispered that word somewhat approvingly. However, deep skepticism is warranted since most of Udall’s energy talk comes out of the Big Enviro side of his mouth. Despite its unequalled, half-century record for safety, Udall always raises that “issue” and can be expected to hide behind it when the chips are down and Big Enviro says, “No way, Mark.”

Click here for my op-ed on this subject as published in The Denver Post on July 27, and click here for the senator’s limp response.

It’s time, as they say, to get down to brass tacks, so here’s an open letter:


Dear Sen. Udall:

Many friends and I were happy to read your letter-to-the-editor in The Denver Post on July 29, responding to my op-ed published two days earlier. I had been attempting communication with your office for nearly eight weeks before I received two e-mails, slightly different but with substantially the same “boilerplate” I referred to in the op-ed.

It should surprise no one that you have supported WIPP. It commenced operations about two months after you took your seat in the U.S. House and now holds thousands of tons of TRU waste from your congressional district (Rocky Flats). My reference to Udall family complicity in delaying WIPP and adding huge sums to its cost was about events going back more than a decade before you were in Congress and needs no further elaboration here.

However, I’m reminded of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. I find at this website that your father was a sponsor. That was 27 years ago. My understandings are that, under this legislation, utilities (read, ratepayers) have now remitted about $30 billion to the federal fund it created; about $10 billion of that has been spent, largely or entirely on the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada; not an ounce of spent fuel has left temporary storage; and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now intends that the Yucca Mountain project be deep-sixed.

I reminded readers of my op-ed, “Preserving the myth that radioactive waste cannot be safely disposed has been a major goal of organized ‘environmentalists’ for decades.” An article in The Denver Post on August 25 quotes you on Yucca Mountain, “a dead project.” Have you just rolled over and died for Sen. Reid?

Your claims of concern about anthropogenic global warming are not credible without a great deal more support for expanded nuclear power than this from your l-t-e: “I am more than open to expanding our use of nuclear power and recently said so on the floor of the Senate.” Frankly, sir, that’s not even a starter. The aforementioned Denver Post article about the bipartisan photo-op you and Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., held in front of trees killed years ago by pine beetles has a terrific headline, “Udall, McCain united in call for nuclear power,” but I hope you’ll excuse my skepticism after experiencing a decade or more of safety-shrouded doublespeak on the subject by Bill Richardson.

Perhaps as a red herring, your letter raised cost as an issue unfavorable to nuclear power. Nuclear power plants are delivering electricity cheaper than any other source today. Your “cleaner sources,” solar and wind, are the choices that have failed for decades on account of cost whenever they aren’t underwritten by direct government subsidies and/or laws like Colorado’s essentially mandatingtheir use without regard to cost. Uncertainty associated with the licensing process, and “leadership” such as you are getting from Sen. Reid, are the primary reasons I’d suggest for any reluctance by utility company boards and executives to build nuclear power plants we need.

Lastly, about global warming. People chasing money mostly from government grants and agency appropriations have now spent many tens of billions on “proving” that global warming continues, is a very bad thing, and is largely the result of increased concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by human activities. Others who simply observe the world around us shake our heads in disbelief, wondering what planet you and these researchers live on. The climate is cooling, not warming, and the researchers among the crowd laughably claiming consensus about warming can’t make their expensive, complicated--and might I also suggest falsified in some cases?--models jibe with real world measurements.

I believe global warming is to the late 20th and early 21st centuries what the pseudoscience eugenics was to the early 20th. For a cogent discussion of eugenics and the historic mischief of politicized science, look here.

Isn’t it well past time for you to level with the people you represent and tell them the truth? I wouldn’t suggest that’s a decision that can be reached and implemented easily. You have been prominent among global warming alarmists for a long time. Further, I acknowledge the awkwardness of, uh, breakfast table talk and all if this were juxtaposed against your wife’s prominent position in the propaganda end of Al Gore’s carbon-cap-and-trade crusade.

But wouldn’t a mind change now be better than having most of one’s constituents look back in a couple of years, wondering what kind of fool would defy what was so obvious and vote to accelerate his country’s economic tailspin? You got elected to lead us toward sound public policy. In my experience, that’s occasionally neither easy nor comfortable. Honesty, however, sure makes for better sleeping.

I look forward to receiving a reply that addresses directly what is said in this letter.

Respectfully,

s/ John Dendahl

John Dendahl, a Rocky Mountain Foundation senior fellow, is a retired business executive. He resides in Littleton, CO.

Climate Change and Government Policies—An Unethical Connection?

When hearing news about global warming, and seeing so many politicians inexorably cling to the theory—despite polls and science showing the issue is far from settled, have you ever wondered, “Where did all this come from?

The pro nuclear aspect of this posting aligns with CARE’s position. It does, however, bring up some ideas outside of CARE’s scope, but it does point out an interesting—if not unethical—connection between some of today’s loudest political voices and the personal benefit received from their promotion of the policies. We believe you will find the connections drawn here to be most insightful. Plus, there is a definite New Mexico element despite the fact that a version of this posting was first published in the Denver Post.

The author, John Dendahl, has an extensive background in nuclear power on which he elaborates in response to comments from Denver Post readers.

Global Warming Worriers Need to Go Nuclear
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., claims he’s worried about global warming. He wants human production of carbon dioxide radically reduced. Ditto his wife, Maggie Fox, who runs Alliance for Climate Protection, founded by Al Gore with money from his global warming horror flick.

Here we have an inside-outside Udall family partnership working the Senate for votes for the ruinous cap-and-trade legislation Pres. Obama wants.

The parallel is admittedly imperfect, but I’m reminded of the $2.5 million that Global Crossing blew into the pocket of Anne Bingaman, wife of U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.. That was for six months’ lobbying the U.S. government shortly after she left her position in Bill Clinton’s Justice Department. (See “Global Crossing Tossed More Cash Around Town Than Enron,” Business Week 2-11-02, here.)

Imagine the fit thrown by, say, The New York Times and its Copycat Chorus as to either of these situations if the senator in question weren’t solidly Left.

I wrote to ask Udall’s position(s) on carbon – regulate as a pollutant, cap emissions by statute and/or international treaty – the whole arsenal in this campaign against the economy and American sovereignty.

While awaiting a reply, I sent another note inquiring about nuclear energy, since that choice has several attractions. Among those are a half-century safety record unequaled by any major industry in history, zero carbon emissions, low operating expenses, no dependence on bad guys for fuel – and continuous output 24-7.

Udall’s reply is boilerplate any clerk could have sent back to me by return mail, rather than taking six weeks. As Members of Congress have claimed ever since the Arab oil embargo in 1974, Udall wants a “comprehensive energy plan.” In addition to generous portions of New Energy Economy fantasy, Udall would include “responsible onshore and offshore drilling for oil and natural gas ... [and] safely expanding nuclear power.”

The devil’s in the caveats. What offshore drilling would Udall consider “responsible?” What does “safely” mean in the context of expanding industrial safety’s crème de la crème?

This apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Read on.

Preserving the myth that radioactive waste cannot be safely disposed has been a major goal of organized “environmentalists” for decades. When the federal government nearly 40 years ago commenced study of a geologic repository in southern New Mexico’s bedded salt, Big Enviro was there to say “No.” Nonetheless, the study progressed and the proposed Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was supported well by NM’s 1970s congressional delegation. Then in 1982 Santa Fe elected Democrat Bill Richardson to the U.S. House.

Santa Fe is about 300 “crow-flight” miles from WIPP, but only about 30 from Los Alamos, where waste destined for WIPP – like that from Denver’s Rocky Flats – had been in temporary storage for up to 40 years. Despite his district’s need for WIPP, Richardson quickly became a strident opponent, in puzzling contrast to strong support from WIPP’s neighbors and their representative in the House.

Naturally, Richardson hid behind public safety. Only slightly smirking, he could tell a reporter, “I’m for WIPP – as long as it’s 100-percent safe.” Since there’s no such thing as “100-percent safe,” the statement was a straight-out lie to cover Richardson’s pandering to Big Enviro.

As the battles wore on, Udall’s father, Morris Udall, D-Ariz., then chairman of the House Interior Committee, gave Richardson a veto over public lands legislation needed for WIPP. The congressional foot-dragging effected by Richardson and Udall Père probably delayed WIPP by five years, added hundreds of millions to its cost, and increased public safety not one iota.

Now cut to the present. WIPP operations commenced in 1999, ironically while Richardson was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Energy. Its fine safety record is consistent with the industry’s--for both its construction and operations.

Surprise! Radioactive waste can be safely transported and disposed.

Democrat U.S. senators from Colorado have a poor record on energy. Former Sen. Tim Wirth, who now sits at Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation, said in 1997, “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right things in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.” And just what would those right things be? World government, maybe?

When Wirth, Udall, Gore and the rest of the global warming crowd become true advocates of super-safe, non-carbon-emitting, unmatchably reliable nuclear power, I’ll stop dismissing them as liars very likely covering a hidden agenda.


John Dendahl, a Rocky Mountain Foundation senior fellow, is a retired business executive. He resides in Littleton, CO.

Do We Really Want Expensive Experimental And Bureaucratic Mechanisms To Fix Climate Change?

When Diana Furchtgott-Roth “speaks,” we have learned to listen. The articles we use of hers always offer fresh insight on an energy issue. (She does write on other topics too, due CARE’s focus, we only use her pieces that address energy.) A new approach or a unique angle on today’s energy issues are what we hope to offer here in the CARE Blog. Therefore, we use quite a bit of Diana’s work. If you have not read her previous postings here in Comments About Responsible Energy, we encourage you to go back and read them. You, too, will appreciate her commentary.

This one is of particular interest at this time due to its position on the calendar--in between the time when the House passed their version of climate change legislation AKA “cap and trade” and the time when the Senate brings it up for debate. This period in history brings global warming to the forefront. Here Diana postulates that if climate change is a real issue and man-made carbon dioxide is an issue, than the problem would be better solved by going nuclear than by taxing carbon emissions. Here’s a great perspective as represented in her entire article: “A nuclear strategy would avoid the experimental and bureaucratic mechanisms for awarding emissions permits to power plants and other polluters and for monitoring compliance and trading…”

Read on. We think you’ll find her approach to be a great angle to add to your mental database on energy.

It's Time to Go Nuclear
With the Senate committees poised to consider versions of the expensive climate-change bill narrowly approved by the House of Representatives, it's time for the country to take a fresh look at nuclear power, which already generates 20 percent of our electricity.

The Environment and Public Works Committee and the Finance Committee hope to finish drafting a bill before the August recess. Floor debate and a vote will come only after Labor Day, to be followed later in the autumn by House-Senate conference. Whatever the Senate finally does, the process will be contentious and protracted.

Senator Judd Gregg (NH) told me in a telephone conversation that the Senate Republican Conference recommends a national strategy to build 100 nuclear power plants by 2030, in addition to the 104 that are now in operation. "This will clean up the air," he said, "and reduce reliance on foreign oil. This is a much more constructive approach than the climate change bill," which would create limits on carbon-dioxide emissions and a system for trading permits to emit them.

The House bill, if enacted, would raise $847 billion over 10 years while adding $821 billion to federal spending. It is effectively a tax increase with large, negative economic implications. That huge sum would not pay for the additional electric power a growing economy must have. It would be the added cost of curbing climate-warming emissions and of developing energy from renewable fuels.

Nuclear power has its problems, including delays in licensing and substantial up-front costs, but it can generate additional power for economic growth at a cost lower than that of the cap-and-trade bill.
A nuclear strategy would avoid the experimental and bureaucratic mechanisms for awarding emissions permits to power plants and other polluters and for monitoring compliance and trading, as well as compulsory efficiency standards for automobiles and household appliances and mandatory use of renewable fuels, such as wind, solar, biomass, and hydroelectric power.

If we're going to wave goodbye to the invisible hand by spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on wind and solar power, and on giving motorists tax-funded incentives to drive electric cars, then it's reasonable to ask whether subsidies for nuclear power might be less costly and achieve the same environmental results. The answer is probably yes.

The House's planned expenditure of $800 billion could fund 100 nuclear power plants with proven technology and no greenhouse gas emissions. This could be faster and less expensive than new emissions allowances, carbon sequestration, and wind, solar, and biofuel technology.

Despite generating 20% of America's electricity and its role in the U.S. commercial power grid since 1957, nuclear power is not without problems.

Energy is relatively inexpensive to generate once a plant is built, but plant construction requires a capital outlay of $6 billion to $8 billion. Since projects take five years to complete, a substantial portion of the funding is interest. Hence, some government subsidies or loan guarantees are necessary just to fund the project.

Four companies planning nuclear reactors-UniStar Nuclear Energy, NRG Energy, Scana Corporation, and Southern Company-are among those reportedly under consideration for a share in $18.5 billion in federal funding. Due to financial considerations another company, Exelon, announced this week that it is shelving its plans for a new power plant in Texas, and in April AmerenUE abandoned a planned plant in Missouri.

As well as difficulties in funding, delays can be caused by local site-permitting issues. Some communities may welcome the "green" jobs and additional tax revenue provided by a new nuclear power plant, but some will resist. Approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can be made faster than in the past with standardized designs and congressional support.

The issue most familiar to Americans, disposal of spent uranium fuel rods, has generated headlines as Congress has argued about where to store the radioactive waste. How to transport it there safely also is an issue. The prior selection of Yucca Mountain in Nevada has stalled, since President Obama has not allocated any funding for the facility in the 2010 budget.

In this, the United States can learn from France, which generates over 80% of domestic electricity production from atomic energy and prides itself on being in the forefront of the global environmental movement. It reprocesses the spent rods at the power plants and does not have one giant, national storage facility. Local storage and reprocessing avoid transporting nuclear waste across the country.

It's not clear that government funding of energy and environmental projects is necessary. But if that's how Congress wants to spend tax dollars, Americans should press for further development of clean nuclear power.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow and director of Hudson Institute's Center for Employment Policy. She is the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Choices in Large-scale Electricity Production

Do you agree with this statement: “The working of the nation depends upon a reliable supply of electricity, day and night, winter and summer, quiet days and stormy days”? If you do, you will want to read on. This posting was sent exclusively to CARE from the members Los Alamos Education Group in Los Alamos, NM. Remember Los Alamos is where the atom bomb was developed and where the high school students have the highest IQ in the country (their parents are literally “rocket scientists"). So when scientists and engineers from Los Alamos speak up, we should listen!

This piece is authored specifically by Donald Peterson and William Stratton, who have served CARE with written commentaries in the past and were guests on the radio program CARE organized last fall on uranium mining and nuclear power. Their biographical information can be found below. From their professional and scientific background, here--through the lens of history--they analyze America’s electricity needs for the future and the possible solutions.

This is a through look that is based on in depth study. It is a bit longer than many of the postings here so you may want to print it out for reading later. We at CARE are confident that our Blog readers will find this information to be insight and an important piece in your ongoing energy education. Please let us know what you think!

Powering the National Grid
A few years ago, the National Academy of Sciences polled its members to determine the premier engineering development of the 20th century. Although the candidates are numerous, including the automobile, radio and television, and the airplane, the Academy determined that the most significant engineering accomplishment was the electrification of the nation, essentially providing electricity to nearly every home, business, and industry. The importance of this development is evident from the innumerable applications of electricity, and also from news reports showing the impact of electric interruptions due to disasters of one kind or another. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine being without electric power for an extended period. The working of the nation depends upon a reliable supply of electricity, day and night, winter and summer, quiet days and stormy days. In spite of this accolade for the electrification of the nation, critics exist--voiceing complaints about design, age, reliability, etc. More on this later.

Until the early 1970s, the time of the first oil supply crisis, most of the country’s electrical power was provided by burning coal, with a fraction provided by burning oil because it was cheap at the time. Between about 1905 and 1975, electrical power demand and the production in the U.S. rose at the phenomenal rate of 7% per year, or doubling every decade. This rate only declined for a year or two in the depression, and then accelerated a bit during World War II. Otherwise remained steady at 7% per year. The United States was not unique in experiencing a steady growth in the use of electricity.

However, in the mid-1970s, the annual increase in demand for electricity dropped from 7% a year to one or two percent, even dropping to zero percent for a year or two. A saturation effect had taken place. This reduced growth rate led to the cancellation of plans for new power stations--both coal and nuclear--in large numbers.

During the 1950s the creation of new ideas and development of designs for nuclear power stations had progressed to the point that a dozen or more small (by modern standards) nuclear power reactors were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some of these were experimental in nature and were short lived, but some provided power for several years. However, the experience convinced companies, such as General Electric, Westinghouse, and Babcock and Wilcox that nuclear power could be a competitor to the coal-fired power plants. They were so convinced, they offered bargain rates to build the early large nuclear power stations to get the business started, and the utility industry responded with many orders.

The first large commercial power plant, Oyster Creek in New Jersey, produced 650 megawatts, and was licensed and began operating in 1969. It is now about to receive a license extension of another 20 years, along with most of the other operating nuclear power stations.

By 1980, 60 nuclear power stations were in operation. Between roughly 1965 and 1995, some 112 plants were built, of which 104 are still in operation. These plants provide nearly 20% of all electrical power in the United States. For the electric utilities, the initial burst of enthusiasm was economics--the nuclear plants were less expensive to build and operate than new coal fired plants.

However, shortly after this initial enthusiastic beginning, a number of factors combined to slow this introduction of nuclear power. The operation and maintenance of these new power plants was much more difficult than had been expected and an anti-nuclear movement emerged. Various organizations were created, motivated somewhat by the association of nuclear power with nuclear weapons, but also by some fears predating that time, which can be related back to the discovery of x-rays, radioactivity and the spooky pictures of a hand showing clearly bones inside the flesh. Bad experiences with radium (unregulated) contributed to the unease. (The extensive and accepted use of x-rays for medical and dental diagnostics had no apparent effect on the anti-nuclear movement, perhaps because these uses were not associated with the radiation from the fission process.) Most of the early so-called reactor safety studies were badly done with frightening results. Simultaneously, licensing, financing, and construction time and costs were rising. The expense of new nuclear plants became more than coal plants, and neither was needed because of the lack of demand for more power.

About the same time, President Carter issued an executive order halting nuclear fuel reprocessing due to concerns regarding control of plutonium and proliferation of nuclear weapons. This killed a developing industry (reprocessing of spent fuel), and, more importantly, research and development work to find a better fuel cycle than the Purex process, which was developed and used during and after World War II. (The Purex process was designed to produce pure plutonium, quite unsuited to commercial power applications.)

In the late 1980s and 1990s, when the demand for electrical power began to rise again (at a lower rate), nuclear plants were in disfavor due to expense, regulation, as well as the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernoble. The fuel of choice became natural gas. These gas plants were inexpensive to build and natural gas was relatively cheap. Natural gas fired power grew to be about 20% of the total U.S. electrical supply, along with 20% for nuclear and 50% for coal.
We are now in the first decade of the 21st century. Fossil fuels, especially coal, have fallen into disfavor because of emission of carbon dioxide--allegedly leading to global warming. Additionally, pollutants are calimed to be responsible for thousands of deaths per year (spread over the whole population and therefore not generally observed like deaths from auto accidents). The demand for electricity is now rising 1½% to 2% per year. Nuclear power is more generally accepted, since it does not suffer from the same pollution problems, and it has compiled a record of decades of reliable, safe service at a relatively low cost. In fact, we believe that some nuclear plants produce the least expensive electricity.

Concomitantly, due primarily to the same concerns about global warming and emissions from coal fired power plants, a so-called “green” movement has emerged and is literally wildly enthusiastic about "renewable" power, such as electric power from sunshine and wind. (There are a few other options, such as power from ocean waves, or the burning of trash, but these are even less proven than wind or solar.)

The total electrical demand of the United States is a mind-boggling 600,000 to 700,000 megawatts (each megawatt is one million watts, or 1000 kilowatts [kw]. To those of us accustomed to thinking in household terms [watts or kilowatts], this is an incomprehensively large amount of power.) We expect the electric industry to provide this power reliably, at a steady, constant voltage and at a price we can afford. If one power station fails, we expect another to be available to take up the load nearly instantaneously. (The system is not perfect and large blackouts do occur, as in the northeast some years ago.)

At an annual rate of increase of 2% per year, demand for electricity will double in 22 years; if only 1.5% per year, the demand will double in 46 years. Considering that our total demand for energy of all kinds and forms is steadily increasing, population is increasing, and the fraction of energy provided by electricity is also increasing, we must plan for the higher rate of growth. We must plan for significantly greater demand for electrical power in the years to come.

Our electricity is produced by coal (50%), natural gas (20%). nuclear (20%) and most of the remaining is water power with very small amounts from solar and wind. These (especially coal) will carry the load for some time to come, but because of problems mentioned above, coal is out of favor and nuclear, wind and solar are candidates. While we have enough coal to last for at least a couple of centuries, the objections to burning more coal are numerous, so we will consider the remaining three sources--nuclear, wind, and solar--quantitatively, as well as we can. We will consider what is required to replace the electricity currently provided by coal--in the US, approximately 300,000 megawatts--with cleaner sources.

We will start with wind power. T. Boone Pickens has proposed to build wind turbines of 1.5 megawatts. More powerful wind turbines have been built, but his proposal is the first one to be considered seriously. In order to produce 300,000 megawatts, 200,000 turbines would be required. However, the operational history of wind turbines has not been good. Operational power is obtained on average only about 1/3 or less of the time, so this means that 600,000 or more would be required in differing locations to replace the electricity now produced by burning coal. The area required for each turbine is about 4 acres, indicating that the turbines would take up 2.4 million acres (3700 square miles). These numbers are enormous. At an estimated cost per turbine of 4 million dollars, the total cost is very large. This cost does not even address costs of revising the gigantic and costly electric power distribution grid to collect power from remote locations and transmit it to population centers one to two thousand miles away, or to maintain backup sources for periods of time with little or no wind. This eventuality is a failure for which we see no solution if we wish to depend on wind. Some of the criticisms of the power grid may derive from problems of this sort.

The wind option is impractical for these, as well as other, reasons.

Solar power has some obvious advantages. Enthusiasts point out that the distributed power over the entire area of the earth is enormous, the intensity is constant, it never fails, and will last for the indefinite future. It seems to be perfect, except for several weaknesses: the power is small per unit area, the earth rotates with nights as well as days, and the seasonal effect must be considered. Further, concepts for storing energy for periods when the sun is not shining are inadequate, very expensive, and do not exist for large arrays.

We will quantify, at least in part, by estimating the area required with the sun directly overhead as occurs on the equator or between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics states that the solar intensity, all frequencies, at the spot facing the sun, vertically overhead is 2 calories per square centimeter per minute. Translated into units more familiar to most of us, the intensity is 1.17 kilowatts per square yard. This energy density is reduced when passing through the atmosphere by molecular absorption, dust, and clouds. The best estimates we’ve found suggest half or a little less reaches the ground. Solar cells, at their current best, convert only 15% of the solar energy to electrical energy. Further, a solar array must include space for maintenance workers and equipment, frames to hold and secure the solar panels, and for equipment to collect and convert the direct current to alternating current. Allowing for all these factors reduces the 1.17 kw per square yard to about 0. 055 kw per square yard for the array of solar cells. (For a rooftop installation of, say 50 square yards, the power output could be up to nearly three kilowatts, enough to power the home comfortably at the middle of the day, but with little for late in the day and nothing, of course, at night without storage). An array of a square mile could produce about 170 megawatts. To replace the power generated by coal (300,000 megawatts) would require 1765 square miles, an impossibly large area. Further, this number is calculated with the sun directly overhead. Allowing for other times of day, and for winter as well as summer, as in the US, would increase the area required by a factor of five to ten or more--and this still does not consider periods of darkness. In short, solar power is completely impractical for large-scale power production, and should be reserved for special applications or for remote sites for which connection to the grid is too expensive. (A quantitative evaluation of costs for solar installation in a home was published in the Albuquerque Journal, January 15, 2009. The cost was prohibitive.)

This leaves nuclear power: We will assume that each new power plant will provide about 1500 electric megawatts. (The French and the Finns are each building pressurized water reactors of 1600 megawatts, and two similar plants are planned for China. The economies of scale keep driving the unit power level higher). In order to replace 300,000 megawatts from coal, construction of 200 such new nuclear power stations would be required. The record of the last century (and recent history) clearly demonstrates that this is feasible. For example, the French built 50-55 nuclear power plants in 20-25 years starting in the mid-1970s, all of which operate steadily and safely, and provide about 80% of their total electrical power supply. The US constructed 112 in about the same time; 104 are still operating. Since the turn of the century more than 30 new nuclear power stations have been completed worldwide and more are planned.

Some problems must be resolved in order to make such an expansion possible in the U.S. A problem (really a perceived and artificial problem) is that of spent fuel. Two possible solutions have evolved. The first and operative solution is to store the fuel, first in fuel storage pools for a few years until air-cooling is adequate, then move the spent fuel to concrete pads and place it in concrete and/or steel containers. The containers are too heavy to move without the heavy equipment, and the fuel is too hot, both thermally and radioactively, to work with without special equipment. This reduces the concerns regarding security. The area required for such a system is miniscule and the cost cannot be large. This is the current solution.

The second solution is to bury the fuel, suitably contained, in sites such as the one under construction at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This project has been underway for years at a cost of billions of dollars, and is still incomplete. It is not a workable solution. No fuel has been stored here, nor will any be for years to come--especially now that Obama has killed the project. The authors regard Yucca Mountain as a complete waste and a mistake.

The best solution is to store fuel at the site of creation (the power station) or at a central storage facility, placed where a recycle or reprocess plant will someday be constructed. This process has been satisfactory for decades (certainly since the 1960s) and will continue to be satisfactory for decades and decades more. Ultimately, the fissionable materials remaining in the fuel (primarily uranium and transuranics) will be used in fast neutron reactors after recycle to remove the fission products. The country can not afford to throw away the 90+ % of the energy from the original fuel which remains in the "spent” fuel.

During the presidential campaign, Senator McCain presented a proposal for 45 new nuclear power stations. In this light, his proposal was far too modest. By the time 200 nuclear power stations are built to phase out coal-fired power, more will be needed, but that can be faced when the time comes. The first few plants will be expensive as, essentially, a specialized, new construction industry must be recreated. Welders, pipefitters, electricians, etc must become accustomed to the rigorous inspections conductedby the nuclear regulatory industry. A forging plant for pressure vessels must be built.

The conclusion of this brief study is that humanity has only two choices for the large scale production of electricity. These two are coal-fired or nuclear power. It should be obvious that our national choice should be the same as the one made by France about 35 years ago. We should build nuclear power stations as fast as practicable. The first few plants will be expensive and will require time. Creating a power system that is pollution free and emits no carbon dioxide will require at least a half century. We can start no sooner than now. We can do it; we must do it.

Bill Stratton has a PhD from the University of Minnesota. He is a retired reactor safety expert with extensive advisory service to the Nuclear Regulatory Commision. As a consultant to the President's Kemeny Commission, he was instrumental in explaining the minimal radiation release from Three Mile Island.

Don Petersen has a PhD from the University of Chicago. He is a retired radiation biologist involved with health effects of radiation, neutron dosimetry and effects of neutrons and alpha particles. He has had first hand experience with investigation, description and reporting of radiation accidents involving injury and fatality.

A Menacing Energy Agenda

Here at the CARE Offices, we get many, many e-mails and articles sent to us. They make up the majority of the content of this Blog. We try to sift through them and post the pieces that we believe best fit our member’s interests and that reflect our energy position. For example, we received many copies of the speech featured in the previous posting. Therefore, we know it is of interest.

In contrast, no one brought the New York Times article regarding the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff’s comments stating that no new nuclear or coal plants may ever be needed in the United States--until we received the following from new CARE friend Mike Fox. After reading both the following posting and the NYT article, we had to share it with you. Apparently, it flew under the radar. To have someone at the FERC with this kind of thinking, is down right scary. Please read on.

CARE’s executive director Marita Noon met Mike Fox at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York in March. She’s invited him to be a regular contributor to our Comments About Responsible Energy. We’d love your feedback here!

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman's Dangerous Agenda:
'US may never need new coal or nuclear energy plants'

Jon Wellinghoff is the new head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Wellinghoff recently suggested that the US may never need new coal or nuclear energy plants. Wellinghoff is a dangerous man, and has received serious criticism.

Coal and nuclear energy now nominally provide more than 70% of the nation’s electricity. Wellinghoff’s proposal stopping coal and nuclear energy and replacing it with wind and solar energy would put the United States well down the road to economic suicide.
Our nation’s decades of prosperity, freedom, and productivity have been directly related to the abundance of low-cost, reliable sources of electricity, nearly all of it being domestic sources. We must recall that in warfare between nations the electrical energy generating plants of the opposing nations are highly prized targets in destroying nations. In this context of destruction of nations, Wellinghoff’s statement is thus reminiscent of the UN’s statement about the destruction of the West: "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"--by Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations. That is as chilling as it real. Professional associates of this author were in the 1992 Rio audience when Strong spoke these words. His words were met with thundering applause, with much of it from environmental groups from the US.

Thus, we have the horrendous politics of the international left now pressuring our US government policies. The common belief among too many of our leaders holds that wind energy is a viable substitute for our nation and it supports their opposition to nuclear and coal as sources. But for many reasons wind most certainly is not acceptable. It is very worrying to find that so many in leadership are not familiar with, let alone appreciative of, the benefits of electricity, how it’s made, and what it has contributed to our freedom, liberty, security, productivity, and prosperity.

Wind energy is notoriously costly, unreliable, intermittent, and invariably misrepresented by its supporters. Were it not for its 30 years of heavy subsidies, tax credits, and the many laws which require that rate payers pay for all of these follies through Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), the windmills would be shut down by the weekend. The simple reason is that the windmills do not produce sufficient energy and sufficient revenue to pay for themselves and be profitable. This has been going on for 30 years.

The windmill owners, the only ones who benefit from the windmill scams, are avoiding billions in annual taxes by shifting their tax burdens to the rest of us.

Now Mr. Wellnghoff of FERC proposes that the United States do without 70% of our existing electrical energy sources and replace it with wind energy, believing wind energy to be viable source of energy, when it most certainly is not. Wind energy is famously unreliable, intermittent, and costly and has been that way for the last 30 years only as a result of heavy subsidies. This policy of wind subsidies, scams, and major rent-seeking by the likes of Florida Power and Light, T. Boone Pickens, etc., will bring unreliable electrical energy to our nation and cripple our prosperity, security, freedom, and liberty.

That a high government official makes such suggestions is frightening and utterly avoidable with just a few minutes of analyses. Excellent wind energy analyses are available from many places including from Glenn Schleede, and a recent excellent analysis by Michael Trebilcock of Canada.

The Trebilcock analyses provided data from the European experiences with wind energy and provide valuable lessons for the United States, if we’ll learn from them. He says in part “there is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is instructive. Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).”

Trebilcock continues “Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.” And this is only part of the story. Consider the costs of wind energy to the people of Denmark.

Trebilcock continues with the Denmark example, “Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “Windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen, the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.” Let us hope that the FERC staff reads this analysis.

Subsidies
“The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWhr basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34—compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25 cents; coal at 44 cents; hydro at 67 cents; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.” The Wall Street Journal advises that “wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the government decides to pick winners.”

Millions in the public who are furious at the bailouts of banks and automobile companies would be surprised to know that our same government has been greatly subsidizing wind energy for nearly 30 years. Windmills, even after billions in subsidies remain unreliable and unprofitable sources of energy.

“The Economist magazine in a recent editorial, “Cap and Binge,” notes that each ton of emissions avoided due to subsidies to renewable energy such as wind power would cost somewhere between $69 and $137, whereas under a cap-and-trade scheme the price would be less than $15. Either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system creates incentives for consumers and producers to reduce energy use and emissions that, as these numbers show, completely overwhelm subsidies to renewable energy forms in terms of cost effectiveness.”

We remain hopeful for a successful presidency and a strong and productive nation. Our nation’s success depends upon wise and intelligent science policies and defensible energy engineering processes.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a nuclear scientist and a science and energy resource for Hawaii Reporter and a science analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is retired and now lives in Eastern Washington. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level. His interest in the communications of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:mike@foxreport.org