Frequent readers of this blog know that many of my posts are long because I get document all my statements. This is because of my background in industry where it is necessary to prove my arguments to have credibility. This is an update of articles that I have read that I want to mention but do not require a detailed post. Previous commentaries are available here.
I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed and most of the articles described below are related to the net-zero transition. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Videos
- There is no question that the global climate has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age circa 1850. There are two questions that I think are important: why it has warmed and how much has it warmed. CO2 Coalition released a short video about the urban heat island that addresses the second question. If we are worried about global temperatures, then local effects should not be included. For example, temperature measurements in New York City’s Central Park have warmed by some amount due to development around the park in addition to the global driver causing warming. The video correctly describes the issue but, in my opinion, does not completely explain why the urban heat island occurs. I think the video over-emphasizes the impact of direct heat releases relative to the impact of buildings and other structures absorbing heat from the sun. Even with that caveat this is still a worthwhile video.
Betting on the Energy Transition
Mark Mills notes that policies that ignore the fact that modern civilization depends on abundant, affordable, and reliable energy do not turn out well. The tremendous energy requirements of artificial intelligence means that the energy use will continue to grow. He notes that “For context, today’s global cloud already consumes ten times more electricity than all the world’s EVs combined.” Given the challenges that renewable energy impose on energy abundance, affordability, and reliability he bets that fossil fuel use will force abandonment of the “energy transition”.
Hydrogen Dreams are Falling Apart
Paul Homewood explains How the West’s big bet on hydrogen fell apart. He notes that Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, an Australian billionaire who made big bets on green hydrogen, has “dropped a target to produce 15 million tons by 2030, blaming high costs and weak demand.” Homewood goes on to explain:
Across the West, politicians have pledged to meet ambitious climate targets partly through developing different sources of the fuel, such as “blue” hydrogen made from natural gas, and “green” hydrogen derived through electrolysis of water.
Collectively, they have pledged to produce millions of tonnes of hydrogen in the coming decades – despite there being no proven path to doing so commercially.
On the same day that Forrest pulled back, the European Union was told that its plan to make and import 10 million metric tons of green hydrogen by the end of this decade was unrealistic as well – despite the bloc making €18.8bn (£15.8bn) available for a slew of projects.
The European Court of Auditors dismissed the target as one based on “political will” rather than concrete data, and said it had been partly spurred on by lobbyists.
Recall that the Climate Act Scoping Plan placeholder solution for dispatchable, emissions free resources is green hydrogen. Homewood’s conclusion sums it up perfectly:
It is a mystery why politicians have allowed themselves to be fooled into thinking that hydrogen is a “superfuel”. The whole idea is ridiculous.
On all levels, it is hopelessly energy inefficient, massively expensive, and extremely difficult to store and transport.
Above all it is simply illogical to take one form of energy and then waste some of that energy turning into another form at huge cost.
Energy experts have known about this all along.
Offshore Wind Conundrums
David Wojick has been on a roll lately describing issues with offshore wind. He notes that “Biden’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) proposes to build a huge amount of floating offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine.” The problem is that the draft Environmental Assessment of the area designated for this monster project insanely ignores the cumulative environmental impacts of all the potential lease areas. This problem is also a feature of New York’s offshore wind development. His description of the proposed floating offshore wind platforms proposed for Maine boggles the mind: “Simple physics says that if you want to put a 2,000-ton generator on top of a 500-foot tower with three 300-foot wings attached on a boat and have it still stand up in hurricane-force winds, it will have to be a mighty big boat.”
Robert Bryce published an article entitled The Offshore Wind Scandal is Even Worse Than You Think that addresses one of the cumulative environmental impacts that New York and the BOEM are ignoring. In charts he explains where the money is flowing, describes potential impacts to whales, and includes a map showing that New York’s offshore wind developments overlap the migration paths of the critically endangered North American Right Whale. The big green environmental organizations are abandoning whales in general and the remaining North American Right Whales in particular. Bryce quotes an opponent of offshore wind: “What is Big Wind going to say when they kill the last whale? ‘Sorry’?”
Balanced View of Fossil Fuels
Alex Epstein explains why we should look at fossil fuels in a balanced way. Here is a sample:
- Most “experts” look at the negatives of fossil fuels but ignore huge positives.
- Many “experts” ignore that much of the world would starve without fertilizer from natural gas.
- Fixating on the negatives and ignoring the positives of any technology is deadly.
- If we just looked at the negatives of antibiotics and ignored the positives, billions would die.
- To decide what to do about fossil fuels we must be balanced, looking at both negatives and positives.
- Fossil fuels do impact climate—but even there we must consider positives along with negatives.
- A huge, ignored climate positive we get from fossil fuels is the ability to master climate danger.
- Fossil fueled climate mastery has helped us become safer than ever from climate.
- In weighing fossil fuels’ positives and negatives, we must be precise—not exaggerate or fabricate.
- Sadly many “experts” exaggerate the negatives of fossil fuels in addition to ignoring the positives.
- If we carefully weigh fossil fuels’ positives and negatives, it becomes clear we need more of them.
Greenhouse Effect Misinformation
Harold D. Pierce, Jr. sent me a note about a paper by Joel Kaufmann titled Climate Change Reexamined that makes the very good point that CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas. Proponents of climate change action typically ignore the implications of water on the GHG effect. Pierce explains:
Shown in Fig. 7, is the infrared (IR) absorption spectrum of a sample of Philadelphia city air from 400 to 4,000 wavenumbers. The wavenumber scale linear in energy and spans an order of magnitude in energy.
Integration of spectrum determined that water absorbed 92% of the IR light and carbon dioxide only 8 % of the IR light. Since the wavenumber scale is linear in energy, water absorbed much more IR light energy than carbon dioxide. Since the air sample was city air, it is likely that the concentration of carbon dioxide was higher than that of remote location such a rural area. Kauffman did not measure the concentration of carbon dioxide in the city air.
In 1999 at the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of carbon dioxide in air was about 367 ppm by volume. This is only 0.721 grams of carbon dioxide per cubic meter of air. At 28 deg. C and 76% RH the concentration of water in was about 28,044 ppm by volume. This is about 22.5 grams of water cubic meter of air. For these weather conditions, water is about 98.7% of the greenhouse effect.
Based on the above analysis and calculations and on Kauffman’s essay, I have concluded that since 1988, the claim by the IPCC carbon dioxide has caused and is still causing “global warming” is a lie. Water is by far the major greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide is a very minor greenhouse gas.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 