David Whitehouse
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project has released its preliminary findings though not in a research journal but to the scientific community and the general public. Their trumpeted finding is not surprising - the world has gotten warmer in recent decades - or at least the land has. This is consistent with the other global temperature datasets.
A press release issued by the project said, “Global Warming is real,” adding that it can find no evidence of a heat island effect, and that even weather stations considered to be of doubtful quality still show relative warming over the 1950 - 2010 period in question.
Whilst the results are not that surprising, the findings of the research have been used by some to talk about the nature of climate skepticism bearing in mind that the impetus for the Berkeley initiative came from self-avowed skeptical scientists. But the results, and how they have been portrayed, also says something about the nature of today’s environmental reporting. In particular it reveals a narrow focus on trouncing sceptics at the expense of putting the science into its proper context.
The Guardian is notable not for what it says but for what it doesn’t say. The article has far too narrow an outlook, providing no overall context. It does not even mention that the Berkeley researchers themselves say they cannot determine why the world has warmed. It makes no mention that those sceptics who doubt that the earth is warming are few in number, and that there is a widespread and respectable group of scientists who, in peer reviewed journals, debate the relative mix of influencing factors concerning that warming.
The Guardian also allows Jim Hansen to misrepresent scepticism and go unchallenged. He says, “as I have discussed in the past, the deniers, or contrarians, if you will, do not act as scientists, but rather as lawyers….as soon as they see evidence against their client (the fossil fuel industry and those people making money off business-as-usual), they trash that evidence and bring forth whatever tidbits they can find to confuse the judge and jury.” The number of sceptics included in the article is zero.
The Economist (not in my opinion noted for its deep thinking on climate science) article was clearly written by someone unfamiliar with the subject. Like the Guardian it failed to put this research into its proper perspective. Its sceptic count was also zero.
The report in Nature was much better, in my opinion because it actually included comments from the sceptics in that Steve McIntyre said he has found some problems with the Berkeley research. Given Steve’s track record this is something worth noting. The Berkeley team is posting their raw data on the web and no doubt many statistically adroit bloggers will get to work (for me one of the main things to come out of “Climategate” was that professors of climate science were not in the same league as some on the web when it came to statistical analysis.) Nature’s sceptic count is one.
New Scientist did a good job in that they did provide perspective for the research emphasising just how irrelevant was the Berkeley finding to many sceptical questions today. New Scientist sceptic count, three.
But, for me, the worst treatment came from Forbes. This spiteful article says that the scientific community been saying for decades that the earth is warming up? I don’t think so. It goes on; “Indeed, even most remaining climate change skeptics and deniers have moved away from saying there is no warming. Now, their major talking points are that it isn’t caused by humans, or only a little bit, or it won’t be bad, or we can’t afford to fix it, or… Denial is a moving target.”
This prejudiced, intolerant and inaccurate, article completely misrepresents sceptical views, and is a good example of the problem facing the debate about climate science within and without of the scientific community. We must surely rise above such sour and divisive comments that have no place in scientific discourse. The author is in an old sterile paradigm that is inherently anti-science, and is more of the problem facing progress than some at the extreme end of climate scepticism.
Trivial Headlines
There are very few people who do not believe the world hasn’t warmed, in various episodes, since the instrumental record began about 150 years ago. We are today warmer than the Little Ice Age, warmer than the Victorian Era, indeed warmer than the 1970s. The proper question is, of course, why? The Berkeley team have no conclusions about this.
So all the headlines that basically say sceptics have been trounced because the world really is warming are trivial. The Berkeley team confirm what has been found in three other datasets and what “both sides” of the debate already agree on. I could say “so what,” and “is it news?” Well, news is what reporters print.
There are significant questions about the research however. Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre say they have found some serious issues that will no doubt come out in due course.
The 39,000 or so weather stations cover 29% of the planet and a third of them showed no warming over the 60-year period under consideration, indeed they showed cooling. How does the distribution of these two sub-sets of data compare? One would not expect global warming to be even across the globe (indeed most of it seems to take place in the Arctic) but if the cooling stations were well mixed in with the warming stations geographically then that would be interesting. The Berkeley researchers interpolate temperatures between stations and I wonder if the cooling stations fit into this interpolation? Indeed, perhaps one way to look at the data would be that only a third of weather stations (the difference between the warmers and the coolers) contribute to the final conclusion. To my mind that’s a very different stance from saying that two-thirds of temperature stations show warming.
Other things that emerge from the data is that it confirms that the Nasa Giss dataset is anomalously high with respect to the other datasets especially in the past decade. Thus we should be careful, as I have said previously, about claiming temperature records based on Nasa Giss data alone.
The data also confirm the post-2000 standstill, Nigel Calder has noted this. Looking at the data I do not agree with the study’s lead author that the recent standstill is not present in the data.
The British government’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, stressed that the study needed to be peer-reviewed before being factored in to the debate, but that if it was found to be correct, it would conform with US work at NASA and NOAA and that of Phil Jones and his colleagues at the UK Hadley Center-UEA Climatic Research Unit. “This work adds to the evidence about how climate change is happening,” he said.
Actually the researchers say they cannot say how global warming is happening just that it is, though one could be charitable and say that Sir John’s comments about how global warming is happening might refer to geospatial data, but refer to my previous comments about that.
Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, director at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, said he hoped that if and when the study was peer reviewed and published, the focus could shift to “the implications for the future of this warming rather than wrangling over whether the warming is really there.”
I hope not. The implications for the future must be framed in the context of our understanding of what is actually going on. That should be the next focus.
But there is something really important in one of the four papers issued by the Berkeley team, and a considerable irony that it has been missed by all reporters and commentators.
If you do something that most of the reporters haven’t done, and usually never do, study the research paper itself (why bother when there is a press release) you will find something remarkable.
“Human Component Overstated”
The findings of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project are important because they emphasise the growing realisation that science has underplayed the unknowns and uncertainties in the attribution of the causes of recent climate change. Without doubt, the data compiled and the analysis undertaken, by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project is unambiguous evidence that the root causes of global warming are poorly understood.
The researchers find a strong correlation between North Atlantic temperature cycles lasting decades, and the global land surface temperature. They admit that the influence in recent decades of oceanic temperature cycles has been unappreciated and may explain most, if not all, of the global warming that has taken place, stating the possibility that the “human component of global warming may be somewhat overstated.”
There is the headline missed by all: Scientists say human component of global warming may be overstated.
Why isn’t it there? It’s just as valid as the headlines used, scientifically more interesting and journalistically light-years better than what has been reported.
The BBC did mention the North Atlantic decadal oscillation aspect of the story saying, “The Berkeley group says it has also found evidence that changing sea temperatures in the north Atlantic may be a major reason why the Earth’s average temperature varies globally from year to year.” But it then fails to explain what this means and gets itself into a twist and doesn’t mention the conclusion reached by the Berkeley researchers.
Now, here’s the irony, the Berkeley team are actually sceptics about the matter where the real debate lies - the question of the mix of human and natural contributions to the recent warming. Now why didn’t any of these “reporters” pick up on that?
Why was this nugget missed or ignored? It is because environmental reporters are too obsessed with bashing sceptics, and reading press releases, than in reporting science.
Feedback: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.org
In this segment of NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday titled ”When Politics Meets Science”. The ‘give and take’ with the first caller is ...well hilarious. Apparently, if you disagree with the IPCC you are anti-science. Full stop.
I think it deserves the appropriate attention. H/T James Kolan, Perth Western Australia viaa Marc Morano
See also this post in Physorg featuring Gavin Schmidt arguing the debate is no longer over cause of climate change only the degree. As long as editors or reporters keep their bliners on and not investigate the alternative viewpoint, we will make no progress towards understanding and planning the real causes of climate change - cycles in the sun and ocean.
By David Limbaugh
If it’s not narcissism, what explains President Obama’s habit of demanding something against the people’s will, being rejected, refusing to take no for an answer and berating the public he is pretending to represent?
We saw it over and over with Obamacare. By now, it’s part of our national lore that he delivered some 54 speeches to sell the public on his scheme yet never made a dent in the public approval numbers. Truth be told, in the end he gave far more than 54.
But that didn’t stop him from pressing forward anyway, and his underhanded methods at cramming his bill through Congress will also be enshrined in our national history.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t he done the same thing with automobile emission standards and other environmental causes? He couldn’t convince the people that he was right, nor could he convince Congress, so he just colluded with his fellow radical autocrats in the Environmental Protection Agency to bypass Congress and impose these regulations unilaterally.
Let’s also not forget his pet project, the sainted high-speed rail, for which he’s determined to spend billions and billions of dollars in brazen defiance of the people’s disinterest in the project, their objection to further deficit spending, and the marked resistance of the individual states.
Obama demands we embrace his misguided fantasy, even though several state governors have essentially said: “Thanks, but no thanks. We can’t afford your federal generosity. We’re the ones who’ll have to maintain the albatrosses.” Congress has also pronounced it dead on arrival.
But Obama won’t give up. He never gives up. Because he knows better than we do. He tells us this technology is the wave of the future, but it’s actually closer to an anachronism. As others have written, it’s not well-suited for the territorially expansive United States. But that doesn’t matter a whit to him, because his real motive is to coerce us out of our automobiles. If he had his way, he’d mandate interstate bike paths.
Need more proof? Look at Solyndra. Have you heard any apologies from this administration about the colossal waste of federal money in pursuit of an environmental goal that Obama—not the public—is demanding? Obama is completely unfazed—so unfazed that he’s just allocated billions more to similarly reckless pipe dreams. He won the election, after all.
We could go on all day with this exercise, but I’ll conclude with reference to his so-called jobs bill, which is just as inappropriately named as his “stimulus” package. He’s never apologized for the immoral waste of $868 billion, which was wholly his baby. Even if the buck for every subordinate’s misstep doesn’t stop on the president’s desk, this one has his name permanently affixed to it.
It was a disaster in every respect. Whether you measure it against Obama’s promises for it or don’t even consider those, it was a miserable failure. He didn’t say he was sorry for adding so much more to the debt without creating the guaranteed jobs; he didn’t say he’d learned from his mistakes. He mocked us, in effect, for trusting him, with his cavalier, disingenuous claim that there were an unlimited number of shovel-ready jobs.
The man is incapable of putting his tail between his legs. If I hadn’t witnessed it, I honestly wouldn’t have believed he had come back for more with the jobs bill. He doesn’t trifle himself to give us any reason that the bastard son of Stimulus would be any different from its licentious father. He just stands at his podium, with his head raised and his tone haughty, and tells us that spending a half-trillion more Monopoly money is the only solution for getting the economy moving.
Seriously? You have to be kidding me. But he’s not.
And when Congress rejected this offensively ill-conceived project, he flinched not, but redoubled his commitment to force it through—piece by piece, benevolent dictator that he is.
Obama attributes opposition to his plan to partisanship, suggesting that Republicans only oppose it because they want to hurt him politically. That’s right; neither the nearly $15 trillion national debt nor the failed track record of Stimulus Sr. could have anything to do with it. And the prominent Democrats opposing it must be driven by partisanship, as well.
Obama is reduced to banging the table like a toddler, demanding he get his way. The only difference in the analogy is that parents correct their toddlers to keep them from hurting themselves; Obama’s opponents oppose him to keep him from further destroying the nation.
America’s 36th president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, recognizing his failure to steer the United States through the Vietnam War period, gracefully did not seek re-election.
You can’t blame me for dreaming.
By Art Horn
El Nino could become a permanent feature of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean. The warm waters of this never ending hot bath in the world’s largest water body would not only warm the entire earth dramatically, it would pump vast amounts of moisture into the air. This additional humidity would act as a positive feedback mechanism that would enhance the warming already being triggered by human burning of fossil fuels and in turn cause global warming to spin out of control. The melting of glaciers would accelerate and sea levels would rise much faster than predicted. The challenges of runaway warming would not be decades away but would be here now.
In 1997 Dr Russ Schnell, a scientist doing atmospheric research at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii said “It appears that we have a very good case for suggesting that the El Ninos are going to become more frequent, and they’re going to become more intense and in a few years, or a decade or so, we’ll go into a permanent El Nino.” He went on to say “So instead of having cool water periods for a year or two, we’ll have El Nino upon El Nino, and that will become the norm. And you’ll have an El Nino, that instead of lasting 18 months, lasts 18 years,” The El Nino of 1997 was blamed for droughts in Australia and New Guinea, A delayed Monsoon in Southeast Asia leading to forest fires that brought choking smoke to human populations, Drought in South Africa and devastating storms on the west coast of South American from Chile to Mexico. Everything that went wrong with the weather was blamed on El Nino. The scary prospect of a permanent El Nino was going to greatly speed up global warming and we had better do something to stop it, now!
At least that was what we were being told in 1997. As it turned out the 1997 El Nino was immediately followed by a La Nina. The cooling of the waters in the Tropical Pacific caused by La Nina dramatically dropped the earth’s temperature in the years following the 1997 El Nino which peaked in 1998. What those who were advocating the emergence of a permanent El Nino ignored was the phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The what? The 50 to 60 year cycle of warming and cooling that regulates the number of El Nino’s and La Nina’s. The Pacific Ocean had been in the warm phase of the cycle since the mid 1970s. During that time El Nino’s were twice as prevalent as La Nina’s and were much stronger and longer lasting. The result was warming global temperature from the mid 1970’s to the late 1990’s. It was during this warming spell that global warming hysteria blossomed. Many said the warming was due to increased carbon dioxide in the air but in reality the warming was caused by the warm phase of the PDO.
At this point one might ask how do you know the warming of the mid 1970s to the late 1990’s was caused by the warmer Pacific and not increasing amounts of carbon dioxide? Just look at what the global average temperature has done since the 1997/98 Super El Nino. There has been no warming of the earth average temperature since 1998. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased significantly in the last 14 years. In fact 25% of the increase of carbon dioxide since the birth of the industrial revolution has occurred since 1997. If carbon dioxide and its presumed strong water vapor feedback is such a powerful driver of the earth’s climate one would have expected the warming of the previous two and a half decades to have continued unabated after 1998 and into this year, but it has not. The prediction of the “permanent El Nino” has, as we say in the forecasting business, been a bust.
The shift to the cooler phase of the PDO has become more pronounced since 2007. The shift to cooler water in the Pacific is measured by the Southern Oscillation Index or the SOI. Since 2007 the SOI has been primarily in the positive mode indicating the existence of La Nina’s. This is in stark contrast to the predictions from the late 1990s and is indeed opposite of what was expected.
During the cool phase of the Pacific Ocean La Nina’s are twice as prevalent as El Nino’s and the El Nino’s that do occur are weak and short lived. The result is that the chilly waters of La Nina’s cause global cooling. Winters in the United States are becoming rapidly colder and more severe. The average temperature is falling at the rate of 3.0 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 2000. Four of the snowiest months in New York City since 1869 have been since 2003. December of 2010 was the second coldest December in Central England since the temperature records began there in 1659. China had another bitter cold winter in 2011 and had the second coldest January in the last 50 years. Georgia and Florida had their coldest December in 2010 since the weather records began in 1895. The combined December and January period of 2010/11 in Florida was the coldest in 116 years of record keeping. Snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California was the 4th highest since 1879 and the greatest in some areas since the winter of 1951. With another La Nina this winter the western United States will have another near record amount of snow.
So what’s ahead for global warming? Not much if La Nina has anything to say about it. We are now in the 13th year without measured global warming. The La Nina of 2010/11 faded in the spring of this year. Many expected the return of an El Nino as happened in the years prior to 1997 after a La Nina. The difference now is that the Pacific is cooler and will be cooler for another 20 to 25 years or so. Another La Nina has developed and is forecast to be as cold or colder than the one just departed. This is just what is to be expected in this new era of colder and more frequent La Nina’s.
The consequences of this return engagement will be many and varied. One will be the continued cessation of global warming. La Nina’s typically last about a year but the effects on the atmosphere continue for another 6 to 8 months after the La Nina has departed. There will be no global warming for the remainder of 2011 and none through all of 2012. By then we will be into year 14 with no global warming and even the most ardent of “warmers” will have to start scratching their heads in wonder as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise but the temperature does not.
Historically we know that La Nina is associated with extremes of weather around the world. Some of this extreme weather can be beneficial and some can be destructive. Another winter of heavy snows in the mountains of the Western United States will ensure plentiful water supplies for years to come in a region that has been told to expect drought from global warming. Most La Nina’s are warm and dry in the Southeastern United States and this could be helpful to Florida tourism this Winter. On the other hand the drought in the South Central States will continue through 2012 and may go beyond. Hurricanes proliferate in La Nina conditions so the hurricane season of 2012 will likely be stormy although where the storms will strike, if at all is unknown. Heavy rains can occur in the Ohio Valley during La Nina and the threat of a re-occurrence of floods next spring is a concern. Unfortunately La Nina helps to spawn strong and numerous tornadoes in the American spring and next March, April, May and June will likely see more outbreaks of deadly twisters. Australia can have floods in some parts of the country during La Nina but in many areas the water will be welcome.
Predictions of a permanent El Nino have failed as has the relationship between increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the air and global temperature. The powerful interest groups behind man made global warming will ignore what nature is doing and continue to preach rapid warming. They will pound their fists on the table of public opinion, insisting this will cause melting ice, rising seas levels, drowning polar bears and blame every severe storm, cold wave, heat wave, snowstorm, drought, flood, hurricane and tornado on climate change and our use of fossil fuels. In the real world the new era of colder water in the Pacific Ocean will generate colder and longer lasting La Nina’s and continue to throw cold water on global warming. I wonder when reality will begin to sink in for those invested in man made climate change? The answer for many will be never.
Researchers from the University of California at Merced were awarded a $2 million federal grant to develop a revolutionary network for tracking the Sierra snowpack as the climate changes.
The National Science Foundation money will support a four-year project to install a massive web of wireless sensors in the 2,000-square-mile American River Basin in the Sierra northeast of Sacramento.
The network will give water managers precise information to predict snowmelt, a main source of water for millions of residents and the $35 billion farming industry.
The data will become more important if the snowpack retreats to higher ground in a warming climate.
More data is always appreciated. HOWEVER, as one of the commenters correctly pointed out, starting this analysis after the record snow year will like Phil Mote in Washington who started his western snowpack study after the record 1950 winter will ensure an apparent decline and support claims global warming is real. There is no honesty in NSF or science anymore.
See also where the NASA satellite really landed here.
By Simon. Australian Climate Madness
Another classic Hamilton rant on ABC’s The Drum (see here for a previous example). I seriously considered whether to give this [snip] any more oxygen, but then I couldn’t resist. It’s just too funny to pass up:
At last, the ABC has broadcast a program that accurately reflects the debate over climate science.
That is, a program in which a large body of eminent scientists with an overwhelming case built and tested carefully over many years using the best procedures of science meets a politically-motivated coterie of ratbags who manipulate the truth, endlessly repeat falsehoods, harass their opponents and grandstand at every opportunity.
Poor old Hamilton has missed the obvious irony of his desperate ravings, namely that “a politically motivated coterie of ragbags who manipulate the truth, endlessly repeat falsehoods and harass their opponents” is the perfect description of the IPCC.
Read the rest here - it’s hilarious.
ATI
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, October 3, 2011
Contact: Paul Chesser, Executive Director, paul.chesser@atinstitute.org
As it waits for the resolution of its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit ( http://bit.ly/nnKpxS ) against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which seeks the outside employment permission records of global warming activist Dr. James Hansen, American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center has received the belatedly filed 2010 public financial disclosure of the renowned director of the NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
ATI obtained Dr. Hansen’s Form SF 278, which is required to be filed annually, also under the Freedom of Information Act. The disclosure revealed that Dr. Hansen received between $236,000 and $1,232,500 in outside income in 2010 relating to his taxpayer-funded employment, which included:
• Between $26,008 and $72,500 in honoraria for speeches;
• Between $150,001 and $1.1 million in prizes;
• Just under $60,000 in the form of in-kind income for travel to his many outside-income generating activities
The travel reporting marked the first time Hansen detailed such “in-kind” benefits, which included apparent first-class travel for him and his wife on trips to Australia, Japan, and Norway. The new detail raises the question of whether Dr. Hansen wrongly submitted forms in previous years, which he left blank and attested “none” in the space where he is required to report travel expenses taken as part of his outside employment, all in years in which he was busy with numerous paid outside activities of the same sort as he was in 2010.
“Now that Dr. Hansen’s outside income has come under scrutiny, we see a newfound attention to detail on forms where he reports about these sources,” said Christopher Horner, ATI’s director of litigation. “It also shows that Dr. Hansen continues to enjoy a healthy level of earnings that supplement - and for his curious exploitation of - the taxpayer-funded position he holds.”
As ATI detailed in its current lawsuit against NASA in federal court in Washington, Dr. Hansen admits this income began after he escalated his public - and often political - global warming advocacy, for which outside parties have spectacularly rewarded him.
ATI sued NASA because the agency refuses to make public any forms 17-60 - the application for permission for outside employment - by invoking the Privacy Act and calling their release “a clearly unwarranted violation’’ of Hansen’s privacy.” These forms would demonstrate to the public and Congress whether NASA has signed off on Hansen’s lucrative activities, even though they raise serious questions under Ethics in Government Act rules. NASA’s withholding of the 17-60s is improper because Dr. Hansen, like other federal employees of the highest levels of pay and responsibility, waives certain privacy interests as a condition of his employment. Dr. Hansen is required to file the permission forms before most or all of his outside employment activities.
These requirements that cover Dr. Hansen include annual public financial disclosure that is vastly more detailed and personal than the one-page application for permission for outside employment and other activities. This is also true of senior government officials including Members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, the President and Vice President.
ATI expects the media will share its curiosity about Dr. Hansen’s records at NASA, considering they have shown similar recent interest in others’ disclosures. For example:
• The Wall Street Journal’s recent coverage ( http://on.wsj.com/oqypvi ) about Congress members’ public financial disclosures
• The Huffington Post on Thursday reported that some Democrats demand ( http://huff.to/oBI82s ) an investigation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s filings and the propriety of his wife’s income
• The New York Times‘ recently published a (serially corrected) 2700-word piece ( http://nyti.ms/pbIpcC ) that highlighted how public servants are “restricted from using their positions ‘for personal gain’ or on matters in which they have a direct financial interest,” and how they “must avoid outside work that can pose a ‘time conflict,’ and ‘detract from [the employee’s] full time and attention to his official duties,’” as those rules “were designed to promote the notion of a full-time [employee].”
“That Dr. Hansen very well may be the country’s first millionaire bureaucrat - thanks to this flood of outside income since 2006 all clearly related to his public employment - raises similar questions,” Horner said. “Given his high profile and the significant role attributed to him in the climate debate, his and NASA’s own record on this front should generate at least as much interest.”
See Dr. James Hansen’s 2010 SF 278 disclosure form here: http://bit.ly/oVJX1e
For an interview with American Tradition Institute senior director of litigation Christopher Horner, email paul.chesser@atinstitute.org or call (202)670-2680.
Paul Driessen and John Nichols
Will Delaware and US citizens get stuck with a Bloom Energy fuel cell boondoggle?
Delaware’s political establishment thinks First State electricity consumers should subsidize the manufacturing of super-sized fuel cells, under the auspices of California-based Bloom Energy, to replace natural gas and coal-fired power plants in generating electricity.
The politicos want to build a factory in Newark, where rail service is available to ship Bloom’s 10-ton, 100-kilowatt, “eco-friendly” Energy Servers to presumed eager buyers across America.
Bloom claims its “revolutionary new design” and “breakthroughs in materials science” make its new solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology “clean, reliable and affordable.” Governor Jack Markell, Department of Natural Resources Secretary Colin O’Mara, Department of Economic Development Secretary Alan Levin and assorted legislators insist their plan will create jobs and put Delaware at the forefront of the Green Revolution.
If that’s the case, and if Bloom had a viable business plan, investors would be clamoring to get in on the action. There would be no need to stick Delaware ratepayers with a bloomin’ tariff ("green premium") that will add at least $600,000,000 to household and business electricity bills over the next 20 years - above what they would pay for electricity generated by combined cycle natural gas plants. There would be no need for the Economic Development Department to contribute another $16,000,000 in startup costs.
Actually, the green premium could be much higher - based on a 2016 “levelized cost” of $215 per megawatt hour for the fuel cell tariff versus $66 for combined-cycle natural gas generators. The $149 difference times 5,200,000 MWh from fuel cells is $775,000,000!
Tariff proponents will likely argue that this cost must be reduced by $426,000,000 in renewable energy certificates (ie, energy taxes) that Delmarva Power is required to purchase under Delaware’s Renewable Portfolio Standards Act. However, this just means the same families and businesses must pay the bill in two ways: as taxpayers and as electricity ratepayers.
In other words, First State families and businesses will be “free” to pay an extra $600,000,000 to $775,000,000 in any combination of taxes and tariffs they “choose” - for the “privilege” of being able to say part of their electricity comes in a greed or greenbacks shade of green.
Those higher electricity costs translate into higher prices for goods and services. They pull money out of productive sectors of the economy and transfer it to politically connected operators and campaign contributors. In the process, they destroy traditional jobs - as they did in Spain and Scotland, where overpriced “green” energy killed 2.2 to 3.7 jobs for every “green job” created.
Bloom also expects to receive a substantial US Department of Energy grant (25? 50? 100 million dollars?), if it can get swift approval of the Delaware tariff. That federal grant will come from borrowed money, in the midst of an economic and budgetary crisis, and in the wake of scandalous green energy bankruptcies.
This crony capitalism means Bloom Energy gets risk-free cash, so that it can proceed with an initial public stock offering. As a privately held company, it gets to keep its finances a secret, even as it gets millions in taxpayer aid, with little or no transparency or due diligence in assessing the financial arrangements. That means US and Delaware taxpayers are forced to take another big risk, while families and businesses must pay well above market rates for electricity.
This sweetheart deal is shocking in its audacity. But then, as Green Tech Media reports, “Bloom plays the subsidy game like a pro, receiving more than $218 million in subsidies in 2010 from California’s [Self Generation Incentive Program].” It gets worse.
This time around, Bloom persuaded the Delaware legislature to enact a special provision. If any future legislature ever modifies the Bloom tariff, the company will receive a lump-sum payment of the entire 20-year tariff, which Delmarva Power meantime will tack onto all ratepayers utility bills. Without this guarantee, Bloom would have a hard time peddling its IPO.
It’s equally amazing that Bloom can even qualify for renewable energy subsidies. For that it can thank the Delaware legislature, which adopted Markell and O’Mara’s expanded definition of renewable energy, to include Bloom’s natural gas-fueled SOFC Energy Servers.
They pulled this off by enabling only Bloom fuel cells to qualify under the Renewable Portfolio Standard, originally intended for wind and solar facilities, by claiming Bloom’s equipment “could” run on biofuels, like methane from cows or landfills. It “could,” but it never will. There’s simply not enough bio-gas in the futuristic pipeline.
As to being clean and green, Bloom’s Energy Severs require substantial amounts of rare earth elements, like yttrium and cerium. Prices are soaring - by 500-2000% over the past twelve months, according to a recent General Electric report. The United States imports 100% of all the rare earths it uses in countless energy, military, communications and other applications, with 97% coming from China.
Now the Chinese have restricted rare earth exports, and sell mostly finished products, often using our technology. Worst, the rare earths are mined, processed and turned into these products under health and environmental conditions that severely damage farmland, wildlife habitats, miners and factory workers.
With the shale gas revolution driving natural gas prices down, there should be no need for fuel cells to replace gas-burning generators. With China and India building new coal-fired power plants every week, and emitting far more carbon dioxide than all our job-killing regulations and climate change initiatives can ever offset, even diehards like Al Gore cannot justify Bloom’s systems on global warming grounds.
Then there is Solyndra. One would think that scandalous debacle - $535 million in taxpayer cash blown in two years, and Solyndra executives now pleading Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination - would ensure at least a modicum of sanity, honesty, transparency, accountability, and reluctance to use more taxpayer and consumer dollars to benefit special interests. Apparently not, at least in Delaware and the US Energy Department.
On September 27-29, the Delaware Public Service Commission will conduct public comment sessions on Bloom Energy’s application for special treatment and subsidies. Every American who cares about our economy and unemployment, every citizen who is disgusted with our wasteful, crony-capitalist, bureaucrats-pick-losers system, can send comments to kevin.neilson@state.de.us and then let their elected officials know enough is enough.
That may help inoculate America against the risk of the California and Delaware “green disease” becoming an uncontrollable national Contagion. We need to stop these costly Bloom-doggles!
_______
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. John Nichols is a financial consultant and citizen activist in Delaware.