By John Droz, SPPI Commentary
We can’t go far these days without being subjected to the plaintive pleas of “former oilman” TB Pickens. Its on TV, print media, the internet - you name it. “It’s time to stop America’s addiction to oil!” scream the incessant ads. We are importing over 70% of our oil. Wind power is the best way out of this mess.” is the message in these blurbs, and on the PickensPlan.com website. Is Mr. Pickens on to something? Has he reached new levels of altruism in paying for all this education of the public? Unfortunately, no on both counts.
To answer whether there is substance to this claim lets look at the facts. To begin with, only about 1.5% of the electricity produced in the US comes from oil. Another way to look at this would be that if 100% of our electricity came from wind power, then we would reduce our oil imports by only a trivial 1.5%. Still another perspective is that the US exports considerably more oil than is used for producing our electricity. But what about the other major claim on his website - that switching to natural gas to power our vehicles will save lots of oil? And what’s that got to do with wind? His sleight of hand connection is that he claims that wind power will free up more natural gas to be used for autos. Hmmm. But in his praises for the benefits of natural gas (e.g. on his website) he goes to lengths to emphasize that one of the main attractions of natural gas is that we have significant supplies of it (e.g. “twice the reserves of petroleum” and growing). Hmmm.
The obvious question is that if we have such supplies, then why do we need to do something to free up some of it? Why can’t there be a natural gas powered vehicle change over without any convoluted connection to wind power? And if he’s so big on gas over oil, why isn’t he proposing replacing the 1.5% of oil generated electricity, with gas instead of wind? Ahhh, the crux of the matter. In a recent interview, Mr. Pickens’ real motivation was finally extracted: he expects to make at least 25% profit from his Texas wind power venture! Oh, and while he is aggressively soliciting his wealthy neighbors to use their lands to erect thousands of wind turbine behemoths, he quite honestly admitted that there would be zero of these “ugly” beasts on his 68,000 acre spread. So much for personal sacrifices.
Oh, and TB is the founder of “Clean Energy,” a company focused on using natural gas to power vehicles. So, if we follow his second advisory, guess who stands to make BIG bucks? Sigh. Once again, not surprisingly, it’s all about the money. Our money. So, when Mr. P warns us about the “greatest transfer of wealth,” he is really saying that he wants in on the action. The point of his advertising spree is to encourage gullible citizens to get their congressmen to support the PTC (Production Tax Credit7) - the boondoggle legislation that enables him (and others) to pull off a 25% killing, while only making a featherweight contribution to our energy and emissions issues. Just say, “no.”
If Mr. Pickens genuinely wants to help us out of our energy mess, he should use his money and influence to advocate that we use scientific methodology to analyze the many choices
facing us. The winner(s) would be those alternatives that are: 1) scientifically sound, 2) financially viable on their own, and 3) environmentally friendly. Unfortunately wind power fails on all three counts. Until that time, all we have here is just another pied piper profiteer. Read whole story here.
UPDATE: McCain has surprised by picking Alaskan Governor Palin as running mate. A popular governor with approval ratings in the mid 80s compared to single digits for American congress and senate who are the other candidate choices. She has a strong position on energy, the most important issue in this election. See Glenn Beck videos on and with Governor Palin here.
Rumors circulated earlier this week that GOP presumptive presidential candidate Senator John McCain planned to select Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as his vice presidential running mate. Pawlenty certainly talks a good shtick when it comes to free markets, low taxes, and limited government, but his views on climate change and energy policy are downright frightening. “We should not spend time on voices that say [climate change] is not real,” Pawlenty said even as new evidence surfaces almost daily that undermines the alarmist consensus. “We should have listened to President Carter” about energy policy, Pawlenty said. President Jimmy Carter, readers may recall, gave his infamous “malaise” speech (also known as the “Crisis of Confidence” speech) live on television on July 15, 1979. In it Carter blamed Americans for the problems in American society at that time. He told Americans they were too materialistic and greedy and that they needed to make do with less. He told Americans that turning down their thermostats and wearing sweaters indoors would help solve the nation’s problems. That was Jimmy Carter’s energy policy. The following analysis from SPPI of the Minnesota Climate and their Climate Action Plan shows how bad this VP choice would have been.
In May of 2007, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed the “Next Generation Energy Act of 2007” which includes targets for statewide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Act requires Minnesotans to reduce emissions to a level of 15% below 2005 levels by 2015, to a level at least 30% below 2005 levels by 2025, and to a level at least 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. To help advise him on how these restrictive goals could be reached, the Governor established the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group to develop a Climate Change Mitigation Action Plan.
Conspicuously missing from the Advisory Group’s objectives, however, are three other major areas of importance: 1) a careful review of the state’s climate history and its impacts with regard to how the state’s climate has changed and whether or not the changes bear any resemblance of changes expected from human-caused “global warming,” 2) a quantification of the impacts of the state’s emissions reductions efforts on the course of future climate change, either globally, regionally, or locally, and 3) an assessment of the impacts of any proposed greenhouse gas reduction measures on the state’s economy. In this report, we provide the analyses that should have been required of the Advisory Group.
The analysis shows a cessation of all of Minnesota’s CO2 emissions would result in a climatically-irrelevant and undetectable global temperature reduction by the year 2100 of less than three thousandths of a degree Celsius. This number is so low that it is effectively equivalent to zero. Results for sea-level rise are also negligible. SAIC found that by the year 2020, average annual household income in Minnesota would decline by $1,066 to $3,455 and by the year 2030 the decline would increase to between $4,497 and $8,201. The state would stand to lose between 22,000 and 34,000 jobs by 2020 and between 56,000 and 75,000 jobs by 2030. At the same time gas prices could increase by more than $5 a gallon by the year 2030 and the states’ Gross Domestic Product could decline by then by as much as $12.6 billion/yr. And all this economic hardship would come with absolutely no detectable impact on the course of future climate. This is the epitome of a scenario of all pain and no gain.
At least 337 Minnesota scientists have petitioned the US government that the UN’s human-caused global warming hypothesis is “without scientific validity and that governent action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.” They are joined by over 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science - including 9,021 PhDs. See full SPPI pdf here.
Pawlenty should have asked them for advice before commiting the hard-working, good people of Minnesota to a step backwards in time and a needless economic sacrifice.
By Blurbat blogspot
Freeman Dyson recently wrote that in order to understand global warming it must be understood as religion. More evidence for this comes from a recent article from BBC news. Many artifacts have been found recently in the Swiss Alps which indicate that these high mountain regions were readily accessible to humans. And interestingly, the dating of these artifacts corresponds to times when the Earth was calculated to be going through an especially warm period (around 3000 B.C.).
Dr. Holdren of Harvard University in a recent pro-alarmist polemic stated that the major reason for global warming alarmism is that the Earth is in an unprecedented phase of global warming. Well if our ancestors were encamped at the top of the alps a mere 5,000 years ago, then our current warming is not unprecedented...never mind the controversy about the medieval warm period.
An objective observer might say that everything’s more complicated than how the alarmists see it. The BBC article goes on to state that the warming that allowed habitation of the alps was caused by fluctuations in the orbital pattern of the Earth in relation to the Sun.
In my science classes I was taught the principle of uniformitarianism. This principle holds that the natural processes operating in the past are the same as those that can be observed operating today. But now we hear from Martin Grosjean, the climatologist studying the Alpine paleoclimate, that in the past the driving force for climate change was the Earth’s orbital pattern; now it’s greenhouse gasses.
This should be a story of major significance. The principle of uniformitarianism we were all taught in high school and college science class is dead. See blogspot here.