By Connie Hair
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released today found that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) schemes favored by Democrats under their proposed cap and trade national energy tax boondoggle would increase electricity costs, reduce electricity output and increase water consumption.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking Republican of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), released the GAO today covering the status, cost, and reliability of current CCS technology for coal-fired power plants.
The release states, “Based on GAO’s survey of stakeholders, including utilities and state regulators, current CCS technology would increase electricity costs by 30 to 80 percent, reduce electricity output between 15 and 32 percent, and increase water consumption at power plants.”
These findings do not bode well for Democrats pushing the cap and trade national energy tax scheme.
More highlights from the GAO report:
- “While DOE, electric industry groups, and other stakeholders have set goals to commercially deploy CCS in coal plants in the next 10 to 15 years, they acknowledge that these goals present significant challenges. In particular, they have highlighted the large costs to install and operate current CCS technologies. In 2007, DOE estimated the cost to install current CCS technologies was 85 percent higher for plants with post-combustion capture and was 36 percent higher for pre-combustion capture at IGCC plants, compared to comparable plants without CCS.”
- “Similarly, officials from one state public utility commission reported that they considered CCS immature and were unlikely to approve cost recovery for such a project in the foreseeable future.”
- “DOE has estimated that efficiency improvements to the existing coal fleet could reduce CO2 emissions by 100 million tons annually, or about a 5 to 10 percent reduction in overall emissions from these plants.”
- “An ultra-supercritical plant emits about one-third less CO2 than an average plant in the United States.”
“I support advancing cleaner, more efficient technologies to produce electricity, but we must recognize that CCS technology is far from mature,” Inhofe said of the new GAO findings. “Attempts to force it into existence through a massive cap-and-trade tax, hoping it will work at a reasonable cost without an appropriate legal framework and without the infrastructure needed to support it—that’s simply irresponsible public policy that will burden consumers with higher electricity costs and threaten America’s energy security.”
“GAO’s report also shows that lawsuits and regulatory barriers are preventing the realization of significant gains in efficiency at existing power plants. What’s more, GAO notes that new, clean, ‘ultra-supercritical’ coal-fired power plants can reduce CO2 emissions by 33 percent relative to the average coal plant. Yet environmentalists, and the Obama Administration, have made the conscious decision to block their construction. This is rich in irony: it’s a policy blocking environmental progress, economic growth, and the job creation the Administration is hoping for,” Inhofe said.
Voinovich also favors policy that would create incentives for clean energy technology “without the huge societal costs that would be incurred by ‘pricing’ or taxing carbon.”
“This study underscores my concerns with attempts to impose severe near-term reductions in CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. Simply put, the technology doesn’t exist to meet these mandates while maintaining an affordable and reliable base of electric power,” Voinovich said.
You can find the entire GAO report online here.
By Joseph A. Olson, on Climate Realists
The accuracy of any future prediction is limited to the completeness of the current understanding, which is based on empirical measurements. You may sense hot and cold but until the invention of the thermometer you could not quantify temperature. The same with the hydrometer for relative humidity, barometer for atmospheric pressure and anemometer for wind speed. As these instruments gained wider distribution there was an ever-increasing database to establish trend lines.
Physical Climatology, written in 1941 is considered to be the origins of this branch of science. Based solely on its predictive powers, this is far from perfected science. Realizing that less than a century of measurements from very limited regions of the Earth might be limiting their accuracy, a new branch was added called Paleoclimatology. There has been exponential growth in information on these new branches of science in the last few decades.
It is not internecine snobbery to mention the shortcomings of these new branches of science. Engineers had no method of calculating multi-bay, multi-story structural loads until the 1920’s and could not do three-dimensional analysis until the dawn of the computer age. It was the 1980’s before there were accurate calculation methods for seismic loads. We have all benefited from this information super highway.
To extend knowledge of past events beyond the limits of actual measurements, Earth scientists developed a range of proxy measurements. But every proxy has an unknown correction factor. Consider the use of tree growth rings as a proxy measurement of past precipitation. The actual tree ring growth is the measure of the total of all environmental factors. If volcanic ash limited sunshine, if volcanic particulates deposited harmful chemicals, if pest or disease were prevalent during the growth cycle, then the size of growth rings is not a direct indication of precipitation. Years with sudden, intense rainfall might actually have higher levels than years with more even distribution.
Without complete and accurate information all math models rapidly compound the errors and result in hopelessly incorrect future projections. The folly of the Warmist movement is that carbon dioxide is a primary climate factor and that the tiny portion of proposed reductions in the human emitted gas would have a measurable effect. Had the planet’s climate been stable for millions of years and there was a measurable link of temperature and atmospheric CO2 then there could be AGW plausibility. Such is not the case.
Humanity suffers from a greatly exaggerated sense of self-importance. While we can have minor impact on the environment and species extinction, it is nature that holds all of the trump cards in environment game. In his excellent book, Underworld, author, Graham Hancock documents literate, but due to our inability to translate, societies that are still labeled as prehistoric. The very real climate change that those ancestors faced would earn scorn for today’s Warmists. Plato’s tale of Atlantis and Noah’s struggle with a flood were very real events just now being proven.
Too numerous to list or detail in a single article, it is worth noting just a few of the geologic events which occurred independent of man or atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The Warmist could gain credibility if they could explain the Younger Dryas (the younger of three events), the Flandarian Transgression, the Dalton Minimum or the Malankovitch cycle. All of the events occurred in the last 400,000 years and are captured in Greenland and Antarctica ice core gases so touted by the AGW movement.
The Last Glacial Maximum lasted for 100,000 years and most of the northern and southern hemispheres were covered in thousands of feet of ice. Ocean levels were 400 feet lower than today. Then 21,000 years ago these huge masses began to suddenly melt, then refreeze, then melt, then refreeze. The final freeze, the Younger Dryas, began approximately 13,000 years ago. The final violent thaw began 11,000 years ago. Coincidently 90% of all large North American mammals disappeared at this time.
What we consider ‘terra firma’ is in fact more like a molten rock pudding with a thin plastic crust. The Ice Age overburden from up to 3.5 kilometers of ice deformed this crust. As the ice melted huge pools of water formed on top of and below the ice caps. At some point these trapped oceans of ice melt began to flow. Underworld then describes what happened:
“...as a glacial wave proceeded across an ice sheet...it could have attained heights of 600 meters and a cross sectional breadth of as much as 40 kilometers, and a forward speed of several hundred kilometers per hour.”
Suddenly relieved of over burden the Earth’s crust rebounded, fracturing the remaining ice cap and sending the even larger volumes of underlying ice melt and mountain sized glacial chunks to the sea. The entire Earth would have been racked with tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, all while oceans rose in meters almost instantly. While there were humans around to witness these events, there is no evidence that they in any way caused these or any of the numerous other major climate changes.
The LGM did not end as a result of massive carbon dioxide build up. Nor did the LGM end from massive increase of solar radiation from a 100,000 year long dormancy to a new 12,000 year long period of slightly higher relative stability. There must be an enormous Earth force which is always present, but subject to periodic and dramatic shifts in output.
Like planetary crime scene investigators we now know what did not cause this repeated shift, evidence is everywhere, and the suspect is still at the scene. Geo-nuclear has the opportunity but does it act randomly and alone. It is possible that cosmic rays, neutrino bombardment, planetary alignments, gravity waves or galactic radiation could all have a role in triggering Geo-nuclear reactions. Once again we are limited by empirical data from anything but speculation.
The Inter GOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change has given itself jurisdiction over world climate. Let’s see. A government panel of largely undeveloped nations is to decide if there needs to be additional government agencies funded by carbon use tax on only the developed nations. With that directive, the studies funded by the IPCC are predictable. The UN is hardly the oracle of objectivity.
‘Deniers’ are dismissed as energy industry paid hacks, when few have any links. Meanwhile the Warmist conflicts are everywhere. GE produces windmills, owns NBC who promotes AGW and its political supporters, who in turn direct government contracts to GE. A great article on these hidden economic forces is The Great American Bubble Machine by Matt Taibbi in the July issue of Rolling Stone. The great carbon power point pimp Gore has Jezebel Nobel on one arm and Oscarina, the Hollywood Harlot on the other. These are a most unworthy set of champions for any cause.
“You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows” according to Bob Dylan. You don’t need a PhD to read the writing on the wall. If you gathered the worlds greatest experts on tile chips you could get endless reports on the base clays, the ceramic coatings and information on the firing methods and none would notice the mosaic. With each new chip the AGW mosaic is getting clearer.
As knowledge continues to increase exponentially we may soon have many more answers. We may reach the scientific harmonic convergence when all scientifically grounded Warmists will be converted. Those adherents with hatred for humanity or capitalism will await the next society-bashing trend. The elitists who envisioned this scam will surely have a fall back bubble-blowing position.
Our supreme leader flippantly dismissed questions on massive cap and trade tax increases with the phrase “Everyone is going to have skin in the game”. That can only mean one thing. We are all going to be skinned. If passed by the Senate, then the Waxman-Markey Bill will gladly distribute our fleeced skin to the moneychangers in the temple.
The Holocene (last 11,000 years) have been a wonderful time for humanity. That it will end is a certainty. That the end will be a violent climatic change with enormous challenges for all living things is also certain. That humans will cause global warming in defiance of the next pending Ice Age…what is that artificially colored sugar water that you are drinking? See post here.
By Kirk Myers
Editor’s note: In response to reader interest in Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi’s provocative greenhouse theory challenging the widespread belief in man-caused global warming, Climate Truth has asked the former NASA researcher to explain his work further. Earlier this week he attacked the prevailing climate-change theory, calling it “a lie.”
At Dr. Miskolczi’s request, we also have posted his letter sent last year to the Environmental Protection Agency, summarizing his research and questioning the agency’s efforts to declare CO2 a harmful pollutant that poses a threat to earth’s climate.
Climate Truth: Has there been global warming?
Dr. Miskolczi: No one is denying that global warming has taken place, but it has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect or the burning of fossil fuels.
Climate Truth: According to the conventional anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, as human-induced CO2 emissions increase, more surface radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, with part of it re-radiated to the earth’s surface, resulting in global warming. Is that an accurate description of the prevailing theory?
Dr. Miskolczi: Yes, this is the classic concept of the greenhouse effect.
Climate Truth: Are man-made CO2 emissions the cause of global warming?
Dr. Miskolczi: Apparently not. According to my research, increases in CO2 levels have not increased the global-average absorbing power of the atmosphere.
ClimateTruth: Where does the traditional greenhouse theory make its fundamental mistake?
Dr. Miskolczi: The conventional greenhouse theory does not consider the newly discovered physical relationships involving infrared radiative fluxes. These relationships pose strong energetic constraints on an equilibrium system.
ClimateTruth: Why has this error escaped notice until now?
Dr. Miskolczi: Nobody thought that a 100-year-old theory could be wrong. The original greenhouse formula, developed by an astrophysicist, applies only to the stars, not to finite, semi-transparent planetary atmospheres. New equations had to be formulated.
ClimateTruth: According your theory, the greenhouse effect is self-regulating and stabilizes itself in response to rising CO2 levels. You identified (perhaps discovered) a “greenhouse constant” that keeps the greenhouse effect in equilibrium. Is that a fair assessment of your theory?
Dr. Miskolczi: Yes. Our atmosphere, with its infinite degree of freedom, is able to maintain its global average infrared absorption at an optimal level. In technical terms, this “greenhouse constant” is the total infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere, and its theoretical value is 1.87. Despite the 30 per cent increase of CO2 in the last 61 years, this value has not changed. The atmosphere is not increasing its absorption power as was predicted by the IPCC.
ClimateTruth: You used empirical data, rather than models, to arrive at your conclusion. How was that done?
Dr. Miskolczi: The computations are relatively simple. I collected a large number of radiosonde observations from around the globe and computed the global average infrared absorption. I performed these computations using observations from two large, publicly available datasets known as the TIGR2 and NOAA. The computations involved the processing of 300 radiosonde observations, using a state-of-the-art, line-by-line radiative transfer code. In both datasets, the global average infrared optical thickness turned out to be 1.87, agreeing with theoretical expectations.
ClimateTruth: Have your mathematical equations been challenged or disproved?
Dr. Miskolczi: No.
ClimateTruth: If your theory stands up to scientific scrutiny, it would collapse the CO2 global warming doctrine and render meaningless its predictions of climate catastrophe. Given its significance, why has your theory been met with silence and, in some instances, dismissal and derision?
Dr. Miskolczi: I can only guess. First of all, nobody likes to admit mistakes. Second, somebody has to explain to the taxpayers why millions of dollars were spent on AGW research. Third, some people are making a lot of money from the carbon trade and energy taxes.
ClimateTruth: A huge industry has arisen out of the study and prevention of man-made global warming. Has the world been fooled?
Dr. Miskolczi: Thanks to censored science and the complicity of the mainstream media, yes, totally.
--------------
Dr. Miskolczi’s letter to the EPA
June 20, 2009
Environmental Protection Agency
EPA DocketCenter (EPA/DC)
Mailcode 6102T
Attention Docket IDNo. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
This comment is to demonstrate, that the origin of the observed global warming (positive global average surface temperature trend) in the last few decades can not be caused by the observed increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
In theoretical radiative transfer, the absorbing power of infrared active gases are measured by the total infrared optical depth (TIOD). This dimensionless quantity is the negative natural logarithm of the ratio of the absorbed surface upward radiation by the atmosphere to the total emitted surface upward radiation.
The recent value of the TIOD is 1.87, which value fully complies with the theoretical expectation of an optimal (saturated) greenhouse effect of a greenhouse gas (GHG)-rich planet. (Miskolczi - 2007).
With relatively simply computations, we show that in the last 61 years, despite the 30 percent increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration, the cumulative greenhouse effect of all atmospheric greenhouse gases has not been changed - that is, the atmospheric TIOD is constant.
Enlarged here.
According to the most plausible explanation of the above fact, the equilibrium atmospheric H2O content is constrained with the theoretical optimal TIOD. Our simulation results are summarized in . . . Fig. 2.
. . . Apparently, increased total CO2 column amount is coupled with decreasing H2O column amount. As the result of the opposing trends in the two most important GHGs, in Fig. 2 the red curve shows no trend in the TIOD. In the last 61 years, the infrared absorbing capability of the atmosphere has not been changed; therefore, the greenhouse effect can not be the cause of the global warming.
In case of fixed atmospheric H2O column amount, simulation results show that according to the positive trend in the CO2 content of the atmosphere, there would also be a significant positive trend in the TIOD (blue curve).
The above results are the plain proofs that the IPCC consensus on the causes of the global warming is totally wrong, and the physics of the greenhouse effect requires serious revisions.
Dr. F. M. Miskolczi
Relevant References:
F. Miskolczi: Id?jaras 111 (2007) 1-40,
F. Miskolczi and M. Mlynczak: Id?jaras 108 (2004) 209-2
D. Kratz et al.: JQSRT 90 (2005) 323-341
See post here.