From ClimateWire (subscription required):

Nuclear operators announce offset purchase (07/06/2011)

NEW YORK — The operator of two upstate New York nuclear power plants yesterday announced a purchase of carbon offsets in the state.Entergy Corp., a power generator in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere, says it has completed the purchase of slightly less than 35,000 tons’ worth of greenhouse gas emission reduction credits certified by the nonprofit American Carbon Registry (ACR).

The company runs the controversial Indian Point nuclear power plant near New York City along with the James A. Fitzpatrick nuclear power plant on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario [NB: to clarify this emphasis, the utility actually gets less than half its production from nuclear, with half coming from gas and coal].

The company says it bought the offset credits to boost its environmental credentials, using money from its designated environmental initiatives fund….

“We first set up this environmental initiatives fund back in 2001. We funded it at a level of about $5 million a year for a …[total of] $20 million…” (emphases added)

So. $20 million taken out of the hides of ratepayers, and that means the economy, in a posturing won’t you please love me scheme cooked up with the greens — that is, agreed by no one who actually paid the tab — for ‘green’ posing.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg that is already being inflicted on the economy, before Obama’s ‘other ways to skin that cat’ kick in. Incidentally, Entergy, like AEP, and Duke Energy, Exelon and some other utilities desirous of a state-managed wealth transfer are behind the agenda to mandate ever more of this, but designed (by them) to line their pockets instead of just paying for their posing.

So, keep admitting these things, my rent-seeking crony capitalist friends. Keep talking.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the end of nuclear energy in Germany, the Democrats’ plan for a 62% tax bracket and the effects those taxes will have on the economy.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Anthony Weiner and his eponymous Twitter “hack”
German government wants nuclear exit by 2022 at latest
UK gas up as German nuclear u-turn may lift demand
Francis’ Word of the Day: orthogonal
A 62% Top Tax Rate?

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The upheaval in the Mideast has brought gasoline prices front and center once again.  Traders are building a risk factor into forward purchase contracts and gasoline prices per gallon now hover around $4 a gallon with no end in sight.

Recent events have conspired to seriously complicate the search for safe alternative energy sources. The horrific earthquake in Japan and the catastrophic tsunami that followed 30 minutes later, caused untold death and destruction and the partial meltdown of some of Japan’s nuclear reactors, and triggered a release of radioactive material into the atmosphere with health ramifications that are, as of now, uncertain to say the least.

When the full extent of the damage at the reactors is finally known, the news will not be good.  Not only will Japan, which relies on nuclear reactors for a substantial portion of its energy needs have to find an alternative source of energy, but the U.S., which has not built a new reactor since the Three Mile Island incident in 1978, will surely have to reassess whether additional nuclear reactors can be built, given the understandable fear that has been engendered by events in Japan.  Anti‑nuclear advocates now can point to new dangers and, in fact, an enormous reassessment of prevailing safety assumptions will have to be immediately undertaken.  The need for caution and further study will delay any new nuclear reactors now on the drawing boards.

Environmentalists have thrown roadblocks in front of any efforts to recover oil from known sources within our control (e.g., Alaska or offshore.)  Instead they advocate pouring money into so‑called green energy – wind farms and solar panels.  While these alternatives may play a meaningful role as future sources of energy, they will not, for the foreseeable future, replace the fossil fuel needed to supply our current needs and provide for economic growth.

For solar or wind energy to be a meaningful alternative source of energy, storage technology would have to be vastly improved.  Wind power like solar power is available only intermittently thus requiring that the output produced be either stored or immediately transported over transmission lines.  Neither solar nor wind power can sufficiently provide the electricity needs of this nation without staggering investments in storage and transmission.  The NIMBY (not in my backyard) factor teaches us that environmentalists and others will fight tooth and nail about above or below ground lines.  Thus, even if wind and solar become viable as major sources of the U.S. energy supply, it will be decades before these sources play a meaningful role in the national energy picture.

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We have established that Obama’s war on coal assumed a massive, crash program of 100 new nuclear reactors — for optics purposes, keeping the cost of killing coal down, on paper — without which power the lights will necessarily go out. You cannot rule out half of our electricity supply and pretend otherwise.

Now that that binge is an even more obvious fiction, his defenders charge forth to say he does too support nuclear.

And they point to this recent statement. “Nuclear energy is an important part of our own energy future.”

Which does not say he will promote any new reactors, of course. Just that he knows he can’t shut down the existing fleet, additions to which have been stalled since 1978. Meanwhile he plans to add no coal, and shut down the existing coal fleet. Electricity, after all, comes from those holes in the wall.

Obama also said to Iowa voters in October 2008 that he was “not a proponent” of nukes, and it is unlikely that anything has changed his core position.

And in response to which rhetoric I also note that on Friday he said this: “First, we need to continue to boost domestic production of oil and gas.”

Ah. Yes. Of course we must. Please point to his record of trying to boost production again?

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Although usual suspects are now saying that the chain of events leading to Japan’s nuclear crisis is simply proof that we need to now rule out the last energy source that works, in terms of providing the necessary, base-load power required to run a modern society, it actually proves the opposite. With nuclear for all intents and purposes frozen in amber — as if it wasn’t already, talk of a ‘renaissance’ notwithstanding — this, combined with the Left’s war on energy that works now places us on the precipice, as well.

Will Obama admit that he must immediately cease his war to kill coal, which is a stepping stone on their war to also strangle gas? (all of which was detailed here, ten months, early, I suppose)

Of course not. Will someone, possibly an aspiring president, call him out on it?

After all: his war on coal assumed an unprecedented binge of 100 new nuclear ractors here.

That was facially absurd at the time — “at this rate”, as the greens like to say, we’ll add 100 new reactors as the new millenium approaches — but it is inescapably reckless now. They must be forced to cop to it. And do the responsible thing.

That’s not exactly how things are playing out. Congress is moving to stop Obama’s EPA from the centerpiece of its ‘energy plan’, which is to regulate its war on coal-fired electricity that they were unable to legislate. And the administration reflexively joined the demagoguery of that responsible move, the necessity of which has now only proved more obvious.

But that EPA backdoor global warming scheme is, just like the failed cap-and-trade legislation, premised on a fantasy economic assumption (100 new reactors) to dumb-down the cost of regulating coal out of existence (‘bankrupting’ anyone who wanted to try and use it, in Obama’s own phrase to the SF Chronicle ed board). In fact, this was built in purely to have a piece of paper to wave around and say see this is completely different than the plan that candidate Obama said would cause your rates to necessarily skyrocket, and bankrupt anyone daring to use coal! Not honest.

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This is bound to be controversial. If the original legal limit was sound, in effect, this is asking workers to sacrifice, potentially their health, or even lives, for the greater good.

TOKYO (AP) – Japan has raised the maximum radiation dose allowed for nuclear workers, citing the urgent need to prevent a crisis at a tsunami-stricken power plant from worsening.

Despite the increase, surging radiation levels forced emergency workers to temporarily withdraw from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant on Wednesday, losing time in their struggle to cool overheating fuel in reactors crippled by last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss today’s crashing market, then Ben discusses Don Berwick’s probable exit at CMS, and finally Pejman Yousefzadeh discusses the nuclear disaster in Japan.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Futures Plunge as Japan Nuclear Crisis Weighs
Ben: Could Don Berwick be Done at CMS?
Ben: Alas, Don Berwick
Democrats giving up on Donald Berwick
Already Angling for Berwick’s Replacement
What’s Happening in Japan, and the Future of Nuclear Power
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Last week, the premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell, paid a visit to the California State Legislature.  He spoke at length about his province’s green energy partnership with California in supplying California with electricity while helping the state meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.

I listened to the leader of the Western Canadian province of 4.4 million people and I found myself asking, “What is he selling?”  So, I decided to follow the money.  What follows is a summary of an international green energy scam that costs California taxpayers millions while robbing California of jobs due to higher electricity costs and electricity imports.

The Scam

Decades ago, the West Coast began exchanging electricity.  During the summer, when air conditioning use spiked in California, Washington State and British Columbia would ship hydropower down to the Golden State.  Later in the year, during California’s mild winters, when rivers levels were low in the Northwest, California would return the favor.  The power exchange worked well for everyone.

During California’s 2000-2001 energy crisis, our northern neighbors took Enron-like advantage of us.  BC Hydro, a state-owned utility, through its marketing and trading subsidiary, Powerex, aided in the rampant market manipulation that ended up costing California consumers millions.  Bill Lockyer, then California Attorney General, sued.  In March 2005, Powerex settled and refunded a fraction of the profits they made at the expense of California ratepayers.

The current version of this energy scam is breathtaking in its scope.

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Today’s Daily Express (London) opens with a stark reminder that there are consequences to the foolishness being crammed down on you now — and which will be voted upon in the Senate, we are told, at the end of this month.

BRITAIN faces years of blackouts and soaring electricity bills because of the drive toward green power, a leading energy expert warned last night.

A growing obsession with global warming and “renewable” sources threatens the stability of our supply.

Derek Birkett, a former Grid Control Engineer who has a lifetime’s experience in electricity supply throughout Britain, warned that the cost of the crisis could match that of the recent banking collapse.

And he claimed that renewable energy expectations were now nothing more than “dangerous illusions” which would hit  consumers hard in the pocket.

Yes. In fact, I just detailed this, with an emphasis on this particular UK canary in the coalmine of Obama’s energy, economic and environmental policies, in a book whose title may now come into a clearer focus: Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America.

Coal, nukes, anything that works is shrugged off on the promise of building massive, mind-bogglingly expensive and wildly insufficient offshore windfarms, instead. Of course we will, dear. Worse, here we have an aggressive war to actually close down existing electricity generating capacity in precisely the same vein Obama is fighting in court to impose what the first judge to hear it called an irrational and economically devastating moratorium on offshore drilling. So, Power Grab opens almost as a more fleshed-out warning of the sort found in today’s coverage:

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From the “Imagine if a Democrat did this” files – say, in the context of opposing President Obama’s effort to transform our health care insurance and delivery systems . It seems that a Republican Senator has been outed as hopping in the sack with an advocacy group from the other team, itself exposed as financing ads on his behalf in support of his abandoning what has become a marquee issue for his party.

Oh, and to top it off, his staff began by deceiving about it and end (for now) by telling a whopper in the struggle to avoid scrutiny over the mess.

That is, however, precisely what’s going on in the Palmetto State, at least according to this report about the latest twist in the long, strange saga of Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Without reciting the story ably summarized by a Gamecock writer, the whopper told in the scramble is this, offered by “Graham’s top South Carolina strategist, Richard Quinn” – as well as to others I have spoken to who have recently called the Senator’s office seeking to inquire about the oddity:

“‘Lindsey doesn’t support Cap & Trade and he will not support Cap & Trade,’ Quinn told us flatly.”

Except when he does.

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A few years ago, environmental guru, Merry Prankster, and Whole Earth Catalog author Stewart Brand caused a minor stir with an article he wrote in the MIT publication, Technology Review.  Brand, who was an early advocate of the “back to the land” movement of the 1960s and 1970s, had done some re-thinking, and he concluded that environmentalist opposition to things like urbanization, population growth, biotechnology, and nuclear power generation, was wrong and needed to change.

Now, Brand has written a new book, called Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, in which he takes on these environmental shibboleths in a more concerted fashion.  On American Public Radio’s Marketplace program yesterday, host Kai Ryssdal discussed the new book with Brand.  Asked what prompted him to write the book, Brand said that,

“My fellow environmentalists have been wrong about a couple of issues and were getting in the way of important things we should be doing, both with biotechnology and with nuclear technology, and in terms of how we think about cities, and in terms of how I know we’re going to think about geoengineering–that is, direct intervention in the climate.”

 

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