Another Billion Taxpayer Dollars Wasted

There is so much in the following article that is nonsense that it is enough to make a rational person gag. Here we have a proposal to spend (another) One Billion dollars of Federal, meaning taxpayer's money, on a project to capture, compress, and pump under ground, carbon dioxide produced from the burning of coal for the generation of electricity.

Think of it, carbon dioxide, a harmless gas that we exhale with every breath, that is vital to the growth of plants, has been so vilified by global warming alarmists that our government is going to spend a BILLION dollars in an experiment to capture it and pump it underground. This is like gas exploration and production in reverse. Maybe it will provide jobs for a couple of geologists. Whoopee!

This is a "make work project". It reminds me of someone digging a hole in the ground and then filling it back up. Yes, a lot of work is done, but nothing is accomplished. There is no way the tiny fraction of CO2 captured and stored underground at this one coal-fired power plant can possibly have an affect on GLOBAL warming, or "climate change" as it is now called.

The article contains another phrase I haven't heard before, "climate change pollution"; what a nonsensical phrase that is. It is totally unproven that carbon dioxide causes "climate change"; yet we're having this rammed down our throats by our government. This wasted one Billion dollars is also just the tip of the iceberg surrounding the great hoax and myth of man-caused global warming.
Peter

U.S.-Private Bid to Trap Carbon Emissions Is Revived

By KATE GALBRAITH (source)

A public-private project to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions that was abandoned by the Bush administration is being restarted, Steven Chu, the energy secretary, announced Friday.

The project, known as FutureGen, was dropped in January 2008 because the Bush administration said that costs had doubled to $1.8 billion, from $950 million. A study later found that a math error had caused the increase to be overstated; costs had actually risen 39 percent, to $1.3 billion.

Under the project, a coal plant will be built in Mattoon, Ill., that will store nearly all of its emissions underground, where they cannot contribute to global warming.

“This important step forward for FutureGen reflects this administration’s commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution,” Mr. Chu said in a statement.

The project does not have a green light yet. The Department of Energy said it and FutureGen would make a final decision early next year, after additional cost assessments. For now, the department is estimating government contributions at slightly more than $1 billion, with most of that coming from stimulus money designated for advancing clean coal technologies. The FutureGen Alliance of large coal producers and users will provide $400 million to $600 million.

Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, praised the decision to restart the project. “For nearly a year and a half, the people of Illinois have endured delays, reversals and disagreements over costs and funding of FutureGen,” Mr. Durbin said. “Today, patience and perseverance pay off.”

Henry Henderson, the director of the Midwestern program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that from the perspective of climate, it was critical to pursue carbon sequestration projects like FutureGen at a commercial scale.

“We need to get actual experience at scale, and this is a way to do it,” he said.

The plant would test techniques for converting coal to a gas, capturing pollutants and burning the gas for power. The carbon dioxide would be compressed and pumped into deep soil layers. Monitoring devices would test whether any had escaped into the air.

It Is Important To Know The Truth About Renewable Energy

People who have dealt with the realities of worldwide energy use for their entire working lives, (like geologists) understand the absurdity of thinking that the so-called renewable sources of energy can or are going to replace oil, gas, and coal in the near future. The following article published in "The Wall Street Journal" explains the reasons for this absurdity very clearly.

The Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress do not seem to understand this. The science, math, and economics are very clear and simple. It makes one wonder what their real objectives are. They are out to control energy, meaning the oil, coal, and gas industry with their proposed taxes and cap and trade scheme. However, think about it. If we shut down the oil, gas, and coal industry, where is the government going to get the money to finance all their other grand projects? To shut down fossil fuels in the name of stopping global warming is a particularly vile and cruel lie. This is becoming more clear on a daily basis.
Peter



MARCH 4, 2009, 11:18 P.M. ET
Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy
We can double the output of solar and wind, and double it again. We'll still depend on hydrocarbons.

By ROBERT BRYCE (source)
During his address to Congress last week, President Barack Obama declared, "We will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years."
While that statement -- along with his pledge to impose a "cap on carbon pollution" -- drew applause, let's slow down for a moment and get realistic about this country's energy future. Consider two factors that are too-often overlooked: George W. Bush's record on renewables, and the problem of scale.

By promising to double our supply of renewables, Mr. Obama is only trying to keep pace with his predecessor. Yes, that's right: From 2005 to 2007, the former Texas oil man oversaw a near-doubling of the electrical output from solar and wind power. And between 2007 and 2008, output from those sources grew by another 30%.

Mr. Bush's record aside, the key problem facing Mr. Obama, and anyone else advocating a rapid transition away from the hydrocarbons that have dominated the world's energy mix since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is the same issue that dogs every alternative energy idea: scale.
Let's start by deciphering exactly what Mr. Obama includes in his definition of "renewable" energy. If he's including hydropower, which now provides about 2.4% of America's total primary energy needs, then the president clearly has no concept of what he is promising. Hydro now provides more than 16 times as much energy as wind and solar power combined. Yet more dams are being dismantled than built. Since 1999, more than 200 dams in the U.S. have been removed.

If Mr. Obama is only counting wind power and solar power as renewables, then his promise is clearly doable. But the unfortunate truth is that even if he matches Mr. Bush's effort by doubling wind and solar output by 2012, the contribution of those two sources to America's overall energy needs will still be almost inconsequential.

Here's why. The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that total solar and wind output for 2008 will likely be about 45,493,000 megawatt-hours. That sounds significant until you consider this number: 4,118,198,000 megawatt-hours. That's the total amount of electricity generated during the rolling 12-month period that ended last November. Solar and wind, in other words, produce about 1.1% of America's total electricity consumption.

Of course, you might respond that renewables need to start somewhere. True enough -- and to be clear, I'm not opposed to renewables. ( And neither am I, Peter) I have solar panels on the roof of my house here in Texas that generate 3,200 watts. And those panels (which were heavily subsidized by Austin Energy, the city-owned utility) provide about one-third of the electricity my family of five consumes. Better still, solar panel producers like First Solar Inc. are lowering the cost of solar cells. On the day of Mr. Obama's speech, the company announced that it is now producing solar cells for $0.98 per watt, thereby breaking the important $1-per-watt price barrier.

And yet, while price reductions are important, the wind is intermittent, and so are sunny days. That means they cannot provide the baseload power, i.e., the amount of electricity required to meet minimum demand, that Americans want.

That issue aside, the scale problem persists. For the sake of convenience, let's convert the energy produced by U.S. wind and solar installations into oil equivalents.

The conversion of electricity into oil terms is straightforward: one barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of 1.64 megawatt-hours of electricity. Thus, 45,493,000 megawatt-hours divided by 1.64 megawatt-hours per barrel of oil equals 27.7 million barrels of oil equivalent from solar and wind for all of 2008.

Now divide that 27.7 million barrels by 365 days and you find that solar and wind sources are providing the equivalent of 76,000 barrels of oil per day. America's total primary energy use is about 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Of that 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, oil itself has the biggest share -- we consume about 19 million barrels per day. Natural gas is the second-biggest contributor, supplying the equivalent of 11.9 million barrels of oil, while coal provides the equivalent of 11.5 million barrels of oil per day. The balance comes from nuclear power (about 3.8 million barrels per day), and hydropower (about 1.1 million barrels), with smaller contributions coming from wind, solar, geothermal, wood waste, and other sources.

Here's another way to consider the 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day that come from solar and wind: It's approximately equal to the raw energy output of one average-sized coal mine.
During his address to Congress, Mr. Obama did not mention coal -- the fuel that provides nearly a quarter of total primary energy and about half of America's electricity -- except to say that the U.S. should develop "clean coal."

He didn't mention nuclear power, only "nuclear proliferation," even though nuclear power is likely the best long-term solution to policy makers' desire to cut U.S. carbon emissions.

He didn't mention natural gas, even though it provides about 25% of America's total primary energy needs. Furthermore, the U.S. has huge quantities of gas, and it's the only fuel source that can provide the stand-by generation capacity needed for wind and solar installations. Finally, he didn't mention oil, the backbone fuel of the world transportation sector, except to say that the U.S. imports too much of it.

Perhaps the president's omissions are understandable. America has an intense love-hate relationship with hydrocarbons in general, and with coal and oil in particular. And with increasing political pressure to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, that love-hate relationship has only gotten more complicated. (Carbon dioxide emissions being related to the global warming scare. Peter)

But the problem of scale means that these hydrocarbons just won't go away. Sure, Mr. Obama can double the output from solar and wind. And then double it again. And again. And again. But getting from 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to something close to the 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day needed to keep the U.S. economy running is going to take a long, long time. It would be refreshing if the president or perhaps a few of the Democrats on Capitol Hill would admit that fact.

Mr. Bryce is the managing editor of Energy Tribune. His latest book is "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence'"(Public Affairs, 2008).

With All The Hue and Cry About Carbon Emissions, Why Is Coal Still Going Strong?

It sounds to me, if you believe the following article in "The Economist", that a lot of people are not buying the theory that man is causing global warming because of carbon dioxide emissions. It seems all that is really being emitted by the United Nations IPCC is a lot of hot air. When it comes down to reality, nobody will really listen to a a failed ex-Vice President and some Hollywood celebrities looking for publicity.

When reality sinks in, when people realize the folly of trying to control global warming by limiting carbon dioxide emissions, when they realize the cost of such nonsense, they will dismiss the issue as just so much nonsense. As someone once said, "money talks and BS walks."
Peter


KING COAL STILL GOING STRONG
NO UTILITY with any respect for its shareholders' money, says Michael Morris, the boss of the biggest one in America, AEP, would build a heavily polluting coal-burning power station in America these days, for fear that it would become a liability if the government moved to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. Europe already has a cap on emissions, which is designed precisely to discourage dirty fuels such as coal. So why is it that utilities in both places are running their coal-fired plants at full throttle, have several new ones under construction and would like to build even more?

Using coal to generate electricity produces more greenhouse gases per resulting watt than using oil or natural gas, but coal is cheap. In countries where there are no limits on emissions and where demand for power is growing rapidly, such as India and China, coal is booming. Energy lore has it that in China a new coal-burning plant is fired up every week. What is certain is that China has become a net importer of coal for the first time this year. India's imports have been growing steadily for the past 20 years.

The International Energy Agency, an energy watchdog for rich countries, projects that demand for coal will grow by 2.2% a year until 2030—faster than demand for oil or natural gas. Coal-mining firms in Indonesia and Australia, the biggest exporters, are digging as fast as they can but are still struggling to cope with the surge in orders. Freighters are literally queuing up off Newcastle, Australia, the world's busiest coal port.

But poor and fast-growing places are not the only ones with a hunger for coal. In America, more coal-fired generation is being built than at any time in the past seven years, despite the threat of emissions caps, according to the Department of Energy. In Europe, several power companies are building new coal-fired plants, even though every tonne of carbon dioxide that they emit will require an expensive permit. For example, RWE, a German utility, plans to spend €6.2 billion ($9.1 billion) on three new coal-fired plants by 2012. One of them is already under construction.

All this has helped to push the price of coal steadily upwards in the past few years. Nonetheless, it has risen less quickly than that of oil or natural gas. Coal is now by far the cheapest of the common fuels for power stations relative to the amount of heat it generates when burnt (see chart). At the very least that is encouraging utilities to run their existing coal-fired plants flat out. But it is also prompting some to convert oil-fired plants to run on coal instead.

Enel, Italy's former electricity monopoly, has already performed one such refurbishment, and has two more under way, at a cost of €3.8 billion. Leonardo Arrighi, who supervises the firm's investments in generation, says it would like to build “more and more” coal-fired plants. In theory, the carbon price (in Europe) and the threat of one (in America) should dent this enthusiasm for coal. But in practice many utilities are betting that the disparity in fuel prices will outweigh the cost of extra permits to pollute.

At the moment such permits cost pennies in Europe, because governments handed out too many of them. Although there should be more of a shortage starting next year, the futures price would have to rise from the current 22 euros per tonne of carbon to over 30 per tonne to prompt a significant switch away from coal over the next two years, according to Henrik Hasselknippe of Point Carbon, a consultancy.

To be fair, many of the coal-fired power stations under construction in Europe and America are very efficient, and so emit less carbon per watt of output than existing plants. RWE and Enel both claim that their new plants will be among the most efficient in Europe. AEP is building a similar plant in America, which will remain profitable at carbon prices of up to $20 a tonne, according to Mr Morris. Meanwhile, many American firms are cancelling or delaying plans to build grubbier coal-fired plants until they have a clearer idea of future carbon prices.

Politicians in both Europe and America talk of carbon prices eventually being so high that coal-fired plants will be viable only if they capture their emissions and store them underground. But no such plants yet exist. Most of those under construction are not even “capture-ready”, as the industry jargon has it, since utilities do not consider the extra expense worthwhile. Even in Europe, with its steadily tightening emissions cap, much higher carbon prices or stricter regulation will be required to get utilities to build capture-ready plants, says John Krenicki, the head of the energy division at General Electric.

In fact, governments are sending out conflicting signals. Germany, for example, is making it easier to build new coal plants by granting them free emissions permits, even though it aims to reduce emissions to 40% below the 1990 level by 2020. Enel hopes to persuade the governments of Bulgaria and Romania to do the same. In America, the most prominent proposals for regulations to reduce emissions all involve generous hand-outs to the coal industry. For a supposedly dying breed, advocates of coal-fired generation still seem to have plenty of clout with Europe's and America's politicians.
Source

"Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil", by David Goodstein

Here is what sounds like another excellent book about our impending energy crises. This (to me) is a far greater danger than "global warming". See also the following review from Amazon.com
Peter


Out of Gas: The End of the Age Of Oil (Paperback) by David Goodstein (Author) $13.95
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September 10, 2006
By
Dennis Littrell (SoCal) - See all my reviews For those of you who are just getting interested in the subject, David Goodstein's Out of Gas is the book you want to read first. I have read several books on the impending energy crisis, including:

Deffeyes, Kenneth S. Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak (2005)

Heinberg, Richard. The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2nd Ed., 2005)

Huber, Peter W. and Mark P. Mills. The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (2005)

Leeb, Stephen and Donna Leeb. The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself--and Profit--from the Coming Energy Crisis (2005)

Simmons, Matthew R. Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy (2005)

and I can say that Professor Goodstein's modest, short and very much to the point book is as good as, if not better than, any of those five. He introduces the subject in a clear and no nonsense way and includes a lot of background information essential to understanding how energy works and why we are about to face a crisis. For readers who are expert on the physics and technology of heat engines and entropy, this book will be a little too basic in part. But even for such experts, Goodstein is essential reading because not only does he understand the science of the energy crisis, he understands the politics. Especially edifying is the material in the Postscript.

Let me reference a few ideas: OPEC (a cartel, as Goodstein explains, patterned after the Texas Railroad Commission which was the cartel that controlled oil production in the US before our supply peaked) likes to maintain prices within a range, "partly in order not to discourage demand for oil, but also to prevent investment in alternative fuels." This we know, of course. But Goodstein adds, "The implied threat is, if you invest money to develop a competitor to oil, we will flood the market with cheap oil and wipe out your investment." (pp. 126-127) This explains in part why we have been so slow to develop alternative sources. Investors are afraid. However, as Goodstein explains, if OPEC no longer has "excess pumping capacity" to flood the market, theirs becomes an empty threat.

Notice another point here: not only are OPEC countries tempted to overstate capacity so that by OPEC rules they are allowed to pump more oil, they are induced to lie about their reserves to scare potential investors away from alternative energy sources. In fact the entire oil industry itself "has a very strong incentive to deny any looming shortage of oil." In other words, to overstate their reserves. Another reason they overstate their reserves "is to keep down the price of oil properties they would like to acquire." (p. 127) Goodstein also explains why "reserves to production" (R/P) numbers have stayed about the same for many decades and why many experts say we still have forty years of oil left, same as we have had for most of the twentieth century.

Quite simply "proven" reserves are reported as "whatever fits the current needs" of the company. (p. 128) It used to be the case that under-reporting was good since it kept the price of oil from plummeting. Now the real danger is to acknowledge that a company doesn't have much oil left. This will cause their stock price to plunge, which is what happened to the Royal Dutch Shell Group "when it was forced by outside auditors to reduce its claims of proven reserves..." (p. 129)

Goodstein's take on the various alternatives to oil, including coal, shale oil, nuclear energy, renewables, etc. is very much in concert with the opinions of other experts. We will be using more coal, dirty as it is, and more nuclear energy, and natural gas. These are the three main alternatives. Not long after we run out of oil we will run out of natural gas and then coal and then even nuclear power plants will grow cold for lack of uranium, which if used to supply energy at the current rate of consumption will be depleted in five to twenty-five years. (p. 106)

Goodstein explores wind and solar and makes it clear that in the long run--if we and civilization are going to make it to the long run--we will have to develop the technology to exploit these renewable sources. This will require a huge investment. We will need the political leadership and will to make the kind of commitment that President Kennedy made in putting a man on the moon.

Goodstein believes that solving the energy problem will require the same sort of formidable and creative technology as did the space program. He adds that "Unfortunately, our present national and international leadership is reluctant even to acknowledge that there is a problem." (p. 123) It is essential that we make the commitment to develop alternatives fuels and we make that commitment NOW because (1) we will need the oil we have left to make the thousands of petrochemical products we will continue to use; (2) we need to free ourselves from dependence on the oil producing countries; and (3) there is an outside danger that the continued burning of fossils fuels will trigger a runaway greenhouse catastrophe that could lead to sterilizing the earth as has happened on Venus.

Note well this horrific downside--far worse than any "nuclear winter"--and note too we could go past the point of no return without even realizing it, and be left with no way to stop the meltdown. Bottom line: "The challenge is enormous but the stakes are even larger. If future generations are to thrive, we who have consumed Earth's legacy of cheap oil must now provide for a world without it." (p. 131)

A Predictable Push For More Government Subsidies

With the currently popular rush to rein in "carbon emissions" (really meaning carbon dioxide) to curb the "disastrous" effects of global warming and climate change, lawmakers are seeking billions of dollars in subsidies to coal companies, power generating companies, and companies that build the plants that generate this supposedly "cleaner" form of power. Why is this not a surprise.

First intense fear is created among the people about global warming, then when voters have been thoroughly brainwashed, bills proposing more federal subsidies are proposed, and our lawmakers go along with popular opinion. The result? Taxpayers get screwed again.

Read the following article and see what you think. Is it any wonder so many big corporations are "going green"?
Peter

Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: May 29, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 28 — Even as Congressional leaders draft legislation to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming, a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicans is pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels.


Mike Mergen/Bloomberg News
Richard A. Gephardt, a former Democratic House majority leader, has been hired by Peabody Energy to help make the case for liquefied coal.

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, is drafting a bill to promote renewable fuels, but not liquefied coal, for electricity.
Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years.
With both House and Senate Democrats hoping to pass “energy independence” bills by mid-July, coal supporters argue that coal-based fuels are more American than gasoline and potentially greener than ethanol.

“For so many, filthy coal is a dirty four-letter word,” said Representative Nick V. Rahall, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “These individuals, I tell you, have their heads buried in the sand.”

Environmental groups are adamantly opposed, warning that coal-based diesel fuels would at best do little to slow global warming and at worst would produce almost twice as much of the greenhouse gases tied to global warming as petroleum.

Coal companies are hardly alone in asking taxpayers to underwrite alternative fuels in the name of energy independence and reduced global warming. But the scale of proposed subsidies for coal could exceed those for any alternative fuel, including corn-based ethanol.

Among the proposed inducements winding through House and Senate committees: loan guarantees for six to 10 major coal-to-liquid plants, each likely to cost at least $3 billion; a tax credit of 51 cents for every gallon of coal-based fuel sold through 2020; automatic subsidies if oil prices drop below $40 a barrel; and permission for the Air Force to sign 25-year contracts for almost a billion gallons a year of coal-based jet fuel.

Coal companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying on the issue, and have marshaled allies in organized labor, the Air Force and fuel-burning industries like the airlines. Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest coal company, urged in a recent advertising campaign that people “imagine a world where our country runs on energy from Middle America instead of the Middle East.”

Representative Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat whose district is dominated by coal mining, is writing key sections of the House energy bill. In the Senate, champions of coal-to-liquid fuels include Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Larry Craig of Wyoming, both Republicans.

President Bush has not weighed in on specific incentives, but he has often stressed the importance of coal as an alternative to foreign oil. In calling for a 20 percent cut in projected gasoline consumption by 2017, he has carefully referred to the need for “alternative” fuels rather than “renewable” fuels. Administration officials say that was specifically to make room for coal.

The political momentum to subsidize coal fuels is in odd juxtaposition to simultaneous efforts by Democrats to draft global-warming bills that would place new restrictions on coal-fired electric power plants.
The move reflects a tension, which many lawmakers gloss over, between slowing global warming and reducing dependence on foreign oil.
Many analysts say the huge coal reserves of the United States could indeed provide a substitute for foreign oil.

The technology to convert coal into liquid fuel is well-established, and the fuel can be used in conventional diesel cars and trucks, as well as jet engines, boats and ships. Industry executives contend that the fuels can compete against gasoline if oil prices are about $50 a barrel or higher.
But coal-to-liquid fuels produce almost twice the volume of greenhouse gases as ordinary diesel. In addition to the carbon dioxide emitted while using the fuel, the production process creates almost a ton of carbon dioxide for every barrel of liquid fuel.

Coal industry executives insist their fuel can actually be cleaner than oil, because they would capture the gas produced as the liquid fuel is being made and store it underground. Some could be injected into oil fields to push oil to the surface.

Several aspiring coal-to-liquid companies say that they would reduce greenhouse emissions even further by using renewable fuels for part of the process. But none of that has been done at commercial volumes, and many analysts say the economic issues are far from settled.

“There are many uncertainties,” said James T. Bartis, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, who testified last week before the Senate Energy Committee. “We don’t even know what the costs are yet.”