Posted on 04/25/2021 5:29:11 AM PDT by MtnClimber
It never ceases to amaze me how the very mention of the word “climate” causes people to lose all touch with their rational faculties. And of course I’m not talking here just about the ordinary man on the street, but also, indeed especially, about our elected leaders and government functionaries.
The latest example is President Biden’s pledge, issued at his “World Climate Summit” on April 22, to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 - 52% from the levels of 2005, and to do so by 2030. In my last post a couple of days ago, I remarked that “Biden himself has absolutely no idea how this might be accomplished. And indeed it will not be accomplished.” Those things are certainly true, but also fail to do full justice to the extent to which our President and his handlers have now left the real world and gone off into total fantasy.
Back in 2016, when Barack Obama was President and it was time to go along (or not) with the Paris Climate Agreement, the idea still existed in the government that pledges to reduce GHG emissions ought to bear some relationship to reality. The pledge made by Obama on behalf of the U.S. in the Paris Agreement was to reduce GHG emissions by 26 - 28% from the 2005 level, and to do so by 2026. In 2016, U.S. GHG emissions were already down by more than 12% from the 2005 level, from 7,423.0 MMT CO2e in 2005 to 6520.3 MMT CO2e in 2016, according to the EPA’s Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (see chart at pages ES 7-9); and that had been with very minimal coercive input from the government. If a 12% reduction could be achieved in the first 11 years, then a further 14% reduction in another 10 years would not be wildly out of line.
Indeed, it appeared that Obama’s people had the already-existing gradual pace of decline in mind when they made their commitment. Much of the decline in GHG emissions from 2005 to 2016 came about from the fracking revolution, and accompanying substitution of (lower emissions) natural gas for (higher emissions) coal; and most of the rest resulted from gradual efficiency improvements in energy usage throughout the economy. It would not have been crazy in 2016 to expect those things to continue at roughly the same pace.
But let’s consider where we are now. GHG emissions for 2019 were 6,558.3 MMT CO2e, which was actually up from 2016. Emissions for 2020 are said to have been down about 10% from 2019, but almost entirely due to steep declines in driving and air travel due to the pandemic. Those emissions from transport almost certainly will come back, perhaps not all right away, but almost all within a couple of years, if indeed there are not increases.
Even with the 10% decline in emissions in 2020, we’re down only about 20% from 2005. If you believe that travel will shortly come back to pre-pandemic levels, we will then be down only about 10% from 2005. Biden’s pledge is a 50% reduction from 2005, so something in the range of 30 - 40% additional in just nine years. And note that Biden is not just talking about the electricity sector (only about 30% of emissions), but about things like transportation (driving and flying), home heating, agriculture and industry that today almost completely depend on fossil fuels.
In a piece at Substack on April 22, Roger Pielke, Jr., gives an idea of what Biden’s pledge would mean in the real world.
Net greenhouse gas emissions were 6.635 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2005, so a 50% reduction target is 3.318 Gt in 2030. In 2019, there were 5.769 Gt of net emissions, meaning that by 2030, the U.S. will have to reduce its emissions by about 2.450 Gt, or more than 270 Gt per year. That equates to an annual rate of emissions reductions of about 6.3% to 2030.
Since we’re not likely to have solar-powered airplanes or steel mills any time soon, the main focus of emissions reductions of this magnitude can only be the electricity sector. And then, given that the entire electricity sector is only about 30% of emissions, the whole sector basically needs to go to zero emissions to meet the Biden target. What would that look like? Pielke:
In January 2021, according to the US Energy Information Agency in the United States there were 1,852 coal and natural gas power plants that generated electricity. By 2035, to hit President Biden’s target all of these power plants will have to be either shut down or converted into zero-emissions power plants (using carbon capture and storage technologies that presently do not exist). There are 164 months until 2035. That means that more than 11 of the fossil fuel power plants operational in January 2021 will need to be closed every month, on average, starting today until 2035.
And of course there is nothing out there remotely capable of filling the gap caused by shuttering those 1,852 plants. Wind and solar, even if you blanket the country with them, are next to useless without keeping the majority of the coal and natural gas plants as backup. Nuclear? Theoretically it could work, but given the lead times involved there would have to be hundreds of such plants already far along in planning and construction to try to meet this kind of goal. There aren’t. And the same environmentalists demanding an end to fossil fuels also oppose nuclear with equal fanaticism, and would be there to block you at every step of the process.
For a closer look at reality on the ground, let’s consider some recent developments in New York. New York fancies itself as the great climate messiah, leading the country and even the world into the future zero emissions utopia. In 2019 New York enacted something called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which they describe on their website as follows:
On July 18, 2019, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). New York State’s Climate Act is the among the most ambitious climate laws in the world and requires New York to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and no less than 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.
Regulations to implement these drastic emissions reductions mandated by the law were finalized by the Governor in December 2020. Surely,, then, we are well off to a great start on our emissions reductions?
Actually, at the same time as we have adopted this noble-sounding Act and regulations, what we’ve really been doing is closing our big zero-emissions nuclear power plant and replacing it with brand-new natural gas facilities. Until last year, about 25 - 30% of the electricity for New York City came from a nuclear plant about 40 miles north of the City called Indian Point. Even as he has also talked endlessly about carbon emissions reductions, Governor Andrew Cuomo has made closing the Indian Point reactors a political priority. Of the two operating reactors at Indian Point, one closed in 2020, and the second is now scheduled to cease operations on April 30, 2021 — that is, at the end of the current week.
But they couldn’t close Indian Point without something to replace the power. And so, two big new natural gas-burning facilities have opened in the past few years. First, a 680 MW natural gas plant called CPV Valley Energy Center opened in Wawayanda, New York in February 2018; and then a 1000 MW natural gas plant called Cricket Valley Energy Center opened in Dover, New York, in April 2020.
Supposedly the big solution going forward is going to be vast amounts of offshore wind turbines to be built out in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island. So far, it’s nothing but talk. One of the proposals to advance the farthest calls for a big 15 wind turbines off the Eastern tip of the island. But if the turbines are built, the power will need to come onshore by cable at some location. In January the Town of East Hampton granted an easement for the cable to come onshore in an area called Wainscott — and immediately a group of wealthy homeowners in the area brought a lawsuit to block it. We’ll see where that goes.
But it gets even worse. Just last week, something called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the federal government canceled two of the wind energy development zones off Long Island. According to a report April 20 in the Wall Street Journal:
“Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officials said the zones off the island’s coast raised problems with maritime traffic, marine life feeding areas, and concerns over visibility from South Shore beaches. In short, they were a nuisance to fishermen, shippers and gentry with homes in the tony Hamptons area full of Manhattanites during the summer.”
In other words, despite the big talk, and lots of spending and subsidies, all the “progress” so far towards zero emissions has been negative. I guess it can be like the “anti-poverty” efforts of the government, where every year we have more and more programs and spend more and more money and the measured poverty never goes down.
Some 100% filter efficiency duct tape COVID masks for the democRATs would reduce some of the CO2.
For the climate summit, the reality is actually Europe
I’m up for paying my “fair share” of cost of masks.
The butcher's toll of Climate Averageness.
If the climateers can actually block the sun a bit and pull CO2 out of the air they will only exacerbate the solar minimum which commenced a few years ago and will continue into the thirties with cooler weather until 2030 or so. They keep saying that each year is record breaking hot but where I am the summers have been later and cooler a little bit each year for around about the last twenty years. Combining the Left’s plans with the Minimum would guarantee worldwide famine in a few years in much of the world and rapidly rising food prices for us not counting inflation. Look up the Maunder and Dalton minimums. I wonder what name will be on this one.
Then John Kerry said we need to pull all of the CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Words do not even begin to describe how stupid that is.
There can't be bigger buffoons that Biden and Kerry when it comes to climate change rhetoric.
Its Alice in Climate Land.
Once you go down that rabbit hole, you forget the totalitarian remedies required, and see nothing but a pure kingdom with flitting flutterbies, safe sex, free beer, free college, electric cars, and your own shit does NOT stink.
That is what is down that insane bunny hole. Many who go in, never can get out.
But we forget the Gestapo necessary to turning that hole inside out.Wait until that happens, and then what of your bunny hole?
Out here in farm country you will soon see huge tractors tilling the soil and planting the crops. Come fall giant combines trudge across the fields harvesting the grain and discharging the grain into a fleets of trucks or hopper trailers to haul it the local elevator. All of these machines run quite efficiently on diesel fuel. There are no electric tractors or combines and if there were it begs the question about where in the middle of a field or in a rural area are they going to get recharged. The Green New Deal will almost certainly mean food shortages if not human caused famine.
“offshore wind turbines” in American waters
They will be an incredibly expensive “source” of electricity.
Writing about percentages of global green house emissions and such waters down the real argument. Anthropogenic does not exit. Climate change, which does exist, is mostly to due to that big orange ball in the sky, it’s maximums and minimums, and current tilt of the earth’s axis. Shorter-term changes in climate, e.g., weather, can be heavily influenced by the ash volcanos spew.
“President Biden’s pledge, issued at his “World Climate Summit” on April 22, to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 - 52%”
~half of all cars in USA electric and powered via sun/nuclear/hydroelectric
~half of all houses in USA powered via sun/nuclear/hydroelectric
in just 8 years 5 months 5 days
How about we simply match or beat China?
And what makes you think that is not the ultimate goal?
The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor. What ya gonna do about that, Bidet?
What the US needs is Political Climate Change.
Like getting Ron DeSantis into the White Basement to clean it out.
Don't forget the thousands of academicians who will NEVER EVER be weaned off of the millions of dollars, BS status positions on campuses and cushy jobs in government enjoyed by this class of parasites!
By now, it’ s an ‘industry’ like ‘civil rights’ and ‘wokeism’. Not one single overpaid, overindulged, half-as^ed, otherwise unemployable ‘expert’ is going to walk away from that!
You've never in your life seen a more spoiled, self-important, lying bunch of self-designated ‘gods’ in your life
The goal of 0% emissions from the energy sector is completely feasible.
Nuclear energy would create safe, clean power with thousands of high paying jobs building and operating them.
Of course, Biden and his team wet their pants at the mere thought of nuclear power, so it won’t happen. My personal opinion is that they don’t oppose nuclear power because of the bad reputation from Fukushima, TMI, Chernobyl, etc.
They oppose it because inexpensive, abundant energy means a dramatic increase in personal freedom.
The CO2 theory of global warming has a test model in Mars. Mars has 8 times the amount of CO2 as earth. Although it only receives half the heat radiation from the sun as Earth does, there is no evidence of a green house effect on Mars. The daily range of temperatures is from +23 C to - 67C.
It is ludicrous that rational people talk about colonizing Mars and leaving Earth because of climate change.
Most FReepers understand what climate change is really about.
It is about control. If you can limit carbon output and behavior you can control a population. The data do not support the wild predictions they have made for decades.... yes, decades, but that never stops them.
There are a lot of useful idiots who get in line for the message of doom, but those pushing it the hardest demand full control of you and your life. Water usage, electric usage, fossil fuel usage, and at some point even our very respiration.
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