Using bad science and bad economics, federal and state government have decided that we will be better off—with lots of electricity, less CO2—if we make wind the primary substitute for older and proposed new coal power plants

Is the administration really to trying to replace coal baseload with wind? And are the science and economics in favor of introducing some type of carbon pricing really so bad?

Point taken on tight gas and shale gas formations.

And tight gas and shale are two completely different types of formations.

Building more CCGTs doesn’t need to mean more LNG–more likely, it’d just mean more rigs in Barnett, Marcellus, Piceance, Woodford, etc.

In the absence of proven technology for the economical capture and permanent sequestration of CO2, there is absolutely no point in discussion of either new coal- or new natural gas-fueled generation.

Never mind that “80% by 2050″ would accomplish nothing of value with regard to AGW, as long as it is strictly a US effort. There is no such thing as a national “solution” to a global atmospheric issue. Even assuming that halting the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations would halt AGW (a very large and questionable assumption), no US effort could accomplish that if: Europe and Canada continue to perform as effectively as they have under Kyoto; and, the developing world continues to observe from the sidelines, while continuing to build new coal-fired generation.

As to the carbon business, proposed federal action on CO2 is a wonderful example of sacrificing the good for the perfect. If we fail to build new power plant capacity that maintains system reliability (read: fossil or nuclear plants), then at some point we will decide by default that the older coal plants must remain on line lest we suffer catastrophic loss of load during peak periods. Wind cannot be relied on in this way, as anyone who read this blog should understand. Continued dependence on older coal plants leads inexorably to more fuel consumption from such units, and hence, more pollution. New coal plants represent the quickest and most economical way to reduce CO2 emissions from the US electricity generation system. There is literally nothing else on offer that could reduce emissions of CO2 and its companion emissions as quickly as more efficient high technology coal-fired plants. Think of them as a stepping-stone to a higher technology future in power generation. As EU experience with cap and trade has shown, relying on hopes and wishes does not change the facts on the ground, it only leads to grotesque government-led misallocations of “carbon rights” that put money into the pockets of the well-connected. Would you put Pelosi and Reid in charge of allocating “carbon rights?”

A measured approach to reducing emissions has worked wonders in the automobile and power sectors already (though the process was not always efficient or appropriate). Anyone over the age of 50 knows what the air looked like in the 1960s, before emission controls. Ignoring an opportunity to reduce emissions from the power generation industry by more than 20%, without the use of public funds, seems to me to be derelict in the extreme.