More on EPA’s Climate Science Problem: The Peabody Petition

By Chip Knappenberger -- February 22, 2010 13 Comments

In my last post, I pointed out a problem with the EPA’s major finding that:

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations.

I showed that it could be reasonably and straightforwardly argued that less than half of the warming since 1950 contained in the “observed” global temperature history can be attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is bad for the EPA, as this finding was simply parroted by the EPA from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)—a report relied on heavily by the EPA in underpinning its Endangerment Finding (that greenhouse gases released by human activities “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”). When the IPCC is wrong, so is the EPA.…

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2Q-2010 MasterResource Update: The Progress Continues

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- July 3, 2010 1 Comment

MasterResource, a free-market energy blog, continues to attract new talent and a growing audience. We have had approximately 45 authors to date, and our cumulative views have exceeded one-half million.

We are not a mega-blog, but we are an important addition to the energy literature that will, like a good book, be accessed and referenced for years to come.

At Technorati, MasterResource has consistently been in the top 25 (out of 1,550) “green” blogs and has reached as high as #7. But more importantly, serious students of energy policy are regulars at our site, reading our once-a-day, in-depth post or tracking down material on what Enron/Ken Lay really did, what Jim Hansen or John Holdren really said, or what BP was doing under John Browne. We preserve the excesses of the smartest-guys-in-the-energy-room for posterity.…

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OVERBLOWN: Windpower on the Firing Line (Part I)

By Jon Boone -- September 13, 2010 19 Comments

THE LESS ONE KNOWS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE, THE EASIER IT IS TO EXPLAIN

Leon Brunschvicg

Have truth and consequences arrived for the biggest energy sham of all?

Energy journalist Robert Bryce recently broke the news to mainstream American media. In a hard-hitting article published in the Wall Street Journal, he reported the findings of a Colorado energy research study, which earlier this year concluded that the industrial wind technology it sampled in the regions of Colorado and Texas neither reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the production of electricity nor rolled back consumption of fossil fuels.

The raison d’être of the wind industry is to abate significant levels of the greenhouse gas emissions many feel are causing precipitous and adverse warming trends in the earth’s climate.…

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OVERBLOWN: Further Analyses (Part III)

By Jon Boone -- September 15, 2010 15 Comments

SCIENCE IS THE DISINTERESTED SEARCH FOR THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH ABOUT THE MATERIAL WORLD.

Richard Dawkins

This post in our series  looks at how the integration of wind variability affects thermal activity on the grid, favors flexible natural gas generators, and influences economic dispatch and the spot market. It also examines how estimates of carbon emissions are derived and summarizes the limitations of statistically based knowledge. It concludes with a discussion of what Energy Information Administration (EIA) actually says about the causes of carbon emission reductions in the country over the last three years

It is true, as the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) notes, that any wind production must displace some existing generation, but only in terms of electricity–not any of the underlying energy forms transposed into electricity. It is rather due to the stricture that supply match perfectly with demand at all times (and this is another oversimplification of a complicated situation).…

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Oxymoronic Windpower (Part I: Howlers)

By Jon Boone -- January 18, 2011 26 Comments Continue Reading

Misdirected Innovation: Environmentalist Taylor on Cap-and-Trade (Part I)

By Tom Tanton -- April 4, 2012 5 Comments Continue Reading

Wimp Power: Some Quotations from Wind's Critics

By -- June 21, 2012 12 Comments Continue Reading

Electricity Policy Prime Time: Part II–Analytical, Process & Supply Issues

By Ken Malloy -- August 22, 2012 8 Comments Continue Reading

“Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green'” Turns 15

By Jon Boone -- August 27, 2012 11 Comments Continue Reading

“Not Cheap, Not ‘Green'” at the California Energy Commission

By Tom Tanton -- August 28, 2012 4 Comments Continue Reading