“Anti-petroleum activists would have us give up on long-distance trade and the food security inherent to the reliance on multiple suppliers based in a wide variety of geographical locations. Far from keeping the third horseman at bay, their carbon dioxide obsession will bring him back with a vengeance.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Long Winter (1940) is generally regarded as the most historically accurate book of her Little House on the Prairie series. It tells the story of how her family and the other inhabitants of DeSmet, South Dakota—but then the Dakota Territory—narrowly avoided starvation during the severe winter of 1880-81. That year, after a lean harvest, a series of blizzards dumped more than 11 feet of snow and immobilized trains on their tracks, in the process cutting off the settlers from the rest of the United States.…
Continue Reading“The determination of the social cost of carbon (SCC) as made by [federal agencies] is discordant with the best scientific literature on the equilibrium climate sensitivity and the fertilization effect of carbon dioxide—two critically important parameters for establishing the net externality of carbon dioxide emissions…. The [federal government] should act not just to revise the current determination of the SCC, but to suspend its use in all federal rulemaking.”
– Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger (Center for the Study of Science, Cato Institute). “Comment on ‘Technical Support Document, Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866’,” January 27, 2014.
Federal legislative attempts to price and regulate carbon dioxide have failed. Cap-and-trade, which passed the House in 2009, died the next year in the Senate.…
Continue Reading• Effort to Expand California Green Power Mandate to 51% Fails
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• California Drought Means Less Hydropower and Higher Electricity Prices
Effort to Expand California Green Power Standard to 51% Fails
… Continue Reading“Amendments made yesterday to state Assembly Bill 177 clarify that the 33 percent by 2020 current Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is intended to be a floor, not a ceiling, for energy procurement. It directs all retail sellers of electricity to adopt a long-term procurement strategy to achieve a target of procuring 51 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by Dec. 31, 2030.”
– State Senator V.