… Continue Reading“The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.”
– James Hansen, “Climate Forcings in the Industrial Era,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 1998, p. 12753.
“In view of the immense power of natural weather and climate fluctuations and the great buffering capacity of the Earth, especially the ocean, it is easy to be skeptical about whether small anthropogenic changes of atmospheric composition can have important practical impacts.”
– James Hansen et al., “How Sensitive Is the World’s Climate?,” National Geographic Research & Exploration, 9(2): 1993, p. 157.
“Climate is always changing. Climate would fluctuate without any change of climate forcings. The chaotic aspect of climate is an innate characteristic of the coupled fundamental equations describing climate system dynamics.”
Small business owners who depend upon the economy in the Gulf of Mexico are still victimized by the ripple effects of the moratorium Team Obama put into place after the BP oil well explosion in April 2010, documents Greater New Orleans, Inc. after surveying approximately 100 Louisiana-based companies directly involved in the offshore oil and gas industry, led by marine services and ship owners/operators.
The Impact of Decreased Drilling Permit Approvals on Gulf of Mexico Businesses found that 41% of businesses are not making a profit. Other statistics of decline:
* 76% have lost cash reserves
* 27% of businesses have lost more than half of their cash reserves
* 50% of businesses have laid off employees as a result of the moratoria
* 39% of businesses have retained workers but reduced salaries and/or hours
* 46% of businesses have moved all or some of their operations away from the Gulf of Mexico
82% of business owners have lost personal savings as a result of the permit slowdown
* 13% of business owners have lost all of their personal savings as a result of the slowdown
Even if the current administration’s anti-energy policies are reversed, this study demonstrates that there is an opportunity cost in terms of lost business that will never be recovered.…
Continue Reading“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
– F. A. Hayek: The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), p. 76.
The European Commission’s (EC) just-published Energy Roadmap 2050 (Roadmap) updates its last analysis (which I criticized here) of EU forced-energy-transformation projects to 2020 , as well as scenarios reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80-95% below EU 1990 levels by 2050. The forecast is stated (postmodernism?) as coincident with the need for energy security and affordability.
As one should “follow the money” when it comes to political capitalism, one should “follow the assumptions” when it comes to any roadmap pertaining to a post-carbon-based energy world.
… Continue Reading1. Renewables The share of renewable energy sources is projected to be 75% in gross final energy consumption and 97% in electricity consumption by 2050.