In a provocative post, Joe Romm argues that even “strong climate action” would be well worth the effort. Yet Romm’s claim that stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases at 445–535 ppm (CO2-eq) would cost only “one tenth of a penny on the dollar” (through 2050) understates the IPCC’s actual cost estimate by about 95%. In reality, the IPCC’s reported estimate translates into a mitigation cost of about 2.2 cents on the dollar–far far higher than Romm’s figure. Romm’s mistake has nothing to do with climate science: he simply confuses the rate of growth in income, with income itself.
To make matters worse, even when correctly interpreted, the IPCC estimate significantly understates what the cost will be in practice. The IPCC admits that its estimate is a theoretical textbook case, which assumes all participating countries implement their mitigation policies perfectly, and keep them in force throughout the 21st century.…
Continue ReadingEditor Note: This letter from a U.S. citizen/taxpayer to the U.S. Department of Energy is an example of grass-root opposition to government-dependent windpower. For a previous post along the same lines, see “New York’s Thousand Islands Are Being Ruined” (Letter to Sen. Schumer on the blight of government-dependent windpower).
Dr. Steven Chu
Secretary of Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington, DC 20585
Dear Secretary Chu:
You and other officials of the US Department of Energy should be ashamed of yourselves because:
… Continue Reading· Despite thousands of employees and billions in our tax dollars, you have found it necessary to have some low level “energy analyst” from a CONTRACTOR organization reply to an email from a US citizen and taxpayer, and
· The reply was so lacking in substance (see attached) that your contractor (and, presumably, your staff) apparently assumes that citizens and taxpayers outside Washington have no knowledge of DOE programs or the true costs and benefits of wind energy – the subject of my email.
Is the proliferation of electronic devices in homes and offices causing a net increase or decrease in electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?
This question has been a topic of heated controversy ever since 1999, when technology analyst Mark P. Mills published a study provocatively titled “The Internet Begins with Coal,” and co-authored with Peter Huber a Forbes column titled “Dig more coal – the PCs are coming.”
Others–notably Joe Romm and researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory–argued that the Internet was a minor contributor to electricity demand and potentially a major contributor to energy savings in such areas as supply chain management, telecommuting, and online purchasing.
Mills and Huber argued that digital networks, server farms, chip manufacture, and information technology had become a new key driver of electricity demand. …
Continue Reading