Editor Note: Using mainstream models and assumptions, Mr. Knappenberger finds that in the year 2050 with a 83% emissions reduction (the aspirational goal of Waxman-Markey, the beginning steps of which are under vigorous debate), the temperature reduction is nine hundredths of one degree Fahrenheit, or two years of avoided warming by 2050. A more realistic climate bill would be a fraction of this amount. The author will respond to technical questions on methodology and results and invites input on alternative scenarios and analyses.
“A full implementation and adherence to the long-run emissions restrictions provisions described by the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill would result only in setting back the projected rise in global temperatures by a few years—a scientifically meaningless prospect.” (from below)
The economics and the regulatory burdens of climate change bills are forever being analyzed, but the bills’ primary function—mitigating future climate change—is generally ignored.…
Continue Reading[Editor note: Also see “Joseph Romm and Enron: More for the Record” (May 8, 2009) and “Enron and Waxman-Markey: Response to Joe Romm” (July 2, 2009)]
The headline at Climate Progress, the blog site of Joseph Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, read:
MYSTERIOUS INDUSTRY FRONT-GROUP AFFILIATED WITH KEN LAY’S FORMER SPEECHWRITER LAUNCHES ANTI-WAXMAN-MARKEY ADS WITH PHONY MIT COST FIGURE
And here is what Romm specifically says about me:
… Continue ReadingWho is the [American Energy Alliance]? Good question. The AEA says on its website:
“AEA is an independent affiliate of the Institute for Energy Research (IER)….”Aside from the cryptic nature of the oxymoronic phrase “independent affiliate,” it is worth noting that the Institute for Energy Research “has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.”
One dumb government intervention in energy markets typically begets another, as special interests lobby to counteract the unintended (although not unforeseen) consequences of some previous intervention they championed. The federal ethanol mandate, also known as the renewable fuel standard (RFS), provides a recent example.
Thanks to this Soviet-style production quota system, which Congress created in 2005 and expanded in 2007, daily corn ethanol production in February increased by about 17,000 barrels to 647,000 barrels per day, despite weak motor-fuel demand and poor to negative profit margins for ethanol producers.
Unsurprisingly, inventories of unsold ethanol increased by 1.5 million barrels in February and about 20% of new capacity added last year is idle. An ethanol glut is one of the factors that have bankrupted several ethanol companies. Other factors include high feedstock (corn) prices in 2008–itself a consequence of the mandate—and the collapse of crude oil and gasoline prices in 2009.…
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