East Coast Beaches Going, Going …. (W.K. Stevens, NYT in 1995)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 15, 2021 2 Comments

“At the most likely rate of rise, some experts say, most of the beaches on the East Coast of the United States would be gone in 25 years. They are already disappearing at an average of 2 to 3 feet a year.”

“The climate experts on the panel believe their models have become increasingly reliable.”

– William K. Stevens. “Scientists Say Earth’s Warming Could Set Off Wide Disruptions,” New York Times, September 18, 1995), pp. 1, 8.

For Atlantic beachgoers, your destination might not be there anymore. Why? Some climate experts said so back in 1995. William K. Stevens said so back then on page 1 of the then-described newspaper of record.

Stevens was a true believer. Six years later in his The Change in the Weather (p.…

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“U.S. Winter Outlook: Cooler North, Warmer South” (NOAA’s prediction bust)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- March 11, 2021 2 Comments

“NOAA’s timely and accurate seasonal outlooks and short-term forecasts are the result of improved satellite observations, more detailed computer forecast modeling, and expanding supercomputing capacity,” said Neil Jacobs, Ph.D., acting NOAA administrator. (below)

Cold extremes decrease and warm extremes increase in a warmer world, and cold extremes tend to be more sensitive to global warming than the warm ones.” (emphasis added) Science Bulletin, below

Humility in the face of unknowns is a worthy attribute. And when it comes to the Earth’s climate, in the whole and regionally, a prediction can be worse than no prediction.

Enter climate models, the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and politics. And a very bad result for the South this winter. The lack of weatherization in Texas for traditional power plants, in particular, might well have been influenced by the climate narrative of warmer winters.

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Texas’ Renewable Fail: Remember Georgetown’s Green New Deal Too

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 24, 2021 2 Comments

“It’s unfortunate that the Georgetown [100 percent renewable] experiment went so quickly from being a success story to being something of a cautionary example,” said Adrian Shelley, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

“Gore wasn’t available for an interview with E&E News last week to discuss the electric situation in Georgetown [Texas].”

It was supposed to be green and cheap, a 25-year fixed-price contract for solar and wind beginning in 2018. Instead, as one news story in October 2019 reported: “After losing tens of millions of citizens’ money on a green energy gamble, city officials are trying to escape their self-inflicted mess.” How? By filing a lawsuit against its solar provider Buckthorn Westex to cancel its 25-year contract. A countersuit by Buckthorn followed.…

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Wind Subsidies Help Freeze Texans

By -- February 18, 2021 8 Comments

“No, frozen wind turbines are not mainly to blame for the massive power outages in Texas. But renewable energy subsidies are.”

“The greatest danger that Texans now face is the political establishment’s continued unwillingness to challenge the renewable-energy lobby. If that happens, the result will be more of the same: increased cost of electricity and decreased reliability of the electric grid. 

Well, that didn’t take long.

The same day Texas started experiencing blackouts in the midst of an unprecedented winter storm, critics started pointing to markets as the problem. Wednesday’s Dallas Morning News ran a Bloomberg Wire story that claimed “The extreme cold appears to have caught Texas’s highly decentralized electricity market by surprise.”

Yes, Texas has experienced significant power outages. But it is not alone. PowerOutage.us shows that Oregon, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia–all with highly regulated electric grids–have also experienced significant outages. …

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The UK Energy Shortages of Winter 1946–47 (planned chaos w/o prices and profits)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 16, 2021 1 Comment Continue Reading

Clean Energy, Energy Conservation, ‘Planetary Destiny’: Richard Nixon 1972

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 8, 2021 2 Comments Continue Reading

Judith Curry Interview (Part II: Public Policy)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 4, 2021 1 Comment Continue Reading

MLK Day: The Wisdom of Thomas Sowell

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 18, 2021 4 Comments Continue Reading

James Hansen’s New Clothes (shifting in retreat)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 3, 2021 2 Comments Continue Reading

Exxon’s Algae Dry Hole ($300 million greenwashing failure continuing)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 16, 2020 1 Comment Continue Reading