“… breathe easy. Atmospheric CO2 is not causing, nor will it ever cause, and direct threat to your health or cognitive performance.”
Almost all trace elements and compounds, even beneficial ones, can be poisonous if ingested or inhaled in large enough concentrations. So, what about carbon dioxide (CO2)? Do we have to worry about any deleterious health effects as its atmospheric concentration continues to climb?
As an answer to the above questions, consider the work of the following four research teams, two of which focused on human physiological responses to elevated levels of CO2 and two of which focused on human cognitive responses.
Liu et al. (2017)
Liu et al. (2017) examined the performance, acute health symptoms and physiological responses of human subjects exposed to both ambient (403 ppm) and elevated (3025 ppm) atmospheric CO2.…
Continue Reading“… communications between different regulatory agencies as the event approached were inadequate. Transparency regarding the location of natural gas supply infrastructure was atrocious.”
“Currently Texas is #1 in the nation in terms of existing wind capacity. It is also #1 in terms of planned capacity additions for wind and solar, and #2 in the nation for planned battery capacity additions. However, there is little-to-no planned capacity addition for other forms of dispatchable generation. This could become an issue for reliability.” (Baker Institute, study, below)
There is not only government failure in the quest to address market failure. There is analytic failure in identifying market failure that government is empowered to correct. Restated, problems attributed to markets are often the result of prior government intervention on close inspection.
This is true with some classic examples in the energy field, from the origins of public utility regulation of electricity to oil overproduction under the ‘rule of capture’, stories for another day.…
Continue Reading“Although many may think the New England region is immune to an energy crisis past summer, winter peak demand is the issue.”
“New Englanders are largely unaware that the light at the end of the clean energy transition tunnel is not a train, it’s a blackout.”
Europe is facing an existential crisis – having sufficient affordable heat and electricity this winter for its populations. People are not only suffering ahead of winter’s arrival, but the likelihood of people dying because of this crisis is growing.
A similar challenge is being faced in many U.S. power markets. Can the worst of the potential outcomes be avoided, or are we on a path that will only worsen for our residents?
Warnings …
In May of this year, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioner Mark Christie said the country was “headed for a reliability crisis.”…
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