Yesterday’s election clearly demonstrates that the American people reject President Obama’s handling of the economy.  Just as the 2008 elections were interpreted as a repudiation of President Bush’s agenda (particularly with respect to foreign policy), the 2010 mid-term election shows that America does not support President Obama’s domestic priorities.

Specific to energy and the environment, one clear message from the election is that cap-and-trade, top-down, command-and-control regulations are a losing argument with the voters.  Candidates who voted for cap-and-trade, with few exceptions, ran away from that vote.  Voters understand that cap-and-trade is a national energy tax.

With respect to energy policy, the election results will likely yield a modest and marginal improvement.  While it will certainly not be the “environmental doomsday” that the national environmental lobby claims, unless the Republicans have truly changed their stripes, it will also not be the dramatic improvement that some predict or hope.…

Can the Endangered Species Act (ESA) compel America to abandon fossil fuels?

My colleague William Yeatman alluded to this question last week after attending a symposium at the Heritage Foundation entitled, “Saving the Polar Bear or Obama’s CO2 Agenda?”

The short answer is yes and no. Yes, because once the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) listed the polar bear as a “threatened species” on the supposition that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are melting the bear’s Arctic habitat, the ESA logically requires that people stop engaging in CO2-emitting activities. The potential for mischief is vast. Carbon dioxide emissions come from fossil energy use, which in turn derives from economic activity. There is hardly any economic activity in the modern world that does not, directly or indirectly, produce CO2 emissions. Hence, almost any economic activity can be deemed to threaten the polar bear and, thus, violate the Act!  …

EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS REQUIRE EXTRAORDINARY PROOF

 —Marcello Truzzi

How can an ancient source of energy, which

• continuously destabilizes the balance between supply and demand,
• is highly variable and unresponsive, and
• provides no capacity value while inimical to demand cycles

effectively replace the capacity of modern machines and their fuels, in the process removing significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that are the by-product of the burning of those fuels?

This final post in our four-part series discusses the nature of the scientific method and shows that there are a number of challenges to the claims wind technology can abate meaningful greenhouse gas emissions–challenges that require access to actual wind performance data showing how wind affects thermal behavior throughout the grid.

Any explanation about causation must honestly and transparently account for all variables at play.…

SCIENCE IS THE DISINTERESTED SEARCH FOR THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH ABOUT THE MATERIAL WORLD.

– Richard Dawkins

This post in our series  looks at how the integration of wind variability affects thermal activity on the grid, favors flexible natural gas generators, and influences economic dispatch and the spot market. It also examines how estimates of carbon emissions are derived and summarizes the limitations of statistically based knowledge. It concludes with a discussion of what Energy Information Administration (EIA) actually says about the causes of carbon emission reductions in the country over the last three years

It is true, as the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) notes, that any wind production must displace some existing generation, but only in terms of electricity–not any of the underlying energy forms transposed into electricity. It is rather due to the stricture that supply match perfectly with demand at all times (and this is another oversimplification of a complicated situation).…