“The reality is that non-dispatchable generation technologies, (wind and solar) cannot be directly compared with dispatchable generation technologies (coal, natural gas, nuclear, biomass, and generally speaking, hydro). This is a common mistake.”

Unfortunately, unrealistic representations of wind and solar are alive and well in many publications. Even if mathematically correct, their ability to reflect reality should always be carefully assessed.

These are like maps that show only a few major features, such as coastlines, mountains, large rivers, and major roads, leaving out the likes of non-fordable smaller rivers, marshes, ravines, and steep slopes or cliffs.

Signs to watch out for:

• Wind and solar are included in graphs comparing capacities or capital investments.
• Representing that capacities, electricity production, and costs per watt-hour of electricity produced can be used to directly compare non-dispatchable wind and solar with reliable, controllable generation plants.

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Confessions of a Climate Change “Denier”

Congressional Testimony: Science is a Process

By the Numbers: Ending the Social Cost of Carbon

There is no such thing as a Conservative CO2 Tax Plan

Take-aways from the Heartland Climate Conference

Video of President Trump’s Inspiring NASA Talk

Agenda 21 Course

Sun’s impact on climate change quantified for first time

Witnessing wind industry’s influence on the Legislature

A Requiem for the 2015 Clean Power Plan: It had more flaws than a cheap dirigible

Energy Policy Will Be About Cutting Costs, Not Emissions (!)…

“… getting 195 countries to establish the same price on carbon would be an impossibility as each country would attempt to establish a price that would benefit itself in international trade.”

One could say two former Republican secretaries of state, Messrs. Baker and Shultz, are naive and badly informed. Their proposal for a carbon tax smacks of fools rushing in.

Their proposed carbon tax is part of a proposal by the Climate Leadership Council. This “carbon tax” is a tax on CO2 emissions, based on the supposed need to cut CO2 emissions to prevent a climate catastrophe.

Major Flaws

A “carbon tax” is fundamentally a bad proposal for several reasons.

First, Baker and Shultz propose to return a dividend to the poor, because it’s the poor who are hurt the most by any attempt to cut CO2 emissions.…

“… there are organizations devoted to the study of peak oil. Akin to the Bigfoot research groups, they are clearly stating their conclusion in the subject in their name.”

“There were claims about a major conspiracy to hide the problem. ‘Debunkers’ like myself were typically subject to vitriolic and usually personal attacks instead of criticism against our arguments, theories, and data, including the label ‘denalist’ which has become a way to avoid substantive debate.”

Some years ago, a peak-oil advocate told an audience that he had recently been in the Middle East where executives at one of the national oil companies had told him that raising production was difficult.

That seemed to impress the advocate, but it really demonstrated his lack of experience. It has never been “easy” to produce oil, despite the frequent mantra that “the easy oil is gone,” an attitude that has been around since the days of Homer’s Iliad that  remarked on how much stronger warriors had been in the old days.…