Nuclear engineer James H. Rust, over at the Heartland Institute, has just posted a clear, concise, factual piece refuting the claim that there's a "dirty war" to stop expansion of solar energy in the United States. I won't get into the stuff about the "dirty war"---which is entirely bogus, and Rust demonstrates just why---but thought it helpful to pass on just a little of the factual information about why solar has such difficulty competing with nuclear and fossil fuels. Rust writes: In the … [Read more...]
Practically Everything You Thought You Knew about Fukushima Is Wrong
When University of Edinburgh graduate student Claire Leppold attended a lecture on the aftermath of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear accident, caused by the massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, she expected to learn about high cancer and birth defect rates because of exposure to high radiation levels. She wrote that what she learned shocked her: I knew there had been a nuclear accident in Fukushima. I assumed this had led to dangerous radiation levels and increases in cancers. I had never … [Read more...]
Why You Should Mourn Implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement
The climate agreement reached in Paris last December will become effective on Earth Day, (Friday, April 22) with a ceremony at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. We’ll all hear of heroic world leaders who joined together in Paris to ensure the planet’s survival. The Obama administration will try to enforce the agreement (which meets all the legal criteria of a treaty though the President chooses not to call it that to evade Senate disapproval) by imposing the Environmental … [Read more...]
Did You Want Electricity with Your Fried Eagle?
Let's see now. The controversial Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, financed with $1.5 billion in federal loans, using sunlight reflected from 170,000 mirrors to heat boilers atop 450-foot-high towers, received on average $200 per megawatt-hour during summer months and $135 for the rest of the year but is likely to go bust. Meanwhile, PG&E pays $57 per megawatt-hour for power generated by more conventional solar plants, and $35 per megawatt-hour for power generated by natural gas … [Read more...]
What Good Are Fossil Fuels Other than for Energy?
In the midst of a worldwide “holy crusade” to demonize fossil fuels, blaming them for alleged (but not real) catastrophic global warming, it is increasingly essential that more and more ordinary citizens like you and me understand what’s at stake. The war on fossil fuels threatens not just minor adjustments at the margins of our luxury but enormous reductions in human welfare in developed countries—and the permanent captivity of one-third of humanity in desperate poverty. That’s why we’re … [Read more...]
Stop calling me a ‘denier’: Debating science is honorable, not evil
We’ve all read the articles, and heard the voice of doom about “mother earth.” The earth is going to get really hot, it’s all humans fault, and we must make drastic changes to fix our mistakes. Those who disagree with this viewpoint are termed “Climate Deniers,” an insult intended to bring about the specter of Holocaust denial. The fact that this particular insult makes no sense, since it’s impossible to “deny” climate doesn’t seem to matter. What do climate alarmists and climate skeptics … [Read more...]
Energy for the Future
News came Wednesday that German researchers---joined by German President Angela Merkel (herself a scientist)---have turned on an experiment at the Max Planck Institute along the path to nuclear fusion energy. Fusion research has been ongoing for decades, and the scientists at Planck make it clear that this experiment won't itself generate energy. They anticipate it will take decades before fusion research reaches that stage---if it ever does. But this development repeats a lesson we should … [Read more...]
What’s the Real Motive Behind German Green Party’s Plan to Ban Petrol-driven Vehicles?
Der Spiegel reports (partial English translation here, courtesy of the Global Warming Policy Foundation) that the German Green Party has announced that it intends to get petrol-driven (gasoline and diesel) vehicles off German roads, aiming to have no more such vehicles registered from 2036 onward. "'We Greens want to get away from oil on the road over the next 20 years. We want to give cities, cyclists and pedestrians enough room that is free of toxic emissions,' it says in the draft of their … [Read more...]
Getting a Grasp on Grid Reliability Issues with Wind and Solar
Critics of calls for rapid replacement of coal and natural gas with wind and solar to power the grid often argue that the intermittency of wind and solar destabilize the electrical power grid, making brownouts and blackouts, which are costly and often life threatening, more likely. The basic point is that simple to make, but its explanation and support are more difficult. A new post at Judith Curry's Climate Etc. blog, by a guest author identified simply as "Planning Engineer," develops the … [Read more...]
Whose Policies Kill More People: ISIS…or Greenpeace?
Approximately 200,000 people have died due to global terrorism in the last 10 years. During the same time, many millions of people (mostly women and children) have died due to policies promoted by Greenpeace and other “green” organizations (e.g. anti-DDT, anti-golden rice, anti-fossil fuel). I’ve said it before…I don’t really care where our energy comes from…as long as it is abundant and affordable. Until someone comes up with an alternative energy source with those two characteristics, … [Read more...]
