"Iceberg, Dead Ahead!" Trudeau's Multi-Billion Dollar Pipeline Blunder.

The J. Trudeau Memorial Pipeline could be transformed into a multi-million dollar blunder, swept away by a bursting carbon bubble.

We've been warned about the carbon bubble for years, well before prime minister Slick was first elected to Parliament. We've been warned by successive governors of the Bank of England and that country's Chancellor of the Exchequer. We've been warned by no end of other experts. They've all yelled the same thing, "Iceberg, dead ahead." And the band has just played on and on.

A new study published in the prestigious science journal, Nature Climate Change, predicts a sudden collapse in fossil fuel markets sometime before 2035.

The existence of a “carbon bubble” – assets in fossil fuels that are currently overvalued because, in the medium and long-term, the world will have to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions – has long been proposed by academics, activists and investors. The new study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that a sharp slump in the value of fossil fuels would cause this bubble to burst, and posits that such a slump is likely before 2035 based on current patterns of energy use.

Crucially, the findings suggest that a rapid decline in fossil fuel demand is no longer dependent on stronger policies and actions from governments around the world. Instead, the authors’ detailed simulations found the demand drop would take place even if major nations undertake no new climate policies, or reverse some previous commitments. 

That is because advances in technologies for energy efficiency and renewable power, and the accompanying drop in their price, have made low-carbon energy much more economically and technically attractive. 

Dr Jean-François Mercure, the lead author, from Radboud and Cambridge universities, told the Guardian: “This is happening already – we have observed the data and made projections from there. With more policies from governments, this would happen faster. But without strong [climate] policies, it is already happening. To some degree at least you can’t stop it. But if people stop putting funds now in fossil fuels, they may at least limit their losses.”

...Prof Jorge Viñuales, co-author, said: “Contrary to investor expectations, the stranding of fossil fuel assets may happen even without new climate policies. Individual nations cannot avoid the situation by ignoring the Paris agreement or burying their heads in coal and tar sands.”

However, Mercure also warned that the transition was happening too slowly to stave off the worst effects of climate change. Although the trajectory towards a low-carbon economy would continue, to keep within 2C above pre-industrial levels – the limit set under the Paris agreement – would require much stronger government action and new policies. 

That could also help investors by pointing the way to deflation of the carbon bubble before they make new investments in fossil fuel assets.

So, let's unpack that. Before 2035 the bottom is going to fall out of the fossil fuel markets.  Even if Trudeau does get his pipeline up and running as soon as possible that leaves a window of under 15 years to recoup our government's, your, investment that could easily come in at 15 to 20 billion dollars.

Who does Trudeau think is going to buy this pipeline "investment" at this point?  Let's be blunt. How much will he have to pay them to take it? They weren't lining up to buy it directly from Kinder Morgan, the Texas outfit that got 4.5 billion out of Morneau for the half-billion dollar, 65 year old Trans Mountain pipeline. It seems if Trudeau or the government we'll elect next year to replace him does manage to sell it, Canada will take one hell of a haircut on the price.

The bubble is beginning to burst now and it's unstoppable.

"Individual nations cannot avoid the situation by ...burying their heads in ...tar sands." Oopsie, that certainly sounds like some nation I know, eh Justin.

Only this "death rattle" market transition is still happening "too slowly to stave off the worst effects of climate change." In other words, Trudeau and Notley have us heading straight for the iceberg, full speed ahead. We'll get screwed both on the pipeline and on climate change.

Nat Gas Killed Coal. Now It's Time to Kill Off Nat Gas.

Natural gas remains widely seen as a helpful "bridge fuel" during the transition from high carbon fossil fuels to alternative, clean energy. That myth is based on end use comparisons. Natural gas power plants emit much less greenhouse gas than coal-fired power plants, ergo nat gas is cleaner.

Here's the thing. That's a lie, one repeated endlessly by the natural gas frackers/producers.

When you load a train car with coal, the coal pretty much stays there until it reaches its destination. Natural gas, by contrast, is always trying to escape and it's awfully good at getting away on us. And, once it gets away, it flees to the atmosphere to take up its new job as atmospheric methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas.  From The Guardian.


As Joe Romm has detailed for Climate Progress, research indicates that shifting to natural gas squanders most of those gains. For example, a 2014 study published in Environmental Research Letters found that when natural gas production is abundant, it crowds out both coal and renewables, resulting in little if any climate benefit. Part of the problem is significant methane leakage from natural gas drilling.

...abundant gas consistently results in both less coal and renewable energy use […] the quantity of methane leaked may ultimately determine whether the overall effect is to slightly reduce or actually increase cumulative emissions […] only climate policies bring about a significant reduction in future emissions from US electricity generation … We conclude that increased natural gas use for electricity will not substantially reduce US GHG emissions, and by delaying deployment of renewable energy technologies, may actually exacerbate the climate change problem in the long term.

Similarly, another 2014 study found that based on the latest estimates of methane leakage rates from natural gas drilling, replacing coal with natural gas provides little in the way of climate benefits. Though it’s been touted as a ‘bridge fuel’ to span the gap between coal and renewables, this research suggests natural gas isn’t significantly better than coal in terms of global warming effects, and thus may not be suitable for that purpose. The ‘bridge’ doesn’t appear to achieve its goal of steadily cutting our greenhouse gas emissions.

We extract a lot of natural gas and a lot of it is lost getting it out of the ground and getting it to markets. And then there's domestic natural gas, the stuff you may use for home heating, fake fireplaces, stoves and ovens, etc. That gas has to get to your home through a network of buried pipes. That's a real problem in older municipalities, such as Boston. The gas lines are old and they leak - a lot.

This image shows natural gas leaking in certain sampled parts of Boston. Vehicle-mounted sensors were taken down Boston streets recording gas leaks coming out of the roads, from sidewalks and from buildings. Those are leaks that are continuous, round the clock. Now you could rip up all the roads and all the sidewalks and all the basements and lawns and, that way, you could replace all those leaking gas lines, but, hey, you might have to raise taxes and the 1% need that money, don't they?

Those leaks are a typical fossil fuel externality. They're written off against revenues, in effect the producers get a hefty deduction for their losses. No one is assessed for the damage those leaks cause the environment, the atmosphere, living creatures on the planet. Meanwhile the industry drums in our heads that their gas is cleaner than coal. 

Fortunately, as set out in the Guardian article, breakthroughs in solar power and battery storage technology and costs, are now low enough to undermine natural gas, even at its subsidized prices. Keep your fingers crossed for the natural gas lobby has many friends in high office.

Is Tesla a Death Sentence for Conventional Power Utilities?

Elon Musk wagered he could build s 129 megawatt battery in Queensland within 100 days or it was free. Tesla built and installed the battery with plenty of time to spare and, with it, just might have served a death warrant on fossil energy electricity.

Alternative clean energy, solar and wind, is already cheaper than coal, oil or gas generated power. The hangup has always been the need for some affordable means to store that power when the sun isn't shining or the wind stops blowing. That's where Tesla and others have come in.

The CBC's Don Pittis has an article today on how solar power is driving down the cost of electricity to levels once unimaginable.

The new price, described by the news site Electrek as the cheapest electricity on the planet, was less than 2 cents per kilowatt hour, "part of a pattern marching to 1 cent per kWh bids that are coming in 2019 (or sooner)," the site declared.

The record was not set in a place where energy is traditionally cheap. Nor is it from a traditional electricity source.

The new low price of 1.7 cents per kilowatt was part of a contract between the Italian multinational ENEL Green Power and the Mexican government agency that administers the country's electricity wholesale market.

Fossil energy bad boy Alberta may be the first to step up in Canada.

Alberta is on the leading edge of an energy experiment that is turning global — and Canadian — markets upside down.

Within weeks, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), which manages and operates the province's power grid, is expected to announce the results of a bidding process to create "5,000 MW of renewable electricity generation capacity connected to the Alberta grid between now and 2030."

The power will come from wind, not solar, and the prices will be more than double the record prices set in Mexico. But for the first time in Canada, the Alberta agency will use the same market auction system for creating green power that has helped push electricity prices down in Mexico and other places around the world.

Some experts say the prices set in the Alberta bidding process could be as low as 5 cents per kilowatt hour. That's in the same range as the gold standard combined cycle natural gas power plan and just the beginning of a process that will use market forces to stimulate new efficiencies in Canada's electricity market as technology improves.

In 2014 the world's largest private bank, UBS, warned its moneyed investors to steer clear of conventional power utilities.

In a briefing paper sent to clients and investors this week, the Zurich-based UBS bank argues that large-scale centralized power stations will soon become extinct because they are too big and inflexible and are "not relevant" for future electricity generation. Instead the authors expect it to be cheaper and more efficient for households and businesses to generate their own energy to power their cars and to store any surplus energy in their own buildings even without subsidies.

"Solar is at the edge of being a competitive power generation technology. The biggest drawback has been its intermittency. This is where batteries and electric vehicles (EVs) come into play. Battery costs have declined rapidly, and we expect a further decline of more than 50% by 2020. By then a mass [produced] electric vehicle will have almost the same price as a combustion engine car. But it will save up to 2,000 euros a year on fuel cost, hence, it will begin to pay off almost immediately without any meaningful upfront "investment." This is why we expect a rapidly growing penetration with EVs, in particular in countries with high fossil fuel prices.

These rapidly emerging technologies will show the true colours of our political leadership in the Canadian petro-state.  Trudeau has shown he can always be counted upon to say the right thing and then do something else or simply nothing. Cognitive dissonance is no problem for the diminutive son of Pierre. That apple may not have fallen far from the tree but it rolled all the way down the hill.

Kid Pipeline has broken every promise to commit the federal government in support of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline. What is the justification for that pipeline set to carry the world's highest carbon and toxic ersatz oil in a world on the brink of transitioning to much cheaper, far cleaner alternative clean energy? If bitumen goes bust, becomes a "stranded asset" then the fallout will land squarely on Trudeau. He broke his promises. He made his choice. 

Faint Hope

These days good news on climate change is hard to find.  Yet recent progress by major emitters, specifically China, give hope that the world might just meet the Paris Climate Summit goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.

Over the past half-century, growth in the global economy and carbon pollution have been tied together. When the global economy has been strong, we’ve consumed more energy, which has translated into burning more fossil fuels and releasing more carbon pollution. But over the past four years, economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions have been decoupled. The global economy has continued to grow, while data from the EU Joint Research Centre shows carbon pollution has held fairly steady.

China’s shift away from coal to clean energy has been largely responsible for this decoupling. Due to its large population (1.4 billion) – more than four times that of the USA (323 million) and nearly triple the EU (510 million) – and rapid growth in its economy and coal power supply, China has become the world’s largest net carbon polluter (though still less than half America’s per-person carbon emissions, and on par with those of Europeans). But as with the global total, China’s carbon pollution has flattened out since 2013.

The good news of a slowing in the growth of man-made carbon dioxide emissions is tempered by the warning that we still face the Herculean chore of rapidly abandoning fossil fuels after 2020. We have a chance, if we're prepared to decarbonize our economies and our societies within the very near future. And the way that can be done isn't easy. It requires what Potsdam Institute's Hans Joachim Schellnhuber told delegates at Paris in 2015 is essential, the "induced implosion" of the fossil fuel industry.  That means governments intervening to force the closure and abandonment of the oil and gas wells and the fossil fuels mines.

We pride ourselves on being a really progressive country that wants only the best for the world. Can you think of a Canadian leader, not only Justin Trudeau but his predecessors and his rivals today, who would padlock Athabasca or force the closure of the gas and oil wells of western Canada?

Let's not kid ourselves. In order to decarbonize we're probably going to have to endure an economic collapse. That's because the fossil energy giants have us by the - cojones. They have an estimated $27 Trillion dollars of proven fossil fuel reserves subscribed on every stock exchange and bourse around the world. 27,000,000,000 dollars from banks, institutional investors, pension funds and ma and pa punters are floating around in today's Carbon Bubble. That's an enormous amount of wealth to simply wipe off the books of the global economy. Bursting that bubble is going to leave lasting scars.

Freedom from fossil energy will take a concerted global effort. We've been lucky so far. Renewable energy costs have been falling to the point where they're sometimes cheaper than fossil fuels. What will fossil fuels cost when that Carbon Bubble bursts?  Cheap, cheap, cheap. Especially if we revert to pre-globalization, slave labour rates in the Third World.

My point is that getting off carbon energy is going to cause enormous economic upheaval of the sort that can readily destabilize vulnerable nations, even entire regions. How do you maintain that concerted global effort to decarbonize in the midst of that sort of dystopian-lite upheaval? Are we prepared for a global sharing economy in which wealth is voluntarily transferred from the haves to the have nots for the sake of global stability? The developed world's record of dealing with growing inequality within their own economies doesn't offer much cause for optimism.

And then there's the real stumbling block, the synergy of climate change, overpopulation and over-consumption of very finite resources. Jared Diamond illustrates in his book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," drives home the point that, when you have these interwoven, synergistic, existential threats you either resolve them all or you'll solve none of them.

Am I suggesting we simply throw in the towel, give up, wait to die off? Of course not. We have to resolve our entirely man-made predicaments.  The overpopulated have to slash their populations. The over-consumptive have to slash their consumption. Everyone, but particularly the big emitters, have to slash their emissions and move off carbon energy. We have to build a new, post-carbon economy first nationally, then regionally and finally globally.

We must give up our illusions that carbon taxes and solar panels will solve our problems. That horse left the barn sometime in the early 1970s.

We have to revert to the past when we lived within the bounds of our environment. We're simply too big for our planet, our biosphere, Spaceship Earth. It's time we had a serious discussion about sustainable retreat.

Clean Is Cheap, Cheaper Than Dirty.

Of all the Big Lies embedded in our collective consciousness by the fossil fuelers and their minions in government is the scary tale that going green, decarbonizing our economies and our societies, would be devastatingly expensive.  They keep drumming into our heads that shifting off fossil fuels would destroy our economies and plunge us into poverty and darkness.

That's bullshit.

A report to be released today contends that going green would essentially cost almost nothing.

A global commission will announce its finding on Tuesday that an ambitious series of measures to limit emissions would cost $4 trillion or so over the next 15 years, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the amount that would likely be spent anyway on new power plants, transit systems and other infrastructure.

When the secondary benefits of greener policies — like lower fuel costs, fewer premature deaths from air pollution and reduced medical bills — are taken into account, the changes might wind up saving money, according to the findings of the group, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

The commission found that some $90 trillion is likely to be spent over the coming 15 years on new infrastructure around the world. The big challenge for governments is to adopt rules and send stronger market signals that redirect much of that investment toward low-emission options, the report found.

“This is a massive amount of investment firepower that could be geared toward building better cities, and better infrastructure for energy and agriculture,” said Jeremy Oppenheim, who led the research for the report.

While the commission found that the requisite steps may make economic sense, that does not mean they will be politically easy, the report says. For instance, the group will recommend that countries eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels, which cost about $600 billion a year but are vigorously defended by vested interests.

This isn't about making our lives better or whether we can maintain maximum affluence and ease.  It's about what sort of life we're going to bequeath to our children and theirs.  There are already a lot of climate change impacts in the pipe that we can't do much about.  That's not to say that we, today and in the coming years, can't make those impacts far worse than they need be.  If we don't have the courage to change our behaviour, the bill for our cowardice will be foisted off on those to come.

How Much of Canada Could BC Power?

British authorities are meeting with their Icelandic counterparts to consider powering the UK with geothermal electricity.  It's a terrific, low-carbon solution.   Take the heat the earth naturally brings to the surface in places like Iceland, use it to produce steam, use that steam to power turbines and run generators that produce electricity that is transmitted via high-voltage cables.

Geothermal is probably the least understood alternative energy source and possibly the best.   The top geothermal producers at the moment are the US, the Philippines and Indonesia.   Iceland lags behind mainly because it's only been serving its own small population.

The idea of Iceland powering the UK ought to make us wake up to the geothermal potential we have beneath our feet in Canada.  The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association says we have only charted 40% of our landmass but the geothermal sources already identified represent the energy equivalent of - wait for it - one million times Canada's current electricity consumption.   For many reasons only a small fraction of that could be viably usable but even a small fraction multiplied by one million is an awful lot of  carbon free, clean power.

Another selling point is economies of scale.   The first geothermal energy you tap is always the most expensive.   The more you take, it just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.   And, unlike dinosaur juice, the earth offers us an inexhaustible supply of geothermal energy.

Early attempts at geothermal haven't always been successful.  The cheap and dirty route has involved pumping surface water deep underground and then simply grabbing the steam that produces.  The problem has been it can trigger seismic events, earthquakes.  But it's not necessary to go that deep which means a closed circuit system that contains the water/steam cycle instead of allowing steam energy to destabilize rock formations should be achievable.  And, in places like British Columbia, there are vents where the heat is brought to or very near the surface.

I have often lamented the chronic, inexcusable lack of vision shown by Harper and Ignatieff in the global meltdown of 2008 when they pushed through their supposed "stimulus/recovery" budget that was tantamount to throwing billions of tax dollars aimlessly into the air.   That money could have been invested in job-creating and economy-boosting infrastructure mega-projects like the creation of a trans-Canada, national super grid, something the Euros are creating today.

Oh, but I forgot.   Canada is a petro-state, governed by a Parliament of petro-pols.   We focus on direct and indirect subsidies of our fossil fuel industries in return for super-low royalties and an accumulating environmental hangover.

British Columbia has an abundance of geothermal vents if only we had governments, federal and provincial, willing to create a truly national grid and support a large-scale transition to alternative energy.

If you think this is all pie in the sky, too good to be true, you should read the evaluation prepared by the Icelandic Bank on Canada's geothermal resources.   It begins by noting that there are already plenty of Canadian companies in the geothermal industry - operating successfully but almost entirely in countries other than the Petro-Dominion of Canada itself.   And remember, these are the guys from Iceland and, when it comes to geothermal energy, they are the Pros from Dover.

But Canadian geothermal will probably remain an enormous, untapped clean energy alternative until our governments, federal and provincial, are willing to stand behind it financially.  It needs a big shove, up front, to get it going and a grid to share the power across the country.

Geothermal, like all alternative energy sources, is not the solution of itself but it has the potential to be an important part of the solution.  Alternative, clean energy has to be seen not simply as another way to meet Canada's growing energy demands but as a way to replace fossil fuel energy.

Giving "Fill'er Up" An Entirely Different Meaning

Imagine driving to work on a tank of pee.  It's not as far fetched as it may sound.  A professor in Ohio, Gerardine Botte, is said to have invented a technology that transforms urine into hydrogen.

Botte recognized that urine contains two compounds that could be a source of hydrogen: ammonia and urea. Place an electrode in wastewater, apply a gentle current, and voila: hydrogen gas that can be used to power a fuel cell.

Her system operates similarly to the electrolysis of water, a process that can be used to produce hydrogen for fuel cells - except that ammonia and urea hold their hydrogen atoms less tightly than water does, so less energy is required to split them off. Botte isn't the only scientist with her mind in the sewer. A group of scientists in the UK, for example, is working on a fuel cell powered directly by urine.

Botte's technology has the greatest potential for power generation in settings where large numbers of people gather - airports and sports stadiums, for example. An office building with 200 to 300 workers could generate 2 kilowatts of power, Botte has calculated. Granted, that's not enough to power the building, but every drop in the bucket helps.


This technology is thought to be perfect for feedlots where a thousand head of cattle could generate up to 50 kilowatts of power.

Give Nukes a Chance

Many ordinary environmentalists have been conditioned to recoil at the mere mention of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels.  Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the bombs - pretty powerful stuff indeed.

Unfortunately our minds were locked up long ago.   The Chernobyl disaster in 1989 was the icing on the cake.

Fortunately the public's wariness of nuclear power failed to prevent the development of third and fourth generation nuclear technology, the "fast reactors."  Let's put it this way, they're not your father's nuclear reactors.  In fact they may be your best hope of arresting global warming before we reach tipping points.

The common complaints I hear about nuclear energy are that it's dangerous, can be used in the process of creating weapons grade material and leaves all those spent fuel rods that have to be stored for countless thousands of years.   Those were all good points, emphasis on "were."

Australian professor Barry Brook has a blog, Brave New Climate at www.bravenewclimate.com.   If you're not current with developments in nuclear technology it's a good place to catch up.

Brook explains why the latest generation of reactors are so much better than their predecessors.   The main reason is that previous nuclear plants were based on technologies developed for military purposes.

All of those fuel cycles were derived from technologies developed to meet special military needs: naval propulsion, uranium enrichment, weapons-plutonium production, and plutonium separation. Waste disposal has been approached as “someone else’s problem.” The IFR concept is directed strictly to meeting the needs of civilian power generation. It is an integrated, weapons-incompatible, proliferation-resistant cycle that is “closed”—it encompasses the entire fuel cycle, including fuel production and fabrication, power generation, reprocessing and waste management.
“Fuel cycle” refers to all the steps involving nuclear fuel that are needed to generate electricity: mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor operation, reprocessing and waste management. Depending on the fuel cycle, some of those steps might not be needed. The three major fuel cycles of current interest are: thermal without reprocessing (“once-through,” or “throw-away”), thermal with reprocessing and IFR. The IFR will eliminate the need for mining (for centuries), and milling and enrichment (forever).

Whereas early generation reactors generate plutonium and those never really spent fuel rods that have to be safely and expensively stored forever and ever, amen, IFRs actually eat that stuff.   The can consume it as fuel.   They can also turn weapons grade material into fuel.  It's sort of like turning nuclear swords into electrical ploughshares.

I have only a layman's knowledge of nuclear energy and, until recently, harboured the same biases against it that are common today.  It was only when James Lovelock came out as a strong advocate of nuclear power that I started to take a second look.  I was frankly surprised at how civilian-oriented, nuclear technology has evolved.

It may just be time we gave nuclear power, the fast reactor kind, a chance.

What's So Wrong With Ontario?

I've decided to poke a sharp stick in the eye of what I call Wind Power Witch Hunters, especially the gang from Ontario who are waging a relentless assault on wind turbine electricity with every joule in their bodies.

Some of their arguments almost seem to make sense.   That's mainly true when those arguments are taken at face value in isolation of troublesome things like facts.   It's when you pick your head up and look around at what others are doing that the Wind Power Witch Hunters' arguments begin to wobble and collapse under their own weight.

Now I've always felt badly for Ontarians because they don't live in Beautiful "Supernatural" British Columbia.   But I've never thought the worse of them for it.   Somebody has to live there and parts of the place do have some charms.   And I do believe that Ontarians have shown that, when it comes to technology, they're as good as any.

But, if you listen to the Wind Power Witch Hunters, wind turbine energy in Ontario doesn't work.  It's a disaster.  It's inefficient.  It's expensive.  It only works when it's not needed.  It causes spasms and fits to anyone within eyeball distance of it.   Shit, oh dear.

So I figured if wind turbine energy doesn't work for Ontario, high-tech Ontario, it must be just as disastrous for other jurisdictions that use it, right?   When I started looking I found out that was - wrong.   The Asians are showing it's wrong.   The Europeans are showing it's wrong.

Let's take France for example.   The French have an ambitious programme to wean themselves off fossil-fuel generated electricity.   That entails relying on wind, solar and nuclear power.  The were at 7% renewable energy in 2004 and they expect to reach 20% by 2020.   Their target is to have 20% renewables, 25% nuclear and 55% coal power by 2020 with steady reductions in coal afterward. 
The French are also big on another renewable, biomass.   After Finland and Sweden, France is the biggest user of fuel wood.   Some 40% of their residential heating is wood fueled.

To help the transition to renewable energy from coal-fired generators the European Union is shutting down coal production.   Well it's not actually shutting down coal mines.    What it is doing is banning subsidies for coal production.   Without substantial state subsidies, coal makes a lot less sense.

Subsidies.  The Wind Power Witch Hunters like to point accusing fingers at wind turbine energy subsidies.   It's funny how they totally ignore subsidies for coal and oil just as they like to keep associated costs such as climate change and health consequences off the fossil fuel books.

The New York Times has an interesting piece today on coal subsidies in Europe and how America's fossil fuel industry is furiously fighting Obama's plans to end generous tax credits and subsidies in the U.S.

“If we want to lower our carbon emissions, why on earth — of all industries — does the coal industry get this preferential treatment?” asked Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action. Coal is often referred to as a “cheap” fuel, but that designation is not always accurate, energy analysts say. In some places where coal is used, cheaper resources are now available, and the label does not take into account the pollution caused by burning coal.



The European Union’s emissions trading system effectively forces power companies to pay for some of coal’s excessive emissions. But even in the United States, where no such penalty exists, generating electricity from wind turbines, which draw on local resources, may be cheaper than importing coal in some places.

I guess it shouldn't be surprising.   The fossil fuel industry - Big Oil, Big Gas, Big Coal - have waged a massive and dirty campaign to undermine global warming science.   Is it realistic to expect them to sit by and not use the same dirty tricks on alternative energy development?   I'd love to find out if they're involved in this virulent anti-wind power campaign in Ontario.   I just find it hard to believe that Ontario is the only place that wind power isn't viable.

Calling "Bullshit" on the Wind Power Witch Hunters

There's a supposedly "progressive" blog called Wind Concerns Ontario that has caught my attention in recent months.   It exists for one purpose and one only, to decry the Ontario government's development of wind turbine power.

I've found WCO kind of weird.  If you believe what is posted there, Ontario's wind power programme is the greatest hoax ever.  Wind turbine energy is, we are told, horrible - inefficient, unworkable, costly, utterly destructive of the environment.  It attracts a flock of the faithful who, typically, turn out to be rural folks who don't want windmills in their backyards.

Garry Wise of Wise Law Blog initiated a discussion on wind turbine power that generated the expected outpouring of horror stories.   One commenter lamented that a wind turbine had supposedly caused a young child to get a bloody nose.   Another said it did nothing to reduce carbon emissions because it was so unreliable all the coal-fired electricity plants had to be kept running full bore anyway.   On and on and on.

If you read my post yesterday on "epistemic closure" this is a perfect example.  WCO presents every possible bit of information it can glean on wind turbine power so long as it's negative.

Now let me begin by saying that I don't have a dog in this fight.  I have nothing whatsoever to do with wind energy nor am I threatened by the prospect of some mega-turbine landing in my backyard.  I also have nothing to do with the fossil fuel industry that's potentially threatened by alternative energy options.

But I do have experience.  About four or five years ago I had to travel to Ontario for a reunion in Muskoka.   While there I stopped off for a few days to visit a relative in Leamington.  On Day 2, I went to the emergency ward thinking that I'd developed pneumonia.   I didn't want to go to the reunion if I was seriously ill.   I was treated and given a couple of tests.   Eventually the physician came in to announce I didn't have pneumonia but I had developed a bad case of asthma.

I asked the doctor how a non-smoker, 56 years old could suddenly, out of the blue, develop asthma.  He said "welcome to Ontario."   Apparently the air quality was so foul that I contracted asthma and had to be put on a steroid puffer and pills.

I can recall driving to Toronto and gazing at distant stands of trees that should have been green but were, instead, grey.   I saw the CN Tower, or at least the silhouette of it, through the smog.   It took me about six months after I got back to the island before the asthma disappeared.

When I got home I mentioned the asthma thing to my neighbour.   She told me her nephew, an incredibly fit Coast Guard lieutenant and daily runner, had exactly the same experience when he was sent on a 2-week training course to Toronto.   He had to be hospitalized with asthma, he was put on steroids, he too took about six months after getting back to recover fully.
 
Now, when I engaged with all these wind power opponents at Wise Law Blog, it quickly became apparent they wanted to stick with fossil fuel-generated electricity.   One advocated "clean" natural gas which is somewhat better than coal but only so long as you don't have to think about shale fracked gas and the groundwater nightmare that causes.   Not one of these critics had a viable alternative.   When pressed they just set up straw men and knocked them down.

That kid with the nosebleed that somebody told somebody about?   Kids get nosebleeds.   Without any proof that wind energy had anything to do with this kid (if he even existed) and his nosebleed they latched on to it as conclusive proof of the evils of wind turbines.  Say what?   And exactly what do they think is happening to this little bugger's lungs from successive summers of inhaling toxic air contaminated by carbon emissions?  Oh, we won't worry about that.   Epistemic closure says to ignore any facts that don't suit the narrative.

As I have explored these anti-wind power sites (there are several) I've found a feature common to the climate change denialist community.   They simply take whatever they can get and throw it all into the mix.   The climate change denialists offer up a melange of lunacy.   Some say global warming exists; others say it's a hoax.   No matter.   Some say it's natural, others say it's sunspots.   On and on and on.  As long as you speak against it, you're okay.   It matters not in the slightest that one's theory is inconsistent with or even contradictory of the others.   The more the merrier.   As I mentioned to my friend, Scruffy Dan, when you have 16-people in a room, each espousing a different reality, what you actually have is an asylum.

The wind power witch hunters indulge in the same sophistry.    They go from kids with nosebleeds, to no reduction in carbon emissions, to utterly punitive and industry destroying costs.   Curiously enough, a lot of the sources they cite lead back to the fossil fuel industry.   But what they scrupulously avoid is the slightest mention of the other side.

At the head of the "other side" I'll put German Chancellor Angela Merkel.   She's a PhD physicist and I'm guessing she won't be knocked off stride by woeful tales of some kid with a nosebleed.   I receive periodic reports from Chancellor Merkel's climate change advisory panel, the WBGU.  It turns out that Germany is a leading nation in the development of wind turbine energy.   Now the wind power witch hunters maintain that the German experience has been a total disaster.  They're lying.

They're lying at least if you believe that hotbed of leftie radicalism, Bloomberg Businessweek.  Here is part of a story BB ran back in April about Germany's wind turbine experiment:

"Since 2002, Germany has doubled its capacity to generate wind power and has 21,000 turbines producing 7.5% of the nation's electricity. That compares with only about 1% in the U.S. The use of wind has lowered wholesale electricity prices in Germany by as much as 5 billion euros some years, says a study by Poeyry, a Helsinki-based consultant. Spanish prices fell at an annualized rate of 26% in the first quarter due to surging wind and hydroelectric production.

Since October 2008, the abundance of wind power has led to periods where German customers were paid rates that sometimes reached 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, or about as much power as used by a small factory or 1,000 homes in 60 minutes.


One solution: Tying power markets together, allowing temporary surpluses in one area to flow toward electricity-poor zones. That's now done between the Netherlands, France, and Belgium; Germany plans to join them on Sept. 7.


Storing electricity may be another fix. In Scandinavia, Danish wind power pumps water into Norwegian and Swedish reservoirs; the water is later released to drive hydroelectric plants. Until there's more integration like that and better transmission grids, expect more Germans to sleep with the lights on.


The bottom line: As wind power generation grows, it can create regional surpluses of electricity. That makes power prices fall, hurting wind profits."

Yes, European wind profits have dropped but so what? That didn't stop IKEA from just making a huge investment in a wind farm. And, as for the cost of electricity dropping, do you think fossil fuel is going to be getting any cheaper?

And then there's China, the People's Republic of.  They're going massively into wind turbine power.  Why?  Because they're easily duped?  You pull a supposed hoax of this magnitude on the Chinese you wind up with a bullet in the back of your neck.
 
There's more, a lot more.   Unfortunately the Wind Power Witch Hunters are so swept up in the erotic throes of NIMBYism and so entrenched in epistemic closure that none of this is going to matter to them.   But if you're not one of those WPWH types, at least approach wind turbine power with an open mind.   Don't buy into their nonsense because there is another side to this story, one they're not going to mention.

Sensible Ethanol

In many ways ethanol is a viable, even welcome substitute for gasoline. It's not a fossil fuel, it is produced from renewable vegetation and it's much cleaner.

The biggest problem with ethanol is that, in North America, we like to make it from corn. Unfortunately ethanol production takes a big bite out of the corn supply sending prices higher and causing Mexicans to take to the streets to protest the higher price of tortillas. The corn produced also consumes a lot of fossil-fuel energy - planting, fertilizing, harvesting and transporting - fertilizer and it uses a lot of water, a dwindling commodity in parts of America where it's grown.

Do we really need to rely on corn for ethanol? Don't tell this to the farmers raking in big government subsidies to grow corn for the ethanol plants but the developing world can do it better, much better. How? By processing ethanol from sugar cane.

The Caribbean and tropical Pacific regions are full of places that grow sugar cane, one of the reasons we associate places like Jamaica with rum. Once all that cane is processed to produce sugar, however, it makes a dandy resource - a corn alternative - to produce ethanol. Best of all, it's a lot cheaper than using corn and it doesn't require the fertilizers and irrigation.

Brazil is the world's largest exporter of ethanol and it's prices are so good the US slaps a 54 cent tariff on every gallon to protect American producers. Washington is now structuring a co-operative deal with Brazil involving technology transfers to actually increase Brazilian production. Don't worry, Washington isn't being altruistic. America wants to undercut Chavez and Venezuela's oil industry.

Be that as it may, surely there is a roll to play for Canada in encouraging third world ethanol production. Giving them an alternative use for their sugar cane could go a long way to relieving the abject poverty of some of these small states.