DC Democrats Flunk Simple Math
I’m thankful that Rich Karlgaard wrote this op-ed in this morning’s Forbes. This simplifies what the Democrats are attempting to do. It’s obvious that Pelosi’s Democrats can’t pass basic math:
In the U.S., electricity is produced from these sources. If you are reading this on a handheld and can’t read Wikipedia’s wonderful pie chart, here is the breakdown:
48.9% — Coal
20% — Natural Gas
19.3% — Nuclear
1.6% — PetroleumGot that? A tick over 88% of U.S. electricity comes from three sources: coal, gas and nuclear. Petroleum brings the contribution of so-called “evil” energy–that is, energy that is carbon- or uranium-based–to almost 90%.
Despite the fact that the overwhelming amount of electricity is created through fossil fuels or through nuclear power, Pelosi’s Democrats want to destroy the United States’ ability to generate electricity. Let’s remember that President Obama said that he was perfectly comfortable with bankrupting coal-powered power plants:
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
How can a thinking person attempt to bankrupt coal-powered power plants? What priorities is such a man setting? What type of people vote for these radical policies? HINT: Blue Dog Democrats like Collin Peterson vote for such things.
QUESTION: Rep. Peterson, was it worth those thirty pieces of silver, aka concessions, to betray your constituents?
The Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House on Friday by a 219-212 margin will punitively tax energy sources that contribute 90% of current U.S. electricity (or 71% if you want to leave out nuclear). The taxes will be used to subsidize the 10% renewable contributors (but really just 3% after you leave out hydro).
In other words, Waxman-Markey is betting the future of U.S. electricity production on sources that now contribute 3% or supply 10 million Americans with electricity. That’s enough juice for the people in Waxman’s Los Angeles County. Or, if you prefer, for Nancy Pelosi’s metro San Francisco plus Markey’s metro Boston.
Well, what about electricity for the other 295 million? You can’t get there from here with Waxman-Markey. At very best, solar, wind and cellulosic ethanol will make 20% contributions by 2025. The smart money would bet on 10%.
What bunch of geniuses would pass a bill that would put the vast majority of power plants on life support? Here’s a better question to ask: Why would anyone think that we’d be able to build the infrastructure needed to dramatically increase production from alternative energy sources?
Meanwhile, traditional sources of electricity that are progressing in the direction of cleaner and more efficient are being ignored (or dissed by Waxman-Markey). Here are two must reads–the first on clean coal by Gregg Easterbrook, the second on fission energy by Robert Metcalfe. Study them if you take electricity production seriously.
Bottom line: There is no way the U.S. economy can enjoy future prosperity without the big three electrical energy sources of clean coal, natural gas and nuclear.
It’s time we took this simple math seriously. Its time that we didn’t put our stock in Pelosi’s pie-in-the-sky projections.
Finally, it’s time that we changed directions away from Pelosi’s special interest-driven energy policies and towards a serious energy policy.
Technorati Tags: Energy, National Energy Tax, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey, Collin Peterson, Speaker Pelosi, Democrats, Coal, Nuclear Power, Natural Gas, Fossil Fuels
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 30th, 2009 at 10:51 am
In 1983, one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in
human history was achieved. This breakthrough was revelaed by Carl
Sagan in a live, heated debate with William F. Buckley, which was
broadcast after the premiere showing of the television movie The Day
After. It was here that Sagan introduced the concept of a nuclear
winter. Sagan also discussed nuclear winter in an article published by
Parade magazine. “”Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple
Nuclear Explosions”, also known as the TTAPS study, was published in
Science.
According to the TTAPS study, much of the dust raised by nuclear
explosions would end up suspended above the troposphere, which is the
lower part of the atmosphere. This would reflect some sunlight back
into space, and thus lower global temperatures. The study concluded
that a five thousand megaton nuclear exchange can cause a temperature
drop of about eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit.
This was truly a historic paper, along the lines of Einstein’s “On
the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” and Darwin’s “Origin of the
Species”. Clearly, dust in the upper atmosphere would plunge
temperatures, and humanity had the capacity to reduce temperatures by
eighty-four degrees with existing technology. This was reiterated in
the book The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War , written
by Paul R. Ehrlich, Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy, and Walter Orr
Roberts.
It was about ten years after that when another threat was
discussed. This time, it dealt with warming temperatures cuased by
increased carbon dioxide emissions. Rising temperatures would cause
droughts in California, floods in Bangladesh, cause polar bears to be
extinct, cause tropical diseases to spread, all sorts of calamities.
Vice President Al Gore presented this in his movie An Inconvenient
Truth, for which he won a Nobel prize. And all of this is supposed to
result from an increase of two degrees.
It is clear, therefore, that if humanity can reduce global
temperatures by eighty-four degrees, they can reduce global
temperatures by a mere two degrees.
The threat of global warming resulted in the House of
Representatives passing a bill dealing with this. Surely, we can
expect dust to be injected in the upper atmosphere to reduce sunlight,
perhaps even seeing mushroom clouds rise up once again at the Nellis
test site.
Except that the bill does not propose the obvious solution.
Instead, it enacts a cap and trade system, which would impose higher
taxes, thus raising energy costs in an attempt to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions.
One must wonder why this is being proposed as the solution, instead
of blanketing the upper atmosphere with dust. In fact, it seems the
TTAPS study was erased from the government’s consciousness. There is,
in fact, no proof that reducing carbon dioxide emissions would reduce
global temperatures. Clearly, the most obvious solution to this threat
to human civilization is being deliberately ignored in favor of some
complex regulatory scheme which would destroy the economy.
It is here that we get into the crux of the matter. The
environmentalist lobby is not about saving the environment, but
destroying Western industrial civilization. The Kyoto treaty, which
was about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, was only aimed at Western
industrial nations. This war on global warming is really a war on
Western industrial civilization.