Just a few things to talk over, if you’re so inclined:
- Obama Unveils Limits on Power-Plant Emissions — Which is a first for this country.
- Gulf Arab States Voice Support for Iran Nuclear Deal — An important diplomatic development for the Obama administration.
- GOP moves to defund Planned Parenthood — Democrats are of course livid, for as George Will wrote over the weekend (“Planned Parenthood and the barbarity of America“), “The nonnegotiable tenet in today’s Democratic Party catechism is not opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline or support for a $15 minimum wage. These are evanescent fevers. As the decades roll by, the single unshakable commitment is opposition to any restriction on the right to inflict violence on pre-born babies.”
- Pay-by-phone parking app comes to Columbia — I don’t know about y’all, but I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve already downloaded the app. You?
That’s all I have for now. But perhaps y’all have some topics you’d like to bring up.
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It costs extra to pay by phone. I use my card, which is actually cheaper….
Dang! Really? I should have read that more carefully.
I just ran into Steve Benjamin a moment ago, and told him I was really looking forward to trying the app.
Now, I don’t know…
By the way, I’m at the convention center at a forum on Race and Education, sponsored by the Greater Columbia Community Relations Council. I just took Henri Baskins aside to tell her I can’t hear the panelists — only moderator Judi Gatson’s mic seems to be working.
That’s my role these days, since Meniere’s took most of the hearing from my right ear — the old guy who hollers, “Speak up, dagnabbit!” Yesterday driving home from the beach, my wife had to remind our two youngest grandchildren to speak louder to me, because “Big Daddy can’t hear in that ear…”
Hey, the mics started working better as I was typing this!…
So we’re gonna cut CO2 emissions by about 30%? Okaaaayy. I guess we’ll just stop using our current levels of coal, then. No worries, though. I’m sure we’ll replace that lost capacity for generating electricity with unicorns on treadmills or something.
If you like your electricity, you can keep your electricity.
The target is 30% by 2030 using 2005 as a baseline. The industry has already reduced its emissions by 15% in the decade since then. The target requires another 15% in 15 years. It’s not even much of a challenge.
And we won’t “just stop using our current levels of coal”. We’ll gradually reduce coal consumption while increasing efficiency and bringing on other types of energy production like the new reactor at VC Summer.
I think it is great that we are increasing nuclear power. It’s the only viable alternative to hydrocarbons at present. Wind and solar are still not realistic options at present.
Not realistic options? Wind and solar are being used across the nation and around the world–especially Germany–to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. No one expects solar and wind to replace 100% of our energy needs, but they are certainly viable alternatives.
Norm, wind and solar are fine things to keep working on, for the small contribution they make now and the possibility that we will discover ways to make them more practical in the future.
But in the meantime, nuclear is the only practical way to replace coal.
I agree nuclear is the best option in the short term, but even uranium is a very limited resource–some estimates suggest less than 100 years worth remains at current rates of consumption.
Oil was not a viable option until we began subsidizing it. Taking a similar approach with solar and wind will speed their viability. Nobody expects solar and wind to replace coal very soon or even completely, but we must take deliberate steps in that direction.
It’s the only viable alternative to hydrocarbons at present.
– Bryan
Given the HUUGE cost involved in nuclear power plants the term “viable” seems a bit of a stretch.
The whole global warming issue tends to boil down to how severe you believe the problem is. Most conservatives tend to view the issue with disdain as though it is one gigantic scam. If that’s your take then why bother with any type of solution. After all, anything that might reduce economic growth by even the teensiest bit is tantamount to waging war against the American way of life.
On the other hand, if you believe the issue is catastrophic to the point of dooming humanity then the president’s call for reducing carbon emissions is inadequate. This point of view calls for dramatic, life altering changes that would laugh at the inconsequential concerns of much higher electric bills or slower, or even negative growth in the economic. To them the naysayers are very dangerous to the future of humanity and must be defeated.
While I tend to lean a bit liberal on this I don’t see the situation as nearly so urgent as the gloom and doomers. At least not yet. With the tiny house movement all the rage it seems as though people are moving toward a less energy-intensive way of life. We can also reduce our beef consumption, drive smaller cars and walk more. That should reduce our energy footprint substantially. Coupled with this wind and solar energy have huge potential for replacing coal. This is already happening. With 5% of our electricity supplied by wind and solar these sources are a proven, affordable way of moving to replace dwindling fossil fuel supplies. 5% may now sound like much but it’s about a 10 fold increase from the early part of the century. And that’s before the huge drop in costs have been fully realized. Given the untapped wind available offshore it is not far fetched to see half of our electricity needs met by renewables.
It is naïve to look at the aging fossil fuel industry as part of our long term energy future. It is a finite resource even without the global warming issues. The solution will involve a recognition of this undeniable fact. Without that we’re doomed to become a second rate nation. Worse, the planet could become uninhabitable. So rather than worship at the alter of “growth” let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work for a better, if smaller, future.
I agree with much of what Bud says except the doomsday parts. Mankind will adapt one way or the other. I just think we should do it on our terms instead of Mother Nature’s. She can be an uncompromising negotiator.
The switch to natural gas has reduced emissions somewhat, but so has the recession. Shifting the production of good overseas to places like China is really a displacement, not a reduction. Electricity prices will continue to increase as power generators abandon perfectly good capital investments in coal-fired plants and switch to natural gas and, in some cases nukes. As they abandon the carbon-intensive capital investments and switch to the politically favored sources, the rate-payers will see their bills increase. Why should the generators care as long as they can pass on their higher costs to consumers?
Overall, however, Obama’s push toward solar and wind is misplaced because they are sporadic power sources, unable to provide the baseload power we’ve all come to rely on at home and, of course, for what’s left of our industrial base. Moreover, none of the large or small wind or solar installations produce at their designed or intended capacity, and many of them kill flying creatures like birds and bats.
Folks are going crazy over Elon Musk’s solar battery project, but there are sound economic reasons why his Powerwall system will not be widely distributed: his batteries use scarce metals, so costs will increase at a rate greater than manufacturing efficiencies can offset.
China’s interesting. They’ve closed dozens of older, inefficient coal plants while simultaneously open newer, more efficient ones. The EPA’s rules are designed to create the same change here. More importantly, China is investing heavily in renewable energy sources, and in the production of equipment for generating alternative energy. About half of the largest solar panel manufacturers are Chinese, and at least 3 of the top 10 wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese. By contrast, the US has 2 on the list of solar panel manufacturers, and only one on the list of wind turbine manufacturers. China recognizes that the planet is going to need enormous amounts of alternative energy, and they are positioning themselves to be the major player in supplying it.
Wind, solar and tidal power are all intermittent sources, but they are predictable sources. The tides ebb and flow, the wind blows every day, and the sun always rises. Energy can be stored. The challenge isn’t the technology; it’s the will.
America viewed the Soviet launch of Sputnik as an affront and a challenge to our technology and ingenuity. We would be wise to stop focusing on the difficulties of alternative energy sources and instead focus on the opportunities presented.
Wind is accounts for 4.5% of US energy produced, and solar comes in at 0.5%. Coal is about 40%. The thing is, I’m not adverse to wind or solar at all, other than the fact that they’re not ready to actually produce energy in a serious way, so please don’t think that I am. I’m just being realistic about what is possible at present.
I honestly don’t care where our energy comes from. I just don’t see the wisdom in reducing our energy generation from our main source (coal) when the proposed alternatives are not ready to take over.
Maybe wind and solar can replace coal one day, but today is not that day.
Nothing is ever ready for change. The change necessitates the readiness.
Opportunities will emerge.
Mark, those sound like the kinds of things Chance the gardener would say. (“There will be growth in the spring…”)
But seriously, it isn’t a matter of being ready for change or not. The question is, what can replace dirty power, and do it now?
Horse Manure! SUPERFREAKONOMICS (pp. 8-12) discusses the “Great Manure Crisis of 1894.” The Times of London estimated that by 1950 every street in the city would be buried nine feet deep in horse manure.
From the book: “When the solution to a given problem doesn’t lay right before our eyes, it is easy to assume that no solution exists. But history has shown again and again that such assumptions are wrong.
This is not to say the world is perfect. Nor that all progress is always good…But humankind has a great capacity for finding technological solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and this will likely be the case for global warming. It isn’t that the problem isn’t potentially large. It’s just that human ingenuity – when given proper incentives – is bound to be larger. Even more encouraging, technological fixes are often far simpler, and therefore cheaper, than the doomsayers could have imagined.”
In the meantime, the sea levels keep rising, as I documented anecdotally the other day…
By the way, I spent considerable time that night looking up “spring tides” and “supermoons,” looking for an explanation for the tide being that high that evening.
But I couldn’t find a soothing explanation…
Amen to that!
In response to Mark’s post. Just like no one is ever ready for a baby – until he gets here!
What Norm mentioned about Sputnik is interesting because of what I read this morning in the WSJ — an opinion piece suggesting that the West, which rose to the challenge of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has lost its imagination, making it powerless to stop the rise of authoritarian regimes such as ISIL, Putin’s Russia or China.
We were just too complacent after the fall of the Soviet Union:
And as I was sayin’, whoever controls the high ground of space controls the world. The Roman Empire controlled the world because it could build roads. Later, the British Empire was dominant because they had ships. In the Air Stage, we were powerful because we had the airplane.
And now the Communists have established a foothold in outer space. Pretty soon they’ll have damned space platforms so they can drop nuclear bombs on us, like rocks from a highway overpass. Now HOW IN THE HELL did they ever get ahead of us?
I LOVE that bit of dialogue, and the way the filmmakers had LBJ say it.
But as Wolfe’s book notes, the person who actually employeded the “rocks from a highway overpass” analogy was House Speaker John McCormack…
Heh. Meteorologist Joe Bastardi points out that Obama’s expensive plan to curtain CO2 emissions will, using the Obama administration’s projections and math, reduce global temperatures by .01 degree Celsius. That’s right, we’ve in the process of abandoning billions, if not trillions of investment to fend off warming so minor that you’ll have difficulty noticing it. What are the specific studies and analyses that the administration relies on? As EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified last month before the House Science, Space and Technology committee, she won’t say, it’s a secret.
Okay, Bastardi’s argument is quite simple, it relies on three graphs that form one big hockey sticks. Bastardi writes, “The true hockey stick of the fossil fuel era: Global progress in total population, personal wealth and life expectancy.” Life was pretty solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short before the self-educated engineers of the British Isles figured out how to mine the abundant coal deposits and harness steam to kick off what we now lament as the Industrial Age.
As it happens, the Brits started abandoning coal and shifting to wind power long before we in the US did. The result has been lots of people dying in some pretty frigid winters of late, old folks staying in bed because they can’t afford to pay the rates that electric heating costs, and so forth. An unintended consequence has been the deforestation of Britain.
Britain is also importing wood pellets from the Other Carolina for use in the stoves. Forget about CO2 emissions, don’t you wonder how much traditional air pollution such a change generates? Pretty soon US exports of pellets will cease as demand at home increases, thanks to the secret science the current administration employs.
I’m sorry, Mike, but you lost me at Joe Bastardi. The guy has no credibility on the issue at all.
Would you feel better if we called him Joe Illegitimati?
Dirty coal is dirty coal.
We abandon obsolescent industries all the time. Creative destruction and all that.
We don’t need the most polluting of the coal plants. We probably don’t need any of them for more than two decades, actually. The real issue is to make sure that they aren’t continued to be used in the rest of the world…
In the meantime, coal ash is polluting our water while Duke apologetically promises to get it right.
I didn’t get the cartoon until I did some Googling. Sanford’s Chief of Staff is leaving to become an executive with the the American Philatelic Society. Good for him. Stamp collecting has always been a stress reliever for me. I suppose after 6 months working for Sanford that stamps seem attractive.
Norm, FYI — if you click on the cartoon, it links to a story about Scott English’s departure. I anticipated people not knowing about it.
And actually, Scott worked for Sanford for years when he was governor as well — not just 6 months.
Thanks for letting us know we could click on the cartoon as a link. I found not one but two interesting articles. Click on the linked word “review” in the first article, and you are taken to a great NYT review of the Speechwriter.
I think Imma buy that book. It sounds like The West Wing, but with Sanford instead of Bartlet
Hard to imagine that apparently George Bush had a more distinguished military career protecting Arkansas from invasion than Lindsey Graham did sporadically shuffling papers until his retirement. And for that heroic work in the face of jammed copiers, lukewarm coffee, and frequent papercuts, he is “entitled” to a pension of $2773 a month from age 60 for the rest of his life. He’s like the high school senior who joins all the extracurricular clubs to pad his college application but only shows up for the kickoff meeting.
http://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article29822413.html
So the Savannah Sand Gnats metamorphasized into Fireflies on their way to Columbia. The name should make Brad happy. There’s lots of other insects that seem more appropriate. Palmetto bugs and mosquitoes come to mind.
Serenity… Shiny!