Close Power Plants, Raise Prices - EPA, Krugman, And Liars In General

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Soon a lot of overtaxed working Americans are going to have less disposable income, as a result of a policy edict by the EPA, one that the legislature did not get to vote on. Please read the included article (see below link), which details the outright lies used by the EPA, and their willing thrall, Nobel Prize Winning Economist, and NY Times Columnist and Blogger Paul Krugman, to justify this insane diktat.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/12/28/death-and-toxins-how-krugman-botched-his-mercury-commenary/

--This power grab appears to be a backdoor way to achieve the Administration's energy policy without bothering with the legislature. The President (then a candidate) said in a speech to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008 "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,"

--I would like it very much if someone would take the trouble to point out the errors in the article, rather than just go on about "greedy fossil fuel companies and the evils of capitalism". We all pretty much know how to whistle that tune already.

"The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other peoples money."
Margaret Thatcher 1925 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[G7PSK]

That as much crap as is put out by the greens !
There is no such thing as environmentally friendly power. But there is such thing as global warming.
Even if all our power was coming from solar cells there would be an environmental cost, most likely it would be less than than burning coal but cost and climate change there would be.
It has already been seen with wind farms, the climate alters slightly to the leeward side, also all the energy we use ends up as heat, So if we turned the Sahara and central Australia into giant solar power stations we would cool those regions due to reflecting heat back into space and heat the regions where the electricity is used due to waste heat, It dose not matter whether the power is used in a kettle or ipad the electricity still ends up as heat.
At present we are using about 16 terra watts at any one time and that is only going to go up whatever we do.
The Earth at any one time is receiving 170,000 terra watts (TW) 50,000 TW is reflected straight back out and 120,000 is emitted from the Earth. Rising Green house gases are now stopping about 380 TW less than were escaping at the start of the twentieth century this will continue to rise to about 5000 TW which will lead to a 3 deg C. rise in temperature at which point equilibrium will be reached again with about 125,000 TW being emitted. 

[NiHaoMike]

So the real solution is to use less. In most cases, there are ways to reduce energy use at little or no cost. I set the (home) thermostat to 55F or so during the winter and 82F or so during the summer. Such a large swing would not be acceptable for most public buildings, but a more moderate setting such as 65F to 78F would still make for some good savings.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Dear G7PSK: Thanks for your response. What to you say to those who claim that the variability of ocean temperatures and even variability of solar radiation have an effect on global temperature, considering that temperatures during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (before 500 BC), were up to 4 degrees C higher than they are now, without the CO2 increase.

--Dear NiHaoMike: Thanks for your response. Do you have any opinion on the EPA using trumped up data to force the closing of Coal Fired Plants, without legislative action.

"There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery." Enrico Fermi 1901 1954

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[NiHaoMike]

If we were more efficient, we wouldn't need many of the coal plants in the first place.

[SgtRock]

Dear NiHaoMike:

--Since your answer to my question was somewhat oblique, let me try another tack. You are saying that as long as the government is instituting a policy you agree with, then not putting it to a vote and trumping up data in order to grab more control is just fine, is that correct? Are you not afraid that someday the shoe could be on the other foot?

"I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled."
P. G. Wodehouse 1881 1975

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[G7PSK]

Dear SgtRock I would tell climate change deniers to get their heads out of their arses and wake up to reality. As to there being variable heat input from the sun and variable heat output from the earths core, No one is denying that least of all me.
But there is no denying that man is altering the environment to the detriment of all life.
Nature has a way of getting on top of all problems, the thing is we will most likely not like it when nature bites back, with the human population rising almost exponentially it will most likely be in the form of a super bug or virus but balance us it as no system can be top heavy forever.   

[SgtRock]

Dear G7PSK:

--I note the depth of your feeling in this matter, and the hostility indicated by the profane metaphor. This is only a debate, in print, on an open forum. It is really not necessary to detest those who disagree. Please consider confronting the facts as presented. What would your explanation be for temperatures being 4 degrees C higher 2500 years ago in the absence of a CO2 bump?

--By the way, if you enjoyed this thread, you might like my next one; "Mann Made Global Warming Takes An Arrow In The Knee From NASA" or how Michael Mann sat on his hockey stick.

"I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled."
P. G. Wodehouse 1881 1975

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[harnon]

Personally I think the whole climate change debate has kind of missed the point! Sure, we don't really know what impact climate change may have with 100% certainty, but at the end of the day there is only one earth, and no "reset" button so surely its sensible to be at the very least a bit cautious?

Re energy changes costing jobs, money, etc.  I think this is an argument both sides use to play on the emotions.  I have worked on projects which have set out to cut costs through efficiency improvements, have saved millions of dollars, and coincidentally cut CO2 by 15%.  There is a tendency of people to assume the worst and to resist change, but like it or not the world changes and there are examples of hundreds of industries which have had the world changed underneath them (Kodak, anybody?)  I don't think fossil fuel is in that position yet, but its certainly the time for energy companies / governments to be looking to the future.

Regarding the article above, the article seems to spend a lot of time tearing one dodgy statement to shreds.  In fact, I'm not really sure I can see the point of it? The standard operating procedure for both polar sides of these arguments is to go after the man, not the issue - this seems to be another example.  OK, Kruger has clearly overstated the impacts of mercury, fine clear that up in 2 paragraphs... then come up with an alternative position!

The whole argument about "saving lives" vs "prevent premature deaths" is kind of pointless - if you cure somebody of cancer, have you saved their life, prolonged it or prevented their premature death? whats the difference?

[grenert]

It is really not necessary to detest those who disagree.

Please read the included article (see below link), which details the outright lies used by the EPA, and their willing thrall, Nobel Prize Winning Economist, and NY Times Columnist and Blogger Paul Krugman, to justify this insane diktat.

You would do well to follow your own advice.

[sonicj]

This behavior is criminal. The EPA's job is to protect the environment, not fudge numbers to fit some hippy's ideological agenda. Clearly, this man has abused the power entrusted to him as leader of the EPA to satisfy personal or political gains and should be punished accordingly.

EPA and environmental pansies are a big part of why our country is in the shitter.  If you make so damn hard & expensive to conduct business & manufacture goods within the borders that you force businesses & manufactures to either relocate or shut down, then you eventually run out of jobs & s**t to sell.

Environmental Side Story:
So the airport authority proposed to extend the runway here at Panama City International Airport (PFN) to accommodate larger passenger jets in hopes to appeal to low cost carriers like Southwest and Jetblue. The wanted to simply extend runway 14 into the bay by something like 1200ft. (*see map) The environmentalists threw a temper tantrum and hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to study the fish, birds, turtles and other critters that inhabit the end of the runway. They were asked their feelings and then they all held hands and sang kumbayah.

Well the airport authority, developers, & other people with vested interests said "F*$% You!" and built a brand new airport that occupies 4,000 acres of Florida forest at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the federal taxpayer. Photos ==> Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP) 
new airport location

Now i have to drive 45min to middle of bum***k to catch a flight while there's a perfectly good empty airport a couple of miles away. Thanks Hippies! Ohh yea, the squirrels and rabbits and deer and other woodland critters murdered & displaced from their homes all say thanks too. The End.
-sj

[SgtRock]

Dear Sonicj:

--Interesting post. Next time try not to hold back. As a fellow resident of the Sunshine State, I must point out that, I believe you have mistaken the name of that North Florida town near the new airport. It is not Bum***k but East J*sus. Bum***k on the other hand is on the other side of the earth where any sighting of a woman not wearing a duffle bag is a rarity. The term was supposedly coined by English soldiers in Egypt. When I was in the intelligence services during the VN war, we referred to nearly any posting to the Near East or the Levant (in our admittedly callow and ethnocentric way) as Bum***k Egypt. Thanks for your post and like I said, "Next time do not hold back."

“World consumption of oil is still going up. If it were possible to keep it rising during the 1970s and 1980s by 5 percent a year as it has in the past, we could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”
James Earl Carter 1924 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[G7PSK]

Dear Sgt Rock Ice ages come and ice ages go but at the present time we should be heading into one but the man made warming due to increasing CO2 levels has postponed or put back the next ice age. It is obvious that whatever man does it will be small fry compared with what nature can throw at us. My point only is that we should tread as lightly as we can and not trash the joint in our passing. I also made the argument that so called green measures are as detrimental as fossil fuels. There was certainly not meant to be any hostility aimed at any members of this forum, I thought we were discussing the people who are putting forward nonsensical argument of the most tenuous nature to try and persuade people to vote certain ways politically in order to line their own pockets at the behest of company's making vast profits from keeping the status quo.   

[SgtRock]

Dear Harnon:

--Thank you for your post. To my way of thinking, you have sped-read the cited article, and have drawn a rather hasty conclusion, one that is favorable to your point of view. And you seem to have completely avoided addressing my contention, that this is a power grab by the EPA, based on phoney trumped up facts in order to backdoor the Administration's "Cap and Trade" policy. Notice that this is being done without recourse to the legislature, one of the branches of government mentioned in the Constitution.

--Let me summarize the article in brief:

1)Krugman says that the new regulation will, by removing mercury from the atmosphere, save "tens of thousands of lives per year". This would be a minimum of 20,000, right? Krugman quotes an article by David Roberts to support this contention.

2)The David Roberts piece says "tens of thousands of lives" would be saved by the removal of mercury AND TOXICS, not just mercury. But wait, it gets better.

3) If we then trace this mention in the David Roberts piece to its source; an article by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman, we get "17,000 premature deaths" avoided do to the removal of "mercury, lead, arsenic and other dangerous pollutants" Now 17,000 "premature deaths" does not equate very well to "tens of thousands of deaths", does it? But wait, it gets even better yet.

4)If we trace even further down to the original EPA factoid we get. "6,800 to 17,000" premature deaths avoided.  6,800 to 17,000, is hardly the same  thing as 17,000, and surely it is not "tens of thousands". Next comes the Pièce de résistance.

5)And finally, we find that the EPA is referring to projected lives saved due to a reduction in 2.5 micron particulate matter, not mercury at all. And even this is merely an assumption, with no clinical evidence to back it up.

--And so, we now see, that Krugman is not just exaggerating, he is attempting to foist off an entire boatload, of lies, misstatements, and deceptions to his gullible public. Not Krugman's fault you say; If these were policy statements by the Bush administration, do you think the good Nobel Laureate Doctor would pass them on so blithely?

--So the EPA's extra-legislative power grab is to eliminate traces of mercury in the atmosphere, because mercury is toxic, right? But the non-clinical statistics it bases this on have nothing to with mercury. Remember the greatest source of atmospheric mercury is Forrest fires. Meanwhile the government is mandating that we purchase Chinese made mercury containing florescent bulbs, that when broken release mercury in amounts 6 to 7 orders of magnitude greater, and which should require a HASMAT team to remove.

--If any of this makes sense to you, let me know. Look for you power bill to, as the President says "necessarily skyrocket".

"In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus
1466 - 1536

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[G7PSK]

Our bills have already gone through the roof due to so called carbon tax and CO2 trading. I think that it is a case of welcome to the 21st century. Every thing get's more expensive the rich get richer and the poor get poorer And as I said in the first place the whole thing smells of BS as for power grabs the US has already done that to the rest of the world.

[siliconmix]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Soon a lot of overtaxed working Americans are going to have less disposable income, as a result of a policy edict by the EPA, one that the legislature did not get to vote on. Please read the included article (see below link), which details the outright lies used by the EPA, and their willing thrall, Nobel Prize Winning Economist, and NY Times Columnist and Blogger Paul Krugman, to justify this insane diktat.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2011/12/28/death-and-toxins-how-krugman-botched-his-mercury-commenary/

--This power grab appears to be a backdoor way to achieve the Administration's energy policy without bothering with the legislature. The President (then a candidate) said in a speech to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008 "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket,"

--I would like it very much if someone would take the trouble to point out the errors in the article, rather than just go on about "greedy fossil fuel companies and the evils of capitalism". We all pretty much know how to whistle that tune already.

"The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other peoples money."
Margaret Thatcher 1925 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

margaret thatcher 1925 ? i wish.then i wouldn't have had to experience living under the power of that old snatch.

[baljemmett]

"The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other peoples money."
Margaret Thatcher 1925 -

margaret thatcher 1925 ? i wish.then i wouldn't have had to experience living under the power of that old snatch.

... what?  When do you think she was born, considering she entered Parliament in 1959?

[siliconmix]

i thought you meant when she made the statement.the old cow.

[SgtRock]

Dear Siliconmix:

--The year after the name us usually taken to indicate the year of birth not age. Your ability to discern meaning is exceeded only by your ability to punctuate, and your respect for women. You may may now call me a name using some of your terribly clever unpunctuated profanity.

--It must have been quite a let down, when the North Sea Oil came in and the valiant Lady was able to get liberals off her back about those filthy coal burning plants, leaving them only to complain about her not surrendering to Soviet Nuclear Blackmail, the IRA, and Argentine Generals with really, really big hats and binoculars.

--Of course, closing the coal fired plants, necessitated the closing of many of the coal mines as well. Many of the mines were often closed due to strikes anyway, often around the Xmas season, if it was exceptionally cold, the unions hoping to freeze some people to death or at least screw up everyone' holidays. So then, the mines, sources of that filthy, filthy Air Pollution that Labor had vituperated about for lo the many years, were per force closed. Leaving the socialist unions, holding the sack, and grumbling, "Those, filthy, murderous, filthy rich, greedy, bloated, running dog, capitalist bastards are closing the mines merely because, they have nowhere to sell the coal, and they would lose all of their unjustly obtained money if they kept them open. We knew it was just about profits." Please, please, come back and exploit us some more, you despicable capitalist bastards.

"He was born ignorant, and has been losing ground ever since."
Fred Allen 1894 1956

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[siliconmix]

i don't give m thatcher the title of female.females are supposed to care , nurture it should be in their nature.don't talk to me about the ira and mag thatcher.don't forget who aided peace to get underway in northern ireland.
you cock (i mean rock) didn'nt have to suffer the injustice of life under thatcher's rule.the only thing i will say positive about her is that she invented soft scoop icecream.she should have stuck to chemistry and never went into politics because she screwed that right up.

[SgtRock]

--Have been expecting same.

[siliconmix]

because you know it's true 

[G7PSK]

Margret Thatcher was one of the best prime minister's that this country ever had the very worst has to be Harold Wilson with his sandwiches and beer plus double your wages every week for ford workers.

[siliconmix]

what a load of arse your talking G7PSK.so you think she should have carried on do you ? her own cabinet advising her to quit yeah great she was.

[G7PSK]

It was more the usual night of the long knives from her fellow party members. The same happens to all politicians,get to the top and and every one wants your job by fair or foul means, foul if at all possible. Bee going on since the days of the ancient Greeks.
Just they don't put hemlock in your wine any more. Any one who dose not think that Thatcher did this country a great favor is either a fool or a commie.