This Week With Steve Milloy

By Rich Kozlovich

My theme this week has been about alternative energy and what an abject failure it has been. All of which was perfectly predictable. We tried it during the Carter administration and it failed then. Did the technology get so much better that we would think it would work now? No! At least Carter had the excuse of ignorance…They just didn’t know then, although I have few doubts that those who worked with the engineering problems knew right from the beginning it was going to be a failure. However...this time we had some history... we knew this time it had to fail. There really is no fixing stupid.

The articles linked here are a small part of what Steve and his staff link each week. I try to get the things that interested me the most. I you wish to see all of it go to Junkscience.com.

Anthropogenic Climate Change Fraud

Climategate 2.0 is here!
More devastating Climategate e-mails were released today. We’ve covered juicy ones in the posts listed below. More on the way. Read ‘em all. They validate EVERYTHING the skeptics have been saying. Viva les sceptiques!

Green –Irrational, Corrupt and Misantropic

Lack of electricity, development, kills 1.5 million Nigerians annually
“Poverty is a death sentence” states whoever publicly released the Climategate e-mails and they are so right -WHO Projects 1.5 Million Cooking Stove Deaths In Nigeria — The World Health Organization (WHO) has projected 1.5 million annual premature deaths in Nigeria because of household air pollution from traditional cooking stoves, a Ministry of Environment official says. Quoting from a WHO report, Bahijjatu Abubakar, the National Co-ordinator of the Renewable Energy project of the ministry, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) here Tuesday that the projection could affect the world at large, especially sub-Saharan Africa. Abubakar said the WHO data also predicted that the premature death rate would be larger than that caused by malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

Strassel: Stringing Up Gibson Guitar
Aren’t trees the ultimate renewable resource? Kim Strassel writes in the Wall Street Journal: On a sweltering day in August, federal agents raided the Tennessee factories of the storied Gibson Guitar Corp. The suggestion was that Gibson had violated the Lacey Act—a federal law designed to protect wildlife—by importing certain India ebony. The company has vehemently denied that suggestion and has yet to be charged. It is instead living in a state of harassed legal limbo. Which, let’s be clear, is exactly what its persecutors had planned all along. The untold story of Gibson is this: It was set up…

Is sustainability science really a science?
Past the fact that this is obviously a sad day for the once proud Los Alamos National Laboratory, “sustainability” is a really stupid and dangerous notion…..“Sustainability” is not a science; it’s an excuse not to growth and develop. Thomas Malthus trial-ballooned sustainability in the 18th century — and he was dead wrong. But at least he intended no malice. The modern Malthusians cynically use sustainability to thwart capitalism. We are aware of only one serious sustainability project that was ever attempted — and the enviros killed it.

Horner: A Summary of James E. Hansen’s NASA Ethics File
NASA records released to resolve litigation filed by the American Tradition Institute reveal that Dr. James E. Hansen, an astronomer, received approximately $1.6 million in outside, direct cash income in the past five years for work related to — and, according to his benefactors, often expressly for — his public service as a global warming activist within NASA.

Horner on EPA’s Jackson: Whoa! Which time are you lying?
Chris Horner points out the inconsistencies in Lisa Jackson’s rationale for EPA regulating greenhouse gases.

Alternative Energy

Allianz: ‘Green’ energy could trigger catastrophic blackouts
‘Unstable’ renewable energy sources increase the risk of ‘supra-regional’ electricity blackouts with multi-billion pound consequences, insurance giant Allianz has warned. ‘Unstable’ renewable energy sources increase the risk of ‘supra-regional’ electricity blackouts with multi-billion pound consequences, insurance giant Allianz has warned. Green energy could trigger ‘catastrophic’ blackouts – Solar panels and wind turbines are a “volatile” source of power with fluctuations in the electricity supply risking “grid instabilities” and triggering wide-scale blackouts. Ageing infrastructure and increasingly cross-border electricity networks have heightened the likelihood of a devastating collapse of power supplies lasting months and covering several continents, according to the joint report by Allianz and the Chief Risk Officer Forum. In eastern Germany, turbines in strong wind can produce more than all German coal and gas plants put together, while the need to switch off turbines in high winds causes a drop-off in electricity of 12GW – equal to two nuclear power plants. Outages are likely if there is too little demand or storage capacity to accommodate the jumps in supply.

Bill Frezza: Alternative Energy’s Alternate Reality
The “alternative energy” experiment is unraveling, having barely begun - Alternative Energy’s Alternate Reality – Creating a “green energy” economy may be the most daunting central planning task ever attempted. It entails nothing less than the reengineering of our entire energy infrastructure. And, like all central planning schemes, it is based on a roadmap that eschews real-world experience and sound economics in favor of utopian ideology driven by political connections. Now the experiment is unraveling, having barely begun. As the parade of government-subsidized failures like Solyndra, Stirling Energy, SpectraWatt, Evergreen Solar, Beacon Power, and others mount, now is a good time to look at how all the pieces of the alternative energy puzzle are supposed to fit together—and what happens when they don’t.

Experts fear cost of California renewable energy goals
California’s increasing use of renewable power is going to hurt consumers - California’s increasing use of renewable power will come at a price, pushing up electricity bills across the state. And while it’s impossible to tell how big the cost to consumers will be, some experts fear the total cost of renewable energy in California will be in the billions of dollars. In the next three years, many long-planned solar plants and wind farms will come online, bringing California closer to its goal of getting one-third of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020. As soon as they start delivering power to utility companies, the utilities’ customers will start paying for that electricity.

Of course it’s renewable energy – it just relies on fossil fuels
Although it sounds like an advertisement for ladies’ undergarments “firmed and shaped” actually refers to intermittent “renewable energy” made useful with fossil-fueled “spinning reserve” CleanPowerSF will still rely on fossil fuels despite claims – City officials boast that the proposed CleanPowerSF public power program will offer consumers 100 percent renewable energy, but for some that sounds a lot better than what is really behind the green label.

Reformed Leftie/Greenie challenges energy statism
Robert Bryce is a reformed Leftie/greenie. The solar array he installed on his roof was a bust, and he followed the logic of energy density to conclude that wind, solar, water, crops, plants, and wood would not allow energy to be mankind’s master resource.

Gas beats renewables: fund manager
As remarkable as it seems, energy-dense fuels are more value than dilute power sources

Royal Wind Slam Update: Duke ‘spot on’
“Former Chancellor Lord Lawson yesterday led the backing for Prince Philip after he branded wind farms ‘absolutely useless’.”