All Solar, Et Al, In 12 Years?

[Randolph Kinney]

$2.2B in cap-and-trade funds begins flowing, boosting rail, housing, clean cars

California is starting to dole out nearly $2.2 billion generated by its cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions, allocating funds to hundreds of projects. Winners include regional rail, electric car rebates and rooftop solar for low-income residents.

Revenue from auctions of pollution permits under the system has bolstered the state's budget. A database compiled by ClimateWire shows for the first time precisely where funds have been directed. It reveals that more than $1.4 billion has been pledged to more than 350 recipients.

The biggest beneficiary is the state's high-speed rail line, which so far has reaped $750 million. Transit agencies in the San Francisco and greater Los Angeles regions each garnered $41 million. A reclamation district in Sacramento County received $10.4 million to build wetlands. Other recipients include cities, water districts, affordable home developers, trash companies, environmental groups, schools, farms and individuals.

There's money for reduced bus fares for Mendocino College students, for bicycle racks in Los Angeles, for a trash-composting operation in Fresno County, and to plant more trees in urban areas.

Big business is getting an indirect financial boost. Some agencies and groups on tap to get funds have hired companies to perform the approved work. Other recipients have put the grants toward ongoing projects with existing contracts. Corporate winners include Siemens, solar company SunPower Corp., locomotive builder Electro-Motive Diesel Inc. (EMD), and construction joint ventures Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons and Dragados/Flatiron.

"We're spending it in accordance with an investment plan that I think has a very good mix of long-term and short-term projects, that has geographical balance," Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's Air Resources Board (ARB), said in an interview. The state's plan will demonstrate "that cap-and-trade revenue can be used to address issues that not only cause our current greenhouse gas emissions ... but also have other multiple social benefits, as well."

The Golden State under its economywide trading system auctions pollution permits to businesses that need them to cover high greenhouse gas emissions. Those started at $10 a carbon ton and now run about $12. Sales of those have reaped nearly $2.2 billion through May, not including the portion that is controlled by the Public Utilities Commission and returned to utility ratepayers.

California wants to shrink greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Spending cap-and-trade proceeds to help achieve that goal is one part of the state's broad approach, Nichols emphasized.

"We never said that the money from the cap and trade is going to be adequate to meet our 2030 goals," Nichols said. "It's a piece of the puzzle. But it's also designed to illustrate things that can be done that could lead to further investments" from cities, counties or private companies.

Under a deal Gov. Jerry Brown (D) made last year with the Legislature, 60 percent of cap-and-trade money is continuously dedicated to specific categories, including the bullet train, affordable housing near transit, intercity rail programs and low-carbon transit operations. The Legislature gets to decide how to spend the rest of the auction proceeds.

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060023868

Cap and trade is nothing more than a tax that funds social programs and a political mechanism to giveaway taxpayer cash to cronies. The crying shame is the statement that cap and trade is not adequate to meet the goal of greenhouse gas reduction. Beware of a solution that is based upon a tax; it is all about the free money to spend and nothing about solving a problem.

 

[Pittsburgh Pete]

Paranoia certainly causes some to have a jaundiced view of virtually everything. Some are all for continuing to spew toxic particles into the atmosphere if it benefits their wallet or ideological leanings. Funny stuff!

 

[Meandering]

Hey P,

I read that US Steel is back to laying off.

How's that going to impact the P market?

.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

Some people believe in political slush funds at taxpayer expense and any social program must be funded by taxpayers. Lying to the public justifies the end. That really is funny. Why?

 

[Meandering]

California wants to shrink greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Spending cap-and-trade proceeds to help achieve that goal is one part of the state's broad approach, Nichols emphasized.

And what are they doing to prevent forest fires that burn not just trees, but homes, and businesses, cars and gunite swimming pools - all releasing CO2 into the atmosphere?


.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

California wants to shrink greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Spending cap-and-trade proceeds to help achieve that goal is one part of the state's broad approach, Nichols emphasized.

And what are they doing to prevent forest fires that burn not just trees, but homes, and businesses, cars and gunite swimming pools - all releasing CO2 into the atmosphere?


.

To save the endangered species, they let water runoff flow out to sea. They could build more water reservoirs to impound excess water that creates mud slides from the wildfire burning off ground cover that holds the soil in place. Instead, it is a great bludgeoning tool to beat the population over the head that global warming caused the drought. And drought caused the wildfires. We have wildfires every year no matter how much or how little rainfall or temperatures. The refrain is, yeah but it is worse now because they don't have the water to fight the wildfires.

 

[Meandering]

Actually,

Much of your plant life needs fire to reproduce, therefore there is very little to no fire deterrents in the environment.

Bulldoze and start over.

.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

EPA hearings put Pittsburgh in the crosshairs of climate war

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency held hearings today in Pittsburgh on a proposed rule to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The plan is up against serious opposition from the coal industry, but environmental groups say it doesn’t go far enough.

Competing rallies for and against the EPA’s proposed carbon rules crossed paths in Downtown Pittsburgh today.

“No planet, no jobs!” shouted those who supported the EPA proposal.

About three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector come from burning coal. The EPA is trying to cut emissions from electric power plants by 30 percent of 2005 levels by the year 2030. The EPA’s own analysis shows that under the plan, coal production in Appalachia would decline. But it said other energy sectors would grow, and the overall economy would benefit.

“I have to admit I feel these rules are existential threat to my state,” Frich said. “We’re already having problems with our state budget. I really see problems ahead if these rules are implemented.”

Frich said she worried that coal companies would be forced into bankruptcy. And those companies pay into federal programs to clean up from legacy coal mining issues.

“If you don’t have any mines left, who’s going to be paying for that cleanup?” she asked.

Natalie Tennant, West Virginia’s Secretary of State, said the federal government needs to invest more in carbon capture and sequestration in order to keep coal jobs in West Virginia.

Under the EPA plan, states would come up with their own plan to cut down on CO2. They could increase use of nuclear energy, renewables, or natural gas. They can also improve energy efficiency in power plants in homes and businesses.

Inside the hearings, some made a moral case for curbing carbon emissions. Scientists say carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is causing global warming.

https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsyl...-pittsburgh-in-the-crosshairs-of-climate-war/

The solution is make electricity more expensive and to raise taxes on the remaining businesses and individual to make up the revenue shortfall. It becomes necessary that more people sacrifice their jobs and way of life to save the planet. Unemployment will have to increase as shown by a declining workforce participation rate. Government social program spending has to increase to care for all those affected.

 

[Randolph Kinney]

The big lie - CO2 is causing global warming

Climate models fail to predict temperatures as a result of CO2 increasing. Why?

The fourth IPCC report [para 9.1.3] says : “Results from forward calculations are used for formal detection and attribution analyses. In such studies, a climate model is used to calculate response patterns (‘fingerprints’) for individual forcings or sets of forcings, which are then combined linearly to provide the best fit to the observations.”

To a mathematician that is a massive warning bell. You simply cannot do that. To be more precise, because obviously they did actually do it, you cannot do that and retain any credibility.

The climate modeling process was basically as follows:

(1) All known (ie. well-understood) factors were built into the climate models, and estimates were included for the unknowns (The IPCC calls them parametrizations ).

(2) Model results were then compared with actual observations and were found to produce only about a third of the observed warming in the 20th century.

(3) Parameters controlling the unknowns in the models were then fiddled with (as in the above IPCC report quote) until they got a match.

(4) So necessarily, about two-thirds of the models’ predicted future warming comes from factors that are not understood.

“You simply cannot do that”: When you get a discrepancy between a model and reality, you obviously can’t change the model’s known factors – they are what they are known to be. If you want to fiddle the model to match reality then you have to fiddle the unknowns. If your model started off a long way from reality then inevitably the end result is that a large part of your model’s findings come from unknowns, ie, from factors that are not understood. To put it simply, you are guessing, and therefore your model is unreliable.

The not-understood factors (water vapor, clouds) that were chosen to fiddle the models to match 20th-century temperatures were both portrayed as being in reaction to rising temperature – the IPCC calls them “feedbacks” – and the only known factor in the models that caused a future temperature increase was CO2. So those not-understood factors could be and were portrayed as being caused by CO2.

And that is how the models have come to predict a high level of future warming, and how they claim that it is all caused by CO2. The reality of course is that two-thirds of the predicted future warming is from guesswork and they don’t even know if the sign of the guesswork is correct. ie, they don’t even know whether the guessed factors actually warm the planet at all. They might even cool it.

 

[Pittsburgh Pete]

Some people believe in political slush funds at taxpayer expense and any social program must be funded by taxpayers. Lying to the public justifies the end. That really is funny. Why?

And some people believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, but guess what? They really don't exist! Congrats on a vibrant imagination.