Of Great Expectations and Climate Change Chicanery: Even Charles Dickens Has Been Outdone!

In the novel Great Expectations, written in 1860 by Charles Dickens, there is an underlying theme of disillusionment, but it is not a melancholy book. The main character, named Pip, has many "great expectations" in his life, but over the course of time these illusions are slowly shattered." (http://www.123helpme.com/preview.asp?id=67927)

"Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens first serialised in All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It is regarded as one of his greatest and most sophisticated novels, and is one of his most enduringly popular, having been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times. Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, writing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood. The story can also be considered semi-autobiographical of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve, 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840." See: Great Expectations, Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations.

The novel Great Expectations also raises many thought-provoking philosophical issues which are uncannily relevant for purposes of evaluating the global climate change debate. In particular, isn't it remarkable how European national governments have disingenuously portrayed the human and environmental (described as 'existential') threat posed by global warming and/or climate change, two scientifically distinct terms that have been conflated intentionally by environmental zealots and government bureaucrats the world over? [See, e.g.: Global Warming or Climate Change? It's ALL Relative If We Ignore Science, Reframe Issues, Redefine Words, Adjust Grammar and Use Symbols and Imagery!, ITSSD Journal on Pathological Communalism, at: http://itssdpathologicalcommunalism.blogspot.com/2009/01/global-warming-or-climate-change-its.html ].

We ask the Obama Administration directly - are you, too, raising unrealistic planetary threat scenarios, public fears of environmental catastrophe and 'great expectations' of your own that something can actually be done about what the President has referred to in his inaugural speech as 'the specter of a warming planet'? [See Obama: US will 'roll back the specter of a warming planet', AFP (Jan. 20, 2009), at: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iGbumOehd1mBE5Su-zpzXS0utiQQ ].We suggest that the administration carefully review the literal and metaphorical themes conveyed within Charles Dickens' literary masterpiece with an eye towards seeing how they apply to what is actually an onward march towards global regulatory governance over the economic lives of all Americans.

• Good versus evil. Dickens most common theme, complicated by the moral ambiguity of many characters and situations. The poses and false appearances many people erect cause us to wonder who is good and who is evil.
  
  

• Guilt. Related to the good and evil theme is that of guilt. Who is guilty and of what? Does everyone have some guilt?
  

• What is the value of education? Does it improve people or only corrupt them? What exactly is education, anyway?
  

• The danger of wealth and social position to corrupt. Are they corrupt in themselves and thus to be avoided?
  
  

• City vs. country. One of the oldest thematic traditions in literature is the conflict between city and country. Usually, the city is the scene of corruption, confusion, and problems, while the country hosts innocence and resolution.
  
  

• The real vs. a facade. Many characters have or erect facades--false fronts or appearances--to hide their real selves. Why? Who are they? Are the facades beneficial or harmful?
  

• The power of imagination to control behavior,

• Imprisonment as a metaphor. Several characters are imprisoned--in real prisons, in exile, in self chosen prisons, in psychological prisons.
  

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[A CLOSE LOOK AT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S CAREFULLY CHOSEN WORDS, "The United States will 'roll back the specter of a warming planet'...", STRONGLY SUGGESTS THAT THE PRESIDENT IS AWARE OF THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE SCIENCE SURROUNDING GLOBAL WARMING/ CLIMATE CHANGE AND HUMAN PERCEPTIONS OF THE PROBLEM, LET ALONE ITS POTENTIAL CAUSES and/or CORRELATIONS. THIS WOULD EXPLAIN WHY HE WOULD INSTRUCT THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TO REVIEW CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR AAHNOLD SCHWARNZEGGER'S LONG-SITTING REQUEST FOR THE GRANT OF A STATE WAIVER FROM EPA POLLUTION CONTROL RULES. IT IS PREFERABLE TO ALLOW THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA and THE 17 OTHER STATES LOOKING TO ADOPT ITS CARBON 'CAP & TRADE' RULES TO MAKE THE POLITICAL MISTAKE OF OVER-REGULATING THEIR RESIDENTS, THAN TO HAVE WASHINGTON BE CALLED TO BLAME.]

[A SHORT TRIP TO THE DICTIONARY REVEALS HOW THE WORD “SPECTER” IS DEFINED, and how it relates to the notion of GREAT EXPECTATIONS:

Etymology:
French spectre, from Latin spectrum appearance, specter, from specere to look, look at — more at spy
Date:
1605
1 : a visible disembodied spirit : ghost 2 : something that haunts or perturbs the mind : phantasm

------------------------------

spec·ter
play_w2("S0617600")

(spktr)
n.
1. A ghostly apparition; a phantom.
2. A haunting or disturbing image or prospect

------------------------------

Phantasm:

Etymology:
Middle English fantasme, from Anglo-French fantosme, fantasme, from Latin phantasma, from Greek, from phantazein to present to the mind — more at fancy

Date:
13th century

1: a product of fantasy: as a: delusive appearance : illusion b: ghost , specter c: a figment of the imagination 2: a mental representation of a real object.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28861757

Expect 1,000-year Climate Impacts, Experts Say - [NOAA] Study: Stopping emissions won't prevent decreased rainfall, higher seas

MSNBC.com/AP

January 26, 2009

WASHINGTON - Even if the world can cap carbon dioxide emissions tied to global warming, expect to see droughts and sea level rise that span centuries, not just decades, according to a new study sponsored by the U.S. government.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that's not true," lead author Susan Solomon told reporters.

Instead, the team concluded, warming tied to higher CO2 "is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop."

"Climate change is slow, but it is unstoppable" said Solomon, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. All the more reason to act quickly, so the long-term situation doesn't get even worse, Solomon said. [????]

Waiting could compound problems

[WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? NEITHER WE NOR OUR FAMILIES, OR OUR FAMILIES' FAMILIES' FAMILIES' FAMILIES, WILL BE AROUND TO OBSERVE THESE SO-CALLED 'COMPOUND PROBLEMS'! THIS RAISES THE QUINTESSENTIAL PHILOSOPHICAL RIDDLE: "IF A TREE FALLS IN A FOREST AND NO ONE IS AROUND TO HEAR IT, DOES IT MAKE A SOUND???" ALTERNATIVELY, PRESIDENT OBAMA & SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON MAY WISH TO CONSIDER THE VERSION OF THIS QUESTION POSED BY THE LATE POLITICALLY INCORRECT COMEDIAN GEORGE CARLIN: "IF A MAN SPEAKS IN THE FOREST AND THERE IS NO WOMAN TO HEAR IT, IS HE STILL WRONG?"]

[IT WOULD APPEAR, BASED ON HIS CAREFUL SELECTION OF THE WORDS 'SPECTER OF A WARMING PLANET', THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA, HIMSELF, IS AWARE OF THIS PHILOSOPHICAL RIDDLE CONSTRUCTED BY 19TH CENTURY PHILOSOPHER BISHOP BERKELEY. HE "PROMOTED A THEORY...CALLED 'IMMATERIALISM' LATER REFERRED TO AS 'SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM'. HIS DICTUM WAS "Esse est percipi" - "To be is to be perceived". HE TALKED OF OBJECTS CEASING TO EXIST ONCE THERE WAS NOBODY AROUND TO PERCEIVE THEM." See: "If a Tree Falls in a Forest", Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_a_tree_falls_in_a_forest ].

Gerald Meehl, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, added that "the real concern is that the longer we wait to do something, the higher the level of irreversible climate change to which we'll have to adapt." Meehl was not part of Solomon's research team.

[TO REPEAT OUR MAIN POINT, "WE HUMANS LIVING ON THE PLANET DURING MOST OF THE NEXT MILLENNIUM", WILL NOT HAVE TO ADAPT 1,000 YEARS HENCE TO ANYTHING. TO SUGGEST THIS IS ABSURD!! THIS FANTASTIC STATEMENT POSITS A FALSE POSITIVE, WITH THE INTENTION, AND IN THE HOPE, OF SPURRING PEOPLE TO ACT ON THAT OVER WHICH THEY ULTIMATELY HAVE NO CONTROL. AND WHAT IS WORSE, THE MEDIA IS PROLIFERATING THIS CHICANERY WITHOUT EXAMINING THE SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC & LEGAL FACTS FOR THEMSELVES!! SO MUCH FOR THE PROFESSIONALISM OF JOURNALISTS WHOM, BY THEIR ACTS OF ACQUIESCENCE OR WORSE, INACTIONS, ARE ACTUALLY COMPLICIT IN THE PERPETRATION OF THIS FRAUD UPON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC!!].

The findings were announced as President Barack Obama ordered reviews that could lead to automobiles that emit less CO2 and get higher mileage.

Climate change has been driven by gases in the atmosphere that trap heat from solar radiation and raise the planet's temperature — the "greenhouse effect." Carbon dioxide has been the most important of those gases because it remains in the air for hundreds of years. While other gases are responsible for nearly half of the warming, they degrade more rapidly, Solomon said.

Before the industrial revolution the air contained about 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide. That has risen to 385 ppm today, and politicians and scientists have debated at what level it could be stabilized.

The peer-reviewed study concludes that if CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s U.S. Dust Bowl in zones including the U.S. southwest, southern Europe, Africa, eastern South America and western Australia.

The study, which relied on computer models and historical temperatures, was published in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Warming and the seas

Warmer climate also is causing expansion of the ocean and that factor alone is likely to lock in a 1.3 to 3.2 foot sea level rise by the year 3000 if CO2 peaks at 600 ppm, and double that if it peaks at 1,000 ppm, the researchers calculated.

"Additional contributions to sea level rise from the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets are too uncertain to quantify in the same way," Solomon said in a statement. "They could be even larger but we just don’t have the same level of knowledge about those terms. We presented the minimum sea level rise that we can expect from well-understood physics, and we were surprised that it was so large."

Solomon noted that while global warming has been slowed by the oceans, which absorb carbon, that positive effect will wane over time and eventually oceans will actually warm the planet by giving off their accumulated heat to the air.

Alan Robock, of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University, agreed with the report's assessment.

"It's not like air pollution where if we turn off a smokestack, in a few days the air is clear," said Robock, who was not part of Solomon's research team. "It means we have to try even harder to reduce emissions," he said.

[DEAR PROFESSOR ROBOCK, HOW MUCH IN PRIVATE FOUNDATION AND GOVERNMENT GRANT MONIES DO YOU EXPECT TO OBTAIN AS THE RESULT OF YOUR SOLICITOUS REMARKS??]

Solomon's report "is quite important, not alarmist, [???] and very important for the current debates on climate policy," added Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona.

[CORRECT. THIS DECEPTIVE & DISHONEST DISCUSSION RAISES FALSE FEARS OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ARMAGEDDON THAT WILL INCITE PUBLIC FEAR AND TRIGGER PUBLIC DEMANDS FOR GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD TO ENACT LOCAL, NATIONAL, REGIONAL & GLOBAL REGULATIONS THAT REQUIRE PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES TO MITIGATE THEIR INDIVIDUAL CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS, EVEN THOUGH SUCH MITIGATION EFFORTS WILL NOT LIKELY HAVE AN IMPACT FOR 1,000 YEARS HENCE!! FOR THIS REASON ALONE, WE CAN SEE WHY GRANT-SEEKING SCIENTISTS, PUBLICITY-SEEKING POLITICIANS AND PROTECTIONIST-MINDED PUBLIC COMPANIES FIND BELIEVE THIS REPORT CAN MAKE AN IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE CURRENT DEBATES ON CLIMATE POLICY?]

'Quite conservative' figures

[NO DOUBT, IT IS IMPORTANT TO CAST THE IMPRESSION TO THE PUBLIC THAT THE CLIMATE SCENARIO IS FAR WORSE THAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS CAN ACTUALLY SPEAK OF!!]

While scientists have been aware of the long-term aspects of climate change, the new report highlights and provides more specifics on them, said Kevin Treberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

"This aspect is one that is poorly appreciated by policymakers and the general public and it is real," said Trenberth, who was not part of the research group.

"The temperature changes and the sea level changes are, if anything underestimated and quite conservative, especially for sea level," he said.

While he agreed that the rainfall changes mentioned in the paper are under way, Trenberth disagreed with some details of that part of the report.

"Even so, there would be changes in snow (to rain), snow pack and water resources, and irreversible consequences even if not quite the way the authors describe," he said. "The policy relevance is clear: We need to act sooner ... because by the time the public and policymakers really realize the changes are here it is far too late to do anything about it. In fact, as the authors point out, it is already too late for some effects."

[IT IS PURE FOLLY, LET ALONE, AN ABJECT PUBLIC FRAUD, AND AN EXERCISE IN CREATING 'GREAT EXPECTATIONS', FOR THESE PERSONS, AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, TO REPRESENT THAT THEY CAN DO ANYTHING MEANINGFUL TO STOP WHAT ARE LARGELY NATURAL CYCLES AFFECTED BY HUMAN ACTIVITIES TO A SCIENTIFICALLY UNCERTAIN EXTENT].

Geoengineering to remove CO2 from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. "Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative," Solomon stated.

Co-authors of the paper were Gian-Kaspar Plattner and Reto Knutti of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and Pierre Friedlingstein of the National Institute for Scientific Research, Gif sur Yvette, France.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-emissions26-2009jan26,0,3460961.story

Obama Clearing Way for California Emissions Waiver

By Ken Bensinger and Jim Tankersley

Los Angeles Times

January 26, 2009

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles -- President Obama will direct the EPA today to reconsider a Bush-era decision that stopped California and more than a dozen other states from setting their own stricter limits on auto emissions, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Should the agency allow a waiver from federal rules, states could require automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks far above current limits. It also would fulfill a long-held goal of environmentalists, as well as one of Obama's campaign promises.

A waiver would be another dramatic rebuke of Bush administration policies, as well as a swift statement that the new president intends to put his own stamp on environmental issues.

"This should prompt cheers from California to Maine," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, who praised Obama as "a man of his word" for the decision.

Tim Carmichael, senior policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air, hailed the decision as a vital step for the administration and the world in the fight against global warming.

Passenger vehicles are estimated to emit 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

"I think Obama got a clear message that this is a priority not only for California state protection but also for planetary protection," Carmichael said.

A waiver would be a bitter defeat for the auto industry, which had for years hotly contested the implementation of the California rules and had applauded the Bush administration decision in December 2007 to deny a state waiver for California.

A spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said Sunday that the industry group did not have a comment on the matter. Mike Moran, a spokesman for Ford Motor Co., said the company would not release a statement until Obama made a formal announcement.

At least 17 other states have adopted or are considering California's rules, and a waiver also would allow them to regulate tailpipe emissions. Altogether, those states, which include New York and Florida, represent about 40% of the population, according to auto industry estimates.

That has provoked considerable anxiety among carmakers. They could be forced to spend billions of dollars to comply with the California emissions rules, which are distinct from -- and more rigorous than -- federal fuel standards passed in 2007.

The federal standards would raise the national fleet average to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

Bush's waiver denial provoked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sue the federal government. Separately, Congress launched an investigation on the decision-making process at the Environmental Protection Agency, which must grant California the waiver before the state may regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Last week, Schwarzenegger sent a letter to President Obama asking that the agency reconsider the matter. "Your administration has a unique opportunity to . . . move America toward global leadership on addressing climate change," the letter said.

Also last week, Mary Nichols, chairwoman of California's Air Resources Board, asked the EPA to open a "reconsideration process" in a letter she sent to Lisa Jackson, that agency's new administrator.

In December, Nichols indicated that the state board had been in close contact with Obama's transition team to help plan a way to pass the waiver and adopt specific rules on rolling out the regulation.

Earlier this month, Jackson pledged to reconsider the request -- and hinted that she supported granting it -- during a Senate hearing into her nomination.

After Obama turns the matter over to the EPA, the agency is expected to take several months to reach a final decision on whether to reverse the Bush denial.

News of Obama's expected statement won quick praise from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who said it was "more than welcome news."

As chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, she said, she plans to work with the EPA to move a waiver through quickly.

"An immediate EPA review of the waiver decision shows respect for California" and the other states, Boxer said, while they wait for the "green light to address global warming pollution from motor vehicles."

In 2002, California passed a law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for vehicles, but couldn't enforce it, as a series of lawsuits filed by the auto industry held it up.

Last year, judges handed down several rulings that would allow the rule's adoption, but an EPA waiver was still required.

The California rules don't strictly limit mileage. But by setting caps on carbon emissions, they would effectively require vehicles to reach as much as 42 mpg by 2020, according to some estimates. Currently, only two mass-produced vehicles, the Toyota Prius and the hybrid Honda Civic, average at least 42 mpg.

To reach that level on a fleetwide basis, automakers would likely have to invest in costly new technologies such as hybrid drive trains. Industry estimates put the per-vehicle cost of compliance as high as $5,000.

The Bush administration had been charged with developing final rules for the new federal mileage requirements, but elected to pass that task on to Obama, citing the auto industry's deep economic woes. Those rules must be published by April, and it is expected that the administration will make an announcement on them as soon as today.

In taking up the tailpipe emissions issue after less than a week in office, Obama is sending a signal about the importance his administration places on environmental matters, environmentalists said.

There had been some expectation among them that Obama would instruct the EPA to grant the California waiver immediately, using the existing regulations.

But by sending the matter back to Jackson, Obama also indicates that he is aware of the auto industry's difficulties and willing to develop rules that would accommodate some of its immediate concerns.

Last month, the Bush administration agreed to give General Motors Corp. and Chrysler $17.4 billion in emergency loans.

The two automakers, which suffered the worst sales declines in a quarter-century last year, have until Feb. 17 to submit restructuring plans to the federal government, which will evaluate those plans by the end of March.

In addition to technological concerns, automakers worry that having the California rules in place would create regulatory chaos, with two separate rules on the books. They have argued that if government is going to regulate carbon emissions, as is the case in Europe, there should be one national rule.

That's a position echoed by environmentalists, who believe that California's regulations would open the door for serious discussion for a new countrywide standard.

"It's not going to happen overnight," said Spencer Quong, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This is a huge notice that the administration is going to deliver on its promise to clean up the environment and fight global warming."

[ONCE AGAIN, WE WONDER HOW ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISTS CAN MAKE SUCH A FALSE CLAIM WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION'S OWN GOVERNMENT AGENCY HAS JUST REPORTED THAT, "WARMING TIED TO CO2 IS LARGELY IRREVERSIBLE FOR 1000 YEARS"!!]

Blue Party's GREEN-Centric Energy Plan Will Result in Black, Brown and Red for the Red, White & Blue

BARACK OBAMA: NEW ENERGY FOR AMERICA

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf



[GREEN = $$ Costly renewable portfolio standards promoting politically favored energy sources that states can ill-afford to pay rebates on, and that bypass available and less costly energy sources such as clean coal, nuclear energy, liquified natural gas, hydropower, geothermal power and shale and offshore drilling; high cost environmental greenhouse gas cap & trade regulations imposed on businesses & consumers that will filter throughout all sectors of the economy and result in a higher cost of living for all citizens. See, e.g. http://energy.maryland.gov/incentives/residential/solargrants/index.asp ; http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/energy/cwp/view.asp?a=1374&q=483024 ; http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/reinsider/story?id=48217; http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=48686 ; http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/25/new-jersey-may-end-solar-rebate-program-in-order-to-grow-market-faster/
BLACK = Blackouts - due to insufficient energy infrastructure capacity resulting from the GREEN energy policies above which preclude new coal, nuclear builds, shale and offshore oil & natural gas drilling.
BROWN = Brownouts - where the voltage level is below the normal minimum level specified for the system. Some brownouts, called voltage reductions, are made intentionally to prevent a full power outage. See Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_outage
RED = Business interruption/operating losses, business and residential casualty losses, vandalism losses and property theft losses; loss of drinking water, violence in the streets during BLACKOUTS & BROWNOUTS. For example, The Northeast Blackout of 2003 was a massive widespread power outage that occurred throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and Ontario, Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003. Although not affecting as many people as the later 2003 Italy blackout, it was the largest blackout in North American history. It affected an estimated 10 million people in the province of Ontario (about one-third of the population of Canada) and 40 million people in eight U.S. states (about one-seventh of the population of the U.S.).[1] Outage-related financial losses were estimated at $6 billion USD. See Wikipedia, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003 ; "Northeast Residents Struggle With Effects of Blackout", USA Today (8/14/03) at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-08-14-power-out_x.htm. During July 1977, the lights went out in New York City...the second blackout in twelve years. The purr of air conditioners, cooling millions of New Yorkers, was replaced by stultifying silence-and then the sound of breaking glass. See "1977 New York Blackout", Blackout History Project, at: http://www.blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1977.html ; Robert Klara, "When New York City's Lights All Went Out", Book Review of James Goodman, "Blackout" (Northpoint Press 2005(c) at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0719/p14s03-bogn.html ; "1965 Great Northeast Blackout", Blackout History Project at: http://blackout.gmu.edu/events/tl1965.html. See also "Heat Wave Nearly Causes Rolling Blackouts in California", New York Times (Aug. 2, 2000) at: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01EEDE1E3DF931A3575BC0A9669C8B63&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FSubjects%2FW%2FWeather ; "Rolling Blackouts Circular", The Los Angeles Police Department, at: http://www.lapdonline.org/get_informed/content_basic_view/23511
Eugene Tucker, "Crime and Disaster", Business
Recovery Managers Association newsletter (Sep. 2001), at: http://www.praetorianprotective.com/Crime_Disaster.pdf


Wouldn't a more intelligent Energy Plan permit market forces and individual entrepreneurship to secure offgrid/grid-independent energy sources and other means to ensure the power stays on?? See Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr, "The Real Cause of Blackouts", Ludwig Von Mises Institute (7/27/06) at: http://mises.org/story/2264 ].

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/25/power-hungry/

Appetite for electricity could bring blackouts back


ASSOCIATED PRESS


Washington Times


August 25, 2008


COLUMBUS, Ohio


Five years after the worst blackout in North American history, the largest power providers say the problems that turned out the lights on 50 million people have mostly been fixed.


That's not to say the country has stepped back from the brink. Potentially bigger and more damaging outages could be on the way.


Excess capacity in the system is shrinking, and construction, as well as plans for new plants, has slowed as costs to build and operate them have soared.


At the same time, it is estimated that electricity use will increase 29 percent between 2006 to 2030 - much of it driven by residential growth, according to a government report issued in June.


"I'm really not a Chicken Little player, but I worry that no one seems to be focusing in on this," said Michael Morris, chairman, president and chief executive of American Electric Power Co. Inc., which runs the nation's largest electricity transmission system.


Mr. Morris said massive outages this year in South Africa, which forced gold, diamond and platinum mines to stop production for five days, should serve as a warning to the United States.


Industry experts back Mr. Morris and say there is even more resistance to building new plants due to the debate over climate change and opposition to new transmission lines.


"The level of excess capacity has shrunk down in the last few years to a level barely within the planning toleration of the industry," said Marc Chupka, a principal with the Brattle Group, an energy consultant.


The blackout five years ago shut off power to vast swaths of the Northeast and Midwest for as much as four days. Rolling blackouts continued in Ontario for a week.


Hundreds of thousands of people lost access to tap water for days in Ohio, and the mayor of Cleveland accused shop owners of gouging people in need of drinking water.


Millions of New Yorkers, with subways shut down and office towers darkened, left the city on foot.


A U.S.-Canadian government task force largely blamed Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. for allowing a local power failure near Cleveland to cascade to the East Coast and into Canada.


Industry experts say changes have been made to protect against a similar outage that caused as much as $10 billion in damages to the U.S. economy.


But Mr. Morris fears that in 10 to 20 years there may be greater blackouts as demand surpasses supply.


"Just think of the economic hardship that would render," he said.


Rick Sergel, president of the North American Electric Reliability Corp. of Princeton, N.J., the agency that oversees the nation's power grid, agrees with Mr. Morris.


"We're to the point where we need every possible resource: renewables, demand response and energy efficiency, nuclear, clean coal - you name it, we need it," he said. "And we especially need the transmission lines that will bring the power generated by these new resources to consumers."


But even as Americans demand more power to feed flat-screen TVs, video games, surround-sound systems and appliances, there is broad opposition to infrastructure that experts say is needed, and the costs are only going up.


Construction of coal-fired generating plants has almost stopped and new nuclear plants are years away, if they are approved at all, said Arshad Mansoor, vice president of power delivery and utilization for the Electric Power Research Institute. Better efficiency will only go so far, he said.


"If you don't have generation and transmission ... something has to give," he said, and that could be a blackout or brownout.


AEP recently announced efforts to expand the nation's transmission system. It will partner with Duke Energy in a $1 billion proposal to build 240 miles of transmission lines. Similar deals have been announced in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and West Virginia to Maryland, some including the use of wind power.


Yet infrastructure projects take a lot of time. AEP announced a plan for a transmission line in West Virginia and Virginia in 1990 that was not finished until last year, due mostly to the regulatory approval process.


Power plants are an even bigger problem, Mr. Morris said, particularly for coal and nuclear power. In Kansas, for example, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has blocked plans for two coal-fired power plants.


In conjunction with the anniversary of the blackout, FirstEnergy announced several technological improvements and greater efforts to keep its 11,000 miles of high transmission lines free of trees.


A tree brushed a power line in Ohio in 2003, according to the task force report, setting off cascading outages.


The task force also blamed poorly trained grid managers, a lack of communication among power providers. Utilities have spent millions on improvements.


"The event was a major crisis and did probably force something to happen that would have otherwise not happened," Larry Makovich, vice president/senior power adviser for Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Cambridge, Mass.


But Mr. Morris sees a potentially dire situation ahead, including power rationing that occurred in South Africa when that nation, on a 14-year growth spurt following the end of apartheid, virtually turned itself off.


"It would ruin the economy," Mr. Morris said.


Industry experts say it is easy for those in Washington and across the country to forget what happened five years ago, which they say will occur again on a grander scale if nothing is done.


Mr. Makovich said the U.S. had its own warning five years ago.


"It's easy to take the power infrastructure for granted until something goes wrong," he said.
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http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/denver_dnc/article/0,3159,DRMN_29216_5593892,00.html

Blue party, green plans for Dem convention

Denver convention hopes to expand on environmentally friendly initiatives in Boston in '04

By Stuart Steers

Rocky Mountain News

June 20, 2007

Blue is the color of Democratic territory on the national map, but green will be the unofficial color of next summer's Democratic National Convention.


Party officials are vowing to make the convention the most environmentally friendly gathering in memory.


Thousands of delegates will be encouraged to ride bicycles between their hotels and the Pepsi Center, to recycle everything from confetti to coffee cups and to buy "carbon offsets" to repair the damage done from travelers flying to Denver from around the world.


"It will be the greenest convention we've ever had," said Leah Daughtry, CEO of the convention.


"We want to incorporate green principles into everything we do."

A Reverse Senate 'Boxer Rebellion' Previously Sought to Enhance Foreign (European) Regulatory Influence in U.S.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Majority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=ae230690-802a-23ad-4b41-cfdc0d90bac6&Region_id=&Issue_id=

Boxer Introduces Bill to Reverse EPA Global Warming Waiver Decision


U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works


January 24, 2008


[THE REFERENCE ABOVE TO A REVERSE 'BOXER REBELLION' IS INTENTIONAL, AS IT IMPLIES HOW SENATOR BARBARA BOXER IS ENDEAVORING TO IMPORT EUROPEAN NON-SCIENCE & NON-ECONOMICS-BASED PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE CLIMATE CHANGE REGULATIONS INTO THE UNITED STATES AS U.S. LAW. THE 'BOXER REBELLION' IS ACTUALLY AN HISTORICAL EVENT THAT TOOK PLACE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY IN CHINA. UNLIKE SENATOR
BOXER'S INVITING FOREIGN INFLUENCES INTO THE U.S., THE CHINESE BOXER REBELLION REFLECTED CHINESE PEASANT'S REPULSION OF FOREIGN INFLUENCES. "The Boxer Rebellion, or Boxer Movement, was an uprising by members of the Chinese Society of Right and Harmonious Fists against foreign influence in areas such as trade, politics, religion and technology. It took place in China from November 1899 to 7 September 1901, during the final years of the Manchu rule (Qing Dynasty). The members of the Society of Right and Harmonious Fists were simply called 'Boxers' by the Westerners due to the martial arts and calisthenics they practiced. The uprising began as an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist peasant-based movement in northern China. They attacked foreigners who were building railroads and violating Feng shui, as well as Christians, who were held responsible for the foreign domination of China." See Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion ].


UPDATED: This release has been revised to include quotes from Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) as original cosponsors.


Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, introduced legislation today that would direct the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant California a waiver under the Clean Air Act to cut global warming pollution from motor vehicles.


Cosponsors of the bill include Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joseph Lieberman (ID, CT), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), John Kerry (D-MA), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bill Nelson (D-FL.) Barack Obama (D, IL), and Roberts Menendez (D-NJ).


Senator Boxer said, "Administrator Johnson's decision to deny the waiver was not supported by the facts, by the law, by the science, or by precedent. I will use every available tool to ensure that California and the nation are able to reduce the pollution that causes global warming. One of those tools is legislation that essentially overturns Mr. Johnson's actions."


Senator Feinstein said, "It's become clear that Administrator Johnson's denial of California's waiver was based on politics, not science. Even the EPA's own experts have said that there was a compelling need for action. So, today, Senator Boxer and I have introduced legislation to take this decision out of the hands of the EPA - and allow California to move ahead with curbing tailpipe emissions. Bottom line: I'm committed to protecting California's landmark global warming efforts - and will do everything in my power to ensure that this Administration doesn't stand in the way."


Senator Lieberman said, "The vision and leadership of California, Connecticut, and the other states that have moved to curb global warming pollution from cars should be rewarded by the grant of authority to implement the states' programs. In the wake of the Bush administration's failure to follow federal law and deliver the needed authority, we in Congress must step in with legislation that gives the states the go-ahead to fight climate change."


Senator Clinton said, "It is outrageous that the Bush Administration chose to block the efforts of New York, California and many other states that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Chairman Boxer's continued oversight on this issue is critically important, and I am proud to join with her in introducing legislation to overturn EPA's wrongheaded decision and allow states to move forward on global warming."


Senator Lautenberg said: "It's bad enough the Bush Administration has been sitting on its hands and done virtually nothing to fight global warming, but now it's trying to block states from taking strong action on their own. Our legislation would work to overturn this misguided decision and allow states like New Jersey and California to continue their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and combat global warming."


Senator Cardin said, "The EPA has clearly chosen to ignore the issue of global warming. It's time that States are allowed to take meaningful action to protect the health of their citizens by reducing greenhouse gas emissions."


Senator Sanders told the EPA administrator, "If you can't do the right thing, at least get out of the way of California, Vermont and other states. If we do not move aggressively, this planet is in danger."


Senator Whitehouse said, "Allowing Rhode Island and all these states to set tough vehicle emissions standards is one of the strongest and most common-sense steps we can take to begin to tackle the enormous challenge of global warming. But once again, this administration has put blind ideology before science; once again, this administration has let politics govern policy; and once again, this administration has taken an action that will directly undermine our efforts to protect our environment and safeguard public health. I applaud Chairman Boxer's commitment to addressing this issue and am proud to cosponsor this important bill."


Senator Kennedy said, "It's extremely unfortunate that the Administration has stood in the way of states' efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. I commend Senator Boxer for her leadership in filing this bill, which is so vital to states like Massachusetts and California which are ready to do the things necessary to curb global warming in spite of the obstacles EPA has set."


Senator Leahy said, "The Bush Administration has been AWOL or worse on air quality issues, and now they even want to undermine states like California and Vermont that are trying to pick up the slack. They won't lead and they won't follow, so the Boxer bill would force them at least to get out of the way and stop obstructing states like ours that are trying to lead on clean air policy."


Senator Dodd said, "The EPA's decision in December to deny the request by California, Connecticut, and 15 other states for the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles was a politically-motivated roadblock erected to stop responsible solutions to the growing problem of global warming. Indeed, evidence suggests that EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson ignored the advice of his own climate experts, who recommended that this request be approved. This bill restores those efforts to address one of the most pressing issues of our day. I thank Senator Boxer for her leadership on this issue and am committed to seeing this important piece of legislation passed."


Senator Kerry said, "If the Bush Administration refuses to combat climate change, they at least need to get out of the way when the states do. California needs this waiver, and deserves a lot of credit for meeting an environmental challenge with the reform it demands."


Senator Mikulski said, "The world is facing a climate crisis and we must act now. Maryland and a number of other states have already joined California in setting a higher bar to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles than the federal government has. The country is looking to us for leadership. As we continue to assist our manufacturing industries in making this transition, we need to set the standard so states can do the right thing."


Senator Snowe said, "I am deeply disappointed that the Administration failed to follow the statute outlined in the Clean Air Act that allows California to adopt distinct environmental laws. This is a setback for Maine and as well as our national environmental stewardship. Although I am confident that the court system will ultimately overturn this decision, I am troubled that this Administration has unnecessarily delayed enactment of a strong curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions. This legislation will allow the states to move forward with enacting strong reductions in green house gas emissions filling the void of federal action."


Senator Collins said, "Climate change is one of the most daunting challenges we face and we must develop reasonable solutions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. If states, like my home state of Maine, establish reasonable standards to help address this serious problem, the federal government should not stand in the way."


Senator Nelson said, "The failure of the Bush administration to allow states to clean up auto emissions means that Congress is going to have to step in and pass this legislation."
Senator Obama said, "Effectively tackling global warming demands bold and innovative solutions, and given the failure of this Administration to act, California should be allowed to pioneer. I commend Chairman Boxer for her leadership on this bill and on working to eliminate the damaging consequences of climate change around the world."


Sen. Menendez said: "Our planet is in peril and this administration simply refuses to let anyone do very much about it. Under this administration, the EPA is acting like the ‘Environmental Pollution Agency'. Since they won't act, states that want to undertake serious efforts to clean our air should not have their hands tied. New Jersey is one of those states, and I will stand up for our right to help save our planet. I applaud Chairwoman Boxer for her leadership on this issue."


The bill introduced today directs the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to grant California's request for the waiver, which will allow California to implement its greenhouse gas emissions standards for motor vehicles. The waiver will also permit other states to adopt California's emissions standards.


Fourteen other states have adopted California's standards, or are in the process of adopting them. Another four are moving toward adopting the California standards. All together, those 19 states represent more than 152,000,000 Americans - a majority of the U.S. population.


[THE EPA ADMINISTRATOR WAS DOING WHAT WAS CALLED FOR. THE EPA CANNOT GRANT A WAIVER FROM A FEDERAL STANDARD THAT DOES NOT YET EXIST. THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT THE EPA WAS TRYING TO DEVELOP - A FEDERAL STANDARD. THE PROBLEM HERE, IS THUS, THAT THE PROPONENTS OF THE BILL DO NOT WISH TO GRANT THE EPA THE OPPORTUNITY TO DEVELOP A FEDERAL STANDARD THAT CAN WITHSTAND LEGAL CHALLENGE FROM WHICH IT COULD THEN GRANT A WAIVER.]

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http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/12/epa-denies-cali.html


EPA Denies California Vehicle GHG Waiver; State Will Sue to Overturn Decision


Green Car Congress


December 19, 2007


The US Environmental Agency (EPA) today denied the state of California the waiver required to enable the state to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions from passenger cars and light trucks. Sixteen other states—Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont and Washington—have adopted or are in the process of adopting the California regulations.


In announcing the rejection of the waiver, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said, “The Bush Administration is moving forward with a clear national solution—not a confusing patchwork of state rules—to reduce America’s climate footprint from vehicles. President Bush and Congress have set the bar high, and, when fully implemented, our federal fuel economy standard will achieve significant benefits by applying to all 50 states.”


The EPA is relying upon the new CAFE standard of an average 35 mpg by 2020 to deliver reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. President Bush signed the CAFE legislation—contained with the larger energy bill—into law today. The California standards call for 205 g CO2/mile for passenger cars (about 43 mpg for a gasoline vehicle) and 332 g/mile for light trucks (about 27 mpg for a gasoline vehicle) by 2016.


The EPA said that California’s current waiver request is distinct from all prior requests, which covered pollutants that predominantly impacted local and regional air quality. The agency asserted that greenhouse gases are fundamentally global in nature, unlike the other air pollutants covered by prior California waiver requests. Since these gases contribute to the challenge of global climate change affecting every state in the union, the EPA argued, according to the criteria in section 209 of the Clean Air Act, it did not find that separate California standards are needed to “meet compelling and extraordinary conditions.”


In reaction, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to appeal the decision and pursue every legal opportunity to obtain the waiver.


While the federal energy bill is a good step toward reducing dependence on foreign oil, the President's approval of it does not constitute grounds for denying our waiver. The energy bill does not reflect a vision, beyond 2020, to address climate change, while California's vehicle greenhouse gas standards are part of a carefully designed, comprehensive program to fight climate change through 2050.


It has been nearly two years since we requested the waiver and, now, sixteen other states are following our lead to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, increase fuel efficiency and help reduce harmful greenhouse gases. A ruling from the US Supreme Court earlier this year made it clear that the US EPA has the authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.

It is disappointing that the federal government is standing in our way and ignoring the will of tens of millions of people across the nation. We will continue to fight this battle. California sued to compel the agency to act on our waiver, and now we will sue to overturn today’s decision and allow Californians to protect our environment.

—Gov. Schwarzenegger


[GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER HAS FAILED TO CONSIDER THE VIEWS OF TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ACROSS THE NATION THAT DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE GLOBAL WARMING CRISES, LET ALONE, THE RECOMMENDED EUROPEAN REGULATORY CAP & TRADE LEGISLATION SITTING IN CONGRESS OR IN CALIFORNIA. THE CALIFORNIA CAFE STANDARD IS BUT THE TIP OF THE REGULATORY ICEBERG. WHILE HIGHER MPG REQUIREMENTS ARE NECESSARY TO HELP SECURE U.S. ENERGY INDEPENDENCE BASED ON REDUCED ENERGY USE /EFFICIENCY, IT DOES LITTLE TO ADDRESS CO2 EMISSIONS. EUROPEAN-STYLE CLIMATE CHANGE CAP & TRADE REGULATIONS ARE REALLY WHAT THESE DEMOGAGUES ARE AFTER, SINCE THEY WOULD COVER ALL U.S. ECONOMIC SECTORS...]


Under the Federal Clean Air Act, California has the right to set its own tougher-than-federal vehicle emission standards, as long as it obtains a waiver from US EPA. Over the past 30 years the US EPA has granted California more than 40 such waivers, denying none.


The original request for a waiver of federal preemption of California's Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards was made by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) on December 21, 2005. The waiver, allowing California to enact and enforce emissions standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, was requested after the Air Resources Board developed regulations based on a 2002 California law, AB 1493 by Assemblymember Fran Pavley.


That law required California to establish new standards for motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions beginning in model year 2009. The ARB-adopted regulations will phase in and ramp up over eight years to cut global warming emissions from new vehicles by nearly 30% by model year 2016.


In letters sent on April 10, 2006 and October 24, 2006 to President Bush, the Governor reiterated the urgency of approving California's request to address global warming. On April 25, 2007, 16 months after the original waiver request, Governor Schwarzenegger sent a letter to Administrator Johnson informing him of California’s intent to sue after 180 days under the Clean Air Act and Administrative Procedure Act, which provides mechanisms for compelling delayed agency action.


California’s request has been supported by recent judicial decisions.

Governator's California Enviro-Energy Policies Follow in the Footsteps of Europe: Does He Really Wish to Govern the 28th EU Member State??

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_californias_environmentalism.html


California’s Potemkin Environmentalism


By Max Schultz


City Journal


Spring 2008 Vol.18, No. 2


A celebrated green economy produces pollution elsewhere, ongoing power shortages, and business-crippling costs.



In January 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stood before the California legislature in Sacramento and delivered his fourth State of the State address since his improbable 2003 election. It was a rhetorical tour de force that would win him widespread acclaim. “California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta,” said Schwarzenegger. “Not only can we lead California into the future; we can show the nation and the world how to get there.”


Schwarzenegger especially celebrated California for its leadership on energy and the environment. Just three months earlier, he had signed the Global Warming Solutions Act, committing California to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels—roughly 25 percent below today’s—by 2020, and all but eliminating them by 2050. The Governator then lambasted the Bush administration for failing to tackle global warming: “It would not act, so California did.


California has taken the leadership in moving the entire country beyond debate and denial to action.” Such performances have helped establish Schwarzenegger as a national figure, even a statesman, on the environment. In April 2007, he posed for the cover of Newsweek, spinning a globe on his finger under the banner leadership & the environment, and in September, he even addressed the United Nations on climate change.


[THE UNITED NATION ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM'S INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) IS THE 'CHURCH' OF THE UNQUESTIONABLE PARADIGM.]


Schwarzenegger’s reputation as an environmental trailblazer is in keeping with California’s recent history and self-perception. California’s political leaders, business titans, academics, and environmental activists proudly point to the fact that the state has infused its public policy over the last four decades with an environmental consciousness unmatched in the United States, while also maintaining a dynamic economy, arguably the eighth-largest on the planet, with a gross state product of more than $1.6 trillion. The widely shared assumption is that forward-looking Athenian wisdom has nourished awesome Spartan power.


In truth, however, the Golden State’s energy leadership is a mirage. California’s environmental policies have made it heavily dependent on other states for power; generated some of the highest, business-crippling energy costs in the country; and left it vulnerable to periodic electricity shortages. Its economic growth has occurred not because of, but despite, those policies, which would be disastrous if extended to the rest of the country.


Much of California’s heightened environmental awareness dates back to January 1969, when an industrial accident on a Union Oil (now Unocal) drilling rig about five miles off the Santa Barbara coast blew out of control. Over 11 days, the rig spewed more than 3 million gallons of oil over 800 square miles of ocean and along a 35-mile stretch of coastline. The massive spill killed innumerable birds, fish, dolphins, and seals and coated beaches with a six-inch-thick film. Union Oil president Fred Utley’s ham-handed response enraged an already angry public: “I don’t like to call it a disaster,” he said, noting that there had been no loss of human life. “I am amazed at the publicity for the loss of a few birds.”


The concern over “the loss of a few birds” was even more powerful than Utley thought. It’s no exaggeration to say that much of the modern environmental movement emerged from the Santa Barbara oil spill. Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson said that he conceived of the first Earth Day because of the accident. A powerful movement to ban offshore drilling sprang up. Environmental advocacy groups formed. A marked hostility to oil companies took hold in the public’s mind.


Voters established the California Coastal Commission in a 1972 referendum. And at the federal level, in 1970, President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency largely as a response to the spill.


From then on, the environment would be central for California lawmakers and regulators. Unlike other states, California began to focus on efficiency and conservation, and it pioneered new efficiency standards for appliances and for the construction of new buildings. It mandated aggressive conservation programs for businesses and consumers and required a certain percentage of the state’s electricity to come from renewable sources like wind and solar. It subsidized such clean technologies, seeking to give them a foothold in the state’s energy mix. It implemented far-reaching regulations on emissions from car tailpipes and from stationary sources like factories, seeking to protect health and improve air quality. In league with influential environmental groups, California officials began attacking nuclear power and moving (with some success) to shut down the state’s nuclear facilities.


For environmentalists, this was visionary policy. “This is a state which should be commended,” says Rory Cox of Ratepayers for Affordable Clean Energy, a San Francisco–based environmental coalition. “This is a state which has a number of really good laws regarding renewable energy and a lot of incentives for things like renewable energy and energy efficiency.” The Natural Resources Defense Council, arguably the nation’s leading green activist group, expressed the same view in a 2006 cover story in its magazine OnEarth: “California Illuminates the World.”


For a time, these efforts to meet power needs by reducing energy demand and consumption seemed to work. Since the mid-seventies, California’s economy has grown while per-capita energy consumption stayed flat—an astounding fact, considering that such consumption has increased by roughly 50 percent elsewhere in the country over the same period.




To understand better how California’s environmental policies have played out, however, consider what two of them—opposition to nuclear energy and promotion of solar power—have done to Clay Station, California, 25 miles outside Sacramento, where two gigantic cooling towers rise up over rolling fields and farmland. This facility was once the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station, capable of generating over 900 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power upward of 900,000 homes. Rancho Seco opened in 1975, when antinuclear fervor in California was just beginning to gain momentum, and at one point, it generated more electricity than any other nuclear plant in the world.


Over the years, though, management missteps led to several shutdowns, including one that lasted 27 months. Antinuclear advocates seized on the fact that the reactor’s design was similar to Three Mile Island’s in Pennsylvania, which had suffered a partial meltdown in 1979, and demanded that it be closed. In a 1989 referendum on whether to decommission Rancho Seco, 53 percent of Sacramento voters agreed. Just 14 years after powering up, and nearly two decades before its operating license was to expire, the nuclear reactor shut down.


The facility didn’t entirely close, though. In 1984, trying to position itself as a national leader in solar power, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) began building photovoltaic solar panels on the site, taking advantage of the already constructed infrastructure to transmit power.

At the same time, in a bid to position itself as a national leader in solar power, SMUD instituted programs subsidizing the construction of photovoltaic panels for Sacramento homes and businesses. The utility halted the installation of new panels in 2002, after it became clear that the program would cost perhaps three times more than projected and had lost millions of dollars, falling well short of its modest goal to install 2 MW of solar energy that year.


Today, Rancho Seco possesses one of the largest photovoltaic arrays in the world. Yet it provides less than 4 MW of electricity, or less than half of 1 percent of what the closed nuclear plant optimally offered. Total solar capacity for the Sacramento region is less than 50 MW, or about 6 percent of the nuclear plant’s output. In fact, after millions of dollars in subsidies and other support for solar power, the entire state of California has less than 250 MW of solar capacity.


The Rancho Seco story helps explain California’s infamous turn-of-the-millennium energy crisis. In 2000 and 2001, numerous rolling blackouts and power outages caused billions of dollars in damages in the state. The degree to which rapacious power-company executives and traders were responsible for the shortages remains open to debate. But what isn’t in question is that California had insufficient power to meet demand and that officials had let the state’s infrastructure for moving electrons become frayed and overloaded. Having adequate power supplies would have shielded consumers from any private-sector perfidy.


Republican state senator Tom McClintock underscored the real problem, which went well beyond Rancho Seco, in a speech to a Silicon Valley group in 2001. “From 1979 to 1999, generating capacity of over 45,000 megawatts was proposed to the [California Energy] Commission,” he said. “Only 4,500 megawatts was approved. Nuclear power plants were forbidden, and Rancho Seco and San Onofre Unit One,” another nuclear reactor, “were shut down prematurely. . . . For 27 years, this state has actively discouraged the construction of new power plants, and the day finally arrived when we ran out of power.” Indeed, California’s capability to generate electricity actually decreased slightly from 1990 through 1999.


Not even California’s flat per-capita energy consumption could save it from blackouts, since its population had been soaring. During the 20-year period that Senator McClintock noted, the number of California residents jumped from about 23 million people to 33 million. Today, the figure is closer to 38 million, and it could top 45 million by 2020. The cumulative demand proved too much for the aging system.


A dirty secret about California’s energy economy is that it imports lots of energy from neighboring states to make up for the shortfall caused by having too few power plants. Up to 20 percent of the state’s power comes from coal-burning plants in Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Montana, and another significant portion comes from large-scale hydropower in Oregon, Washington State, and the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas. “California practices a sort of energy colonialism,” says James Lucier of Capital Alpha Partners, a Washington, D.C.–area investment group. “They rely on western states to supply them with power generation they are unwilling to build for themselves”—and leave those states to deal with the resulting pollution.


Another secret: California’s proud claim to have kept per-capita energy consumption flat while growing its economy is less impressive than it seems. The state has some of the highest energy prices in the country—nearly twice the national average, a 2002 Milken Institute study found—largely because of regulations and government mandates to use expensive renewable sources of power. As a result, heavy manufacturing and other energy-intensive industries have been fleeing the Golden State in droves for lower-cost locales. Twenty years ago or so, you could count eight automobile factories in California; today, there’s just one, and it’s the same story with other industries, from chemicals to aerospace. Yet Californians still enjoy the fruits of those manufacturing industries—driving cars built in the Midwest and the South, importing chemicals and resins and paints and plastics produced elsewhere, and flying on jumbo jets manufactured in places like Everett, Washington. California can pretend to have controlled energy consumption, but it has just displaced it.


It isn’t just the high price of power that’s compelling California businesses to shift operations to other regions. The state’s unreliable power grid has its economic costs, too. A 2003 U.S. Department of Energy report noted that “a recent rolling blackout in the greater San Francisco Bay area caused an estimated $75 million in losses in the Silicon Valley.” A 20-minute outage at a Hewlett-Packard circuit-fabrication plant, the report observed, “would result in a day’s production loss at a cost of $30 million.” As Jack Gerard, then-president of the National Mining Association, put it in a 2001 speech: “Events are proving that the most expensive kilowatt is the one that’s not there when needed.”


The shortages are starting to rattle some Silicon Valley heavyweights. Intel chief executive Craig Barrett, for instance, vowed in 2001 not to build a chip-making facility in California until power supplies became more reliable. This October, Intel opened a $3 billion factory near Phoenix for mass production of its new 45-nanometer microprocessors. Google, meanwhile, has chosen to build the massive server farms that will fuel its expansion anywhere but in California. The most celebrated is an enormous installation along the Columbia River in The Dalles, Oregon, a facility that will house tens of thousands of computers, requiring mind-boggling amounts of power. A 1.8-gigawatt hydroelectric power plant will offer Google power for a small fraction of what it would cost in the Golden State. The irony is that the Silicon Valley companies that have become the face of California’s twenty-first-century economy are increasingly building the facilities that will give them their future value in other states.

Despite California’s desperate need for more power, opposition to energy projects remains nearly as prevalent today as at any time during the previous three decades. State law explicitly prohibits the construction of new nuclear plants, and legislative efforts last summer to repeal it went nowhere, even though more and more states are looking to nuclear power as a clean energy alternative. A de facto moratorium on conventional coal-fired power plants (which generate half of America’s electricity) has been in place for decades in California; none exists anywhere in the state. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense are working to get dams torn down, even though large-scale hydropower supplies nearly one-fifth of Californians’ electricity.


Plans to construct liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals along the California coast have met with particularly fierce resistance. Natural gas accounts for nearly half of California’s electricity generation. Regulators (and even some environmentalists) favor it because it’s capable of generating large amounts of power but burns much cleaner than coal. American production of natural gas has reached a plateau, however, while demand around the country continues to rise, driving prices upward over the last five years.


To avert a long-term natural-gas supply crisis, Schwarzenegger administration officials have encouraged companies to explore the idea of building offshore terminals to accept LNG from other countries. The gas would be liquefied abroad, shipped via tanker to the terminals, reconverted to gas, and then sent to shore through long underwater pipelines. The distance from shore is critical, since the liquefied gas is extremely flammable: federal officials believe that the fire from an explosion at an LNG terminal could reach as far as seven miles.


The state has received several credible proposals to construct LNG terminals far offshore, the most promising of which called for a terminal 14 miles off the Malibu coast. But the project sparked intense resistance from environmentalists and a coterie of entertainment-industry activists (and Malibu residents), including Pierce Brosnan, Ted Danson, Martin Sheen, Téa Leoni, Cindy Crawford, Halle Berry, and octogenarian Dick Van Dyke. “This is just another disaster waiting to happen,” said actress Darryl Hannah at a 2006 protest. “An LNG plant off the coast is not just an eyesore, but it’s like a bomb waiting to go off.”


A political consultant with close ties to the Schwarzenegger administration wasn’t impressed. “These softheaded celebrity protests against LNG are the same thing we saw in the 1970s with the protests against nuclear power,” he said. “I mean, Martin Sheen? I think he was actually there in the seventies.” But the celebrity activists have had the last laugh. Bowing to the activists, regulators with the California Lands Commission and the California Coastal Commission vetoed the project last spring.


Even renewable energy projects can have trouble getting off the ground, often because of Not-In-My-Backyard objections. “NIMBYism is a huge problem in our state, a whole creature unto itself,” says Joe Lyons, a lobbyist for the California Manufacturers Technology Association. “It cuts across all sectors. Even in the most remote locations, where you wouldn’t think it would be difficult to site a new project, or even on federal lands, it is still extremely difficult and there is always opposition.”


For instance, attempts to build a geothermal facility on federal lands deep within the Modoc National Forest face relentless opposition from Indian tribes, which consider the site sacred. Local hostility also threatens to hold up construction of several major transmission lines designed to bring more than 5,000 MW of power from renewable energy sources to Southern California consumers.


One of these projects, a $1 billion transmission line known as the Sunrise Powerlink, would ship wind power 120 miles west from the Imperial Valley to San Diego. Here’s the head of one community activist group commenting on the initiative: “While the Sunrise Powerlink may represent the possibility of a new dawning of power . . . to me it represents a threat; a darkness, a SUNSET, of sorts, on our quiet, natural, joyful and backcountry rural way of life. For the many quiet folks who thought they had found paradise . . . or the many who may see the intrusive poles each and every day for the rest of their days here, the magnificent beautiful and natural sunrises and sunsets will never be quite the same.”


With such widespread opposition to energy projects, where will California get the power its economy needs to flourish? Since the 2000–01 electricity debacle, the state has overseen the construction of some natural-gas power plants, whose added generation has helped relieve the pressure slightly. But Californians have continued to face the threat of blackouts or brownouts almost every summer since 2001.


California’s inability to provide the energy that its economy needs hasn’t stopped its leaders from setting wildly unrealistic goals for safeguarding the environment. In 1990, for instance, the state’s Air Resources Board sought to encourage the development of an electric car, decreeing that by 1998, 2 percent of all new cars sold by the major automakers had to meet zero-emissions standards; by 2001, 5 percent; and by 2003, 10 percent. But by 1996, it was clear that there was simply no technological way for the automakers to comply with the mandate. The regulators first eliminated the 1998 and 2001 benchmarks, later announced that gasoline-battery hybrids could count toward the 2003 requirement, and then, faced with the reality that the automakers could not come close to meeting even the newly relaxed standards, relaxed the mandate once again and moved the deadline to this year. Doubtless that goal will prove impossible to meet as well.


California’s efforts to implement a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) and to become the nation’s leader in wind-energy production have hit similar stumbling blocks. In 2002, California enacted an RPS that called for 20 percent of the state’s electricity to come from clean energy sources (excluding nuclear energy and hydropower) by 2017. When Schwarzenegger became governor, he moved the target to 2010. But recent reports, including one from the state’s Public Utilities Commission, signal that California will very likely not meet the 2010 target. In September 2006, reports emerged that Pacific Gas & Electric, the Northern California utility serving San Francisco, had actually reduced the share of renewables in its portfolio between 2003 and 2005. And Texas, of all places, has outpaced California as America’s leader in wind-power generation. High costs, excessive regulation, and litigation from environmental groups on how to limit bird deaths have all hampered California’s effort; Texas has just built lots of wind turbines.


Now California is embarking on its most ambitious project yet: an attempt to combat global warming by reducing its greenhouse-gas emissions. The devil will be in the details of how the Global Warming Solutions Act (or AB32, for its legislative number) is enacted—details that state regulators don’t have to unveil until January 2009. Already there’s widespread skepticism that the state can succeed. Margo Thorning, chief economist at the American Council for Capital Formation, testified before Congress last July: “The economic burden of California’s new climate policy legislation is likely to be high, and the targets in AB32 are unlikely to be met.” Even the California Energy Commission hints that the targets might be unreachable.


It’s certainly going to cost a lot to find out. Analysis from the Electric Power Research Institute pegs AB32’s cost to the California economy at anywhere from $100 billion to $511 billion. “What will it take to achieve the benchmark? Consider that California could take every one of its 14 million passenger cars off the road, and still be less than halfway toward its goal,” observed Sacramento Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub. “Shutting down 100 state-of-the-art, natural-gas-fired power plants still wouldn’t get us there. Closing the entire cement industry, although it is a major source of greenhouse gases, wouldn’t finish the job.”


Given all its failings, what sort of leadership example does California offer the rest of the country? It’s hard to claim credibly that California illuminates the world when it has trouble illuminating itself. Further, California’s particular path makes sense only if the rest of the country refuses to follow it. The state’s lawmakers and regulators have enacted policies that for several decades have allowed Californians to feel good, even smug, about their environmental credentials. Yet California’s economic prosperity has relied on the fact that other states have built power plants and established sensible regulatory regimes that don’t force businesses to flee. The power plants scattered throughout the western United States, as well as the factories in the American Midwest and South, have consistently saved California from the folly of its own anti-energy agenda.


[EUROPE SUFFERS FROM THE SAME DELUSIONS. FOR THIS REASON, CALIFORNIA HAS BEEN INCREASINGLY REFERRED TO AS THE 28TH EU MEMBER STATE].


California isn’t content to keep its energy policy within state limits, however. Recently, it passed a law barring state utilities from entering into long-term contracts to buy electricity from out-of-state producers if coal is used in generating it. “They are clearly trying to trim down the growth of coal, not just in California, but elsewhere,” said a top official at the U.S. Department of Energy.


“California is using their regulations to direct the economic development of the West. And it is arrogant and it is appalling.”


[THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT EUROPE DOES WITH ITS ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS - IT EXPORTS THEM AROUND THE WORLD IN ORDER TO 'LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD' FOR THOSE OF ITS INDUSTRIES BURDENED BY THE HIGH COSTS OF THE REGULATIONS.]


California is certainly within its rights to set policies for itself and to live with the consequences. But everyone can’t do what California does. Someone needs to build power plants and oil refineries. Someone needs to manufacture the cars, trucks, airplanes, and other pieces of heavy equipment that enrich Americans’ lives, till our fields, and grow our economy. Someone needs to produce the plastics and chemicals that undergird our prosperity. Those things require energy, and lots of it—growing amounts of it. All the wisdom of Athens and all the power of Sparta won’t change that fact.


Max Schulz is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of its Center for Energy Policy and the Environment.