NC Media Watch

Prop 23 Update: The politics of Cap and Trade

Russ Steele

I posted about the one year delay in CARB's implementation of the AB-32 Cap and Trade scheme to extort carbon taxes here.  Why the delay one is forced to ask? 

One reason might be the economic desolation Cap and Trade will bring to California — shuttered businesses, more companies leaving the state, extended unemployment lines. Delaying implementation beyond the 2012 election this economic devastation will insure that Cap and Trade will not hinder the campaign to re-elect Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a big advocate of Cap and Trade.

The Democrats are afraid Dianne will lose because of the massive consumer cost increases and job losses.

The only good news in a 2013 implementation is that it will increase the chances that a Republican will win the Governorship in 2014.  It could even bring a GOP majority to the legislature, though a much lower probability until 2016.

Unfortunately by 2016 California will look more like a third world country than the economic power is once was before the Democrats and RINO Republicans destroyed it. It will take years for conservative Republicans to restore the state to its original economic glory.

Cost of CARB: Higher fuel prices are coming - Really!

Russ Steele

While the price of crude oil continues to drop, Barrons is predicting that it will soon be at $150.00 a barrel, while CARB constinues to work on California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which is designed to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% in 2020.  The LCFS when implemented in 2012 will increase the cost of fuel, this cost will be added to the projected rise in crude oil prices by Barrons.

The U.S. economy is never completely ready for higher oil prices, which is one reason they take a nasty economic toll when they arrive. But readiness can be enhanced by awareness of the likely outlook for petroleum prices–and the outlook today is relatively grim, although probably not disastrous.

Despite the recent 20% decline from April highs, new highs on crude, heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline seem likely over the next 12 months. Following some further easing over the summer, the second leg of the long-term bull market in petroleum–the first occurred in 2007-08–probably will begin this fall.

Regardless the fuel prices continue to drop in the Nevada County, California and the US this last week.  Here are the latest fuel price plots:






Exit question: When will the falling prices reverse direction and start climbing again?

Prop 23 Update: A hockey stick of another kind

Russ Steele

The California Energy Commission has been holding workshops on how to implement the Governor's renewable energy vision.

There will be Committee Workshop on the California Clean Energy Future on the 6 July. I was wandering through one of the presentations prepared for this meeting called Overview and Metric Review, and found this graphic on slide 20 rather interesting, as it looked like a lumpy hockey stick.


No do not ask me what IOU and POU mean, I searched the presentation and could not find a definition. These must be insider terms.

In another section of the presentation, the Committee worries about how to support a million plug in electric vehicles by 2020.  Given the poor sales of the Nissan LEAF and Chevy Volt, I am not sure they need worry to much.

As of June, Chevy Volt has sold 2,184 cars in 2011, and the Nissan Leaf has sold 2,167. That is about 725 cars a month in the US and one third of those sales are in California.  To reach a million plug in vehicles  by 2020 Chevy and Nissan would have to sell about 9,800 plug in vehicles a month in California.

I do not think that will happen any time soon. But, when you are dealing with Governor Brown's renewable energy vision, you have to pretend it will happen and build a capacity to meet a non-existing demand.  Remember this is a vision not reality!

Prop 23 Update: CA Cap and Trade Delayed for a year

Russ Steele

Sac Bee has the AP Story here.

California regulators on Wednesday said they would give power plants, refineries and other major polluters another year to comply with a new state program that provides financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.

Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the Air Resources Board, said in testimony before a state Senate committee that the government is giving California's major polluters until 2013 to comply with its cap-and-trade program.

Most polluters previously were to have begun cutting emissions under the program in 2012. The program was passed in December by the board, which said it hoped other states would follow suit since Congress had failed to pass national climate change legislation.

"This would not affect the stringency of the program or change the amount of emission reductions that the program will achieve, keeping us on track to meet the 2020 target required by AB32," Nichols said.

Well, this one more year for the cooling to become more evident from the forecast Grand Minimum. However, the real cooling is still ten years off.  In the mean time we will see our weather pattens bounce up and down, but continue to trend cooler and cooler.  Scientific sanity may yet prevail.

In the mean time, the Republican's could win the House, Senate, and Presidency, and this whole AGW bull sh*t will be quickly dispatched, as we start the true economic recovery free from EPA socialism.

Read the rest of the story here.

Cost of CARB: Cap and Trade Back on Track for 2012

Russ Steele

Reuters has the story:

A California appellate court has ruled that state regulators can proceed with plans to implement a carbon cap-and-trade system, a decision that puts them on track to launch the market as scheduled in January 2012.

Who is going to get access to the Carbon Tax Slush Fund has yet to be determined according to the report:

Key decisions, including how to allocate billions of dollars worth of pollution permits to utility companies and how to use revenue raised from the auction of those allowances, have yet to be made.

One thing is clear, the rate payers and the tax payers will be footing the bill for CARB's Cap and Trade program.

Exit questions:  Will your budget handle these extra energy cost?  If not, what are you doing to stop CARB?

Cost of CARB: Latest fuel prices update.

Russ Steele

The price of crude oil continues to decline, with the release of 60 million barrels of crude from national stockpile reserves. However, it is not clear that this will result in a drop in fuel prices over all, even though the gas fell in the futures market by 14 cents.

It is still too early to see any changes in local fuel prices. The gas price decline has slowed in Nevada County, California and across the nation.  Diesel prices have ticked up in Nevada County, while they have leveled off in California and the United  States.

Cost of CARB: Fuel price turbulance

Russ Steele 

With Brent Crude prices staying up around $117 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate falls to about $93 a barell, the diesel price downward trend has been broken. US and CA diesel prices are ticking back up while Nevada County continues the downward trend.  On the other hand US gas prices continue to fall, but leveling off in CA and Nevada County.  Seem to be some turbulance in the fuel market.

 

 

Cost of CARB: Latest fuel cost graphics

Russ Steele

If find it interesting that CA fuel prices are falling faster than in Nevada County after tracking so close for many months, which is most obvious in the diesel prices.  Regardless, they are all headed in the right direction as the price of oil falls based on as the Saudi's increasing production. I wounder how much it would fall if the US increased production?

Union of Pretend Scientists supports CARB's AGW Ozone Scare

Russ Steele

Why does the press not challenge these pretend scientists? Oh, sorry dumb question!

A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, concludes that CO2-induced temperature increases will worsen ground-level ozone concentrations (the kind coming from power plants and exhaust pipes, not the kind that shields the Earth from UV rays). Higher concentrations of ground-level ozone threaten the health of millions of Americans, an impact that could cost the US $5.4 billion in 2020.

The report finds that in 2020, "climate change-induced ozone increases" could result in nearly half a million additional cases of "serious respiratory illnesses" and add more than $729 million to the state's health care costs.

There was this from KQED Climate Watch in reference to the report:

Prop 23 Update: Solar Wobble to Prolong Global Cooling

Russ Steele

I have written many times about the religious belief in AGW and how it would blind political leaders and policy makers into preparing for global warming, when is was really global cooling that we should be worrying about.  AB32 is perfect example of what happens when religion trumps true science.

John Sullivan writing a Suite 101 has the details about the "wobble" in a article titled;  Top Scientist Says new Solar Wobble to Prolong Global Cooling.

As a new solar minimum takes our planet towards global cooling an increasing number of scientists give credence to a new theory blaming our Sun's wobble.

It started in 2007 when scientists saw that gravitational forces in our solar system may have a huge impact on Earth's climate. Professor Ivanka Charvátová, CSc. from the Geophysical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, explains why there is suddenly so much interest in her theory in an exclusive interview with klimatskeptik.cz.

Professor Charvátová calls it Solar Inertial Motion (SIM) and she claims it will have serious impacts on our climate. She says a predictable "wobble" of our Sun called barycenter shift alters Earth's weather patterns. Few climatologists have yet studied this phenomenon. But the evidence supporting Professor Charvátová's SIM theory is becoming ever more compelling.

I have been following the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830) for several years and the possibility that we maybe returning to similar patterns over the next 20 years.

The infamous year of 1816 was beset with powerful changes in magnetism, major volcanic eruptions, and the wobbling of the Sun's position. It is believed that the coincidence of those powerful forces of nature propelled our planet into the widespread famine, drought, and destructive snows and rains that so many historians documented. Only recently have scientists thought to make the link with those correllated climatic events and solar "wobble" and come up with the SIM theory.

I suggest that you read the whole article here and come to your own conclusions.

This has been cross posted at Dalton Minimum Returns.