NC Media Watch

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.

Prop 23 Update: Social engineering hits a snag - personal perference

Russ Steele

As a Transportation Commissioner I often wrote about transportation issues in The Union and on this blog, especially about the transit issues.  Local liberals often cited the need for more public transit, yet even a casual observer could see all the empty seats on the Gold County Stage. People were not using the existing service and their was no indication that anything would change.

San Francisco was often cited by our local liberals as a example of great public transportation.  An they were right. A new study by the Brookings Institution found that compared with the rest of the nation, the Bay Area has good public transportation.

So…if Bay Area transit is so good, why doesn't anybody seem to take it, asks Gretchen Weber in a KQED Climate Watch article here.

Just one out of ten people in the Bay Area commute by public transportation, according to John Goodwin of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He says that number hasn't changed much over the years, despite huge investments in the system. And the Bay Area isn't alone in that. A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found that between 1990 and 2008, the share of commuters taking transit increased by less than one percentage point, from 5% to 5.5%, despite the construction of 217 new rail stations, and the fact that more than a third of California's transportation spending since the early 1980s has gone to public transit.

"The California public likes the idea of public transit in the sense that they highlight it as a place where we should be investing a lot of our dollars," said the PPIC's Ellen Hanak. "But there is a gap between what people say, and how they actually sort of vote with their feet. It’s almost like people would like their neighbors to take transit so they could have fewer cars on the road."

Now if you recall Senate Bill 375 was passed in 2009 to nudge regional planning agencies into linking land use and transit in ways that will get people to drive less.  Transportation makes up 37% of all greenhouse gas emissions in California, so to reduce those gases there has to be fewer people on the road.  In other words to reduce vehicle miles traveled and CO2 by15%, CARB wants to force people to use public transportation, by mandating all future housing and commercial development be transit centric. 

The problem, the people have demonstrated with their feet, even with huge investment in transit funding, they are not going to use public transit. Social engineering only works if it take in to account how people really act, not now the liberals would like them act. Reality is a power force for change.

Who will turn out the lights when the last company leaves California?

Russ Steele

I have wrtten many times during the Prop 23 debate about companies leaving California, especially the reports by Joe Vranich, who is a relocation consultant in Irvine California. The Orange County Register has a update report for 2011, based on the observations of Joe Vranich.

“So far this year, 69 companies have moved all or part of their California work and jobs to other states or countries, reports Irvine relocation consultant Joe Vranich.

It’s the fastest rate of departures since Vranich started tracking the exodus in 2009, he says. There have been an average of 4.7 moves per week from Jan. 1 through April 12, compared to 3.9 moves in all of 2010.

The numbers are low, Vranich says, estimating that only one in five out-of-state moves is made public.

In what he calls “disinvestment events,” Vranich counts companies that move jobs, facilities or headquarters out of California.  He doesn’t count companies that invest outside the state for growth or marketing reasons.

You can read the rest of the story here.  Of the eleven companies that have left Orange County in 2011 five, almost 50% have moved to Texas.  Vranich has updated his ten top reasons for companies leaving California, with a new number 10 the rising cost of energy.

Prop 23 Update: Texas grabs 1,000 more high paying California jobs

Russ Steele

The Austin City Council has approved an eBay incentives deal which will bring 1,000 new jobs to the city. These are green jobs, mostly software programming, with an average yearly salary topping $122,500.

"This is precisely the kind of company we would like to see expand in Austin. This project will include great jobs for Central Texans," stated Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

Gov. Rick Perry's office said the deal will bring an estimated $5.1 million in capital investment to the region
 
“Austin’s high-tech economy and skilled workforce are perfect for eBay, and I’m pleased to welcome this expansion and the more than 1,000 quality jobs it will bring to Texas,” Perry said.

More details are here.  During the debate over Prop 23, the opponents said that enacting AB32 would bring those high tech green job flooding into California.  So why did eBay chose Texas over California, they got support from the State and the City, rather than a bag full of job strangling regulation.  

"Austin is a vibrant, exciting city with a strong heritage for technology expertise and lots of growth potential," said Mark Carges, an sBay vice president. "Our state-of-the-art facility there has room for expansion and the support we have received from the state of Texas and the city of Austin reinforces our commitment to attracting top talent in regions where we operate.

With no personal income taxes and no nanny state rules governing peoples lives in Texas, eBay should not have any problem recruiting some of California's top talent to move to Austin.

Prop 23 Update: What will "33-by-20" cost you?

Russ Steele

Governor brown signed State Senator Joe Simitian's (D-Palo Alto) bill to make enegy more expensive by mandating renewable energy use go from 20% to 33%.  The question is how much more expensive is your electric bill going to be when we go to "33-by-20"?  According to the California Air Resources Board it will result in a 19% increase over eight years.  But, remember we already had a 20% mandate, that was already increasing PG&E customers bill by 25%. Now if we add the 19% we are at 44%, an almost 50% increase in electrical energy, but there is more cost on the way.   This is going to hurt people on fixed incomes, but the real hit will be small business who must compete with companies from other states with lower energy cost. This will cost California jobs.  

In addition to the increase in your energy prices, every thing you buy that took energy to produce in California, will increase in price as the energy costs are passed on to consumers.  While the Democrats are having a feel good celebrations in Sacramento for passing and signing this bill, you are the one that will pay for it in the end, that is if you still have a job so you can pay the electric bill, and if you are still in California. 

Prop 23 Update: Magical energy with your tax dollars

Russ Steele

As we know,  today Governor Brown signed marching orders for the state's public utilities to ramp up their renewable energy resources to 33%.

KQED's Climate Watch has the full story here.

California’s utilities now have their marching orders: to provide one third of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

Now that the "33-by-20″ target is a mandate backed by state law, supporters say it will lure more renewable energy investments to California. There's evidence that it already is.

Calling it a “breakthrough,” Governor Brown signed the bill into law at the dedication of a new SunPower Corp. manufacturing plant in Milpitas, near San Jose. And he laid down a challenge:

“Last year six thousand megawatts of solar installations were produced by China and one thousand by the United States. Now, are we up for changing that? I think we are.”

The Republican were not too happy and released this statement:

"Governor Brown is pressing ahead as if the pieces of papers he signs magically and automatically result in higher revenues or a better standard of living. The laws of economics, however, overrule Brown’s political laws.

Prop 23 Update: Governor Brown, "we can get to 40" renewables

Russ Steele

Sac Bee Capital Alert has the story: Jerry Brown to sign renewable energy bill Tuesday

Gov. Jerry Brown said this afternoon that he will sign legislation Tuesday requiring public and private utilities to obtain 33 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020.

"Obviously I'm going to sign the bill," the Democratic governor told reporters in Los Alamitos. "I believe we can get to 40 percent, and I think we should."

What is it that the Democrats do not understand about the failure of renewable energy? All across Europe governments have tried to go the renewable route and failed, and now they are returning fossile fuels, especially after the nuclear accident in Japan.

In Germany the electric rates are moving higher, almost to the upper edge of what is socially acceptable and tolerable for business according to an Energy Commissioner. Increasing energy prices have doubled since 1998, and levies on renewable energy have increased by 70 percent this year alone, The renewable levies are expected to increase even more in coming years.  As a result, there is a "gradual process of  de-industrialization” creeping across Germany.  Large power customers in energy-intensive industries such as steel, copper, aluminum or chemistry have been complaining for a year about the high taxes and green charges on electricity, and they are expected to go even higher.  As enegy costs increase, these Germany core industries are become less and less competitive in global markets.

All across Europe countries are scalling back solar instalations that require huge susides to operate. In the Czech Republic last year 1.7 gigawatts of panels were installed. After tariffs were cut installs dropped to 400 megawatts this year. In Spain, installations fell to 69 megawatts in 2009 from 2.8 gigawatts in 2008 after incentives were reduced. In the UK planned solar farms dropped from eight to three, as the government is expected to scrap a green policy which would have allowed individuals to take a stake in the low-carbon economy.  EU governements are running out of money to invest in solar incentives and are pulling the plug.

Given Europes misserable experience with wind and solar, one has to ask why is California plunging ahead by mandating even more renewable enegy? What makes the legislature and the governor think that California can do it better, when other socialist governments have failed?

Silicon Valley will not be saving Caliornia's economy any time "real soon now."

Russ Steele

Those who read Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor Column in Wired for years will under stand the "real soon now" reference.  Investors are not buying a silicon boom.

“In truth there are reasons to worry. For starters, growth in IT spending continues to decelerate steadily. In the 1970s IT outlays grew on average 15% a year. In the 1980s annual growth slipped to 13.1%; in the 1990s, 10.8%. In the 2000s, in the period between the bubbles–2003 to 2008–growth was around 10%. This year, according to Gartner, spending should grow less than 6%.”

Oops. During the Prop 23 debate, our lefty supporter of AB32 asured us that Silicon Valley was going to save California's economy.  It seem that green dream is slipping away under the harsh light of reality.

Prop 23 Update: Remembering Meg?

Russ Steele

During her campaign Meg Whitman refused to support Prop 23. Now we learn that she has  started to work as a part-time consultant to venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

You will remember that Kleiner Perkins was one of the organizatons that funded the $30 million campaign against Prop 23.

Exit Question:  Was this pay off for refusing to support Prop 23?

Green energy insight from a CNet interview with tech guru Bill Joy

Russ Steele

In a article about Bill Joy and the pursuit of the next big break through in green technology, the author Martin LaMonica provides some interesting insight into the current state of green technology venture capital investing.  Well interesting to me, and perhaps to those on the left who claimed green technology was going to save the California economy.

Because it is such a high-profile company, Kleiner Perkins' entry into green tech six years ago was seen as a validation of the entire investment segment. Many other venture capital companies, which traditionally worked in IT and life sciences, started making green-tech investments, leading to billions of dollars in venture capital in the segment.

But some investors say that enthusiasm among venture capitalists and private equity companies for green tech is cooling. In part, venture investors are seeking out mega deals in the Internet sector, in the hopes of replicating the rapid growth and high valuations of Facebook or Groupon.

Private investors and entrepreneurs have also come to better understand the difficulties of commercializing energy- and water-related technologies compared to IT. Often, energy technologies take lots of money and time to develop and energy regulations in the U.S. are inconsistent.

None of Kleiner Perkins' green-tech investments has been a financial home run yet and some of its bets have not paid off. A Boston area solar company where Joy was a seed investor called Solasta folded when it was unable to raise more money.

So, we find out that green tech is a long term investment and the quick money investors are looking elsewhere for their big payoffs. We find out that energy regulations can be an impediment to success.  And, from the interview with Joy we find out that Kleiner Perkins is now looking for disruptive "breakthrough technologies in renewable (energy) to take advantage of the hockey stick demand...from the market without subsidies"

My emphasis. Even the VC are begining to recognize the subsidy gravy train is about to come to an abrupt end, as the Government is running our other peoples money.  If the green technology cannot survive in a commercial market, it does not appear to have much of a future in the VC world.

I think this validate some of my reasons for supporting Prop 23 which would terminate CARB subsidy driven green energy gravy train.  If the green technology cannot compete in the open market, then it should be abandoned for technologies that can.

More in the Bill Joy interview can be found here.