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Original ContentMar 25, 2024•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat . Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Headings are Possible Centered text too How about images?
Demo Post 2
Highlighted ArticleMar 23, 2024•Karah Brackin
SALT LAKE CITY — Memorial Day weekend is seeing traffic pick up as Utahns get out of school, clock out of work, and fill up the gas tank. The Utah Highway Patrol said law enforcement agencies across the state will be taking on extra shifts to sure drivers are doing what they are supposed to do. Consider yourself warned. “If you don’t see them, they’ll be seeing you,” said UHP Sgt. Andrew Battenfield. Battenfield is one of the dozens of troopers who will be on the roads this holiday weekend. “Don’t expect a warning from a trooper for not wearing your seat belt this weekend,” Battenfield sai
Intimidating the "Deniers", Highlighted Article
Mar 4, 2024
This is a bonus chapter that was not included in Marc Morano's book - The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.
Intimidating the “Deniers” to Enforce the “Consensus”
Fraudulent Fantasy
Jan 23, 2024•Edward A. Reid Jr.
The UN and numerous national governments are promoting the fantasy that the global energy economy can transition to a fossil-fuel-free, all-electric everything energy economy by 2050. In this fantasy, intermittent renewable generation combined with electricity storage provides a reliable energy system at lower energy cost than the predominantly fossil fueled energy system it would replace.
This fantasy is a complete and utter fraud, since those promoting it know that the generation technology they are promoting is intermittent and that the storage that they suggest would be required to overcom
Electricity Prices Are Soaring
Jan 18, 2024
Electricity Prices Are Soaring: It’s Time to Hold the “Energy Transition” Accountable
Rate cases throughout America tell the same story about the high cost of going green
Electricity prices in the United States are skyrocketing, with all-sectors electricity rates reaching new all-time highs in 2022 and 2023, but wind and solar advocates like to pretend that these energy sources are not responsible for the rising electricity costs paid by American families and businesses.
However, recent reports from Regulatory Research Associates (RRA), a division of S&P Global Commodity Insights, evaluating r
Utility Cost Allocation
Jan 16, 2024•Edward A. Reid Jr.
One of the most contentious issues in utility ratemaking has been the issue of allocation of both capital and operating costs among customer classes. This allocation has been accomplished through monthly service charges, time of day rates, seasonal rates, demand charges and various demand side management approaches.
However, the proposed transition from the current fossil and nuclear based electricity generation system to a system based largely on intermittent renewable generation presents a very different set of cost allocation issues. The current system costs include fuel supply costs and fu
New Report - Green Failure in Europe
Jan 11, 2024
New Report Highlights Green Failure in Europe and Warns America
As one digests Rupert Darwall’s latest report for the RealClear Foundation, the well-known quote from Spanish philosopher George Santayana might ring through the mind: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Anyone looking to combat the activists pushing a ‘net zero’ agenda here in the U.S. would be wise to read Darwall’s piece, entitled “The Folly of Climate Leadership.”
The analysis tells the story of Great Britain heeding the cries for decarbonization, starting when Parliament wrote an 80% decrease in e
Offshore Wind Woes
Jan 9, 2024•Edward A. Reid Jr.
The year, 2023, was not a good year for the offshore wind industry, which has seemingly been beset by adversity on all sides.
Supply chain disruptions, largely resulting from the COVID pandemic and national efforts to deal with the pandemic, have resulted in material and equipment unavailability and/or delivery delays. Inflation has increased the cost of equipment and the cost of installation. Rising interest rates have increased project financing costs. All of these factors have combined to delay projects and increase the delivered cost of the electricity to be produced by the projects.
Sever
Energy from first principles?
Jan 4, 2024
Thermodynamics of prime movers: energy from first principles?
A highlight of 2023 has been going back to first principles, to study the underpinnings of prime movers in the global energy system. Context matters. There is no energy source to rule them all. However, if you understand the thermodynamics of prime movers, you will inevitably conclude that the world is evolving towards solar, semi-conductors, electro-magnetic motors, lithium batteries and high-grade gas turbines.
Muscle power was the original prime mover in the pre-industrial energy system (chart below). But a typical horse outputs
2024 - The Year Ahead
Jan 2, 2024•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Altruism dies when it costs.
The promise of the transition from a fossil fuel energy economy to a renewable energy economy was and is lower energy prices and an improved environment. That promise is clearly broken irreparably. Energy prices have increased globally. Electricity prices have increased by the largest percentage in those jurisdictions in which renewable generation has made the greatest penetration. The resulting economic pain has begun erasing the altruism with which global populations approached the energy transition.
The population has been suffering “the death by a thousand cuts
NETZERO is impeding progress
Dec 28, 2023
NETZERO is impeding progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals
“Working in global energy and development, I often hear people say, 'Because of climate, we just can't afford for everyone to live our lifestyles.' That viewpoint is worse than patronizing. It’s a form of racism, and it’s creating a two-tier global energy system, with energy abundance for the rich and tiny solar lamps for Africans.” – Kenyan activist and materials scientist Rose Mutiso
“To deny the developing world access to the very infrastructure that has propelled us forward, all in the name of an uncertain future, is not en
2023 - Year in Review
Dec 26, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
The Administration war on fossil fuels continues, with reduced lease sales, lease cancellations, new emissions rules for electric powerplants and gasoline and diesel vehicles and electric vehicle mandates.
The Administration has less than half a plan for the “all-electric everything” transition. Plans are in place for fossil powerplant shutdowns and reduced availability of oil and natural gas. However, there are no plans in place for replacement of the dispatchable fossil fueled generating capacity with dispatchable renewable generation or a combination of intermittent renewable generation and
Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable or Obsession
Dec 21, 2023
Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?
For over three decades, the reduction of CO2 emission was the primary motivation for promoting the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. Concerns about the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels were considered particularly during energy crises, but these concerns died out quickly as discoveries of new fossil fuel reserves such as the shale revolution in the US that appeared to secure energy supplies.
An under-appreciated paper by Murphy et al. (1) offers very strong arguments that the energy transition
Reluctant Realization
Dec 19, 2023
The US federal government has set a goal of transitioning the US energy economy to a fossil-fuel-free, “all-electric everything” energy economy by 2050. This transition would require an approximate tripling of the US electricity grid by 2050 to accommodate the energy requirements of the residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and agricultural loads currently served directly by fossil fuels as well as anticipated electric load growth. The expense of converting existing fossil fuel end uses to electricity would be the responsibility of the end users.
Expanding electric generation, tra
New Climate Reality is Passing New York By
Dec 14, 2023
New Climate Reality is Passing New York By
Note: For quite a while now I have put my Citizens Guide to the Climate Act article as the top post on the website because it summarizes the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act). This post updates my current thoughts about the Climate Act and will replaces that post at the top of the list of articles on October 2, 2023
There is a new climate reality and it is passing New York by. New York decision makers are going to have to address the new reality that proves that the Hochul Administration’s Scoping Plan to implement the Cli
“Loss & Damage”
Dec 12, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
“Loss and damage refers to the negative effects of climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation efforts.”, UNEP
The UN established the Loss and Damage fund at COP27. The first trickle of funding for the Loss & Damage Fund occurred at COP28. The Loss & Damage Fund represents “the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” for the wizards of climate attribution and their vaunted (unvalidated and unverified) climate models.
The Loss & Damage Fund is intended to fund the incremental cost of severe weather events resulting from the effects of climate change, not to fund the total costs o
A bad recipe for science
Dec 7, 2023
A bad recipe for science
Politically-motivated manufacture of scientific consensus corrupts the scientific process and leads to poor policy decisions
An essay with excerpts from my new book Climate Uncertainty and Risk.
In the 21st century, humankind is facing a myriad of complex societal problems that are characterized by deep uncertainties, systemic risks and disagreements about values. Climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are prominent examples of such wicked problems. For such problems, the relevant science has become increasingly like litigation, where truth seeking has become secon
2023 Hurricane Season
Dec 5, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
The 2023 hurricane season has not provided many opportunities for the wizards of instant climate change attribution to assess the impacts of climate change on the performance of individual tropical cyclones. Perhaps this represents an opportunity for them to refocus from “separating the fly specks from the pepper” and apply their vaunted models and analytical skills to understanding why tropical depressions, storms and cyclones form and what determines how they move and develop after they form. The 2023 hurricane season certainly offers some interesting study subjects.
Hurricane Hillary, which
Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable or CO2 Obsession
Nov 30, 2023
Net-Zero Targets: Sustainable Future or CO2 Obsession Driven Dead-end?
For over three decades, the reduction of CO2 emission was the primary motivation for promoting the transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources. Concerns about the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels were considered particularly during energy crises, but these concerns died out quickly as discoveries of new fossil fuel reserves such as the shale revolution in the US that appeared to secure energy supplies.
An under-appreciated paper by Murphy et al. (1) offers very strong arguments that the energy transition
Demonstration Challenge
Nov 28, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
The stated goal of the US Administration’s renewable energy transition is to replace all dispatchable fossil-fueled electricity generation and all direct fossil fuel usage with renewable electricity to reduce CO2 emissions. Logically, the first fossil-fueled generation to be replaced would be coal-fired generation, since it emits the largest quantity of CO2 per unit of electricity output.
There has yet to be a successful demonstration of an electric grid powered predominantly by renewable generation. Potential approaches to such a demonstration have been proposed here, here, here and here. How
Thermal energy storage: cost model?
Nov 23, 2023
Thermal energy storage: cost model?
This data-file captures the costs of thermal energy storage, buying renewable electricity, heating up a storage media, then releasing the heat for industrial, commercial or residential use. Our base case requires 13.5 c/kWh-th for a 10% IRR, however 5-10 c/kWh-th heat could be achieved with lower capex costs.
Thermal energy storage solutions aim to help integrate solar and wind into power grids, by absorbing excess generation that would otherwise be curtailed, and then re-releasing the heat later when renewables are not generating.
Different storage media ar
Thanksgiving 2023
Nov 21, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving and much about which to be concerned.
We can be thankful that the much-predicted “climageddon” has not occurred and does not appear to be imminent, or even reasonable, despite the constant chorus of “climate crisis”, “existential threat” and “climate emergency” from the UN, governments and the sycophantic media.
We can be thankful that there are still no significant trends regarding the frequency, intensity or duration of “extreme” weather events, such as tropical cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods and wildfires.
We can be thankful for the c
Setting Utility Rates
Nov 16, 2023
From: Watts Up With That
Setting Utility Rates
Until about a year ago, I thought about public utility regulation as too boring, too far outside my education, and unrelated to my interests and experience to bother with. I was wrong.
Figure 1. The relationships among interest on bonds and dividends to preferred shares (collectively called debt) and return on capital to return to ordinary shareholders (equity)
What prompted my change of view was recognizing that a frontline in the war, if you will, to remake the electric grid will take place not in arguments about the reality of climate change, b
“Free Range” People
Nov 14, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Free Range: allowed to range and forage with relative freedom
(Merriam-Webster)
Residents of the developed nations have largely been “free range” people, free to live where they choose to live, work where they choose to work, travel when and where they choose to travel, eat what they choose to eat and buy what they choose to buy within their means.
Those freedoms were interrupted, to one extent or another, by government edicts in response to the COVID19 pandemic. Travel was restricted, “non-essential” businesses were forced to close, offices and schools were closed and employees and students w
Climate Change: A Curious Crisis
Nov 9, 2023
From: Climate Etc.
Climate Change: A Curious Crisis
As explained in my new eBook, Climate Change: A Curious Crisis, the climate change ‘debate’ has long-since become a Manichaean, deeply polarized, ‘you are either with us or against us’ war of words in which both sides accuse the other of being closed-minded and refusing to accept the ‘facts’.
Instead of a respectful exchange of views and the seeking of mutual understanding and common ground we tend to find sarcasm and ridicule and ad hominem attacks, as mutually intolerant, entrenched positions have arisen based on different interpretations
Climate Oxymorons
Nov 7, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Oxymoron: (Merriam-Webster)
: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (such as cruel kindness)
broadly : something (such as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements
Members of the consensed climate science community, climate alarmists, politicians with an agenda and the compliant mass media have produced and promulgated a “veritable plethora” (HT: Howard Cosell) of oxymorons intended to “sell the science” and demean skeptics.
Climate Denier – Supposed “shorthand” for more complex descriptions, such as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptic or
Top Climate Scientist Slams Climate Alarm
Nov 2, 2023
Top Climate Scientist Slams Climate Alarm: Carbon Dioxide Is A “Particularly Ridiculous” Choice As A Pollutant
TOP CLIMATE SCIENTIST SLAMS CLIMATE ALARM
Warming by carbon dioxide is logarithmic due to ‘saturation’ within the infrared spectrum, and any future doubling of the gas in the atmosphere will be associated with the same warming of around 1°C.
This is considered obvious by atmospheric scientist and Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, and hardly controversial — although in today’s politicized environment, where CO2 has been forged into a scary and taxable ‘stick’ to bop the global
Know/Imagine/Project
Oct 31, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Know;
1a(1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of
2a : to be aware of the truth or factuality of : be convinced or certain of
Imagine:
1: to form a mental image of (something not present)
2: suppose, guess
3: to form a notion of without sufficient basis
Project
1a : to devise in the mind : design
b : to plan, figure, or estimate for the future
Source: Merriam-Webster
We “know” what can be observed or measured, either from personal experience or from the experience of others, past and present. However, there are limits to our knowledge, imposed by our limited exposure or the rel
Book review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk
Oct 26, 2023
Book review: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, By Judith Curry
Just over three decades ago, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by President George H. W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro. It has one objective: to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so as to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” This objective incorporates three assumptions that collectively constitute a scientific and policy paradigm of climate change.
The first assumption is that climate change is caused exclusively by human emissions of
Nature Intervenes
Oct 24, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Nature has intervened in the climate change narrative in a major way with the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga (HT) volcano on the South Pacific seabed. The eruption has experienced minimal exposure in the media because it did not result in major loss of life or property damage. However, it might well prove to be one of the most consequential volcanic events in recent history.
NASA has estimated that the sub-sea eruption expelled sufficient water vapor into the stratosphere to increase stratospheric moisture concentration by approximately 13%, completely overwhelming the minor reduction in stratosp
Dismantling the Royal Society Storage Report
Oct 19, 2023
Dismantling the Royal Society Large-Scale Electricity Storage Report
The Royal Society report makes extraordinary claims that do not stand up to scrutiny.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan
Summary
The Royal Society (RS) has recently released its Large-Scale Electricity Storage report that says we can provide the electricity we need using wind and solar power supported by large-scale hydrogen storage. The report makes some extraordinary claims that are interrogated by this report that also seeks to find the extraordinary evidence required to validate their clai
Climate Narratives
Oct 17, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Several narratives have evolved around the issue of climate change. The narratives originate in the science, but focus on different aspects of the science and different interpretations of its meaning.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 scientific narrative focuses on global temperature anomalies, climate sensitivity, climate forcings and feedbacks, and climate model projections of future warming. The AR6 narrative attributes most or all of the measured warming to anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It projects that the globe would warm by 2.5 – 4.5°C if global annual anthropogen
Summer warming exaggerated by 100%
Oct 12, 2023
Summer warming 1895-2023 in U.S. cities exaggerated by 100% from the urban heat island effect
We are now getting close to finalizing our methodology for computing the urban heat island (UHI) effect as a function of population density, and will be submitting our first paper for publication in the next few weeks. I’ve settled on using the CONUS (Lower 48) U.S. region as a demonstration since that is where the most dense network of weather stations is. We are using NOAA’s V4 of the GHCN monthly dataset.
I’ve previously described the methodology, where I use many thousands of closely-spaced statio
Social Cost of Carbon
Oct 10, 2023•Edward A. Reid Jr.
Social Cost of Carbon: The social cost of carbon (SCC) is an estimate, in dollars, of the economic damages that would result from emitting one additional ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The SCC is a highly malleable and deeply flawed climate change policy tool. The selection of values for future emissions, climate sensitivity, expected damages, discount rates, etc. can produce an order of magnitude difference in the calculated SCC.
The SCC is not based on actual, documented damage caused by incremental carbon dioxide emissions, but is an estimate of potential future damage which mig
The Energy Transition Isn't
Oct 5, 2023
The Energy Transition Isn't
Despite $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar, they aren't even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons
We are inundated with claims about the “energy transition.”
In February, E&E News, reporting on the State of the Union speech said, “President Joe Biden laid out his vision for the energy transition Tuesday night.” In March, a reporter for Politico declared “The U.S. energy transition is well underway.”
Also in March, during a speech at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that "As this transition progresses, our ener
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