Liberal Stupidity: Fighting Coal and Fracking At The Same Time

As most of us know, Obama and his left-wing EPA are bound and determined to shutdown every coal-fired power plant they can with almost ridiculous environmental regulation requirements.  At the same time, the EPA is looking to see if a process called "fracking" should be banned in the U.S.  But, you see, fracking has made natural gas prices extremely cheap.  In fact, much cheaper than coal.  And, it is the competition from cheap natural gas that is shutting down many of the coal plants in this country.

The stupidity, here, is that people like Obama are picking fights with the coal industry and pissing off their own politicians and liberal constituents in states like West Virgina that are heavily dependent on coal.  And, they don't have to.  They could just stand aside and let private sector competition do what they wanted to.  Liberals should be embracing fracking for saving the planet from dirty coal.  Not trying to shut it down.  Further, the current EPA has yet to prove that fracking hurts the environment.  They've filed three lawsuits to block, and have had to drop all three for the lack of sound scientific facts.

Sources for this commentary:

The low price of natural gas resulting from the shale boom has led to reduced coal consumption and made the shutdowns necessary, experts say: http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/28/record-number-of-coal-fired-generators-to-be-shut-down-in-2012

"EPA Backpedals on Fracking Contamination. Texas Water-Pollution Suit Dropped; Third Recent Setback on Drilling for Agency": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577313741463447670.html

The EPA: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas From America and the Coal Industry

Last Wednesday, just days before Christmas, Carol Browner, Obama's radical Climate Czar, announced new EPA restrictions for mercury, arsenic, and other toxic substances being outputted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants. Compliance is required before 2014. Hailed as a victory by environmentalists, it is expected that it could mean the demise of nearly 60 existing coal-fired power plants with upwards of 22 million customers being affected; mostly in the already beaten up and declining cities and states in what is known as the Rust Belt. Some communities could see their power bills rise by as much as 30%. Most of the country may see rates go up by 10% as this nation's nearly 600 coal-fired power producing facilities are retrofitted with expensive new or modified smokestack "scrubbers" that will be needed to drastically reduce these types of emissions.

Of course, Obama and his EPA could care less about the impact on energy prices and the fact that thousands may lose their jobs in what is already a slow economy. Instead, they claim that their actions are all about saving lives and preventing illness. The "straw man" that they want us to believe in is that their new coal regulations will prevent illnesses like asthma and the effects of mercury and arsenic poisoning and any resulting deaths. Yes, it is true that the number of asthma cases in the U.S. has risen significantly over the years and The EPA would have you believe that those numbers can be reduced by the new regulations. But, in direct contradiction to this, our dependence on coal-fired power production has been steadily declining for two decades since a modified version of the Clean Air Act went into effect in 1990 to reduce acid rain emissions from any coal burning activities.

At one time, almost all electricity in this country was being produced from coal. Today, coal is only responsible for about 49% of this nation's electrical power. The reason is simple. It is too time consuming and costly to maintain any existing coal-fired power plants and to build new ones. For the existing base, the cost to keep up with ever-changing EPA rules and regulations is just too punitive. For any new power generating facilities, there are too many months needed to get EPA licensing. Then, if a power company does manage to get a "go-ahead" from the EPA, there's usually years of court battles with environmental organizations like the Sierra Club and/or Greenpeace. For most power companies, natural gas has become the clear choice over coal. It's easier to get licensing and it typically avoids lengthy environmental court action. More importantly, natural gas, through efficiencies and new finds, has become more competitively priced to what had been previously unbeatable coal prices.

So, with the power companies, themselves, already policing coal out of business, why this new ruling and why now? Why an unreasonable two year compliance mandate? I'm quite sure that the EPA didn't just, all of a sudden, connect the dots on the health risks of burning coal. And, if there truly is a deadly health risk, why did it take 3 years into the Obama Administration before the EPA decided to act on saving lives?

To me, the purpose, the timing, and the compliance requirements of this EPA ruling have "politics" written all over it. First of all, the new regulations conveniently appeal to Obama's environmental voting base in what is the beginning of an election year. Secondly, the decision comes just a little over 10 months away from the next Presidential election. As a consequence, the negative impact on jobs and energy prices are being held off, presumably, until Obama has been reelected. After all, if the EPA had implemented these new regulations in Obama's first year in office, higher electricity rates and job losses would have already been apparent; jeopardizing Obama's reelection bid. Also, the 2-year, forced compliance to the new emissions standard insures that there won't be enough time for the power industry to retrofit all of it's existing coal plants; forcing them to take many of those plants out of service. This also insures that the power industry won't have the needed time to replace those lost plants with any new and compliant facilities. Two years isn't enough time to get EPA approvals let alone have the needed 3 to 5 years to build a new power plant. Thus, brownouts can be expected. In turn, angry customers and public utility commissions will force the power companies to replace the lost power with expensive wind and solar facilities which you can expect to sail through the EPA approval process and, which, can be built in substantially less time than any brick-and-mortar, natural gas power plant.

Back in 2008, when a, then-Senator, Barack Obama was running for the presidency, he unabashedly said that it was his intent to "bankrupt" the coal industry and, in so doing, necessarily cause electricity prices to "skyrocket." That's why this EPA action is no surprise. The truly sad thing about this is that countless numbers of poorer Americans will suffer by forcing them to make "dire" choices between paying their energy bills or paying for their housing, food, clothing, and health care. All of this so Obama can get reelected by appealing to his own radical environmental political base.

Fifteen Years With No Global Warming!

For nearly 15 years, global temperatures have been flat with no real evidence of any additional warming. But, my guess is that not too many people reading this blog entry are even aware of that fact. That's because the liberal media in this country has kept this reality buried by only reporting the stories that enhance the warming myth. Certainly, now, with record heat across the country, the liberal media has taken the opportunity to, once again, hype all this heat as being part of climate change and anthropomorphic global warming. But, prior to all this heat, that same media completely ignored the record cold temperatures of last winter in places like China; where the cold was both intense and wide spread.

But, what is really funny is the fact that many of these "greenies" who are now claiming the resurgence of global warming, had just got through buying into a study that, supposedly, explained away the lack of any current global warming by claiming that it was all do to China's intense burning of coal. According to the work of climate scientist, Robert Kaufmann, and his team, the burning of "dirty" coal in the production of electrical energy releases aerosolized sulfates into our atmosphere. Then, those sulfates act to reflect heat radiation from the sun back into outer space; thereby completely offsetting the global warming effects of carbon dioxide. Of course, many climate change critics see this "sulfates" hypothesis as a convenient means to explain away the failure of the alarmists to prove their warming case; as noted in this recent opinion piece by Patrick Michaels, titled "Why Hasn’t The Earth Warmed In Nearly 15 Years?" (Click here to See Story).

So, this begs the question: Are temps flat or are they really rising? Certainly, the facts don't support the latter.

The Kaufman's of the world have you believe that global warming is very much real and alive; even though you can't see it happening any longer. But I have a real problem believing this from Kaufmann or, for that matter, any climate change advocates because, for 15 years now, they have tried to cover up the lack of any global warming. Instead, they have continued the lie that the earth is still in a warming trend. Worse yet, the liberal media helped to sustain that lie instead of exposing it. To me, the Kaufmann hypothesis just proves the lie; a lie that the warmists weren't ready to admit until they could come up with some possible excuse as to why there was no warming. But, if you carefully read Patrick Michaels excellent article, you will find substantial holes in the Kaufmann conclusions. In fact, one can only conclude that Kaufmann's rationale is one of convenience (for the cause, of course) and not necessarily based on real scientific fact. As Michaels importantly notes, the Kaufmann conclusions are primarily based on correlation and not necessarily on causation; resulting in a "fallacy of cause" that is known in both science and in statistics as cum hoc ergo propter hoc (or "a logical fallacy" simply translated from Latin: "with this, therefore, because of this").

Lastly, for years I have been aware of the absence of warming; at least in the United States. That's because our own National Climatic Data Center provides all the information needed to come to that conclusion. In fact, since 1998, temperatures haven't just been flat, they've been falling at an average rate of nearly a full degree per decade. To see this fact, just go to NOAA's Climate Summary webpage (Click here to access the page). Now, to see a 1998 to 2011 annual temperature chart with a trend line, just select "Annual" under the "Period" option. Then, in the two sets of range boxes, set the beginning as 1998 and the ending as 2011. Finally, "Submit" to see the chart.... Viola! No warming!