Editor,
Some city councilmembers in the Bay Area are fretting over reach codes because they might increase the marginal cost of replacing fossil gas appliances with electric appliances by a few thousand dollars. Meanwhile, Hurricane Ian — supercharged by an overheated climate — will certainly cost Floridians and U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars. Closer to home, California forest fires are sure to strain our own state resources.
These enormous expenses add to the growing “social cost of carbon,” which was recently estimated by researchers at Resources for the Future to be $185 per ton of carbon dioxide. Their work was published this month in the journal Nature. The social cost of carbon is a direct consequence of the use of fossil fuels in our buildings, transport systems, industry, agriculture and electricity production. It is a real cost we all must pay.
Councilmembers need to acknowledge that climate-magnified, (un)natural disasters will become more expensive and common if they slow-walk our transition to a clean economy. Delay will saddle us with personal damages, higher taxes, higher insurance premiums and higher utility bills. It’s time to end our reliance on suicidal fossil fuels and create a clean energy economy now. We can’t afford not to.
Alan Mattlage
San Mateo
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(9) comments
Mr. Mattlage – we hear from many writers pushing for electrification but we don’t hear a peep about where all this magic electricity will come from. How will we transition away from fossil fuels when, as has been highlighted (but occurs on a daily basis) during our recent heat wave, over 50% of our electricity comes from fossil-fuel powered generation plants during daylight and at night, 70+% comes from fossil-fuel powered plants. If anything, the push for electrification is already saddling us with personal damages, higher taxes, higher insurance premiums and higher utility bills with negligible impact on man-made global warming. Especially since China, India, and other developing nations are increasing their use of fossil fuels as they transition to modern industrial economies. Seems to me that we can’t afford to go all electric when nobody else will, and especially since nobody will detail where this magic electricity will come from.
Terence, see https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/100-percent-clean-electricity-by-2035-study.html.
Mr. Mattlage – thank you for the link. The PDF publication is an interesting read and appears to be comprehensive (I haven’t digested the entire document). The publication applies to the United States and not China or other developing economies which, notably, will continue to use fossil fuels to their hearts delight (and can we really blame them?). (The link includes a section on India that details curtailing a small percentage of total electrical needs while indicating minor savings and soft pedaling increased costs.)
If we focus on California, I’d recommend the following links which shows the impact and cost of California’s push for electricity (James Meigs’ link from the OC Register) and which shows the practical effects of installing solar or wind farms to generate electricity (Edward Ring’s article from the California Globe where he provides his take on a Stanford University professors report regarding installation practicality). Although wind and solar can provide more power, practicality and acceptance is another matter, as I’m not sure CA folks want 10,000 square miles of land covered with windmills and 15,000 square miles of ocean covered with windmills. And what happens to the hazardous waste when solar panels end their useful life?
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/08/29/the-green-war-on-clean-energy/
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/examining-californias-renewable-energy-plan/
Interestingly, the publication found in your link does not appear (I admit, I didn’t read the whole thing) to address the carbon costs in manufacturing renewable sources, or discuss the net carbon savings or return on investment from solar or wind installations – as in how much it costs in fossil-fuel energy to produce and maintain solar panels and windmills, along with adding costs in disposing solar panels (hazardous waste). Incorporating those costs will surely undermine any short, intermediate, and possibly even long term savings (if there are any, due to ongoing maintenance and hazardous waste disposal). But again, what we do in the US is a drop in the bucket as we still have the elephants on the Earth to contend with, China, India, more and more developing nations… The bigger question is why we should bother with covering the Earth with solar panels or windmills? Why is there continued adversity to nuclear (as per Mr. Meigs’ link)? We could plop a nuclear plant in every major US city and voila, green energy galore…
Thank you Alan! I hope all City Council members read this.
Another LTE writer who has not done his homework but just listens to unsubstantiated news. Even the NOAA has said recently in the wake of the last hurricane that climate change has no bearing whatever on the severity or frequency of hurricanes. In fact, NOAA data shows no increase but rather a decrease in hurricane activity since the young woman from Sweden started crying and screaming that we were killing her generation. Again, group think on steroids.
If you are referring to the Overview of Current Research Results from NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, then you are misunderstanding their conclusions.
Actually I am referencing a comment made by an NOAA's official when asked by a dimwit on CNN whether climate change was causing more frequent and severe hurricanes. The NOAA scientist emphatically denied that.
Dirk, let’s not forget Climategate I and II and the NOAA “nudging” historic temperatures in an attempt to show a warming trend. Even if someone disagrees with the Climategates or the nudging, let’s not forget all global warming predictions have fallen flat, and let’s not forget the fact that temperatures and CO2 levels were higher in the past when there was no plastic, no air conditioning, no aerosols, and most importantly, no humans driving those nasty emission-spewing cars.
The climate is always changing and there is no proof that man's emission are a major cause of it or that weather events are a sign of it. We know this from studying climate history. The idea that one can put an exact price of $185 on a ton of CO2 is preposterous. And retro-fitting existing buildings and replacing working appliances is a waste of money that will cause more CO2 than it saves.
There is only one feasible and affordable type of steady state green electricity and that's to make hydrogen from solar and burn it in existing fossil fuel plants in place of natural gas. It can also be affordably stored for use when the sun doesn’t shine unlike costly and toxic batteries. But the left would rather spend $100 bil on the HSR than spend a dollar on green hydrogen energy because that might solve a problem that Democrat politicians raise a lot of money on.
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