Maley's Energy Blog

Via our friends at wattsupwiththat.com comes the sad story of South Talpatti Island (a/k/a New Moore Island) in the Bay of Bengal. Or, more precisely, South Talpatti is an ex-island. New Moore is No More, the latest victim of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and other Inconvenient Truths.

NEW DELHI – For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island’s gone. …

“What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,” said Hazra. …

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18 percent of Bangladesh’s coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models.

It’s really no great loss. While AP insists on referring to its “rocky shores”, South Talpatti was never more than a glorified mud flat in a river delta. Nobody lived there. Its raison d’etre was to give India and Bangladesh one more dispute.

But, wait a second. South Talpatti was first spotted on satellite imagery in 1974. Sounds like South Talpatti wasn’t all that permanent. And if Global Warming caused the island’s destruction, what forces caused it to rise from the sea just 36 years ago?

Journalists don’t know beans about science, and they care even less. They tend to rely on scientists to explain the science, without regard to whether those scientists have an agenda. Just know this: Global Warming means Big Bucks to impoverished, overpopulated and low-lying Bangladesh.

I live in Louisiana, so I know about land loss. The state has lost land area equivalent to the size of the state of Delaware over the last 50 years. The simple explanation for that is rising sea level. The correct explanation, however, has to do with a number of factors, the biggest of which are probably subsidence of the land (mostly due to natural forces) and the channelization of the Mississippi River, which prevents replenishing annual freshwater floods in the marsh.

But while the overall net loss is staggering, new land is being built in certain places as a result of sedimentation. New birdfoot deltas have sprung up at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River as a result of changing water control policies by the Corps of Engineers.

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Deltas are in a constant state of flux. Land mass may be growing one place while eroding at another. One need not have rising sea levels to explain the disappearance of a lonely mud flat.

While researching this post, I came across the story of eleven disappearing islands in Chesapeake Bay, which have been used as evidence of Global Warming. There’s even a book about them.

[Chesapeake] Bay, which was formed by the rising sea that flooded the ancient Susquehanna River valley, is constantly being reshaped by erosion. Since the Bay took on its modern form about 6,000 years ago, sea level in the Bay has risen about six inches per century. However, U.S. Geological Survey tide gauge records show that sea level in the Bay rose more rapidly during the 20th century. Currently, sea level at the mouth of the Bay is rising at a rate of about 1.3 feet per century—twice the worldwide average.

This relatively recent increase in sea level rise may have several causes. Land subsidence due to groundwater extraction is one common explanation. Another is human-induced global climate change, which is causing glaciers to melt and ocean volume to increase. Shoreline development that removes or blocks the migration of wetlands can also increase the effects of sea level rise. Without a wetland buffer between the land and the Bay, low-lying areas become more prone to flooding and erosion. [Emphasis mine. – ed.]

That’s very intersting, and in fact helps make my case. The temperature record from the Vostok ice core suggests relatively stable global temperatures, and therefore a relatively stable sea level for the last 10,000 years. (The last ice age, and its corresponding low stand sea level, ended about 12,000 years ago.) But this suggests that sea level in the Chesapeake region has risen by some 30 feet in 6,000 years! (Hint: it’s not that sea level has risen so much that the land has subsided.)

But I also found the other quote fascinating: “…[S]ea level at the mouth of the Bay is rising at a rate of about 1.3 feet per century—twice the worldwide average.” Isn’t one of the key features of a sea level is that it is, um, level?

Cross-posted at RedState.com.

An online poll at U.S. News and World Report asks readers to vote on their choice for Worst U.S. President of All Time.

The overwhelming ‘winner’ is: George Washington! Father-of-Our-Country, “I-cannot-tell-a-lie” George Washington, by a margin of 6 to 1 over the next runner up!

That’s odd, because George usually rates in the top five best Presidents in most polls. Often the best.

Could it be that there’s something wrong with the poll? Enquiring minds want to know….

On the poll site, the Presidents are listed in reverse chronological order. Without looking under the hood there’s no way to know for sure, but I’m guessing that when someone bypasses the vote and simply clicks on “See Results”, a bug in the program registers a vote for the last name on the list: that would be Mr. Washington.

So, just out of curiosity, I ranked the votes of all the Presidents against each other, excluding the suspect Washington vote. The graph below shows the result.

There. That’s more like it.

The states of New York and Pennsylvania have clearly divergent approaches to energy policy. New York is a long-time producing state which shares with its neighbor Pennsylvania the Marcellus Shale as an exciting resource with seemingly unlimited potential. Drilling has encountered roadblocks in New York, while next door, Pennsylvania is enjoying a boom of investment, good paying jobs, and mineral income for its citizens.

On a national level, the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress seem more in the New York state of mind.

In an on-line article entitled It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times, the website energyindepth.org compares and contrasts the comparative economies and population trends in NY vs. PA.

The graph depicts the number of rigs actively drilling wells in each state in 2008 & 2009. Over that span, the NY rig count has fallen from about seven to two, while the PA count has more than tripled, from 20 to 63 active rigs.

In upstate New York…

Buffalo, Binghamton, Elmira lead in population loss: “Many upstate counties had population declines. … In some upstate regions, the population drop off was pronounced. The Buffalo-Niagara Falls region had the biggest population decline, with 46,305 fewer residents, a 4 percent decline. The Binghamton region’s population fell 3 percent, or from 252,323 to 244,694, a loss of 7,629 people.” (Elmira Star Gazette, 3/23/10)

Census: Population declines in upstate: “New Census estimates show … a continuing exodus from some upstate areas. … The story was different for many upstate areas, which have been suffering population losses for decades. The Census reports losses in rural counties like Hamilton County, which lost 8.4 percent of its population.” (Associated Press, 3/23/10)

…while, just across the border, Pennsylvania is actively pursuing Marcellus shale development:

Will natural gas fuel census increases? “By this time next year, Bradford County could see that its population has increased from the local gas industry boom in the results of the 2010 U.S. Census.” (Morning Times, 3/16/10)

Gas companies eager to tap Marcellus Shale: “This rush to develop the Marcellus region … could lead to … a boom in blue-collar jobs, the experts said.” (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/17/10

Marcellus Shale sends short-line railroad booming: “The full economic effect of the natural-gas boom is only beginning to be understood, said Timothy W. Kelsey, a Pennsylvania State University economist. … The oil and gas business was a $7 billion industry in Pennsylvania before the Marcellus frenzy. … “It could be a very big number.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/21/10)

“Natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale could provide an economic shot in the arm for this region and Pennsylvania as a whole. … Natural gas has potential as an energy source and a jobs-provider, no doubt about it.” (Washington Observer-Reporter Editorial, 3/2/10)

All this economic activity can be traced, directly or indirectly, to the natural gas activity. Each active drilling rig directly employs dozens of rig workers and service personnel. Successful development means more construction activity. There will be new pipeline projects to get the gas from the producing fields to the residential and industrial markets where it will be consumed. Royalty checks and right-of-way payments will flow into the hands of landowners. And all this economic activity creates many more indirect jobs for teachers, retail employees, and so on.

(Energy in Depth is an education initiative of the IPAA, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, of which I am a member.)

This one’s about philosophy, science and chaotic systems.

H/T Caleb Howe, who called attention to an AP Science article today:

Scientists go ‘gaga’ to find creatures beneath 600 feet of ice

A borehole through 600 feet of Antarctic sea ice discovers two new critters: a sort of shrimp, and a jellyfish, living in a region that no scientist predicted. Until they’re proven tasty in a remoulade, I really couldn’t care less, but here’s the money quote from the lead researcher:

“It’s pretty amazing when you find a huge puzzle like that on a planet where we thought we know everything…”.

On a planet where we thought we know everything?!

That comment is appalling coming from a scientist. One thing a scientist must know is how ignorant we are about a lot of things. But the remark points to a naive hubris that is pretty pervasive among a “consensus” in the scientific world.

Just fifty years ago, the few believers in “continental drift” were derided by the geologic establishment as kooks on the fringe of science (if not worse). But evidence accumulated, and the theory, repackaged in the ’60s and ’70s as plate tectonics, is now recognized as the grand unifying theory of earth science.

So-called “Progressives” have a tendency to evaluate everything in life as if it were a deterministic, zero sum game. What goes up, must come down. In with the good, out with the bad. What goes around, comes around.

But real life systems don’t often obey these rules; they tend toward chaos and often lead to counterintuitive conclusions. In business, they often create examples of The Law of Unintended Consequences.

The Laffer Curve is a perfect example. To a “Progressive”, if you want the government to have more tax revenue, you raise tax rates. Cutting tax rates only benefits “the rich”.

But the real world is governed by the chaotic rules of economics and personal choices. Arthur Laffer made the simple observation that if tax rates are zero, tax revenue is zero. If tax rates are 100%, tax revenue is also zero. Somewhere in between is a maximum, and tax rates above that optimum rate actually result in less tax revenue.

Businessmen don’t need to have this concept explained, so they tend to be conservatives. Academics, trade unionists and Hollywood types will never get it, so they become “Progressives”.

So, you might ask, what does this rambling discourse have to do with Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever-the-hell they’re calling it these days?

A brilliant article called “The Unbearable Complexity of Climate”, by Willis Eschenbach appeared in the online journal of climate skepticism, wattsupwiththat.com near the end of last year. In it, Eschenbach gives examples of chaotic systems in the real world, and points out the near futility of making predictions in the abscence of a complete and thorough understanding of the system in question.

I recommend that anyone with as much as a passing interest in the climate debate should read the article. A sample:

Unfortunately, while the physics is simple, the climate is far from simple. It is one of the more complex systems that we have ever studied. The climate is a tera-watt scale planetary sized heat engine. It is driven by both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial forcings, a number of which are unknown, and many of which are poorly understood and/or difficult to measure. It is inherently chaotic and turbulent, two conditions for which we have few mathematical tools.

The climate is comprised of five major subsystems — atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. All of these subsystems are imperfectly understood. Each of these subsystems has its own known and unknown internal and external forcings, feedbacks, resonances, and cyclical variations. In addition, each subsystem affects all of the other subsystems through a variety of known and unknown forcings and feedbacks.

Then there is the problem of scale. Climate has crucially important processes at physical scales from the molecular to the planetary, and at temporal scales from milliseconds to millennia.

As a result of this almost unimaginable complexity, simple physics is simply inadequate to predict the effect of a change in one of the hundreds and hundreds of things that affect the climate.

So, on a planet where we thought we know everything, it turns out we may not. And it’s what you don’t know that’ll kill you every time. The passage above pretty well sums up why I’m a proud global warming climate change skeptic.

Cross-posted at RedState.com.

The Energy Information Agency (EIA) admits in its 2010 Annual Energy Outlook that, under present law, ethanol use in 2022 is projected to be almost a third less than the 35 million gallons-equivalent per year mandated by Congress way back in 2007.

What to do? The ethanol industry, with the blessing of Congress and the Obama Administration, is lobbying the EPA to mandate increased ethanol usage. This would be accomplished by increasing the allowable proportion of ethanol in gasoline from 10% to 15% (E10 to E15). In addition, ethanol lobbyists are pushing the administration for fleet mandates on automakers, to require a higher percentage of flex fuel vehicles (FFVs) capable of running on ethanol blends of up to 85% (E85).

The 70+ year experiment in central planning that was the Soviet Union ended in failure. Why can’t our political class learn from history?

By granting lucrative tax credits to finance the entree of Big Corn into the motor fuel business during times of high gasoline prices, Washington definitely has some skin in the game.

Conservatives hate ethanol because it represents an intrusion of Big Government into the marketplace. Tons of dough are being spent to try to develop an alternative fuel that represents a very poor alternative – perhaps even a net energy loss.

Liberals and Greens (at least the honest ones) quietly admit their disdain for corn based ethanol. Tax credits are “corporate welfare” for ADM and Cargill. You can’t name a crop that is more depleting of the soil. Corn requires heavy fertilization, which in turn runs off, polluting the Mississippi River Basin and the Gulf of Mexico. The ethanol production subsidy makes it more difficult to develop competing technologies.

The marketplace is not clamoring for more ethanol. To engineers and mechanics, it is underpowered and corrosive, thus hard on pipelines and rotating equipment. Last but not least is the impact that a distorted world price of corn has on the developing world’s food supply.

No, the only parties who are unabashed ethanol lovers are:

• Big Corn
• Corn Farmers & Corn States (especially Iowa)
• Politicians (Congress & Iowa Caucus Presidential candidates)

The only thing efficient about corn ethanol is the Beltway process of turning taxpayer dollars into reliable votes.

Cross-posted at RedState.com.

Previously, in these pages, we’ve visited the controversy surrounding the industrial process used in completing oil and gas wells known as Hydraulic Fracturing. Published data suggest that the average American consumer is routinely exposed to health hazards from high concentrations of chemicals, acids and unknown additives from solutions other than the “frac fluid” employed by the oil and gas industry in its wells.

Recent reports indicate that a typical American’s drinking supply contained 3,296 fluid ounces (over 25 gallons!) of one such noxious concoction last year. The manufacturer of the fluid has maintained an unbroken record of secrecy of over 100 years on its proprietary formula.

Existing governmental regulations require the disclosure of certain ingredients, while others remain behind a cloak of secrecy, outside the jurisdiction of the EPA. The disclosed ingredients include phosphoric acid (H3PO4), which has a pH of 2.8, as well as an agent (HFCS) commonly derived from bio-engineered corn. It also includes a derivative of the coca plant, the source of cocaine, and another powerful stimulant. Other rumored ingredients include glycerine, a mysterious concoction known as “Merchandise 7X”, and a product derived from insects. Ewww!

Even in the typical concentrations associated with human consumption, the ingredients have been rumored to dissolve human bone and tooth enamel.

Rumors swirl about the shadowy Atlanta-based manufacturer and its products, which, according to rumor, “… have been criticized by various sources for various reasons including negative health effects resulting from consumption of its products, exploitative labor practices, high levels of pesticides in its products, building plants in Nazi Germany which employed slave labor, environmental destruction, monopolistic business practices, hiring paramilitary units to murder trade union leaders, and marketing unhealthy products to children.”

Please, Congressman Waxman! Congressman Markey! Save us from these corporate thugs who would poison our drinking supply!

Or, …

… have a Coke!

H/T Bob Tippee of the Oil and Gas Journal

Cross-posted at RedState.com.

It’s a familiar-sounding story.

Sometime in the past, the Executive Branch surreptitiously met with Energy Industry interests to craft policy on energy issues. Specifically, officials of the Department of Energy met with energy lobbyists and friendly think-tankers to rebut a university study that cast the industry in a bad light. When the ranking member of the congressional committee charged with oversight in this area asked legitimate questions regarding the propriety of the arrangement, DOE gave him the Heisman treatment, trying to duck and dodge the congressman’s inquiry altogether.

According to the congressman, “…[I]t seems that Department of Energy officials are more concerned about how to spin my questions than how to answer them, … I’m not surprised that DOE is uncomfortable with these questions, since it appears the agency relied on special interest assistance to write this federally-funded report.” (Emphasis added.)

That would be Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) and the era of BushCheneyHalliburton circa 2002?

Wrong. Try August, 2009. And this time, it’s the wind energy industry. The congressman asking questions is Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), ranking member of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

The university study is the one conducted by Gabriel Calzada Álvarez at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain. That’s the one that concluded that Spain’s commitment to wind energy did result in new “green” jobs — at an opportunity cost to the Spanish economy of 2.2 conventional jobs per green job created. The result has been persistent unemployment in the high teens. Clearly, the Obama Administration would dearly love to spike the study.

A recent Freedom of Information Act request has uncovered internal e-mails that show the agency worked hand-in-hand with industry and advocacy groups to draft a white paper on green jobs and then sought to dodge questions about the report, said Sensenbrenner, who yesterday again asked the DOE to provide information. …

The e-mails show the report was created as a direct response to a study from Spain’s King Juan Carlos University that raised questions about the employment created from renewable energy subsidies and showed that green jobs are often temporary and highly dependent on massive government subsidies. The Union of Concerned Scientists, American Wind Energy Association and the Center for American Progress were included in DOE correspondence about the white paper, which was drafted to directly counter the media exposure and Congressional interest over the Spanish study, e-mail records show.

Rep. Sensenbrenner raises another interesting question: Since when is it DOE policy to spend money for the specific goal of refuting an economic study of a foreign university?

Further reading:

Rep. Sensenbrenner’s letter to DOE (March 3, 2010)

Bombshell: Obama Admin. Caught Red-Handed Working with Big Wind Energy Lobbyists, Misleading American People, from the Institute for Energy Research.

Cross-posted at RedState.com.

Remember the one about Indonesian peat fires? How the large scale peat fires in 1997 contributed carbon dioxide in amounts up to 40% of a typical year’s global carbon output? Do you recall that the very next year, 1998, is touted as one of the warmest on record? If saving the planet means drastically reducing carbon emissions, why not start with Indonesia?

For all its scientific-sounding pronouncements, Climate Science is anything but a real science. Real science is a process: first you make a hypothesis, then you make a prediction based on that hypothesis, then you conduct an experiment as a test of the hypothesis. If you made a good prediction, you publish your results and refine your hypothesis; if your prediction was bad, you throw out the hypothesis and start over.

Climate Science has morphed into Climate Religion. There are no testable hypotheses; we have instead a consensus and a “science” that is impossible to disprove. Skepticism is heretical. Any and all results support the theory, once you move the goalposts far enough and boldly enough. Is the weather warmer? “We told you so.” Is the weather cooler? “Weather is not climate.” More hurricanes? “Just as we said.” Fewer hurricanes? “African dust storms.” And so on.

How ‘bout we test the models that the Climate Change community tout as the compelling reason that we must “FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT!”?

What better way to test the models than to control the Indonesian peat fires? All the so-called climate experts could crank up their models and predict the climate over several years. How much of an impact do the Indonesian fires have? If the answer is “none”, how can that be explained?

Not that I’d expect True Believers to go along with this proposal. They have too much to lose.

According to one source, Indonesia contains 18% of global peat, a huge carbon repository:

At least 550 billion tonnes of carbon are stored peat globally. This is the equivalent of about 75% of all the carbon in the atmosphere at present, or 70 years of fossil fuel emissions at current rates. … 30% of global peat is in the tropics, and Indonesia holds 60% of this… Thousands of fires now burn every dry season and the worst fire-seasons since 1997 have been 1998, 2002 and 2006, with over 60,000 hotspots in each of those years.

Poor land use practices in Indonesia have been destructive of the peat; deforestation for agriculture leaves the peat exposed and prone to drying out. When the peat catches fire (from man-made or natural causes), it burns like a smoldering cigarette. The burning peat releases carbon dioxide, but it also burns trees (CO2 consumers) in the overlying rain forest.

…[I]n 2006, peatland fires in Indonesia released up to about 900 million metric tons of CO₂. This is more than the total amount of CO₂ emitted in Germany in that year… [Source]

So stopping the peat fires would be the equivalent of shutting down Germany, the world’s fourth-biggest economy.

Would my proposal prove feasible? There’s some amount of money, much less than the prescription that our leaders envision, that could convince the Indonesians to cooperate. Even if we had to mobilize the military (the blue-helmeted ones) to secure the area and fight the fires, hey! The future of the planet is at stake!

Any time that Anthropogenic Global Warming is discussed, the implicit target is industrial development and transportation in the developed world. The Indonesian peat fires are anthropogenic, too, but they have the disadvantage of being non-point sources (point sources being smokestacks and tailpipes and other things that are easy to count, control, and, significantly, tax).

Another plus for this plan – there is no downside. The Indonesian fires are not natural; putting them out would be neutral to beneficial for the environment, even if Climate Change is totally disproven.

Cross-posted at RedState.com.

Yesterday morning, Kiran Chetry and some pretty-boy on CNN Morning expressed their shock and horror at the day’s Big Story: the death of a Sea World trainer at the hands flukes of a killer whale.

Huh? Why do you think they call them killer whales? Free Willy wasn’t a documentary, after all.

Why is anyone surprised when animals do what animals do? Killer whales are dangerous, and that’s the attraction. People aren’t flocking to see Sea World’s “Manatee Adventure”.

Remember when Roy (or was it Seigfried?) was mauled by his tiger? Rememberwhen that grizzly guy became grizzly chow?

The CNN anchors observed that, in the wild, orcas (a/k/a killer whales) are known to play with seals and dolphins, tossing them playfully in the air. Right. The same way I playfully toss M&M Peanuts in the air, before scarfing.

The lunacy continued, with Chetry/Pretty Boy seeking the answer to “Why did it happen?” “Maybe he [the killer whale] ran into a wall.” I honestly don’t know if they meant that literally or if it was an attempt at psycho-whale-babble.

Cross-posted at RedState.com.