By H. Sterling Burnett
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IN THIS ISSUE:
- Carbon Capture and Storage Is a Bad Climate Policy
- Brazil Is Not Meeting Paris Emission Commitments
- Climate Policies: Dramatically Higher Electricity Costs and Reduced Reliability in New England
Carbon Capture and Storage Is a Bad Climate Policy
The climate “hoax,” as President Donald Trump calls it, and the “green new scam,” also in Trump’s words, have spawned a plethora of bad ideas and policies.
In the transglobal elites’ attempts to direct the world’s economy by controlling average people, they have pushed the idiotic and dangerous vision of the nations of the world going net zero. The elites’ words and actions suggest they think of people beneath their station in life, those in lower income strata or not part of the educated technocracy, as unwashed, ignorant proletarians in need of direction and control. I’m sure it is purely coincidence that the policies developed to meet net zero just happen to benefit those same elites financially and in terms of political power.
For many developing countries, going net zero won’t be hard since, being mired in poverty, they already emit little of greenhouse gases. All their governments and people have to do is agree to remain impoverished, to watch their children and their children’s children continue to die prematurely from preventable causes, to struggle day-to-day to find food and clean drinking water, and to live without reliable electricity and the wonders of modernity, such as advanced medical care, agriculture, transportation, and refrigeration. Those who continue to live in abject penury will become climate heroes simply by eschewing expanded use of fossil fuels and continuing to die young. Dead people, after all, don’t use resources. The climate elite will sing praises of their simple, traditional, lifestyles.
For people in developed countries to hit net zero, all they have to do is give up all the modern, high-emitting technologies that have been developed since the early 1800s. Giving up the modern conveniences that have benefitted people for the past 180 years should be easy, right? Who wants modern agricultural systems and the reduced hunger and starvation they have delivered, or modern medicine, heavily dependent on plastics and reliable electricity, which has doubled lifespans, or modern transportation and communication systems (computers, cell phones, iPads, Kindles, etc.), that many people seem to be plugged into or monitor for hours each day. Give them up, and voilà, we hit net zero—with all its attendant problems such as high infant mortality, starvation, disease, and premature death.
Of course, average folks will have to sacrifice even more for the country to meet net zero while allowing the elites to continue their high-emitting lifestyles of five-star meals, travelling first class or in private jets and yachts, and owning multiple lavish, large, reliably powered mansions. It turns out, even under net zero, some people remain more equal than others. Among the ways the rich and powerful really are different from the rest of us is how little they have been willing to change their own lives while calling on average folks to sacrifice, despite emitting many times more greenhouse gases compared to us peasants.
Among the net zero policies pushed by the former Biden/Harris administration were de facto electric vehicle mandates, greenhouse gas restriction diktats forcing the premature closure of reliable coal-fueled power plants, restrictions on the types of home appliances that could be sold (especially those powered by natural gas), except for the most expensive appliances that only the elite can afford, and urban planning policies pushing density, crowding people into densely crowded areas in small homes near mass transit, regardless of their personal desires for open space and free movement.
One policy pushed by the net-zero cabal that has gotten relatively little attention is mandated carbon capture and storage (CCS). Under that scheme, carbon dioxide generated during hydrocarbon production and use is captured before it can be released into the atmosphere, and is then stored underground. Capture is located at sources of significant carbon dioxide emissions, such as power plants and industrial facilities.
Carbon capture has long been used in the oil and gas industry, where the captured CO2 is pumped into marginal or flagging wells to enhance oil recovery. This is carbon capture and utilization (CCU). CCU is not the same as CCS—enhancing oil recovery does not necessarily result in permanent storage.
The whole motive for CCS—the uneconomic capture of CO2 for permanent storage rather than use—is to fight climate change and hit net zero. The fossil fuel industry, particularly coal, has embraced it as a lifeline they believe will allow them to continue to operate, a lifeline that happens to come with generous subsidies.
Climate grifters have embraced CCS as a way to garner big bucks. They get money from federal subsidies for constructing and operating the network of carbon capture plants and the spiderweb of pipelines needed to deliver the captured carbon to supposedly secure underground permanent storage reservoirs. Even bigger bucks come from the generation of “carbon credits” they can then sell to high-CO2-emitting industries, allowing them to continue operating while burnishing their green ESG credentials for their shareholders, the public, and various regulatory agencies.
Interestingly, most if not all green groups oppose CCS. For them it was never about CO2 or preventing global warming; they were always interested in shutting down the fossil fuel industry and the Western lifestyles of high consumption that their use makes possible. They are misanthropes who want people to live with less: in the motto of one group, “back to the Pleistocene.” That’s the same reason they oppose nuclear power, which does not emit CO2.
A recent study by The Heartland Institute, which I coauthored, shows CCS to be not just unnecessary but positively dangerous, both to fundamental property rights and possibly to human health.
CCS is unnecessary because data does not support claims that the world faces a climate crisis or that climate change poses an existential threat to human existence. Despite daily mainstream media lies, the weather is not worsening, food supplies are increasing, and people are living longer, healthier lives amid modest warming.
The government push for CCS threatens individuals’ property rights. The developers and operators claim the pipelines provide a public good or public benefits in the reduction of CO2, and thus they should be allowed to exercise eminent domain to take land for pipeline rights of way from unwilling sellers.
The problem is, removing carbon dioxide is not a public good, because climate change is not threatening human health, welfare, or the environment. CCS is also not a public use, and the pipelines aren’t common carriers (a condition for the exercise of eminent domain in most states), since private companies own and operate the pipelines and associated facilities. Those companies restrict access to their pipelines and storage facilities and profit handsomely from doing so. This is politically connected companies trying to get state governments to allow them to obtain private gains by exercising a government power that is supposed to be used sparingly and then only for extremely limited purposes. The gain also doesn’t benefit the public in any meaningful sense, because no goods or services used in commerce are produced. On the contrary, the CCS grifters benefit tremendously at taxpayers’ and private property owners’ expense.
The push for big CCS is dangerous for a couple of reasons. First, it increases the cost of energy and makes the electric grid less reliable. CCS systems are expensive, and when they have been attached to power plants for large-scale testing, they broke down regularly, resulting in the power plants going offline. Because they are expensive and fail, utilities have eschewed widespread adoption, ultimately shuttering reliable coal plants prematurely and replacing them with intermittent and expensive wind and solar facilities. In either case, costs go up and energy reliability declines. A failing, expensive electric power system endangers people’s lives. People who can’t afford backup generators for when the power system fails, or who can’t afford to pay their power bill, are left shivering in the dark or sweltering in the heat. When either of these things happen, some people die, research shows.
The second danger comes from the transport and storage of the CO2. While CO2 concentrations at present or reasonably expected levels pose no danger to humans, and the evidence suggests it is actually benefitting plant life, there can be too much of a good thing: highly concentrated releases of CO2 can and have killed in the past.
For instance, in 1986, a lake in Cameroon released a massive amount of carbon dioxide that had formed from volcanic activity. The released killed nearly 1,800 people, 3,500 livestock, and countless birds and insects. A CCS project in Algeria—which cost approximately $2.7 billion to build in 2004—had to be shut down in 2011 because of concerns about leakage.
A 2015 blowout at California’s Aliso Canyon gas storage facility caused the largest greenhouse gas release in U.S. history, displacing thousands of families, forcing schools to relocate, and causing significant health problems for those living near the facility. Though the gas released was methane rather than carbon dioxide, the same type of failure can easily occur for CCS pipelines or storage reservoirs, especially as pressure mounts within them.
The world isn’t coming to an end due to climate change, and policies intended to fight it rob people of choice and property and increase the cost of living. CCS is one of those policies. Trump should ensure CCS receives no more federal subsidies and the government does not encourage or endorse more carbon trading schemes or limit CO2 from power plants, which incentivizes CCS as a way to keep reliable power systems and large factories online.
Withdrawing the EPA’s endangerment finding, which allows the government to limit CO2 and provides teeth to the net zero scheme, would be a big step toward that goal.
Source: Townhall
Brazil Is Not Meeting Paris Emission Commitments
According to the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal, Brazil has failed to meet its Nationally Determined Contribution, the self-developed carbon dioxide emission reduction goals developed by each signatory country, under the Paris climate agreement. During the first commitment period, beginning in 2016, Brazil promised to reduce its GHG emissions by 37 percent below the country’s 2005 levels, by 2025.
Emissions have dropped slightly since 2016, having dipped in 2018 through 2020. However, they have risen since, resulting in emissions being 30 percent higher in 2023 than 2005 levels—meaning they exceeded the committed cuts by 67 percent. (See figure below.)
Sources: Not a Lot of People Know That; World Bank
Climate Policies: Dramatically Higher Electricity Costs and Reduced Reliability in New England
A recent study from Always on Energy Research (AOER), an organization dedicated to ensuring every state in America has affordable, reliable energy, examines the impact of climate legislation on electric power reliability and costs in the New England region. All the states in that region are parties to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon credit trading scheme, among numerous other greenhouse gas regulation schemes.
The report was commissioned by research institutes, mostly state-based think tanks that focus on public policies in their affected states within the region. The group includes the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation in Massachusetts, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy in New Hampshire, the Maine Policy Institute, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity (RICFP), and the Yankee Institute in Connecticut.
United States Energy Information Administration data show New England residents and businesses currently pay among the highest electricity rates in the country, in large part because of policies they have enacted to reach a goal of reducing their carbon emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050. This study examined the likely impacts of these various policies at present and going forward.
The study concluded policies that replaced baseload power sources, which operate reliably 24/7, with weather-dependent energy sources, such as wind, solar, and battery backup, are causing higher costs and resulting in increased incidences of power shortfalls, brownouts, and blackouts across the region.
The problems with New England’s power grid have been self-inflicted, by legislators, governors, and public utility commissions placing what the study describes as unreachable, unnecessary climate goals above the needs of the people and companies in their states for reliable power.
The governments “blindly prioritized adherence to arbitrary green energy targets, rather than seeking the most cost-effective and reliable means to meet anticipated future demands for electricity … and to provide for a safe, reliable, and prosperous quality of life for their people,” writes Mike Stenhouse, CEO of the RICFP in a Real Clear Energy article summarizing the study’s findings. “Any legitimate cost-vs-benefit analysis would have shown that New England’s carbon reduction policies and mandates would certainly lead to dramatic consumer price increases, a dangerously unreliable grid availability, the industrialization of massive swathes of our oceans and land, as well as numerous other negative environmental problems … all for virtually no impact on the global climate.”
Why no impact on climate? Because New England is responsible for less than 0.4 percent of global emissions, meaning a 100 percent reduction there would have no measurable impact on global emissions, even if they are causing dangerous climate change, which data suggests they aren’t.
For New England, carbon reduction goals are all pain and no gain. According to the report:
- Compliance with the New England Decarbonization Plans would cost $815 billion through 2050,
- For New England families, the cumulative cost of the plans increases expenses for each person in New England by an additional $2,061 in 2030, $15,552 in 2040, and an additional $51,914 in 2050.
Ultimately, the report finds the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions under existing regional plans exceeds the benefits of doing so. Part of the reason for this is the fact the so-called “‘green’ policies have been enacted without any effort to quantify the environmental benefits they will secure and will surely impose a net harm on their economies and people,” writes Stenhouse. “New England states’ low and zero-emissions energy strategies are unresearched, unaffordable, unattainable, and unsafe … [and] put residents at risk of freezing in the dark.
“If this plan is not revised, residents and businesses can expect electricity rates to double, along with suffering from rolling blackouts,” Stenhouse warns.
Among the policy recommendations in the report are:
- Reconsider emission-reductions goals in the context of affordability and reliability of electricity. … If emissions reduction goals cannot be reduced without compromising affordability and/or reliability of electricity, they should be abandoned.
- Lift state nuclear moratoriums [since] building new nuclear power generators will be the most reliable and affordable way to decarbonize the New England grid.
- Purchase Power Agreement transparency. Any state that mandates contracts for certain types of energy should clearly detail the cost of those contracts for the public. These reports should provide ratepayers with the expected increases (or decreases) in their monthly bills.
Sources: Real Clear Energy; Always On Energy Research
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H. Sterling Burnett
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
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