Utilities Once Again Eyeing Coal As Sustained Chill Prompts Spike in Natural Gas Prices

Buffalo & Pittsburgh SD40-3 #3604 is seen backing a cut of hopper cars under the Rosebud Mining Lady Jane coal tipple in Pennfield, PA in January 2012. Mark MacDougall photo

As the winter Polar Vortex and supply problems with natural gas drive prices to four year highs, some utilities are shifting back to coal as a power source to deal with the increased demand.

Coal's share of energy production in the U.S. might climb to 40.3 percent from 39 percent last year. And the U.S. is on track for its coldest winter in more than 30 years through January, giving rise to the less expensive energy source.

“The idea of coal disappearing is not an effective climate change policy,” said John Thompson, an analyst at the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force told Bloomberg News. “Coal use is growing.”

Although a number of utilities have switched from coal to natural gas in recent years thanks to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shale, the Energy Information Administration reported that utilities pulled a record 287 billion cubic feet from storage in January. The low storage levels have put pressure on the utilities and energy companies to replenish the supply in storage. The Polar Vortex has also prompted some energy companies to lobby for extending the life of older coal-fired power plants to deal with further spikes in demand.

Despite a concerted campaign by environmentalists and public health experts to stanch its use, coal, the most plentiful and cheapest fuel in the world, is proving globally resilient. In the U.S., rising natural gas prices are prodding utilities to switch back to coal at levels not seen since 2011.

Now, Edison Electric Institute, the Washington-based trade group of U.S. investor-owned utilities, is turning to the latest series of cold snaps to bolster their lobbying of the Obama administration and state regulators to keep coal and nuclear generators alive.

“I’ve been advocating fuel diversity so you don’t get overly dependent on any one particular fuel source,” the group’s president, Thomas Kuhn, said during a Feb. 11 interview at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York. “On a regional basis we still want to keep that in mind.”

During the 2008 campaign, President Obama infamously declared in a videotaped interview that he would seek to impose regulations that would essentially bankrupt the coal industry. Cap and trade legislation that would've eventually driven the coal industry out of business cleared the Democrat-controlled house of representatives in 2009, but the legislation died in the senate. However, the Obama Administration has sought to implement much of Cap and Trade through piecemeal regulatory fiat using the EPA. In late 2013, the EPA announced a 'listening tour' on proposed new coal regulations that would skip most coal mining states.

Conservative Opposition Surges to Landslide Victory in Australian Federal Elections

A coalition of right-of-center parties handed the Labour party their worst defeat since the 1930s in last week's Federal elections in Australia. The defeat came only a few weeks after former PM Kevin Rudd ousted Julia Gillard as head of the Labour party and replaced her as Prime Minister. Gillard had originally called for the elections to take place in mid-September, but the date was moved up by a few weeks once she was ousted.

Tony Abbott of Australian Liberal Party [which would be more along the lines of 'classic liberalism' by US standards- NANESB!] will be sworn in as Australia's newest Prime Minister this week after coalition of Australia's Liberal and National parties had formed a coalition. Abbott campaigned on a number of hot-button issues including repealing the unpopular carbon tax and turning back 'boat people'- asylum seekers and illegal immigrants reaching Australia by boat in the hopes of being granted asylum upon arrival in Australia- at sea and processing them offshore.

Abbott stated this week that his first order of business will be to scrap the carbon tax, although remaining members of Australia's Labour party in parliament have vowed to fight such a move by the new government. The carbon tax was implemented by then PM Julia Gillard last year and faced considerable opposition from Australian mining firms, steelmakers and airlines as well as the public.

A campaign proposal by Abbott to pay Indonesian nationals bounties for information leading to human traffickers was also sharply rebuked by Indonesia's foreign minister this week. The two governments are expected to discuss the boat people issue in-depth during a summit next month.

Video- "If I Wanted America To Fail"

This video had actually released earlier this month by Free Market America in time for Earth Day, but I thought it would be worth revisiting.
The video went viral last weekend- getting as many as 120,000 hits in 36 hours- yet the twitter account for Free Market America was suspended briefly before being reinstated.
The concept was reportedly inspired by a 1965 column from the late radio personality Paul Harvey called 'If I Were the Devil'

Canada Announces Withdrawl From Kyoto Climate Change Treaty

In a continuing trend of showing better judgement than their American counterparts, the Conservative government of Canadian PM Stephen Harper announced this week at a United Nations climate conference announced that they were invoking their right to no longer participate in the 1997 Kyoto protocols which were purportedly designed to reduce greenhouse emissions among industrialized nations.

The previous ruling government had initially signed onto the treaty, but Harper's Environment minister Peter Kent said that the Kyoto treaty as it's structured did nothing to address pollution from growing economies such as Brazil and China while putting an onerous economic burden on Canada if it were to comply with Kyoto.

Kent's announcement comes a day after marathon climate talks wrapped up in the South African port city of Durban.

Canada faced international criticism at the recent climate talks in South Africa amid reports it would pull out of Kyoto.

Harper's Conservative government is reluctant to hurt Canada's booming oil sands sector, which is the country's fastest growing source of greenhouse gases and a reason it has reneged on its Kyoto commitments.

Canada has the world's third largest oil reserves, more than 170 billion barrels. Daily production of 1.5 million barrels from the oil sands is expected to increase to 3.7 million in 2025. Only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more reserves. But critics say the enormous amount of energy and water needed in the extraction process increases greenhouse gas emissions.

Among the proposals floated around the Durban conference was a punitive 'climate tax' on American goods exported and the establishment of an international 'climate court' designed to redistribute wealth from industrialized nations to developing countries.

Scam Within a Scam- Hackers Hit EU Carbon Credit Exchange, Steal €30 Million in Carbon Credits

Trading on the European Union Carbon Exchange was halted after hackers made off with an estimated €30 million in carbon emission allowances from five European countries in late January.

The Czech Registry for Emissions Trading was one of the worst affected by the hack, losing 7 million euros worth of the pollution permits, known as EU Allowances (EUAs).

Some 2 million EUAs were stolen by hackers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Estonia and Poland within a few days. Each credit allows the bearer one ton of emissions and is worth 14 euros.

EU authorities say they suspect a phishing scam enabled hackers to log into unsuspecting companies' carbon credit accounts and transfer the allowances to themselves, allowing them to be sold on.

The credits are normally traded between companies that have a shortage of or excess emissions allowances for their current operations, and involve instant payment, meaning hackers can create accounts and then delete them as soon as they are paid.

Investigators in Greece have traced the thefts to at least 8 internet protocol addresses in Romania. Registry officials in Estonia and Germany say they have located some 610,000 allowances stolen from the Czech registry, but the theft not only highlights a lack of security on the international exchanges, but also raises concerns that credits purchased in good faith on the open market could turn out to be stolen from the registries.

Some of the markets reopened with limited activity on Feb 3rd after giving "reasonable reassurances that the minimum security requirements are in place".

It is not the first time the ETS has suffered a security breach. The system was hit by a phishing scam last year that saw 13 European markets shut down, while a cross-border fraud scam in 2008 and 2009 netted criminals 5 million euros, according to Agence France-Presse.

I could go on about how such 'cap and trade' or climate or carbon Exchanges are pretty much worse than useless, but they do a bang up job of explaining that all by themselves- however unintentionally. Hell, Chicago's much-ballyhooed Climate Exchange shut down at the end of 2010.

Leaving aside the fact that such a system would arbitrarily place limits on output from manufacturing, transportation, utilities and energy exploration, how exactly would these trading mechanisms be enforced? It would require a massive bureaucracy and even more red tape- think along the lines of 0bamacare's 1099 mandate, only for air instead of healthcare.

All while obstructing further exploration and drilling for oil in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, coal in West Virginia or natural gas in the Marcellus shale. This in turn has already driven up energy costs and will only further America's dependence on energy imported from unstable or belligerent nations.

And if anybody think the above problems will magically go away thanks to some sort arbitrary imposition of cap and trade of carbon exchange scheme, I have a bridge in Brooklyn couple of EU carbon credits to sell you.

Al Gore Does About Face on Ethanol

Addressing a green energy conference in Athens last month, former Vice President Al Gore told an audience that he only supported tax breaks and subsidies for corn-based ethanol to try and gain votes from farmers in Iowa and his native Tennessee.

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Reuters quoted Gore saying of the U.S. policy that is about to come up for congressional review. "First-generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president," the wire service reported Gore saying.

Ethanol production this year is estimated to take up slightly over 40% of the total US corn crop. Opponents of ethanol say that producing the combustible materiel from corn raises food prices by creating an artificial shortage of corn.

Of course, this begs the question of whether Gore felt this way about ethanol all along, but voted for an EPA mandate requiring ethanol in 1994 (as Vice President, he was the tie-breaking vote) as a means of currying favor with farmers and agribusiness ahead of the '96 campaign, or if he simply changed his mind out of the blue. I'll refrain from using the word 'sincere', since it doesn't quite seem to belong in the same sentence as a snake-oil salesman selling doomsday unless we (but not Gore himself) forfeit our freedom of choice, our industry, our agriculture and our resources to accommodate his carbon trading ponzi scheme.

Credits and tax breaks for the ethanol subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress chooses to renew the $7.7 billion program.

10 Reasons Why I Parted Ways With Sanctimonious, Dishonest, Ponytailed Blogger

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of husky, pony-tailed blogger Charles Johnson making his contrived, self-serving ideological pivot official on his blog. On November 30, 2009 Charles Johnson officially 'broke' with the vast right wing conspiracy in a lengthy, petulant screed titled 'Why I parted ways with the right'. The thing is, when he had been earlier linking to conservative sites like Pajamas Media or Hot Air, he claimed that he never was a conservative or part of the right to begin with- which made his blatant attention whoring all the more disingenuous.

There's also the notion that Johnson bailed because he wanted to remain on the side of whoever was in charge. During LGF's heyday, that was the Bush Administration- and now, during it's precipitous, inevitable decline, Johnson and his hangers-on are making every effort to rally around the Obama Administration and portray the GOP as greedy, racist, clueless obstructionists (which also proves that Johnson's pretty bad at math too, since the GOP won't be able to 'obstruct' much of anything until January when 63 new members will be sworn in to the House of Representatives).

Speaking of, I wonder how it feels to so publicly and vocally attach yourself to the Democrats and progressives before their worst Congressional losses since the end of WWII. Also keep in mind Johnson was pretty much finished with the right when Chris Cristie, Robert McDonnell and Scott Brown won their respective elections in late 2009 early 2010.

Still, in the spirit of the 1-year mark, I thought I'd make my own list of why I broke with Johnson's blog

10) Moderate and popular New England Republicans like Scott Brown supposedly are the spearhead for some massive Tea Party/Ron Paul/John Birch Society/Big Oil/Gold Merchant/Climate Denier conspiracy according to speculation by Johnson.

9) Johsnon's supposedly well thought out and introspective reasons for parting with the right read like a half-assed laundry list of boilerplate talking points from Media Matters or Act Blue. Seriously, it might as well have been titled 'Me! Me! Me! It's all about me! Now praise me for how principled I am!'. This is conduct I'd expect from an attention starved 6-year old, not a middle aged man with a once-credible blog that had tens of thousands of hits a day.

8) Besides longtime conservative posters, the 'purges' from LGF in late 2009 included a large number of both Jewish and Military veteran posters. I'm convinced that was by design on his part.

7) Open hostility or antipathy towards religion- with two notable exceptions; Islam and the Church of Climate Change

6) Encouraging disdain and outright dismissal of any news story that ran on FOX News (even if the same story was running concurrently on other news outlets) while posting as gospel truth opinion pieces from blogs such as crooks and liars, media matters or the Huffington Post.

5) Encouraging disdain and outright dismissal of any news story and public or media figure that appeared on the FOX network UNTIL Johnson's appearance on Alan Colmes' radio show....which aired on FOX News/Talk radio.

4) Flags.....Good Lord. For a man of Charles Johnson's supposed intellect, he sure gets worked up (and frequently tripped up) by easily researched matters such as flags. Seriously.

3) Contrived guilt-by-association from Johnson, but only directed at those on the right. Apparently the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and talk radio were responsible for the death of a Kentucky Census worker or the Texas man who flew an airplane into an IRS Field office. But as far as the Discovery Channel gunman or homicidal University of Alabama-Huntsville professor Amy Bishop and their political leanings are concerned, then the 'No true Scotsman' argument applies there.

2) The other remaining posters at LGF. Ever have to visit some particularly activist, obnoxious, strident and in your face relatives for the Holidays? They're on the opposite end of the political spectrum, but will take advantage of having a quasi captive audience to lecture and browbeat you, even though it will do little to change you mind? That's what the majority of the 'new' LGF posters were like, emboldened after the 2009 bloodletting.

1) The administrators or 'monitor lizards'. Just as bad as the posters, only they had the ability to make your posts disappear for high crimes like mentioning President Barack Hussein Obama's middle name. Attempting to debate them was even worse, since they'd simply deny, dodge and obfuscate- then after moving around the goal posts on their terms, claim they had prevailed. 'Monitor lizards' were also known to type out lengthy, vitriolic screeds hoping that global warming skeptics would be rounded up and put into prison camps, opponents of a civilian trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be deported to North Korea and members of the Tea Party would be publicly shot and killed...and I won't even start with the disturbing fixation regarding Sarah Palin some of them maintain. Keep in mind these are the sort of individuals Johnson not only wanted to keep around on his blog, but granted them admin status while others were banned for pointing out how much the blog had changed.

Happy Anniversary! One Year Ago This Week, Sen. Boxer Unsuccessfully Plays Race Card to Sell Cap & Trade to Black Chamber of Commerce CEO

Between this week's Tea-Party/NAACP spat and an apparently race-based kerfuffle involving video of a black USDA appointee seemingly bragging about doing far less than she could to help a white farmer (followed by a much more complete and less damning video released yesterday, although it's worth noting that the crowd of NAACP members seemed to react approvingly to the first part of her tale) it's almost easy to overlook the fact that this week is the one year anniversary of another racially-tinged political spat that involved another iffy NAACP proclamation.

This is Harry Alford speaking with Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on July 16th last year. Mr. Alford is the President and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce and had gone to Capitol Hill to explain the adverse effect that the Waxman Markey Bill (also known as the American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009 or simply Cap & Trade) would have on businesses- particularly the burdensome regulations and onerous taxes would have an adverse on economic development nationwide, and in the black business community in particular.

Sen. Boxer attempts to placate Mr. Alford by pointing out that the NAACP had come out and issued a statement in support of the Wakman-Markey Bill. As you can hear from the video clip, she doesn't get alot of traction with that particular endorsement. In fact, one could say that it backfires on her.....big time.

One year later, Sen. Boxer is suddenly facing a more competitive race then she anticipated in her bid to get re-elected in her very blue state (with 12.3% unemployment, I might add) with Obama ignoring the economy and Gulf oil spill to fly out to San Francisco to raise funds for her.

Elsewhere, the National Black Chamber of Commerce- with Mr. Alford not going anywhere as the CEO- still isn't sold on the Waxman-Markey bill (which did pass the House last summer).

It's good to see that recognizing god-awful, economy killing legislation that would punish anybody who used electricity or goods shipped by truck, rail, airfreight or maritime shipping should know no ethnic boundaries. For what it's worth, the NBCC is having their annual convention in Houston this upcoming week.

When Talking Points Collide! Howard Dean Sez Republicans "Don't Believe In Science"

Using this week's record snowfall as a backdrop, a few Republican Congressmen took the time to poke fun at the Patron Saint of Global Warming Climate Change, Al Gore.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) tweeted "It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries 'uncle' " on Tuesday and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and his family built an igloo Wednesday and invited Al Gore to make himself at home in the structure.

Howard Dean, who's greatest success to date has been convincing the rest of the nation that the far left batshit insane moveon.org left was 'mainstream', was quick to retaliate in an ABC interview.

“One of the most disturbing things about the Republican Party over the last couple of decades is that just they don’t believe in science any more. And that is not an approach that is likely to generate any kind of creative thinking,” Dean said.
“People who use snowstorms as an example of why global warming doesn’t exist don’t understand the science and they don’t care.”

This same tired and hackneyed talking point has also been an item in the laundry list of certain husky, pony-tailed bloggers during their melodramatic flounce from the right (of which they were never a part of) and who have taken to preaching the gospel of Global Warming Climate Change while attempting to re-write history over the last six or seven years. It's almost as deliciously ironic as the Pro Life 'Anti Choice' label doled out by the left in this country.

Yet curiously, this assertion by Dean runs in direct contradiction to a relatively common talking point Democrats and others that I distinctly remember surfacing in the 2004 and 2008 elections regarding Republicans and the right in general. You see, apparently those of us to the right of...say.....Nicaragua's Danny Ortega ...are mindless, bloodthirsty warmongers, ready to pick a fight with such paragons of transparent, flawless democracy like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Bashar al-Assad, Kim Il Jong, the Taliban or tHugo Chavez, despite the objections of such selfless and completely unbiased institutions like the United Nations.

This apparently means that as mindless, reactionary hawks, the American Right and Republicans are perpetually beholden to that dreaded military-industrial complex in order to have a properly functioning military.

Off the top of my head, I can think of items such as satellite-based communications and surveillance, night-vision optics, laser-guided munitions, unmanned drones, reactive armor or wireless communications required to make the attack dogs of the vast rightwing conspiracy United States Military function more effectively.

So how exactly would the process of developing these systems for use by the military come about? Santeria? Voodoo? Strategic sprinkling of Holy Water? A note tucked into the Wailing Wall? Or wait.....maybe it's science! And of course, after enough years of development, this technology makes its way to the civilian sector, into the marketplace and onto your dashboard ready to give you directions to the nearest grocery store or call ahead to your weekly GOP/Dominionist flat-earth meetings to let them know you're running late.

Or maybe Howie's worried about increasing skepticism about Global Warming Climate Change since, even as an apparent work of fiction, it seemed to be a bestseller for the Democrats and the 'mainstream' votes from moveon.org and Code Pink his party has been courting.

Republicans- and most Americans- would be wise not to believe in a 'science' that cherry-picked it's findings in order to draw a conclusion that was predetermined. Most free people throughout the world would never dream of allowing unaccountable governmental or international bureaucrats dictating to them through fiat what sort of food they should eat, what type of light bulb they must buy and what sort of vehicle they are required to drive. The second that happens, they cease to be a free people. But if these same scientists, politicians and bureaucrats come off as altruistic, well-meaning officials who have told us they're here to save the earth for future generations....well, how could one argue that without looking like some sort of callous ogre? Add in a hysterical, almost apocalyptic urgency and these officials are clearly the proverbial Paul Reveres making the frantic run to warn us all of our own self-inflicted Armageddon. And if you disagree with them, question their findings or wonder out loud if that F-350 you use to haul heavy equipment and firewood around are really melting the Himalayan glaciers, then you are not only anti-science, you are a denier and a puppet who's strings are being pulled by ExxonMobil and other nefarious corporations.

If this is the sort of 'science' Mr. Dean insists my tiny little right-wing pea brain is supposed to be against, so be it.

BREAKING: Pennsylvania Rodent Outperforms Al Gore, RFK Jr. In Climate Prediction Accuracy

Punxsatawney Phil sez: "Bundle up, SUCKAS!"

A little over a week ago, Punxsutawney Phil had predicted six more weeks of winter. Although somewhat ambiguous in his forecasting, the Western Pennsylvania resident probably didn't appreciate how right he had it when barely a week later, a series of winter storms moved in and dumped nearly 3 feet of snow in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic. Highways, railroads and airports in the region ground to a halt and the federal government shut down [altho' with this Congress and administration, that isn't necessarily such a bad thing- NANESB!]. A few days later, the reigon was hit by a second storm that dumped an additional foot of snow before moving on to New York and New England.

Spreading ManBearPig Awareness

Phil's intuitive forecast has called into question the longer-term predictions of climate experts Al Gore and Robert Kennedy Junior. Some scientists have questioned the more alarmist predictions the former Vice President made in his film An Inconvenient Truth while the total cumulative snowfall in the Washington DC area from this week alone has exceeded anything that Robert F Kennedy Jr. has seen in his lifetime.

So in these trying and turbulent times of record cold and snowfall throughout the nation, who should you trust? A Keystone State Rodent or various well-compensated 'experts' with private jets and multiple spacious homes who never miss an opportunity to remind us that commuting 20 miles to our $12 an hour jobs in a Nissan Sentra is eventually going to bring about Armageddon?

I'm going to have to say go with the groundhog. It's already been a pretty rough week for the 'experts'.

Global Warming Plays Havoc With European Transportation Network

Airports, Railways and highways across Europe ground to a halt in the wake of severe winter weather last week with more snow and ice forecast for this week. Service on the London to Bussels or Paris Eurostar was often delayed or cancelled and airports in Dublin, Lyon and other cities were shut down completely.

All I can say is good thing the UN had that 'Global Warming' crisis summit in Copenhagen when they did. Kind of difficult to sell the masses on melting glaciers and rising sea levels when they have to shovel their way out of 20cm of snow just to get to the store.

High Desert Hypocrasy- Rural Nevada Good Enough to Dump Nuclear Waste In, But Not Good Enough to Build Coal Fired Power Plant?

Cross-posted with Dopenhaagen:

While doing some background research about the Nevada Northern Railway the other night, I stumbled across this press release from NV Energy earlier this year regarding a proposed coal-fired power plant in rural eastern Nevada:

NV Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NVE) today announced that it has postponed its plans to construct a coal-fired power plant in eastern Nevada due to increasing environmental and economic uncertainties surrounding its development. The company will not move forward with construction of the coal plant until the technologies that will capture and store greenhouse gasses are commercially feasible, which is not likely before the end of the next decade.

If I understand this correctly, dumping copious amounts of nuclear waste at the DOE's Yucca Mountain site is perfectly fine and dandy, but a coal-fired power plant that would create jobs and serve the needs of people in Nevada and surrounding states is 100% unacceptable because of the carbon output.

What disconnect?

New Affiliate Blog Up and Running

And you thought Not Another New England Sports Blog! was poorly done and hastily put together!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you.....

*fanfare*

Dopenhagen!

This is just a little something I put together to monitor various Green and nanny-state shennanigans in the run-up to the UN-Sanctioned browbeating, blackmail and guilt-tripping of industrialized nations that is sure to be the Copenhagen conference.

The title itself comes from this brilliant parody site, that sadly turned out to be neither parody nor brilliant.