Cooler Heads Digest 21 November 2014

21 November 2014
In the News
Renewable Fuel Standard: EPA Retreats from Cutbacks
Marlo Lewis, GlobalWarming.org, 21 November 2014
U.S. Oil Imports Fell as Output Rose in October
Mark Shenk, Bloomberg, 20 November 2014
Fossil Fuel Industries: Time to Stand Tall! (Book Review of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels)
Erin Conners, Master Resource, 20 November 2014
Wind Energy Industry Gambles with Taxpayer Chip
Ernest Istook, Washington Times, 19 November 2014
New Polar Bear Study Is Junk Science
Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, 19 November 2014
Report: EPA Paid Employees $1 Million While They Were on LeaveSometimes for Years
Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, 19 November 2014
For Once, a Court Sided with People Rather Than Threatened Rodents
Ron Arnold, The Daily Signal, 18 November 2014
Spin Alert: Despite What DOE Says, Its Loans Are Not Making Money
Donald Marron, Forbes, 17 November 2014
News You Can Use

All 50 States Hit Freezing
Reuters reported this week that Tuesday was the coldest November morning across the U.S. since 1976,
as temperatures in at least one location in all 50 States dipped to freezing or below.
Inside the Beltway
Myron Ebell
Landrieu Fails To Find Sixtieth Vote for Keystone Pipeline
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did allow a floor vote on Tuesday, 18th November, on a bill
to permit the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline from Albertas oil sands to Gulf refineries, but Senator
Mary Landrieu (D-La.) failed to find the sixtieth vote necessary to break the Democrats filibuster. All 45
Republicans voted for the bill, but only 14 Democrats.
Landrieu thus failed to demonstrate her clout as the outgoing chairman of the Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, which cannot help her uphill effort to win re-election to the Senate in her 6th
December runoff with Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). It also shows that 41 of her Democratic colleagues are
more interested in keeping faith with their environmental billionaire donors than keeping another
Democrat in the Senate. They will have 46 seats in the 114th Congress, which should be enough for the
41 votes needed to block cloture on major Republican legislation.
Across the States

William Yeatman
New Report Shows State-by-State Energy Costs of EPAs Clean Power

Plan
A report released this week by Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc. estimates that EPAs proposed Clean
Power Plan, in combination with existing agency rules promulgated during the Obama administration,
would increase the cost of electricity and natural gas by nearly $300 billion in 2020 compared with 2012.
Click here for a State-by-State breakdown of how EPAs rules would affect your electric and gas bills.
Around the World

Myron Ebell
Obama Pledges $3 billion to Green Climate Fund, Attacks Australian

Prime Minister Abbott in Oz
After signing a climate agreement with Chinese president Xi Jinping at the APEC summit meeting held
outside Beijing last week, President Barack Obama traveled on to the annual G-20 summit meeting in
Brisbane, Australia. In a side speech at the University of Queensland, Obama pledged $3 billion to the
Green Climate Fund and then used the rest of his speech to criticize the Australian governments climate
policies.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott as the host of the G-20 meeting tried unsuccessfully to keep
climate policy off the agenda and out of the final communique. And he lost the full support of Canadian
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said after Obama announced $3 billion and Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe announced $1.5 billion for the Green Climate Fund that the Canadian government
would contribute as well.
But Abbott has not backed down. This week he re-iterated his position that the ongoing UN climate
negotiations will fail if they put policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ahead of economic growth.
It's vital that the Paris conference be a success... and for it to be a success, we can't pursue
environmental improvements at the expense of economic progress. We can't reduce emissions in ways
which cost jobs because it will fail if that's what we end up trying to do.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also criticized Obamas speech during an interview on Australian
television from New York where she was attending the UN Security Council meeting. According to the
Australian newspaper, American Ambassador to Australia John Berry had strongly warned the White
House not to criticize the Abbott government while in Australia.
Green Climate Fund Gets $9.3 Billion in Pledges

The Green Climate Fund came close to its initial goal of $10 billion at a conference of donor nations in
Berlin on 20th November. A total of $9.3 billion has now been pledged.
President Barack Obama got things going earlier in the week at the G20 summit meeting in Australia
when he pledged $3 billion. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe then pledged $1.5 billion. In Berlin,
new pledges included $1.1 billion from the United Kingdom and smaller amounts from Italy, Finland,
New Zealand, Mongolia, and Panama. A number of other nations have already made commitments.
France and Germany are also in the billion dollar club.
The Green Climate Fund (or GCF) was first suggested by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the
annual UN climate conference in 2009 in Copenhagen and then became the centerpiece of President
Obamas efforts to save the conference from total collapse. The deal agreed in Copenhagen is that
wealthier nations will give a total of $100 billion per annum starting in 2020. The GCF will give the funds
to poorer nations to help them deal with the impacts of climate change and pay for their own climate
policies. $9.3 billion is a start, but its far from the $100 billion per year commitment.
President Obama will no doubt try to redirect other foreign aid appropriated by Congress to meet his $3
billion pledge to the GCF. But Congress controls all appropriations, and the 114th Congress may not
agree. In that case, the Presidents pledge will be as empty as his recent climate agreement with
Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Science Update
Marlo Lewis
Google Ends Green Energy Project

During 2007-2011, Googles RE<C energy innovation center invested heavily in wind, geothermal, and
solar technology, hoping to produce a gigwatt of power more cheaply than is possible with coal. The
effort failed. Writing in IEEE Spectrum, Google engineers Ross Koningstein and David Fork report that by
2011, it was clear that RE<C would not be able to deliver a technology that could compete
economically with coal, and Google officially ended the initiative. . ..
The two engineers argue that stopping global warming will require two breakthroughs, which
EnergyWire (subscription required) summarizes as follows:
First, renewable energy sources like solar and wind need to get cheap -- not just as cheap as a
coal- or natural-gas-fired power plant, but so much cheaper that it makes economic sense to
abandon traditional fossil fuels soon. Furthermore, the power system needs to be redesigned so
renewable sources, like rooftop solar panels, can be as responsive and useful on the grid as a
traditional power plant is now, the engineers wrote.
Second, the world needs as-yet-uninvented technologies to pull CO2 from the atmosphere.
Then and only then would a zero-carbon system be a thrifty choice a solution the world confidently
embraces because it makes people wealthier.

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21 November 2014

News You Can Use

Across the States

New Report Shows State-by-State Energy Costs of EPAs Clean Power

Around the World

Obama Pledges $3 billion to Green Climate Fund, Attacks Australian

Green Climate Fund Gets $9.3 Billion in Pledges

Google Ends Green Energy Project

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