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CO2

Our Adaptable Planet

By Energy Rant No Comments
For years, I wondered how the national debt would result in Great Depression-level pain and a reset not unlike bankruptcy. The national debt doesn't need to be paid back like we often hear or read in the news. It just needs to be maintained at manageable levels, defined as not letting the borrowing cost get to a prompt supercritical situation that overwhelms everything else. Financing costs are becoming alarmingly high – already more than we spend on national defense – about $1 trillion annually. When tax revenues to finance the debt are insufficient, or if debt markets bomb, the Federal Reserve steps…
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Dive Into Cement Manufacturing Emissions

By Energy Rant No Comments
Over the years, I’ve seen numerous mentions of decarbonizing concrete or cement. Random articles describing the need and means to decarbonize cement include this McKinsey article, this DOE post, and this Canary Media article. Those don’t cut it for me. I set out to explore cement making and why it is so carbon-intensive. But first, some terminology review is advised to differentiate cement from concrete. Growing up, in college, and even post-college, we used the term cement synonymously with concrete. E.g., “cement hands” to describe a guy who couldn’t catch a basketball or football or “cement head” to tell civil engineers. Each of…
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Willingness to Move on Climate Change

By Energy Rant No Comments
One of my obsessions is understanding how people make choices and what they truly value. Regarding climate change mitigation and everything else, the quest for more dollars or dollar efficiency, i.e., bang for the buck, rules. Migration to Danger A recent article from Bloomberg, Americans are Moving Toward Climate Danger in Search of Cheaper Homes, lays it out for us. That is Bloomberg’s headline, but do people believe climate change is a threat? Don’t bother asking. Watch what people do. Actions don’t lie. “Americans are actually choosing to move to Zip codes with a high risk of experiencing wildfire, heat,…
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Image shows a graphic displaying CO2 with a down arrow down to plants and text "Ambient CO2 Scrubbing Grifters."

Ambient CO2 Scrubbing Grifters

By Energy Rant No Comments
The origin of this post is a spicy Zerohedge article, The Phony Climate Change Catastrophe, specifically, carbon capture from ambient air. That reminded me of an April article in The Wall Street Journal that referenced the same redonkulous effort by Occidental Petroleum to self-absolve its CO2 emission contributions by vacuuming CO2 from ambient air. If this sounds absurd, you have my company. Incidentally, chief investors in this technology include Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway), the largest shareholder of Occidental stock, and Bill Gates. These grifters are always first in line with their golden tin cups when there is tax money available…
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Image shows graphic of clouds, trees and a factory with text "CO2 Pipelines and Ethanol- Entropy Factories"

CO2 Pipelines and Ethanol – Entropy Factories

By Energy Rant No Comments
Now and then, a seemingly dumb idea flies through my neocortex like a bat at dusk. Bats have Mr. Magoovian eyesight and rely on radar technology to catch bugs. They are silent in flight. A few weeks ago, one such metaphorical flying rodent got too close for me to ignore. That bat was carbon dioxide pipelines used to sequester CO2. This could be the dumbest idea I have investigated. The pipeline would carry liquid CO2 from ethanol, fertilizer, and “other agricultural industrial plants” from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, to be sequestered under North Dakota or Illinois. Developers…
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Image shows graphics of leaves and co2 with a down arrow, along with text "Chevron Going Down"

Chevron Going Down

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last year I wrote that the Supreme Court of the United States, SCOTUS, ruling in the West Virginia case, is a sign of things to come. That case buried a fork in the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. The legislative and executive branches would have to modify the Clean Air Act to pass such limits. In response to the ruling, Politico quoted SCOTUS Chief Justice Roberts: “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day. But…
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climate change

Climate Change, Theory, Practice, and the Farmer’s Almanac

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
We are carrying the ball forward from last week’s post that delivered hoards of historical climate data. If you didn’t see it, check it out because I guaran dam T you will find things you didn’t know – like the fact that the Earth has almost the lowest concentration of CO2 in hundreds of millions of years. That was a surprise! This subject started with a paper from the Institute of Energy Research (IER), CLIMATE POLICY The Case for a New Perspective, which I had barely skimmed, and the super heatwaves in the Northwest. The IER paper provides credible information…
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climate change

Measuring Climate Change

By Energy Rant No Comments
The super heatwave of a couple of weeks ago in the northwest got me thinking about weather anomalies and climate change. What is really happening, as if anyone knows. This fits nicely with a paper that was published a month ago by the Institute for Energy Research entitled Climate Policy - The Case for a New Perspective. That provided some interesting data and got me going on more in-depth research. I added to that through a few hours of mining National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data. Whoa, does NOAA have data! Yeow! So let’s look at the data and…
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GHG and NG

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
E Source reported last week that green house gas (GHG) emissions are falling fast in this country, as shown in the chart nearby.  Emissions tanked with the economy in 2009, and as I recall, the summer of 2009 was also cool, resulting in lower electricity sales.  Even so, when adjusted for economic output, GHGs are falling fast. The reason for this is rather obvious if one follows the electricity market.  It is much easier to get a natural gas power plant approved for construction as compared to a coal-fired plant.  I have not done the analysis myself, but it is reported…
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