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Page added on December 13, 2019

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Is ‘Decarbonization’ a Fool’s Errand?

The great fossil fuel hysteria of 2019 is remarkable as much for the rapidity with which the fervor has swept the landscape as for the long-term consequences it promises to wreak. Popular madnesses with a financial twist are nothing new, dating back to the era of tulip-bulb mania. This region, in its short history, has seen a few of them — the Klondike gold rush, the dot-com stock boom.

Those, like most, burned themselves out in short order, with rewards for a few and disappointment and loss for most. But the rush to “decarbonize” the American economy, energy system and society is a different phenomenon.

It’s driven not by the masses looking to capitalize on the mirage of a great opportunity. Rather, it’s more the product of eco-celebrities and elites swanning around the globe hectoring the masses about the doom that awaits them from unremedied climate change. And it offers no promises of great wealth (outside of a few hucksters promoting the Green New Deal). If anything, the bill is going to be huge, and everyone will get to share.

The decarbonization movement does share qualities with other popular delusions, in that the fevered pursuit leaves little time for asking, much less answering, some pertinent questions — never mind the cosmic questions about climate change’s direction, intensity or cause, and whether proposed remedies would have any actual impact on the climate.

There are more ground-level, real-world questions to be researched and resolved before charging off into a carbon-free future. Such as: Are home water and space heating, from an energy efficiency and density standpoint, the best applications for electricity? Is the grid ready for massive injections of unstable, undispatchable, unschedulable renewable power supplies on one end and massive, variable demands for it on the other end?

And most crucially, especially here in the Northwest, is there enough generating capacity to handle the increased demand for electricity for home space and water heating, and transportation, as well as population and business growth? With retirements of coal-fired generating capacity in the Northwest, such as TransAlta’s Centralia plant, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council is sounding warnings about supply adequacy in the next decade. (The increased calls to take more hydropower out of the system won’t help.)

In recent years, the easy answer would have been to add some gas-fired generating capacity, which offers the multiple attributes of being comparatively quick, simple and inexpensive to deploy, and which could provide a reliable base to firm up the use of solar and wind.

But natural gas, as recently as a few months ago regarded as a hero fuel for helping drive away Demon Coal and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, is now on the list of substances not to be produced or used. Seattle City Council’s consideration of a ban on natural gas in new residential construction for heating is part of the broad stampede.

The experts have guessed wrong about energy before: Peak oil was not just inevitable, it was already here; nuclear power would produce electricity in an abundance too cheap to meter. The belief that a decarbonized energy system will be cleaner, cheaper, more reliable and supply-adequate seems destined for the same fate. For Washington, that means more expensive power, negating one of its competitive economic advantages. Consumers will feel the bite too, given electricity accounts for a larger share of home heating (another legacy of cheap hydropower) here than the rest of the country.

The state also is likely to wind up as part of a bifurcated national energy system, as divided as the nation’s politics are now. Those parts of the country with natural gas production and greater use are unlikely to be interested in wrecking their economies just to indulge a few coastal politicians’ latest fetish.

 

seattlebusinessmag.com



109 Comments on "Is ‘Decarbonization’ a Fool’s Errand?"

  1. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:19 am 

    If we want to attract intelligent discussion, maybe a good place to start might be intelligent discussiion of the topic?

    I’m not REAL sure?

  2. Cloggie on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:21 am 

    “EU leaders tells Boris Johnson to obey their rules if Britain wants a quick trade deal after leaving on January 31”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7791259/Brussels-tells-Boris-Johnson-obey-rules-Britain-wants-quick-deal.html

    Now Europe has a common adversary, a crystallization point to harden resolve.

    We should hold back until they really left the building though.

    No-deal Brexit is not a disaster for Europe but a clean break, from the West, an enormous impetus to start an arms race, set up an army and buddy up with Russia and China and together terminate empire once and for all.

  3. JuanP is stupid on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:42 am 

    We are proud of you stupid. You told us 2 ½ years ago you were going to be stupid. You dared us to not do what you wanted or else and then “BOOM” you went into 2 ½ years of being mindless and stupid not just a little but huge stupidity. You must feel so warm and fuzzy inside. I bet your ugly wife is proud too. LMFAO

    This is from stupid:
    Davy said If we want to attract intelligent discussion, mayb…

    Davy said What was the topic again? Oh yeah. I forgot. “Is ‘…

    Darrell Cloud said Paid trolls and lunatics have ruined this site.

    Davy said “I think you are facing a USSR-1991-style downfall…

    Davy said cloggo I am a little busy cleaning up the board fr…

    REAL Green said We should try to be honest sometimes Davy. We need…

    Davy said Dont you all find it odd how stupid drove away bri…

  4. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:42 am 

    “Corbyn’s Massive Defeat is Big Wakeup Call for Democrats”
    https://tinyurl.com/qpknca2 money maven

    “It’s time for US democrats to reflect on the message UK voters gave Labour yesterday. Proposed Wakeup Phone Call “Hello Elizabeth. This is Jeremy, Jeremy Corbyn. About your radical plan to save America. I’ve been doing some reflecting. Guess what?” Jeremy Corbyn Went Down in Flames Jeremy Corbyn went down in flames yesterday in the biggest Labour defeat in 35 years. The above proposed phone call will never happen because Corbyn Refuses to Admit He is the Reason for Labour’s Massive Defeat. Corbyn will stand down as party leader in January. But he wants time to reflect on what happened. Corbyn Already Sounds Like Hillary Corbyn blamed Brexit. He blamed the media. He blamed disgusting politicians. On the latter, he is of course correct. He just forgot to look in the mirror while making that statement. He just forgot one thing. He forgot to blame Russia. He will have plenty of time to reflect on things, then blame Russia.”

  5. Clean it up on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:49 am 

    https://tinyurl.com/v8uhpgn webserver
    and fill in peakoil.com, you get that the server is hosted by Cloudflare:
    https://tinyurl.com/oojpt25 wiki

    Cloudflare is one of the last bastions of free speech. It is very sad that the admin of this site doesn’t seem to want to take the trouble to log in to his server dashboard and active a few presets, enforcing posters to post under a unique username/password combination. That doesn’t eliminate garbage under fake identities, but at least it stops identity theft and that would make a hell of a difference. If possible, you could also enforce that one IP-address can only post under a single identity. Please admin, invest an hour of your time to get this right.”

  6. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:50 am 

    I resent that greatly Darrell dumbass, or should I say, JuanP, aka, “stupid”.

    I am not a troll, you got that.

  7. JuanP is stupid on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:50 am 

    Stupid will you be allowed to be cleaned up?

  8. Cloggie on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 8:12 am 

    Perhaps that the good folks of Seattle would care to have a look at this:

    https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2019/12/14/germany-taps-its-geothermal-potential/

    After solar and wind, we now have yet another renewable energy alternative and viable decarbonization possibility.

    Germany is leading the way, no surprises here.

  9. REAL Green on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 10:20 am 

    Thanks for the on topic comment Cloggie.

    Now could the rest of us please grow up and follow Cloggie’s lead. This USA vs The Rest of the World stupidity has gone a little overboard.

  10. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 10:38 am 

    I bath one time every few months during summer. It’s part of my decarbonization plan. The swamp is usual purdy frozen in the winter.

  11. REAL Green on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 11:41 am 

    Thanks for the on topic comment Davy.

    That wasn’t so hard now was it?

  12. full woke supremacist muzzie jerk on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 12:13 pm 

    Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 10:38 am
    above not supertard obv.
    everyone pls be respectful to supertard

  13. JuanP is stupid on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 12:39 pm 

    Our board low IQ lunatic is active today

    This is from stupid:
    full woke supremacist muzzie jerk said Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 10:38 am above not supe…

    REAL Green said Thanks for the on topic comment Davy. That wasn’t…

    Davy said I bath one time every few months during summer. It…

    REAL Green said Thanks for the on topic comment Cloggie. Now could…

    Davy said I resent that greatly Darrell dumbass, or should I…

  14. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 1:02 pm 

    Our board low IQ lunatic is active today

    Yes, I am! Thanks for the shout-out JuanP is stupid. I was beggining to think you were ignoring me and my brilliant turd salads. And my ranting.

    #deportmakato

  15. JuanP is mindless and stupid on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 1:05 pm 

    stupid tell us about France and where Paris is on the map. It must have been exciting in GED classes learning these things

    This is from mindlesss stupid:
    Davy said Our board low IQ lunatic is active today Yes, I am…

  16. JuanP on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 1:06 pm 

    Davy, I got a C on that test because I thought Paris was on the Mediterianaina ocean

  17. JuanP on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 1:07 pm 

    OOpps, sorry, I spelld Mediterianania rong.

  18. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 1:29 pm 

    That’s REAL Easy. France is on a part of the map that isn’t in the USA. And so is Paris. I lurned me that in geomatry.

  19. I AM THE MOB on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 2:48 pm 

    What is a map Davy?

  20. Sissyfuss on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 3:10 pm 

    Cop 25 is losing its Mojo and becoming Copout 25, just like the 24 other copouts. The political, business, and military leaders know they are tied to the growth engine and it would be just as much madness to slow it as it would be to the rest of the masses to let it continue to render the biosphere useless. We’re all bumping into each other now, which the last step before panic sets in.

  21. Cloggie on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 3:51 pm 

    As if we need “the world”. This is our job:

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/11/european-green-deal-will-change-economy-to-solve-climate-crisis-says-eu

    “European Green Deal will change economy to solve climate crisis, says EU”

  22. Clean it up/Exorcise the Skum on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 4:14 pm 

    No need to change PO.com in any regard. Simply exorcise the virulent DavySkum cancer and within 24 hours there will be a miraculous recovery.

    Easy as 1-2-3.

  23. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 4:21 pm 

    Great news. whitey supertard and my hero lover trump rounded up muzzies in FL airbase and feed muzzies into muzzie anti rape machine.

  24. makati1 on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 4:43 pm 

    Above comments are more proof of why the West is going down the shitter. Fun to watch, from distant shores this beautiful Sunday morning in the land of eternal summer. Pass the popcorn…

  25. Asia down the shitter on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:26 pm 

    Asia is the definition of a polluted shithole.

    Take the horrifically polluted Pasig River in Manilla. The population along Pasig River has continued to multiply, but the developing country is unable to cope with the massive amounts of industrial and household waste. Initially used for bathing and fishing, the river has become known as the “toilet bowl” of Manila. Pollution dumped into the river and its tributaries has accumulated, and is no longer capable of sustaining any life other than janitor fish and water lilies. Ecologists consider it dead. Although many laws and plans have been put into place to regulate pollution and clean the water, none have proved very effectual to date.

    The penchant of the population to dispose of their plastic and household waste by chucking it into the river, is the reason why the Great Pacific Garbage Patch exists thanks to Asia.

    There are no rivers in the West that compare even in the remotest sense to this dead river.

  26. makati1 on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:47 pm 

    Good morning Davy.

    How much real shit is on the sidewalks of Amerikan cities today? Tons, I am sure. Suicides Up. Drug use up. Debt up. Insanity up. Intelligence/education down. Economy down. Life expectancy down. Dollar purchasing power down. And on and on. Third world Amerika is just covered up with brainwashing, but the rest of the world sees it in all its shitty glory.

    Hypocrisy is the favorite rebuttal in Amerika as they ignore their own slip into the 3rd world, but not for much longer. Crash cliff just ahead! Buckle up!

  27. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:49 pm 

    “makati1 on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:47 pm Good morning Davy.”

    Good evening makato, talk to your best bud sud juanPee pee. I did not post the above. when I post there is a link reference.

  28. JuanP is stupid on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:50 pm 

    stupid is trying to branch out with new socks.

    this is from mindless and stupid:
    Asia down the shitter said Asia is the definition of a polluted shithole. Ta…

    Davy said Great news. whitey supertard and my hero lover tru…

    Clean it up/Exorcise the Skum said No need to change PO.com in any regard. Simply exo…

    Davy said That’s REAL Easy. France is on a part of the map t…

  29. makati1 on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:53 pm 

    Bullshit Davy, you often posted with out any refs. But the truth is the truth and the US is all of the things I named above.

    “California’s Biggest Cities Confront a ‘Defecation Crisis’”

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-biggest-cities-confront-a-defecation-crisis-11565994160

    I could waste my time reffing all of the above items, but you would just ignore them anyway. It is a sunny, 80F, Sunday morning here and I am going out. Later!

  30. Davy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 6:30 pm 

    “Bullshit Davy, you often posted with out any refs. But the truth is the truth and the US is all of the things I named above.”

    Sure, I do stupid but then I will comment in my own words. That was not my comment it was from Stupid. Are you mad because your bud spud dear lunatic friend jaunPee pee duped you like he has been doing on a regular basis? LMFAO at the situationally unaware senior.

  31. More Davy sock puppetry and lunacy on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:29 pm 

    stupid Davy down the shitter on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 5:26 pm

  32. REAL Green on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 7:36 pm 

    bud spud juanPee pee?

    LOFAO at our insane alter personality the Davytard.

  33. Anonymouse on Sat, 14th Dec 2019 11:21 pm 

    That was definitely the stupid turd Mak. He can deny it all he likes, but that was totally him. Still hiding behind his stupid socks, playing stupid delsionalturd sock games. Nothing new there.

    What a loser.

  34. fwsmj on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 12:08 am 

    7supertard anon
    Pls be kind to supertard

  35. makati1 on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 1:41 am 

    Anon, he claims to have a farm and family, but how does he possibly have time to do his word salads and post so many comments/bullshit on here every day? Something is fishy and it isn’t the fish market! LOL

  36. Anonymouse on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 4:04 am 

    He has claimed to be a lot of things mak. To bad sane isn’t one of them.

  37. Dooma on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 4:46 am 

    I couldn’t agree with you more, Darrell.

  38. The gang of idiots on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 4:53 am 

    Well, my my, lots of concern over Davy by the boards mindless, stupid, and boring. Annoy got two cyberstalks in. JuanPee was there with some socks and his own Stupid handle. Makato is getting in a rut of only talking about Davy. If you stupid fucks want to socialize go to Facebook otherwise don’t waste my time.

    The stupid, mindless, and boring:
    Anonymouse said He has claimed to be a lot of things mak. To bad s…

    makati1 said Anon, he claims to have a farm and family, but how…

    fwsmj said 7supertard anon Pls be kind to supertard

    Anonymouse said That was definitely the stupid turd Mak. He can de…

    JuanP said Sissyfuss, the person you are thinking of is ̶…

    makati1 said Davy knows shit, Sissyfuss. He is so delusional, h…

    REAL Green said bud spud juanPee pee? LOFAO at our insane alter p…

    More Davy sock puppetry and lunacy said stupid Davy down the shitter on Sat, 14th Dec 2019…

  39. The boards stupid idiot on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 1:13 pm 

    The dumbass idiot on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 4:53 am

  40. JuanP on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 1:29 pm 

    I’m stupid

  41. Anonymouse on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 1:30 pm 

    Glad you are finally being honest Juan

  42. Davy on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 2:29 pm 

    I’m Juan, Annoymouse.

    dumbass

  43. full woke supremacist muzzies jerk I love cats I love every kind of cats I want to hug cats but I can't hug all cats. so anyway Im a cats lover and I love to run sorry im being emotional im thinking about cats again on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 2:43 pm 

    I’m vary sry that I drove supertard rock away now he’s back I’m very happy I wish him good health and merry (((supremetard)))b’day. Supertard rock is the 2nd smart after supertard theedrich . Their titles are both “the lover” (of muzzies). Being supertard they’re equally important and smart

  44. full woke supremacist muzzies jerk I love cats I love every kind of cats I want to hug cats but I cant hug all cats. so anyway Im a cats lover and I love to run sorry im being emotional im thinking about cats again on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 5:43 pm 

    a lot happened when i drove supertard rock away and i’m happy he’s back.
    during which period muzzie died like a dog died. muzzie died like a dog is not a dog.
    muzzie died like a dog is not a muzzie but it’s burried at sea by the navy as a muzzie.
    but muzzie died like a dog is not a muzzie.

    i appointed whitey supertard trump as supertard because he used low english “muzzie died like a dog”.

    my political position is shifting a lot. i’m a libturd and a former paultard. i switched to become blue republican to vote for whitey supertard president paul.
    then i didn’t like trump. i said he’s Big Grab. but now he’s that no more, he’s whitey supertard trump without the title “the lover”

  45. Davy approves this message on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 7:01 pm 

    DavyTurd Blossom, the nutter clown, on full display today via his supremacist muzzies jerk sock and earlier denials of the obvious.

    Just another typical day for the DavyTurd Blossom

  46. [email protected] on Sun, 15th Dec 2019 7:08 pm 

    DavySkum: “I did not post the above. when I post there is a link reference.”

    DavySkum LIE Exposed: ““Bullshit Davy, you often posted with out any refs.”

    DavySkum Admits Lying: “Sure, I do stupid.”

  47. JuanP on Mon, 16th Dec 2019 10:19 am 

    Decarbonization (if that is even a word) sounds like something people like Davy could believe in.
    You have to be an insane fool to believe BS like that. Trump 2020! Tulsi 2020! Long live Putin! Long live Russia!

  48. Davy on Mon, 16th Dec 2019 10:39 am 

    I believe a good step to decarbonization would be to eliminate people like you. Calm down dumbfuck. I mean deport you and confiscate your stolen property.

  49. NSA helper on Mon, 16th Dec 2019 10:41 am 

    I imagine somebody has you on a watch list. I can just imagine the nasty places you visit online.

  50. NSA on Mon, 16th Dec 2019 11:50 am 

    He’s been on a watch list ever since JuanP filed reports against him with The Miami Beach PD and the FBI.

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