January 2012

FDA Regulation of Internet Drug Advertising

by Greg Conko on August 20, 2009 · 1 comment

in Healthcare, Legal, Personal Liberty, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Tech & Telecom

Today, CEI filed comments (link to PDF format) on a draft FDA guidance document advising prescription drug manufacturers on how to comply with regulations requiring the presentation of risk information in drug and medical device advertisements.  Although we disagree in principle with the current regulatory regime that requires almost encyclopedic presentation of risk information any time a manufacturer communicates the name of a drug and any mention of benefits in promotional materials, these comments focused on the FDA’s failure to treat the Internet and other new media as unique forms of communication that permit advertisers to present complete risk and benefit information in novel ways.

For example, in April, the FDA sent Notices of Violation to 14 drug manufacturers, informing them that their use of “sponsored links” to advertise prescription drugs on search engines such as Google were unlawful because the 70-character links did not present the same complete risk information required in conventional print advertisements.   But, due to constraints of the medium, sponsored links cannot accommodate all the required information, which in any event is accessible “one click” away on the landing page of the URL to which the sponsored link directs the searcher.

Ironically, the draft guidance document goes to great lengths to explain that FDA will examine the overall context of an ad’s presentation of information and the ‘net impression’ that reasonable consumers would get from an ad in order to ensure that the risk information is displayed in the appropriate way.  But, reasonable consumers don’t stop reading when they get search engine results.  Finding the landing page, where they’ll see the complete information FDA requires, is precisely what an Internet key word search is all about.  Consequently, we urged FDA reconsider this 1960s approach to drug ad regulation and bring its regime into the 21st Century.

You can read the press release here, and the entire comments document in PDF format here.

Bank Robbers for Transparency!

by Iain Murray on August 20, 2009

in International, Legal, Odds & Ends, Personal Liberty, Privacy, Regulation

The news that the Federal Government has forced UBS to give up the details of 4000 of its customers’ transactions has other financial institutions finding new ways to protect their clients.  This has been greeted with dismay by one community.  The following letter to the New York Times was intercepted and we provide it here in the interests of transparency.

Dear Sir,

As an international bank robber, may I say how much I deplore the underhanded way in which financial institutions are able to keep private details of how much money each of their clients has deposited. This makes my job so much harder. Indeed, we in the bank robbing community are working to improve our image after decades of negative coverage from conservative media and this could be enhanced by increased transparency, which would enable us to target only those banks and clients who have, for example, profited from the subprime mortgage market. We are also environmentally conscious. In our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases not only do we now use smokeless explosives, but transparency would enable us to leave alone the accounts and deposit boxes of carbon offset traders and Al Gore’s Hollywood friends.

Sincerely,
Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Baker, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Darrow

See also: Baptists and Bootleggers

Regulation of the Day 36: Buying American

by Ryan Young on August 20, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Regulation, Regulation of the Day, Stimulus to Nowhere, Trade

The $787,000,000,000 stimulus contains a provision requiring the Department of Homeland Security to buy US-made textiles. Basically, that means TSA uniforms will go up in price.

Let’s look at the logic behind this. If DHS would just pay more money for the same product, leaving less money left over for purchasing other goods, we can stimulate the economy. Jobs will be created or saved.

Amazing that some people still think that restricting trade and voluntarily paying higher prices will increase prosperity.

“ObamaCare Is All About Rationing” and Tax Increases, Obama Adviser Says

by Hans Bader on August 19, 2009 · 1 comment

in Healthcare, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Sanctimony, Stimulus to Nowhere

“ObamaCare is all about rationing,” says one of Obama’s own advisers, Martin Feldstein. Feldstein earlier noted that Obama’s health-care plan would harm people with insurance, and massively raise taxes.

Civil-libertarian and former ACLU board member Nat Hentoff says that after reading Obama’s health-care plan, he was more scared of the Obama Administration than any other Administration he’s lived under. (In 1995, Hentoff received the National Press Foundation’s Award for lifetime distinguished contributions to journalism).

Legal experts and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have questioned the constitutionality of major provisions of ObamaCare.

Fact-checkers say Obama is lying about health-care. The Washington Post recently debunked his claim that you can keep your doctor and health-care plan if you want to under ObamaCare.

Feldstein, a Harvard professor, warns that “For the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, the Obama health plan is bad news. It means higher taxes, less health care and no protection if they lose their current insurance because of unemployment or early retirement.” Obama’s plan would “cost more than $1 trillion,” and raise the top federal “income-tax rate from 35 percent today to more than 45 percent,” he notes.

Obama is ignoring lessons from overseas on how to make health care cheaper.

As CNN earlier noted, Obama’s plan would take away “5 freedoms,” including the freedom to choose your doctors, the freedom to choose what’s in your plan, the freedom to keep your existing plan, the freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, and the freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.

Earlier, we described how Obama’s health-care plan would destroy many affordable health-care plans, raise taxes on the middle class, and break Obama’s campaign promises, as well as his recent pledge that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to rush the health-care bill through Congress before most people can even figure out what’s in the bill. That’s how she pushed through Congress the $800 billion stimulus package, which contained hidden provisions that ended welfare reform, and which is now projected to cut the size of the economy “in the long run.” (The stimulus package was supposed to deliver a short-run “jolt” that would quickly lift the economy, but unemployment rose rapidly after its passage, and the package has actually destroyed thousands of jobs in America’s export sector, as well as subsidizing welfare and waste.)

Obama’s planned tax-increases on some health-insurance plans, and abandonment of his campaign pledges about health-care, are part of a long line of broken promises by Obama, such as his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” which he broke in a big way with proposed budgets that will explode the national debt through $9.3 trillion in massively increased deficit spending.

Health-care experts and critics of the Administration say that Obama’s top health care adviser and his first nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services have advocated denying medical care to certain elderly and disabled people.

Former ACORN Las Vegas Director to Testify against Organization

by Ivan Osorio on August 19, 2009 · 2 comments

in Labor, Politics as Usual

The former director of the Las Vegas chapter of the far-left advocacy group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has agreed to testify against the organization, in exchange for a plea to reduced charges: two counts of conspiracy to illegally pay canvassers registering voters.

While any instance of ACORN being brought to account for breaking the law is welcome, this is only the tip of the iceberg. ACORN’s history of scandal goes back years. Jeremy Lott and Matthew Vadum of Capital Research Center provide a sample:

The Employment Policies Institute compiled ACORN cases for 2004 and 2005. Highlights include:

* “An ACORN employee in New Mexico registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, state Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was ‘manufacturing voters’ throughout New Mexico.”
* “In Ohio, a grand jury indicted an ACORN worker in Columbus for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, ACORN was forced to fi re two workers for submitting what the director of the board of election supervisors called ‘blatantly false’ forms.”
* “The Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN [in 2005] for turning in a signifi cant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons — in violation of state and federal election law.”

Before the 2006 midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal editorialized against ACORN’s efforts. The paper cited a string of cases:

* “[L]ess than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from ACORN… have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board.”
* “Acorn workers have been convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado, and investigations are still under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.”

Washington’s secretary of state Sam Reed reported that in 2006 ACORN submitted 1,800 new voter registrations, and all but six were fake. This year in Washington state, seven ACORN workers were indicted on felony voter registration fraud charges, after the organization had entered into a consent decree to refrain from improper voting activities.

In Missouri, ACORN has had serious legal troubles that stretch back decades. Gov. Matt Blunt (R) recently told Human Events (Oct. 16) “This is not a Lion’s Club or a social club that tried to have a voter registration effort and made some mistakes. This is a group with a history of systematic fraud around election day.”

According to Gov. Blunt, only half of the 5,000 registrations that ACORN submitted in St. Louis before the 2000 election were valid, and at least 1,000 of the invalid registrations were clearly fraudulent. Similar shenanigans were observed in the state’s 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. That has lead to indictments or prosecutions of more than a dozen ACORN workers and to Blunt’s call for a far reaching federal investigation.

Scandals at ACORN don’t only concern badly-paid low-level workers. They are also swirling around ACORN founder and union boss Wade Rathke. Back in 2000 Rathke discovered that his brother Dale, who kept ACORN’s books, had embezzled nearly $1 million.

Rathke didn’t reveal this publicly or force his brother out. Instead, Dale was kept on the payroll and the theft was treated as a misappropriation for which the Rathke family made private restitution. The theft didn’t become public until this summer. According to the New York Times (July 9), Wade Rathke and “a small group of [ACORN] executives decided to keep the information from almost all of the group’s board members and not to alert law enforcement.”

It wasn’t until a whistleblower forced ACORN’s hand that the board was notified. Last June Dale was fi red and Wade resigned as ACORN’s chief organizer. But Wade kept his union job as chief organizer at SEIU local 100 and remains head of ACORN International, an overseas affiliate.

ACORN actually runs SEIU (Service Employees International Union) locals. SEIU President Andy Stern has emerged in recent years as the most vocal, and arguably most influential, union leader in America — President Obama called on him during a the “Fiscal Responsibility Summit,” held at the White House. It will be interesting to see what, if any, other ties emerge.

For more on ACORN, see here and here.

Fore more on SEIU, see here.

UBS Deal Only a Partial Victory for the Feds

by John Berlau on August 19, 2009 · 1 comment

in Economy, Features, International, Legal, Regulation, Zeitgeist

Today, after a long and protracted battle between the U.S. and Swiss government, Swiss bank UBS AG agreed to turn over the names of at least 4,450 U.S. holders of accounts in Switzerland who may have violated U.S. tax laws. While the Obama administration may paint this as a victory, this number is less than 10 percent of the 52,000 names it had originally asked for. It is even lower than the estimate of 5,000 to 10,000 names that news reports speculated UBS would turn over once the agreement was announced.

Yet in a sense, this settlement is at least a partial victory — for privacy rights, international relations, and the rule of law. The U.S was forced to back away from its outrageous demands that would have set a precedent endangering U.S. competitiveness as well as civil liberties throughout the world.

The case began earlier this year after UBS – with the Swiss government’s full cooperation – turned over the names of 250 customers suspected of violating U.S. tax laws. But the U.S. government then turned around and asked for a whopping 52,000 additional names. The Swiss government naturally objected to such a fishing expedition as a violation of the nation’s privacy laws.

Switzerland rightly argued that such a large volume of names could not be justified by probable cause or “reasonable suspicion,” a requirement of the tax treaty Switzerland had negotiated with the U.S. In addition, such a fishing expedition would have gone against the spirit of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects Americans from “unreasonable searches.” A forensic analysis commissioned by UBS from Alix Partners found that many international students, diplomats, and Americans who work in Switzerland – and banked in Switzerland by necessity – could have been swept up in this dragnet.

It’s far from clear that if the shoe were on the other foot, and a foreign country were to demand the names of 52,000 customers of an American bank, the U.S. would have complied. The United States Model Income Tax Convention of 2006, used as a template by the U.S. to negotiate tax treaties, states that no country should be required to honor “a request in which a Contracting State simply asked for information regarding all bank accounts maintained by residents of that Contracting State in the other Contracting State, or even all accounts maintained by its residents with respect to a particular bank.”

The Swiss government maintains that the surrendering of these names, in contrast to the Obama administration’s previous demand, does not violate Swiss privacy laws because there was “reasonable suspicion” of tax breaches covered under the U.S.-Swiss treaty. Regardless, American civil liberties advocates on either side of the political fence should be alarmed by the U.S. government’s sweeping disregard of privacy interests in its original demands to the Swiss government, and should encourage their home country to never treat privacy and another country’s sovereignty so cavalierly again.

Milton and Rose Friedman, Partners in Liberty

by Fred Smith on August 19, 2009 · 1 comment

in Culture, Zeitgeist

This week, the world has lost a champion of economic freedom, Rose Friedman.  While her Nobel Laureate husband, the late Milton Friedman, won widespread public acclaim, Rose was an accomplished economist, author, and champion of liberty in her own right.

Together, the Friedmans co-wrote the seminal book and co-produced the television series “Free to Choose,” which introduced many people to the ideas of free markets and economic liberty.  The Friedmans’ work together continues to be immensely invaluable to the cause of liberty.

Sadly, Rose’s death and that of Milton only three years earlier ends one of the world’s most successful “ideological” marriage partnerships.  Together, Rose and Milton were a far more formidable force for liberty than either would have been alone. As such, they inspired many others to to become “double partners” in the struggle for liberty. My wife Fran and I, Joe and Diane bast, Ed and Kristina Crane, Don and Karol Boudreaux, Amy and David Ridenour, John and Jeanette Goodman, Bill and Rebecca Dunn, and Kathy and the late Bill Bradford are among those who can look to the Friedmans as examples.

In these dark political days, having someone to support one’s convictions and efforts is more important than ever. Rose and Milton provided an example of how married partners could be each other’s “wing men” — we should work to emulate it.

Addendum: One sometimes overlooks things close to home.  I did forget a few (possibly more).  One, however, merits attention:  Terry and Matt Kibbe are another Liberty Couple that merits inclusion on this list (Terry formerly worked with CEI).  Mea Culpa!

Regulation of the Day 35: Doctors with Borders

by Ryan Young on August 19, 2009

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

In 49 states, it is illegal to practice medicine outside of the state in which you are certified. Tennessee is the lone state with an open market.

Jacob Grier found a news article showing how this closed-shop style of regulation puts a damper on efforts in California to provide free medical care for people who can’t afford it.

Policy Peril Segment 8: Coal (updated 08/26/2009)

by Marlo Lewis on August 18, 2009 · 1 comment

in Global Warming, Odds & Ends

Today’s excerpt from CEI’s film, Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies Are More Dangerous Than Global Warming Itself, is on the global warming movement’s anti-coal campaign and the dangers it poses to U.S. consumers and the economy. To watch today’s clip, click here. To watch the entire film, click here.

The text of today’s excerpt follows. I provide additional commentary and links to supporting information in the footnotes.

Narrator: First and foremost, they want to ban construction of new coal-fired power plants. [1] Why? Coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel. It releases the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced. [2]

More importantly, emissions from new coal plants are expected to swamp, by as much as five to one, all the emission reductions that Europe, Canada, and Japan might achieve under the U.N. global warming treaty, the Kyoto Protocol. Either global warming activists kill coal, or coal will bury Kyoto. [3]

coal-v-kyoto

Figure Source: Myron Clayton, New coal plants bury ‘Kyoto,’ Christian Science Monitor, 23 December 2004.

Narrator: To be fair, the activists say they’ll allow new coal generation, if the power plants deploy something called CCS, carbon capture and storage technology. [5] The idea is that instead of releasing CO2 into the air, the power stations would capture it, liquefy it, and then transport it to underground storage sites. [6] There’s just one problem. No commercial coal plants today have CCS technology. [7]

I asked Mary Hutzler, formerly head of analysis at the Energy Information Administration, how long it would take just to determine whether a CCS system would be economical for utilities to build.

Mary Hutzler, former Acting Acting Administrator, Energy Information Administration: It probably requires an immense amount of research and development. People have told me 1o to 15 years alone. [8]

Narrator: Mary also told me that building a national CCS pipeline network could take another decade. Developing the regulations would also take years. [9] So the proposed moratorium is really a ban on new coal plants for 20 years or more.

What’s the risk here? New coal generation is forecast to supply two-thirds of all new electric power over the next two decades. By 2030, new coal generation is expected to provide 15% of all our electricity. [10] So banning it, could create one heck of a power deficit. Frequent blackouts and power failures–an energy crisis would not be an unlikely consequence. At a minimum, our electric bills would go way up.

Narrator: But Al Gore is not content to ban new coal plants. He now proposes to scrap all existing coal plants and natural gas power plants too. He says we must replace all carbon-based electricity with carbon-free electricity in just 10 years–by 2018. [11]

Ben Lieberman (Heritage Foundation): The idea is absolutely off the charts, unrealistic. [12]

Dr. Patrick Michaels (Cato Institute): Al Gore is proposing the literally, physically impossible. [12]

 Commentary

[1] James Hansen, the NASA scientist whose congressional testimony during the hot summer of 1988 launched the global warming movement, calls coal power plants ”factories of death“ and “the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.” The “top priority of any climate policy must be to stop the building of traditional coal plants,” writes climate crusader Joe Romm. He continues: “A climate policy that does not start by achieving at least the first goal, a moratorium on coal without CCS, must be labeled a failure.” “The silver bullet [for global warming] is no more coal,” says Architecture 2030. “Kill Coal. Coal is the enemy of the human race,” declares the Sustainable Development Issues Network. My Google search shows that global warming and coal are discussed on some 4,470,000 Web sites. It’s a safe bet most of those sites share the Gorethodox sentiments quoted above. 

[2] Different fossil (carbon-based) fuels emit different amounts of CO2 in relation to the energy they produce. For a variety of fuels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration compares pounds of CO2 emitted per energy output measured in British thermal units (Btu).

Fuel                                                        Pounds/Btu

Natural Gas                                          117

Liquefied petroleum gas                 139

Gasoline                                                156

Coal (bituminous)                             205

Coal (subituminous)                        213

Coal (lignite)                                       215

Petroleum coke                                 225

Coal (anthrocite)                              227

From these numbers, we can calculate the emission ratios (or relative CO2 intensity) of the fuels. For example, bituminous coal is 1.37 times more CO2-intensive than gasoline, and 1.75 more CO2-intensive than natural gas.

[3] The Christian Science Monitor chart shown above and in the film clip is based on late 2004 estimates by UDI-Platts, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and unspecified industry sources. David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in a February 2005 speech, presented a similar bottom line, based on International Energy Agency (IEA) data. He said:

 The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that 1400 GW of new coal plants will be built worldwide in the next 25 years alone. To put that in context, current U.S. coal capacity is about 330 GW and global capacity is 1000 GW. This enormous increase in coal capacity will lock us into a huge additional commitment to global warming unless we use technologies that reduce CO2 emissions to minimal levels; marginal efficiency improvements will not prevent this lock-in.

The lifetime emissions from just this next wave of coal investment will be about 580 billion tons of CO2. That amount is more than half the total loading of the atmosphere with CO2 from all forms of fossil fuel combustion in the past 250 years!

Build scores or hundreds of new coal plants, and the Kyoto CO2 reductions barely amount to a drop in the bucket. As has been widely reported, China is building coal power plants at the rate of one a week.

[5] A wide-ranging coalition of environmental groups called “Coal Moratorium Now“ demands that no new coal-fired power station be built unless it is equipped with carbon capture and storage. In 2008, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA)–the authors of the 2009 Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill (H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act)–introduced legislation (H.R. 5575) to impose a moratorium on new coal plants lacking CCS. In March 2009, state legislators introduced a similar bill in Texas. In April 2009, the UK Government proposed regulations requiring new coal plants to install CCS on at least 400 MW of output–about 25% of the output of an average power station. In addition, the power stations would have to capture 100% of their emissions by 2025–if the applicable technology exists by then. That’s a big “if.”

[6] A wealth of both basic and technical information on CCS is available in studies by MIT, the U.S. Government Accounting Office, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Congressional Research Service, the Department of Energy (DOE), and Glaser et al. (2008).

[7] Oil companies sometimes inject CO2 into wells to squeeze more petroleum out of them–a technique called enhanced oil recovery (OER). Sometimes people talk as if a CCS system could piggy-back on EOR projects. But, as MIT’s Future of Coal report points out, CO2 injection for EOR has “limited significance for long-term, large-scale CO2 sequestration–regulations differ, the capacity of EOR projects is inadequate for large-scale deployment, the geologic formation has been disrupted by production, and EOR projects are usually not well instrumented [monitored for CO2 leakage; p. xiii].”

The Department of Energy (DOE), citing rising costs, pulled the plug on FutureGen, a $1.5 billion government-industry partnership to build the world’s first commercial scale CCS power plant. In July 2009, however, FutureGen Alliance, Inc. announced it had reached an agreement with DOE to begin “construction of the first commercial-scale, fully integrated carbon capture and sequestration project in the country in Matton, Ill.” So there is still not even a commercial-scale demonstration project, though there may be in the next few years.

[8] MIT’s March 2007 Future of Coal report calls for large demonstration projects in 3-4 sites in different regions of the country costing “$500 million over eight years.” Better still, MIT argues, “Five large tests could be planned an executed for under $1 billion, and address the chief concerns for roughly 70% of U.S. [coal generation] capacity. Information from these projects would validate the commercial scalability of  geologic carbon storage and provide a basis for regulatory, legal, and financial decisions needed to ensure safe, reliable, economic sequestration” (p. 54).

EPRI’s Bryan Hannegan estimated in March 2007 that CO2 capture (including compression, transportation, and storage) would increase the levelized cost of an Integrated Gassification Combined Cycle (IGCC) coal power plant by ”about 40-50%” (p. 5). IGCC is already more costly than the more common pulverized coal (PC) power plants. EPRI is confident that additional RD&D will lower carbon capture costs. But by how much and how soon is uncertain.

A February 2009 Stanford University study, citing a September 2008 McKinsey & Co. study and other sources, says that CCS is projected to increase the capital costs of new coal power plants by almost 50%. “On the basis of avoided emissions, the cost of CCS ranges from $30-$90/ tonne CO2, which translates into a 60-80% increase in the levelized cost of electricity ($/MWh).” 

A July 2009 Harvard University study estimates that early adopters of carbon capture technology will incur a cost of $100-$150/ton of CO2 avoided (equivalent to 8-12 cents/kWh). Once the technology matures, the additional cost will fall to $35-$50/ton of CO2 avoided (equivalent to 2-5 cents/kWh), the researchers estimate. For comparison, in 2009, residential electric rates were 20.9 cents/kWh in Connecticut, 9.2 cents/kWh in Kansas, and 14.6 cents/kWh in California.

How long between early adoption and technological maturity? According to the researchers, increasing scale, learning by doing, and technological innovation “are expected to reduce abatement [CO2 capture] costs by approximately 65% by 2030, although such estimates are inevitably uncertain” (emphasis added). 

In plain speak, it may take many years to sort out the economics of CCS.

[9] The scale of the network of pipelines and storage sites required to transport and bury CO2 from U.S. coal power plants is staggering. According to MIT’s Future of Coal report (p. ix):

  • The United States produces about 1.5 billion tons per year of CO2 from coal-burning power plants.
  • If all of this is CO2 is transported for sequestration, the quantity is equivalent to three times the weight and, under typical operating conditions, one-third the annual volume of natural gas transported by the U.S. gas pipeline system.
  • If 60% of the CO2 produced from U.S. coal-based power generation were to be captured and compressed into a liquid for geologic sequestration, its volume would about equal the total U.S. oil consumption of 20 million barrels per day.
  • At present the largest sequestration project is injecting one millions tons/year of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the Sleipner gas field into a saline aquifer under the North Sea.

Even if Congress approves such a system, and major environmental groups support it, NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) protests and litigation could block or delay implementation for many years. Some people just don’t like energy projects, regardless of how “green” the projects purport to be. For the gory details, check out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s ”Project No Project“ Web site. 

[10] Two-thirds of all new generation and 15% of total U.S. electric supply–these estimates came from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2008 Annual Energy Outlook. See the figure below.

eia-2008-coal-electric-generation

Coal’s estimated share of new generation and total generation are lower in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2009. EIA forecasts that from 2007 to 2030, new coal generation will provide 64% of all new generation and 9% of total U.S. electric supply. See the figure below.

eia-2009-coal-electric-generation1

Actually, it’s remarkable that EIA still forecasts a robust increase in electric generation from coal. Coal increasingly operates in a politically hostile, litigious environment. The Sierra Club, for example, claims that its activists, lawyers, and allies, working with state and local leaders, have prevented 100 planned coal power plants from being built over the past eight years. Click here for a partial list.

For example, even in Texas, an energy-producing state, environmental activists stopped TXU Corp. from building eight of 11 planned new coal power plants, despite estimates by the Perryman Group that investment in the new plants, over five years, would add $25.8 billion to state GDP, $17.3 billion to in-state personal income, and 389,000-plus person-years of employment.

[11] I’m not making this up. The text and video of Gore’s speech calling for carbon-free electricity by 2018 are available here.

[12] According to the EIA, in 2008, renewable sources generated 356 billion kWh, of which 259.7 billion kWh, or 73%, came from conventional hydro-electric dams. Total net generation by the electric power sector was 3852 billion kWh. So renewables provided only 9% of total generation, which means that only about 2.4% came from the politically-correct renewables–wind, biomass, solar, and geothermal.

Note that non-hydro renewable sources would provide even less electricity but for a plethora of market-rigging federal and state tax breaks and subsidies and Soviet-style production quotas known as renewable portfolio standards.

Coal and natural gas provided 2654 billion kWh, or about 69% of total U.S. electric generation in 2008. Gore and his allies would undoubtedly oppose the construction of new large hydroelectric dams even if suitable sites were available. So what Gore and “We Can Solve It” are proposing to do, is replace the 69% of our electricity that comes from coal and natural gas with the non-hydro renewables that currently supply only 2.4%–all in 10 years. 

This plan would fail–dismally. Our electricity rates would skyrocket, because the demand for renewable electricity, ramped up by mandates, would vastly exceed supply. No transition that big and that fast would be smooth. Service disruptions and blackouts would likely be frequent and perversive–a chronic energy crisis.

Gore’s plan would also set a world record for government waste, since hundreds of profitable coal and natural gas power plants would have to be decommissioned long before the end of their useful lives.   

 To read previous posts in this series, click on the links below:

A Not-So-Surprising “Clunklusion”

by Marc Scribner on August 18, 2009

in Bailout Watch, Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, Stimulus to Nowhere

CEI Editorial Director Ivan Osorio discussed the true economic costs of the Obama administration’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, calling it “a costly boondoggle that will yield little net benefit.” It is pretty clear that Cash for Clunkers will prove harmful to the long-run economy, but what about the program’s other purported purpose–reducing CO2 emissions? Below are a couple of interesting quotes.

President Barack Obama, July 31, 2009:

The [Cash for Clunkers] program has proven to be a successful part of our economic recovery and will help lessen our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the quality of the air we breathe.

Professor Christopher R. Knittel, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics, “The Implied Cost of Carbon Dioxide under the Cash for Clunkers Program,” August 14, 2009:

I calculate the implied cost of greenhouse gas emission reductions [under the Cash for Clunkers program] and find that they exceed those estimates from the Waxman-Markey bill by nearly tenfold.

Even from a pro-cap-and-trade, global warming alarmist perspective, the Cash for Clunkers program is an abysmal failure.

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →