'76 Blog

(Centennial Fellow) The misinformation was so great in a recent guest op-ed in the Denver Post that it could not have been manufactured by one person alone. It took a consumer group organizer, a member of the Sierra Club and a trouper from George Soros's MoveOn.org to misrepresent a salvational technology known as fracking as a weapon of mass destruction. You better have a cardiologist standing by, for what this committee said was that fracking has "caused livestock and crops to die from tainted water, people in small towns to black out and develop headaches from foul air, and flames to explode from kitchen taps." My apologies to those of you already reeling in terror, but there is more. The chemicals used in fracking can cause cancer and heart disease. Or maybe not. Maybe, by now, you have grown accustomed to the evangelical, fundamentalist faith of radical environmentalism. Maybe you would like to visit with science and actual experience before you go into 911 mode, screaming into the phone that the cops had better, by heavens, get to those fracking sites with guns drawn. Let's set the record straight by first talking about what fracking is, namely, hydraulic fracturing, a means of forcing fissures in hard rock to let oil or natural gas seep its way to a well. The 64-year-old vertical technique using mostly water and sand under high pressure has been employed in about a million wells with no hullabaloo. Something just a decade old has been added — similarly safe horizontal fracking. It allows vast reaching out in a bunch of different directions while taking up hardly any space above ground. What we get is the inexpensive, environmentally sound snatching of enough energy from deep-down solid stone to make us free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last. It's hard to overstate what's happened. Especially with the new access to U.S. mother lodes of natural gas that is now a cheaper source of energy than anything else, we have taken a giant step toward energy independence. By itself, one fracking area in the East is said to have as much energy as Saudi Arabia. Tons more jobs are being created nationally. A truly significant reduction in greenhouse gases should result, along with a significant reduction in what it costs to make this industrialized, motorized nation go. So does fracking murder cows? Bogus claim. For that to happen, you can learn from several articles, much diluted chemicals used in tiny amounts would have to rise thousands of feet and pass through solid rock without benefit of fracking to reach aquifers above. And if you say that sounds easy, listen to an EPA administrator quoted as saying fracking has never been shown to poison water. The EPA also concluded in a study that the chemicals pose no threat to human health. And even before fracking was a fact, kitchen taps have exploded from methane gas tucked in spots close to homes by nature herself, no help needed. Fracking has never been shown to be responsible. The Denver Post op-ed is a tiny part of the campaign now being waged nationally by large numbers of other eco religionists and those they've influenced, but then there is actual research refuting the shock-and-awe assault on the civic psyche. Review activist assertions, but then if you have time, do what I did — chat with an experienced geologist, check with a couple of other experts, find out through reading a dozen and more articles what the data truly reveal and tune in on some sane comment, such as a Denver Post staff columnist citing hard evidence of alert regulation in Colorado. From varied written testimony, it appears alert in the rest of the nation, too, and should be because experts do agree such matters as well coverings can be and have been an issue. Care is obviously needed, but don't feel you need to call the cops.  

(CCU Faculty) Bulletin: Harold Camping is alive and is now a columnist for the New York Times.  Not really; it's just   Thomas Friedman cranking out yet another jeremiad with warnings of apocalyptic doom.   “The earth is full….We have “crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once.”  Friedman then recites the usual Malthusian themes.  Sana, the capital of Yemen, is running out of water.  This, of course, is due to environmental irresponsibility.  Could it be more the case that Yemen is a violent, primitive country riven  by tribal violence and descending into anarchy?  Is political implosion more the problem than environmental scarcity?  Is it because Yemen is “a distinctive culture of dagger-wearing men and most adults chewing qat?”  (See Daniel Pipes’ description here.)  Is Friedman really suggesting that the world is running out of drinking water when more people have access to potable water than at any time in the history of the human race? Then there is Friedman’s second example—China.  “The conflict between humankind and nature has never been as serious as it is today….”  What China is telling us is that, “the Earth is full. We are now using so many resources and putting out so much waste into the Earth that we have reached some kind of limit, given current technologies.” Since 1978 more than 100 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty.  Their economy has grown at nearly 10% a year—doubling every decade.  Starvation is being replaced by food and by hope.  A question for Mr. Friedman:  How many people are you willing to lock into permanent poverty to achieve your environmental goals? A third example—rising food prices in the Middle East.  “Population growth and more global warming together are pushing up food prices; rising food prices cause political instability in the Middle East, which leads to higher oil prices, which leads to higher food prices, which leads to more instability.”  Is Mr. Friedman seriously suggesting that the fundamental problem facing the Middle East is rising food prices?  This is the source of unrest?  Not autocratic, oppressive governments that deny basic human rights, subjugate women, and leave their citizens oppressed in every way? Friedman ends his piece on a positive note—when we reach the crisis point he is hopeful that people will make the right choice.  What is needed is ”a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”  (No doubt Friedman ponders all this while relaxing in his 11,400 square foot mansion, pictured here.) I guess I am no longer surprised by eco-fear mongers who predict the end of the world, lecturing others on how to live, and totally unaffected in their own personal lives.  But it is still annoying. One last point.  The implicit assumption in all apocalyptic environmental sermons is that there is no God.  A generation ago Jean Paul Sartre asserted, “We are alone in a hostile universe.”  No one believes him more than environmentalists.  There is no God controlling man or nature.  We are on our own.  We cannot be saved by divine intervention but only by the elitists at the New York Times. I want to end on a positive note.  The God who is missing in Friedman’s pieces actually exists.  He sovereignly rules the world He created.  It will end all right but when he decides to end it, not man.  In the meantime He has given mankind the marvelous ability to materially improve our world lifting countless millions of poor into a better life.  They may not live in Thomas Friedman’s house but they are bettering themselves.  And may God keep the Friedmans of the world from stopping this wonderful process. 

(Centennial Fellow) There is not as yet – and may never be – a complete accounting of the human suffering and property losses that befell the people of Japan with the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. One thing everyone knows is that a nuclear power plant emergency of historical proportion is on the list. Has it been reported fairly? This essay is about exaggeration, and the absence of a fair perspective accompanied by useful technical information. In context with the entire tragic picture, the consequences of events at the six-unit Fukushima nuclear power complex are small. Predictably – this being about things nuclear and radioactive – Fukushima has dominated news coverage and created unwarranted, widespread fear. Citizens all around the world have been badly served once again by press failure that has had little redemption. Yes, the Japanese are going to lose several billion dollars worth of electric generating capacity, but that will be little more than rounding in comparison to their aggregate property losses and other economic disruption. Almost certainly, no one will ever be able to identify public health effects from radiation releases because, while there could be some, they will be too few and too diffuse for statistical verification. Heroes. I cannot go forward from this point without pausing to note heroes. The nearly unbelievable calm and cooperation exhibited by the people of Japan make them all heroes. At Fukushima, though, there are several dozen who stand especially tall, men who have braved exposures to high radiation levels while performing emergency procedures intended to protect their fellow citizens. We should all pause and ask our Maker to save them from permanent harm. Reporting. I don’t claim that fair, informed reporting of a nuclear power plant emergency is easy. However, among results of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was extensive focus on lessons learned by those in the industry and those regulating it. The news media were all over this, of course. But what about lessons learned by them from their awful reporting? Recall that TMI was further sensationalized on account of occurring just 12 days after release of a thriller movie, The China Syndrome. Despite all the nail-biting and hand-wringing at the time, I have never seen reported a single injury to anyone – plant worker or general public – in the intervening 32 years. More to the point, I have never seen in the press anything resembling a good news report of the spectacular safety record at TMI! No lessons for the press from Chernobyl either? Unlike either TMI or Fukushima, there was prompt, uncontrolled release of an enormous inventory of radioisotopes. That was 25 years ago, and it is now well known (but, thanks to the underperforming press, not broadly known) that the dire predictions of human and property costs have not been experienced. Wouldn’t one have to say the media has failed to learn any lessons? Of course one would. But then TMI and Chernobyl are old stories, useful in “the news” today not for factual illustration but only to conjure up bad memories and, thus, stir the pot. Columnist Ann Coulter’s March 16 column was ironically titled “A Glowing Report on Radiation.” Read it here. Though her résumé shows no technical training, Coulter wrote a clear discourse on recent radiation effects research. This proves that a technically-complicated subject is amenable to solid reporting. It also feeds one’s suspicion that most in the news business are less interested in straight reporting than in sensationalism and – like too many utility executives – in keeping environmental activists happy. Our household finds Fox News Channel generally more reliable than other televised news sources, and we respect its efforts to air different points of view in its commentaries. However, Fox on Fukushima was worse than useless. On the early evening news program he hosts, Shepard Smith gave us day-after-day regurgitation of emergency action at Fukushima, reported releases of radioactive material with no authoritative explanation as to consequent health effects, and the like. This got no better when Smith showed up to do his broadcast from Japan, apparently to give viewers the impression that Fox was on the ground giving us the straight skinny from up close. All hat and no cattle. Coulter appeared March 17 on “The O’Reilly Factor” to discuss her writing about radiation effects. I’ll give Bill O’Reilly and his producer credit for the invitation, but not the content. The trouble was that O’Reilly was hell bent to make sure his guest didn’t come off as knowing more than he about her subject. What Coulter had to say was dismissed as pretty much irrelevant given the oh-so-urgent need to tell the alarming story of Fukushima and, as usual, it ended with O’Reilly shouting louder. On April 13, The Denver Post carried a report that 0.17 picocurie per liter (pCi/l) of iodine-131 from Fukushima had been found in local water and in the water of other U.S. cities. That happens to be about 16,000 times below the conservative upper limit set by Japanese regulators for consumption by babies, and nearly 50,000 times below the limit for adults. The Post acknowledged that “authorities” considered this concentration harmless, and some useful context was provided. But, I ask, why did the paper publish 400 words on this subject at all? I think you can bet the farm that no hazardous substance other than radioactivity, at 16,000 times below the standard for protecting babies, would have been reported. Few if any can even be detected at levels that low. The Post missed a great opportunity to tell the real story in that 0.17 pCi/l, the beyond-astonishing ability science has developed to detect and identify radioisotopes in the environment. For iodine-131, that is the same concentration as one-fifth of an ounce (weight) dispersed in the Mediterranean Sea. Less than one-and-one-half parts per billion trillion. While this wonderful metrical capability facilitates protecting people against harmful exposure – a blessing – it also opens the door to reports that lead to unwarranted public fear – a curse. We need to demand better from the press. Environmental writer William Tucker has been a well-informed voice of sanity for decades. In an op-ed titled ”Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl” published March 14 in The Wall Street Journal, Tucker trenchantly noted, “With all the death, devastation and disease now threatening tens of thousands in Japan, it is trivializing and almost obscene to spend so much time worrying about damage to a nuclear reactor.” Events subsequent vindicate striking “almost” from that sentence! It’s obscene, plain and simple. John Dendahl is a Centennial Institute Fellow specializing in energy policy and mass media.  This piece originally appeared at FamilySecurityMatters.org.    

An overflow crowd packed the CCU Business School on August 9 as Centennial Institute resumed its Issue Monday series.  "Energy Insanity and Its Remedies" was the topic.  John Harpole, founder and president of Denver-based Mercator Energy, and Jim Felton, director of communications for the oil and gas heavyweight Bill Barrett Corporation, were the speakers.  I launched the discussion by noting that whereas fashionable opinion calls for ever less energy use, we at Centennial Institute see the increasing use of energy as a proxy for the increasing well-being of everyone -- a key to human flourishing.  Among the questions we invited Felton and Harpole to address were:  How are Bill Ritter's anti-oil policies hurting the Colorado economy?  How are Ken Salazar's anti-oil policies hurting the US economy?  What's the real potential of renewables & the best way to get there? How well has our state's wind mandate lived up to promises?  What are the policy priorities for this election and next year? John Harpole (at right in photo) warned that a train wreck is impending as government-mandated wind energy collides with EPA pollution standards.  His PowerPoint presentation is here.  Jim Felton's remarks were based on the following text: I'm asked to talk about energy a bit, But I see timing isn't the best right now, at least as the nation is concerned.  After all energy is a topic a bit down the list of those issues of primary importance to Americans. The Pew Research Center recently found the economy, jobs, and terrorism to be the top three of 21 issues listed as their importance to the American commonweal these days Of the 21 categories listed, energy was squeezed in the middle of the pack between the military and health insurance.  Global warming, BTW, came in at 21.  Energy, however, certainly impacts those top three, and further impacts the military deficit spending, the environment as several other issues on the list. I'll try to cover that ground a bit in the next 15-20 minutes. But first, a word from our sponsors: Thanks to Centennial Institute for this opportunity to introduce Bill Barrett Corp to many of you.  For those not familiar with BBC, we are a Denver based exploration and production company who just this week completed its 8th year in business.  You're a true local if you remember it was Barrett Resources back nearly 30 years ago that first solved the engineering and geology by getting natural gas to flow from the tight gas formations that provide the basis of energy development in the area today Six years ago we bought the rights to some 19,000 acres South of Silt, and have since spent north of a billion dollars in developing the natural gas resource We also hold a 90% in some 40 thousand acres atop the Roan Plateau, which is about 60 square miles.  To put that acreage number in perspective, the Roan, defined geologically by the outcropping of the mesa Verde formation, is nearly a million acres, or 15-hundred square miles.  Also known as the Naval oil shale reserve, you are TRULY a local if you remember when the federal government designated it as an energy asset of national importance- THAT happened nearly a CENTURY AGO.   SO LET'S EXAMINE ENERGY IN THE CONTEXT OF WHAT"S on AMERICA'S MIND TODAY Top of the list, THE ECONOMY- some regarding energy and the economy in Colorado Several years ago, the state legislature pursued an economic impact of oil and gas in Colorado.  The School of Mines did the analysis, and it found oil and gas to be a $23 billion dollar industry. The figure is interesting, by the way, because 23 billion is what the industry generated for the federal treasury in 2008.....in other words oil and gas production, which takes place on less than half a percent of all federal lands, was the second biggest source of income for the federal government after, you guessed it- IS and our friendly collection agency known as the IRS. SO, if numbers give you indigestion after dinner, you might want to grab a Rolaid or two for a bit INCOME 90% ($21 billion) is directly tied to A DRILL BIT TURNING (D And c and extraction) $61 K salary is 32% higher than state average (2003)   OUTPUT O and G accounts for 70% of state mineral royalties O and G accounts for over three quarters of all federal mineral royalties O and G account for nearly 90% of all severance tax (88.7%) Over $1.2 B generated in mineral royalty and lease payments.  Over 60% (approx. $550 million) is then re-spent in Colorado. TAXES $640 MM  (property tax on production and equipment,  severance taxes,  fed and state royalties, $30 million state royalties) NOW IN THE PICEANCE COST ENVIRONMENT "PB has the most expensive overall investment for d and c in the state" At about $1.6 mm to D and C, is about three times what it costs to D and C in the Northern DC Reasons: tight sands need more intensive stimulation Topo Deeper wells (average > 8,000)   CAP EX Over a quarter (27%) of D and C and re-completes stay in the basin; 43% stays in basin OR STATE   TOTAL D and C and Re-complete investment ins 2005 dollars was nearly $1.3 billion  ($1,288,511,555)   BONUS AND LEASE PAYMENTS   Over $80,000 per well (5159 wells) 20% of all royalty and lease payments stay in the basin or over $83 million Two thirds of that was considered disposable income, or some $58 million   SUM TOTALS   Direct (f: D and C and Re-completes) + extraction is 3.1 billion (88% is from extraction- $2.7 billion)     Induced and indirect (as per IMPLAN guidelines) account for another $266 million for a total of $3.4   SO...ONTO TO JOBS,   As I look out and see business owners and entrepreneurs, I know the announcement this week by the Labor Department showing Grand Jct. lost more jobs per capita than anyplace else in the country is months of old news. I consider anyone who creates a job for another person an American Hero, and I salute you.   SO , condolences to many in your area, who, it seems, have had to bear YOUR inordinate amount of pain this past year. My own company had two rounds of lay offs last year, and it's sad and scary.   Colorado lost 100,000 jobs in 2009 alone.   News from our state capital notes - our Unemployment office is getting 14,000 calls a week and the state is paying out $20 million a WEEK in unemployment benefits (lent to Colorado  from the federal government lent by the Chinese) - compare that to 2007 when we paid out $300 million a year!   So what does Oil and Gas mean to EMPLOYMENT in Colorado Again, the School of mines notes   71,000 Direct Multiplier is another 71,000 jobs Indirect multiplier is 1.67   TOTAL: 190,000 direct and indirect jobs     WHERE THE JOBS COME FROM IN THE VALUE CHAIN   90% of those are derived directly from turning the drill bit (d and c and extraction) D and C and Extraction pay the highest, and are the biggest multiplier (2 and 5.63, respectively) Government is the biggest benefactor of the indirect jobs at 14%  (approx.) Payroll is $4.3 billion (2003)   INDIRECT: Legal services Custom computer programming Management of companies Real estate Power generation Architectural and engineering Scientific research and development Truck transportation   INDUCED:   Health care (doctors/dentists) Restaurants and bars Real estate Hospital Moto vehicle and parts Food and beverage stores Insurance carriers General merchandise     63% related to D and C and recompletions   PAYROLL: $399 million, 51% directly related to D and D and RC SALARIES "earnings per work in the industries that DIRECTLY support oil and gas were $74,000 in 2005.  INDIRECT earnings were $50,000, INDUCED were $31,000   SO, BOTTOM LINE IN THE PICEANCE:   School of Mines shows : 4092 direct 2574 indirect TOTAL: 6694   Financial impact of  3.4 billion   CONSERVATIVE FOR TWO REASONS: basin wide, NOT state wide.  Did NOT contemplate big transmission or transportation projects like pipelines.   If you want more, google CERI, CSM and look for publications     KEEPING WITH THE UPBEAT TONE OF TODAY'S SPEECH, let's address Energy and TERRORISM   Does anyone really think we're spending nearly $10 billion a month to spread democracy in Iraq?    They don't like us because we are over there, and we are over their for their oil... I mean, remember that just a few years before barack Obama was bowing before the Saudi prince last year,  George Bush holding hands with another one when oil was over $130 barrel .   Our need for imported oil  means $700 billion a year to fund madrassas, to brainwash a whole new generation of suicide bombers.  That blood and treasure weakens our industrial base, weakens our dollar, and strengthens our enemies by giving them more resources with which to try to destroy us.   The peace dividend would not only include bringing more soldiers home, but it would mean using less energy.  The DOD biggest energy consumer in the country ..   SO, some thoughts about foreign oil and reducing our dependency on it.   What if we replaced 25% OF OUR Oil consumption (we import well over half our oil) with domestic natural gas?   It would work like this-  you may want to reach for the Rolaids again)   The latest is 19,489,000 a day equates to displacing 4,874,000 bbl   Over a billion and a half barrels displaced over a year   One barrel equals 6000 cubic feet of gas = roughly 8 TP   TCF               Volume of natural gas necessary to displace 25% of domestic oil consumption = 8 tcf/yr   perspective...produced 20.5 in 2008, the highest level in nearly 30 years.      Percent increase in natural gas production to achieve 25% displacement of oil = 39 %     Consumer savings associated with displacing 25% of domestic oil consumption with natural gas  $59 billion (at $6 gas and $80 oil)     Additional jobs created NATIONALLY by increasing natural gas production by 39% = 1.4 million jobs (extrapolated from CERI study)...i.e. direct and indirect                                                                                Additional jobs created in COLORADO by increasing regional natural gas consumption by 39% = 120,000 jobs     Additional revenue to government (advalorum, severance, and government royalty) in COLORADO by increasing natural gas production by 39 % (based on $6/mcf) = $300 million/yr   It would take about FIVE years to get to 28 TCF a year   There are environmental benefits as well.       Electric Power Sector (4 TCF per Year to replace 75 Worst Coal Plants)   Reduce SO2 (sulphur Dioxide) Emissions by 55% Reduce Mercury emissions by 32% Reduce GHG emissions by 15%     Perhaps most promising of all, the last four years have seen a revolution in our ability to product clean burning, domestic, abundant affordable natural gas.   Technological advances have unleashed what many see is a century's worth of supply of this versatile and efficient (energy generated for energy consumed) fuel   Natural gas, I contend, is emerging as perhaps the most significant element in strengthening a balanced domestic energy portfolio than ever before...   Let's look at said Portfolio  HANDOUT CROSSHATCH   Hand out cross hatch...   Here is a takeaway I want you all to have....it's energy policy on one page.     Each side adds up to 100% of the demand and supply equation....look at petroleum and natural gas in relation to transportation...the example I mentioned above gives you a sense as to what could happen if you adopt a strategy to decrease foreign imports, trade deficits, or greenhouse gasses.   GIVE THEM A MINUTE   SO what about our environment? Well, you're all aware of the new COGCC rules, whose adoption of an additional 177 pages of additional rules led the Wall Street Journal to refer to them as the most  far-reaching drilling restrictions in the nation. But in the west, the feds are the landlord.   *Roughly 50% of the land in the west is owned by Federal and state governments -The Energy Information Administration of the Dept of Energy notes that:   ??Multiple agencies have regulatory and permitting requirements -10 Agencies and over 100 regulations have to met to drill one well »Department of Energy »Department of Interior »Bureau of Land Management »National Forest Service »National Wildlife and Fisheries »Environmental Protection Agency »Department of Transportation »State Oil and Gas Commissions »County Planning Commissions »State Wildlife Agencies State Historical Preservation Office and more.   Just SOME of the federal laws are............   Minerals leasing Act Federal Land Policy and Management Act National Environmental Policy Act Clean Water Act Clear Air Act Safe Drinking Water Cat Endangers Species Act National Historic Preservation Act   The clean air act itself occupies over 12,000 pages in the federal register.   Back to Policy on a Page   I contend policy should be strategic and forward looking, not a reaction to past developments.   That's what the Nature Conservancy has done.  The organization has tackled the idea of energy sprawl, in other words, a kind of kilowatt per acre comparison.   Here's some examples:   America has one million MW of installed capacity. Because U.S. demand for electricity has been growing at about 2% per year - we need to build 10-20,000 MW of new capacity every year to keep pace with growth.   I'm sure most of us have seen the 7.5 acres of solar panels at DIA.  That array, for $13 million dollars, supplies the facility with just TWO percent of the airport's energy needs. Sadly, that that 2% is a LOT higher than the overall percentage contribution solar is currently making nation wide   Multiplying everything by 50 to get to the 100%, a rough calculation shows then that  you would need 350 acres at a cost, then, upwards of half a BILLION dollars, just to power DIA with solar.    Duke Energy's  51-megawatt Kit Carson Windpower Project will occupy  6,000 acres near Burlington The Kit Carson project will consist of 34 GE wind turbines, each capable of generating 1.5 MW of electricity, Duke said.  Given today's wind generally operates at 33% capacity, that translates to half a megawatt a day from what, at 300 foot high each, looks like a futuristic city landscape covering OVER NINE SQUARE MILES for 17 megawatts... REMEMBER...we need 10 to 20 thousand megawatts of additional power A YEAR for the U.S....that's 6 million acres of wind A YEAR.....that covers our entire state in 11 years   And finally- What is needed on calm days and cold nights for back up?  Only natural gas provides the immediate back up power to Until electricity can be stored, wind and solar can realistically be considered supplements, not replacements. After all, in 2008, old fashioned, dirty, inefficient WOOD produced more energy for America than wind and solar combined.     What the Nature Conservancy ultimately determined is that, within the next 20 years, the nation will need land the size of Colorado to accommodate energy infrastructure, production and transmission facilities.   Again, one last string of numbers for perspective   66 million in Colorado 23 acres are federal 8 are either wilderness or de facto wilderness: Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, Road less, Wilderness Study Areas and the like 2.5 Piceance Nearly 1 million for the Roan   Who is going to allow?  Where?  When everything proposed is litigated....HOW   Remember, the census bureau projects 100 million more Americans by 2050   A growing population and growing (hopefully by 2050 then) economy makes conservation and efficiency more important than ever. That said, I think it nearly impossible to reverse demand through conservation.....I think you can merely slow it tho   So back to our policy on a page: My point is we need it all, we have what we need, but in what ratios?    We need it all, and we'll need more of all of it     Still,  we haven't allowed anyone to build a new refinery in the U.S. in over 30 years. We expect the lights to come on when we flip the switch, but we don't like coal, the source of 40% of our electricity - it's dirty and mining scars the earth. We also don't like nuclear power, the source of nearly 20% of our electricity -- it's clean, but we're afraid of it. Hydropower, the source of about 6% of our electricity is clean and renewable. But it has also been blacklisted - dams hurt fish.   SO with that, some closing thoughts;   There is no energy panacea: renewables are inefficient, have big footprints, and require fossil fuel back up.  Nuclear has its waste issues.  Ethanol burns a lot of gas, and requires four gallons of water for every gallon of fuel produced.  Fossil fuels emit carbon.     Self determination for rural communities, even entire states in the west, is becoming increasingly difficult.  There are literally BILLIONS of dollars from out of state foundations focused on limiting the multiple use charter that is the mandate of managers of public lands.   If you don't actively chart your own destiny as a state or community, someone else will   FINALLY : our ability to control our own energy destiny is MORE RELIANT ON POLICY THAN GEOLOGY- we are legislating deepening dependence at our own peril.  There are those who say Russia, because of its energy reserves, is more powerful than any time in its history.  There are those who say China and India are striking energy alliances around the globe  to compete with the U.S. for resources and economic power.    Energy is too important to our national and economic security to be politicized.  Much has been made of Geo Bush allowing oil and gas to lease wherever industry wanted, but Bill Clinton allowed 50 percent more acreage to be leased than George Bush, and it was Bill Clinton who signed into law the transfer of the Roan from the DOE (which had drilled a few dozen wells up there) to the BLM for the expressed purpose of developing what many geologists say is the most prolific undrilled on shore natural gas province in the country on a per acre basis at nearly  9 trillion cubic feet.                I suggest Mark Twain's advice: respect those who seek the truth, be wary of those who claim to have found it.  You've been very generous with your time....thank you.           Jim Felton Communications Manager 303-312-8103 ___________________________ BILL BARRETT CORPORATION 1099 18th Street, Suite 2300 Denver, CO 80202 T- 303.293.9100 |  F- 303.291.0420 www.billbarrettcorp.com <http://www.billbarrettcorp.com/>              

(Denver Post, May 16) Wind velocity abated in Colorado last week when the legislature adjourned for 2010.  Noxious air masses continue moving across the state, however, flattening better judgment.  Hang onto your hat and your wallet. “Cleaner air and cheaper energy” was the slogan when voters mandated wind and other renewable sources for 10 percent of the state’s electric generation with Amendment 37 in 2004.  Democratic legislators liked the idea so much that they upped the mandate to 20 percent in 2007 and boosted it this year to 30 percent. One small problem: neither half of the slogan is true.  You know what’s already happened to your rates from Xcel.  Will costs level off with more reliance on renewables?  Not according to the Energy Information Administration, which says in the coming decade wind will cost about 75 percent more than natural gas, 50 percent more than coal, and 25 percent more than nuclear.  And solar will be twice the cost of wind.  But pollution is a different story, right?  Surely a silently whirring wind turbine (never mind the bird fatalities) is better for air quality than a plant burning fossil fuels and belching carbon.  You’d think so, but you’d be wrong. During the years 2006-2009 here in metro Denver (designated a non-attainment area for special monitoring of our air pollution by the EPA), forcing wind into the electric-generation mix actually resulted in HIGHER emission levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide, the principal components of ozone and smog – as well as higher emission levels of CO2, widely feared as a greenhouse gas.  Oops. Two obvious questions follow: How so?  And says who?  The “how” is a consequence of wind power’s intermittent reliability (online only about a third of the time), which requires coal-fired plants to cycle on and off more frequently and burn much dirtier as a result.  The “who” is a consultancy called BENTEK [sic, all caps] Energy, based in Evergreen and nationally respected for such research as the wind study I’m citing. “How Less Became More: Wind, Power, and Unintended Consequences in the Colorado Energy Market” is their report, commissioned by Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States and available at www.ipams.org.  The methodology looks solid to this layman, though potential bias stemming from the study’s natural-gas sponsorship was fairly noted in the industry press after its April 19 release.  To cross-check the research, sponsors are seeking peer review from such institutions as MIT, Stanford, and the Colorado School of Mines.  On the other hand, as a savvy oilman reminded me, “those guys are all on big federal grants for green research,” so their scientific impartiality can’t be taken for granted either.  After East Anglia and Climategate, peer review isn’t what it was. “How Less Became More” takes a sensible tone emphasizing tradeoffs instead of silver bullets or gotcha points.  It recommends that electric utilities can avoid the wind-related emissions spikes by shifting generation from coal plants to natural gas as soon as possible.  And this takes on national significance amid the current discussion of a federal mandate for renewables.  The trouble with mandates is that they beget more mandates, which beget more still. The meddling worsens and liberty weakens.  So this year’s misbegotten generation conversion bill, HB 1365, sweetening the deal for Xcel at the expense of electric consumers for a speedy switch from coal to gas, was far from the clean green winner that some of my Republican friends believed.  More mischief will follow. Conservatives, so-called, who attempt to engineer kilowatts and particulates, forfeit credibility in criticizing liberals who attempt to engineer health care.  Legislators trying to micromanage an industry will never get it right. Never. They’re delusional, like the Indiana House years ago when it decreed the value of Pi.  Markets yes, mandates no.  Amendment 37 was backwards from the start.                                         

(CCU Faculty) Jeffrey Sachs is one of the world’s leading public intellectuals with his special chair at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and his years of leading the U.N. Millennium Project.  So I was a bit surprised to see him accusing me of being on the payroll of Exxon and among those who deny the link between smoking and cancer.    He did not name me specifically but he broad-brushed everyone like me in a recent column.  “We are witnessing a predictable process by ideologues and right-wing think tanks and publications to discredit the scientific process.”  He acknowledges a few small problems—like Climate-gate and the thousands of leaked emails showing the fraudulence of climate-change scientists, and an IPCC report full of errors—but brushes them aside to congratulate the “great scientific minds” who have learned to “read” earth’s history.  And we had better heed their warnings or we are all going to die.    Well, Professor Sachs, you need to graduate from middle-school kinds of ad hominem attacks.  As one of your critics I can assure you I am not on the payroll of Exxon.  (But would love to be.  Message to Exxon—please send large amounts of money to my address in care of CCU.)  And I tell my children there is a link between smoking and cancer.  But you and your ilk have big scientific problems with your greenhouse-catastrophe rhetoric and I will sum them up in four questions that have always been at the heart of the global-warming debate and that you have trouble answering.  The questions are in ascending order of importance.    Question #1:  Is the earth really warming?  Probably not.  Even the apocalyptic warmers agree there hasn’t been any in the last dozen years and one of them even called this a “travesty.”  But even if it is warming a bigger issue is….Question #2:  Are humans causing the warming?  Even more probably not.  In a recent column http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/-236562--.html  Michael Landsbaum pointed out that “all greenhouse gases worldwide make up 2 percent of the atmosphere. Only 3.6 percent of that 2 percent is carbon dioxide. Only 3.4 percent of that 3.6 percent is man-made. If California shut down every man-made CO2-emitting source the result would be atmospherically unnoticeable.”   The earth is a big place.  People are really small.  As I point out to my classes the entire human population of the planet could stand inside Boulder County, Colorado, and the rest of the world would be empty.  Our footprint is negligible.  But, let’s say humans are a big factor.  This brings us to….    Question #3:  Is warming a bad thing?  Emphatically it is not.  As a historian I can tell you that warm is good and cold is bad.  The crash of the High Middle Ages was brought on in part by the end of the Medieval Warm Period.  Cold weather is hard on crops—ask Colorado’s peach growers.  I grew up in Laramie, Wyoming.  Global Warming is not a threat, it is an answer to prayer.  But even if warming is bad we come to the most important question of all….    Question #4:  What will be done about it?  And the answer clearly is….nothing.  We got a good look at all this in Copenhagen.  This summit to end all summits ended in confusion and ended in a very cold winter.  The Chinese—the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases plan to do jack and squat about global warming.  And for good reason.  In his brilliant essay, Bound to Burn,   Peter Huber asks a simple question.  If the world’s poor had 40 trillion dollars worth of gold buried on their property would the rich nations be able to talk them out of digging it up?  When pigs fly.  And that’s what they have.  It’s all they have.  The Chinese add a U.S.’s worth of coal generating capacity every three years.  And they will continue to do it.  So, Professor Sachs, it’s not cancer-deniers like me you need to be talking to.  Head over to Beijing to do your missionary work.   In the meantime I’m going to sit here and wait for the end.  And wait for those checks from Exxon to start rolling in.

('76 Contributor) If you're someone who cherishes humanity and thus opposes human exploitation, as I do, you will welcome the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, a new joint effort by conservative Christians standing against global warming alarmism.  Please read the group's formal declaration and then consider signing the declaration.    There are varying opinions on global warming and the responses being put forth by our governments (state and national).  But the possible negative consequences of putting the control of energy resources in the hands of a few are beyond imagination.  As I have followed this issue for years, I have noted a huge disconnect between the rhetoric and the lifestyle of some of the top promoters of human-caused global warming.  This alone has generated a skepticism and recent revelations of tainted data confirm my skepticism.   What is the real motivation for a few to control the energy supply?  What will such control and the accompanying restrictions mean to lower income and impoverished people in American and around the globe?  Will it increase human hunger and deaths?  Is the global warming agenda connected to world population control?  If have not yet take some time to delve into this issue to ascertain what is really driving it, I encourage you to click the links below.  If you find the case compelling enough to sign on, please consider passing this along to others you believe would be interested. Following is the notice I received from Calvin Beisner, Cornwall Alliance spokesman: Dear Friend: I'm sure you're absolutely swamped with other concerns, so please forgive this demand on your time, but if you could spare just a few minutes to read An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming and, if you're in agreement, complete the endorsement form online, it would be a great help to us. Thus far we're nearing 500 endorsers, but we'd like to add more leaders to the list before making a public announcement. (By the way, we make provision for non-evangelicals to endorse without implying that they're evangelicals.) The Declaration is based on the findings of A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor, co-authored by, among others, Dr. Roy W. Spencer of the University of Alabama, Dr. Cornelis van Kooten of the University of Victoria, BC, and Dr. Craig Mitchell of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. In case you're interested, here are names of a few of the prominent people who have endorsed so far: Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Dr. Barrett Duke of the same, Dr. Daniel Heimbach of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, Dr. Ross McKitrick of the University of Guelph, Dr. Charles Van Eaton of Bryan College, Janet Parshall of Janet Parshall's America, Dr. Joseph Pipa, president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Dr. Peter Jones of Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, CA, Dr. Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary [and a Centennial Institute Fellow], Mark Coppenger of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, and Dr. Robert L. Reymond, emeritus professor of Systematic Theology at Knox Theological Seminary and Covenant Theological Seminary. The collapse of climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen last week was welcome, and it was my delight to be there and watch it happen on the heals of "climategate" and the general collapse of the scientific case for dangerous manmade global warming over the last several years. Now we need to work together to prevent the United States from adopting similar policy on its own. Your endorsement of the Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming will help achieve that. Note: John Andrews, Director of the Centennial Institute and '76 Blog editor, signed the declaration immediately upon receiving notice from former Vermont State Sen. Mark Shepard and Colorado State Sen. Kevin Lundberg.  Others with the Centennial Institute and Colorado Christian University are being encouraged to sign as well.

(CCU Faculty) When the Spanish first arrived in Mexico, they discovered that Aztec high priests sacrificed 10,000 still-beating hearts to the god Quetzalcoatl every December 22nd in order to cause the days to stop growing shorter.  This religious belief was confirmed, as the days began to grow longer again.  Al Gore is the high priest of our new religion, global warming.  He insists that if we sacrifice our standard of living, our economy, and millions of American jobs, that we can save the planet and stop global temperatures from increasing.  Unfortunately for him but fortunately for us, global temperatures began to drop before he was able to perform his sacrifice. Throughout the 1990s I believed in global warming and taught it as fact in university geography courses, mostly due to the liberal media and education which I received at the University of California.  It wasn’t until I read Senator Inhofe’s 2005 speech before the Senate, that my faith in Global Warming began to be seriously challenged.  Inhofe called Global Warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”  I then began to reconsider my position on the issue.  I learned of the Medieval Warming Period, that Vikings farmed in Greenland and the earth continued to warm until the 14th century.  This Medieval Warming Period was ignored by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in a way reminiscent of Joseph Stalin erasing Bolsheviks who fell out of favor by simply erasing them from photographs.  Instead the IPCC invented the “hockey stick” graph claiming that the earth’s temperature was basically unchanged until the 19th century when it began to drastically increase.  The data (which we now know was falsified by environmental “scientists”) shows that after the Medieval Warming Period, the earth began to cool until the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 18th centuries.  Then it began to warm again through the 19th and 20th centuries.  Al Gore insists this was caused by human activity, but I began to wonder what degree humans could complete with heat produced by solar radiation.  I became convinced that any contribution by humans would be infinitesimal compared to the energy produced by our sun. In 2007 I heard the Danish climatologist/economist Bjorn Lomborg speak to the Denver World Affairs Council on the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol.  He reminded us of the importance of doing a cost/benefit analysis, warning that “we are in danger of implementing a cure that is more costly than the original affliction: economic analyses clearly show that it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased temperatures."   Shortly thereafter, I read Christopher Horner’s “Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming”, and while on a fellowship to Oxford that same year saw the UK documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle.”  Most convincing was their graph showing the correlation between solar radiation and average global temperatures, confirming my hunch that the sun was overwhelmingly the major contributor. Over the past several years ice caps and glaciers have begun to grow again.  Even my heating bills show that 2009 was colder than 2008, which was colder than 2007.  Yesterday it snowed in Houston, setting a record.  Those who are convinced that humans really make a difference to global temperature now should encourage us to burn coal and oil to save the planet from a coming Ice Age.  However, it is more likely due to the regular fluctuations of solar radiation, which we should learn to live with, rather than allowing dishonest scientists and politicians to sacrifice our global economy, or for that matter 10,000 still-beating hearts.

('76 Contributor) As any visitor to Cuba will tell you, slogans like "Hasta la victoria siempre" (towards victory, always) or "Socialismo or muerte" (socialism or death) are dotted here and there all over the Caribbean island for fear that the long-suffering local population might lose sight of the ill-fated goals of the communist revolution that took place there under the leadership of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1959.   The way things are going in France right now, pockets of little Cubas are very likely to sprout up all over the country as the summit on climate change in Copenhagen next month looms larger and larger. I personally know of one such Cuban-like ideological treadmill: the High School in Lyon, France’s second-largest city, where I am completing my third year as a teacher of Anglo-American Studies.  About two months ago, straight from the French Department of Education came a diktat to the effect that all public schools in the country had to organize teaching activities aimed at promoting so-called environmentally-friendly sustainable development, i.e. socialism. I have been asked to participate. Needless to say that I have sustainably declined. One of the ideas some of my colleagues have come up with though is to translate the speeches President Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are expected to make in Denmark next month, and to flash up bits of the speeches on large TV screens dotted here and there all over the school for fear that the students might lose sight of the ill-fated goals of the green revolution that is currently taking place in France under the leadership of President Nicolas Sarkozy. With so much hot air coming out of the screens, I guess temperatures will rise exponentially all over the school and melt what little critical thinking is left in the French education system.  As the episode illustrates, descriptions of President Sarkozy as a conservative are misleading. On global warming, as in many other policy areas, Sarkozy is just about as conservative as Newt Gingrich sitting on a couch with Speaker Pelosi touting misguided bipartisan efforts to save the planet. The green revolution currently going on in France is being every bit as destructive of individual freedom and responsibility as the ominous events of 1789 there, or, for that matter, those in Cuba more than 150 years later. In other words, welcome to the new land of scorching propaganda, brainwashing, intellectual goose-stepping and, I almost forgot, youth duly decked out in Guevara accessories and apparel as the latest fashion dictates.   Are you sure you want to be next, America? The author is a French citizen with a PhD in political science who formerly lived in Colorado.

"Is Global Warming a Crisis," the Centennial Institute debate proposition for Scott Denning of CSU and James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, yielded an illuminating rather than heated exchange with Taylor saying no and Denning in backhanded agreement.  Facing off before an audience of 500 at Colorado Christian University on Oct. 20, the two argued their cases with data, analogies, humor, and the inevitable slide presentations.  Click to view the Denning slides and the Taylor slides. Denning defused suspense at the outset by sidestepping the "crisis" description popularized by Al Gore and other politicians.  But he insisted the human-generated increase of CO2 in earth's atmosphere will increase surface temperatures by 2100 at about the equivalent of one 4-watt light bulb per square meter worldwide, making it imperative to reduce CO2 emissions. His solution: "the magic of the free market," transitioning us smoothly to a new energy economy -- provided policymakers cooperate by "putting a price on carbon."    But that latter condition seemed to me a fatal disqualification to the whole scenario, since it implicitly endorses cap-and-trade, a decidedly unfree approach.   Taylor's rebuttal built on the key points that (1) context is crucial (recent warming trends being minor in perspective with historically much-warmer and high-CO2 epochs in earth's history), (2) solar influence is more explanatory for past climate cycles than CO2, (3) computer modeling of the sort used for Denning's light-bulb prediction is discredited by recent research from William Gray and Richard Lindzen, and (4) the prohibitive economic sacrifices of pricing-out carbon are unjustified in light of the foregoing, especially with China and India determined to continue their own burgeoning emissions.   The bottom line for this (admittedly non-neutral) observer: Carbon-dioxide worriers didn't come close to demonstrating urgency to warrant such drastic measures as the Waxman-Markey energy tax now before the US Senate and the Copenhagen Treaty due for international action before year-end.   "First do no harm," the policy verdict recommended by Chris Horner at Centennial's climate debate last April, was convincingly seconded by James Taylor at the October debate -- and this is the only wise guide for America's unilateral and multilateral actions on climate issues at present. Here's more about the Oct. 20 debate from CCU partner journalist Jean Torkelson, with photos by Ryan Masterson.