2014 ndi – Pre Camp Natural Gas Negative



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Warming Advantage

Warming I/L Turn

US and global emissions are decreasing now --- shift to fossil fuels reverses the trend


Willis 10/31/13 [Ben, Renewable energy transition behind ‘remarkable’ slowdown in CO2 emissions, http://www.pv-tech.org/news/renewable_energy_transition_behind_remarkable_slowdown_in_co2_emissions]
The increase in global carbon dioxide emissions slowed last year because of a shift towards renewable energy usage, a major new study claims. A report by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre found that in 2012 the increase in global emissions slowed to 1.1%. This was less than half the average annual increase over the past decade of 2.9% and, significantly, appeared to suggest a break in the link between global economic growth and increasing emissions. Global GDP grew by 2.5% last year. The report said this “remarkable” trend was most pronounced in the world’s three worst emitting areas – China, the US and Europe. China’s emissions increased by 3% last year, compared to an average of 10% over the past decade, while the US and EU emissions decreased by 4% and 1.6% respectively. The study ascribed this trend to a shift to less fossil fuel-intensive activities and a greater deployment of renewable energy, which accounted for 2.4% of the global energy mix in 2012. The study said the trend could herald a “permanent” slowdown in CO2 emissions as long as these three countries and regions continue to cut total energy use and increase the amount of renewable energy they use.

Exports intensify warming and makes it irreversible.


Rom, 2012 (Joe, climate expert, is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, “Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Is Bad For The Climate” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/18/500954/exporting-liquefied-natural-gas-lng-is-bad-for-the-climate/)

The surge in U.S. production of shale gas is creating a surge in permit requests to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. That’s because the glut of U.S. gas has dropped domestic prices sharply below global price levels. But if avoiding catastrophic climate change is your goal, then spending huge sums on even conventional natural gas infrastructure is not the answer, as a recent International Energy Agency report made clear: The specific emissions from a gas-fired power plant will be higher than average global CO2 intensity in electricity generation by 2025, raising questions around the long-term viability of some gas infrastructure investment if climate change objectives are to be met. And liquefying natural gas is an energy intensive and leaky process. When you factor in shipping overseas, you get an energy penalty of 20% or more. The extra greenhouse gas emissions can equal 30% or more of combustion emissions, according to a 2009 Reference Report by the Joint Research Centreof the European Commission, Liquefied Natural Gas for Europe – Some Important Issues for Consideration. Such extra emissions all but eliminate whatever small, short-term benefit there might be of building billion-dollar export terminals and other LNG infrastructure, which in any case will last many decades, long after the electric grid will not benefit from replacing coal with gas. Furthermore, the U.S. Energy Information Administration concluded in a 2012 report on natural gas exports done for DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy that such exports would also increase domestic greenhouse gas emissions: [W]hen also accounting for emissions related to natural gas used in the liquefaction process, additional exports increase CO2 levels under all cases and export scenarios, particularly in the earlier years of the projection period. Asserting any net benefit for the importer requires assuming the new gas replaces only coal — and isn’t used for, say, natural gas vehicles, which are worse for the climate or that it doesn’t replace new renewables. If even a modest fraction of the imported LNG displaces renewables, it renders the entire expenditure for LNG counterproductive from day one. Remember, a major new 2012 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study on “technology warming potentials” (TWPs) found that a big switch from coal to gas would only reduce TWP by about 25% over the first three decades (see “Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere Absent A Carbon Price AND Strong Standards To Reduce Methane Leakage“). And that is based on “EPA’s latest estimate of the amount of CH4 released because of leaks and venting in the natural gas network between production wells and the local distribution network” of 2.4%. Many experts believe the leakage rate is higher than 2.4%, particularly for shale gas. Also, recent air sampling by NOAA over Colorado found 4% methane leakage, more than double industry claims. A different 2012 study by climatologist Ken Caldeira and tech guru Nathan Myhrvold finds basically no benefit in the switch whatsoever — see You Can’t Slow Projected Warming With Gas, You Need ‘Rapid and Massive Deployment’ of Zero-Carbon Power. So spending vast sums of money to export natural gas from this country is a bad idea for the climate. A new paper published last week by Brooking’s Hamilton Project, “A Strategy for U.S. Natural Gas Exports,” asserts a different conclusion, primarily because it ignores all of the issues discussed above. Indeed, the paper rather amazingly asserts “Natural gas, though, has the same climate consequences whether it is burned in the United States, Europe, or Asia,” which would be true for exported U.S. gas only if we could use magic to take the U.S. shale gas and put it into European or Asian gas-fired power plants. In the real world, it takes a massive amount of energy and greenhouse gas emissions to get gas from here to those markets, as is well known in the climate policy arena. BOTTOM LINE: Investing billions of dollars in new shale gas infrastructure for domestic use is, at best, of limited value for a short period of time if we put in place both a CO2 price and regulations to minimize methane leakage. Exporting gas vitiates even that limited value and so investing billions in LNG infrastructure is, at best, a waste of resources better utilized for deploying truly low-carbon energy. At worst, it helps accelerates the world past the 2°C warming threshold into Terra incognita — a planet of amplifying feedbacks and multiple simultaneous catastrophic impacts.

XT – Warming I/L Turn

Plan causes more warming –

1. Extraction causes methane emissions which massively accelerate warming.


Brun, 2014 (Maria, PhD student at the University of California, Davis in the Ecology Graduate Group and Department of Environmental Science and Policy studying energy policy, member of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior and the Institute for Transportation Studies, B.A. in Economics at the University of Minnesota, Morris and a Master of Science in Development Studies at the London School of Economics, “Natural Gas – A Bridge Fuel to Faster Climate Change?” 2/18/2014 http://egsa.ucdavis.edu/blog/2014-02-18-natural-gas-a-bridge-fuel-to-faster-climate-change/)

Just a decade ago, clean energy champions talked almost exclusively of the familiar wind, solar, and biomass energy generation options. Since the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) boom just a few years ago, the clean energy debate has become a bit muddied. Beyond arguing that domestic natural gas production is good for energy and natural security, proponents of fracking and natural gas have been appealing to those concerned about climate change, arguing that natural gas is a “bridge fuel” to a lower carbon society. But skeptics of this line of reasoning are numerous. A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that fugitive (uncaptured or accidental) natural gas emissions from fuel extraction and processing are much higher than previously thought, bolstering natural gas skepticism. For a bit of background, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions consist primarily (84% as of 2011) of carbon dioxide (CO2). Methane and Nitrous Oxide (yes, laughing gas) make up the majority of the remainder contributing 9% and 5% to total emissions respectively. Used as a substitute for gasoline and diesel, compressed natural gas primarily consisting of methane has lower greenhouse gas emissions and much lower CO2 emissions in particular. Moreover, electricity generation from natural gas can be run either to cover base load demand or with variable output, a key characteristic to be compatible with intermittent electricity sources like wind, solar, and other renewable energy generation methods. As a result, even MIT’s Energy Initiative center and our now Secretary of Energy advocated the natural gas was a low-carbon alternative that should be pursued to bridge the country toward renewable energy and to slow global warming. But low-carbon energy is misleading. When it comes to climate change, a gas’s warming potential is of key importance. Using a relative scale, CO2 has a global warming potential of 1 and all other gasses are compared to CO2’s ability to trap heat and warm the planet. Methane – the primary component of natural gas – has 25 times the warming potential of CO2. In other words, not fully combusted, natural gas is worse for climate change. The new report, demonstrating that methane emissions are actually higher than previously thought, calls to question where the “bridge” built by natural gas is actually leading us. Though the EPA recently decided to cut its estimates of these fugitive emissions, the report argues that these emissions are actually 2-8 times higher than the EPA originally estimated. Many of these emissions come from fuel extraction, including natural gas drilling and fracking. Moreover, other articles have argued that an increase in natural gas use hasn’t really been seen as connected to more renewable energy. Renewables only account for around 8% of total energy consumption in recent years, most of which comes from large hydropower which is not new nor considered renewable by many environmental organizations. As a nation, we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels. In the West, this means focusing less on natural gas plant development; elsewhere, it means less coal. The debate over clean energy shouldn’t be muddied with half-truths about natural gas. It’s still a fossil fuel, it’s still non-renewable, and under current regulations and practices, it could be much worse for climate change even if it can claim to be low carbon. Instead, the U.S. should start focusing on investing more in renewable technologies and giving nuclear options a closer look.

2. Coal trade off


Walsh, 2011 (Bryan, is a senior writer for TIME magazine, citing a study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Natural Gas Can Save the Climate? Not Exactly” http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/09/09/natural-gas-can-save-the-climate-not-exactly/)

So the fact that technological advances had enabled the U.S. and many other countries to tap vast new reserves of shale natural gas should be good news, at least for the climate. As a fuel natural gas is cleaner and significantly less carbon-intensive than coal, while much cheaper than most renewables, at least at this point. While some studies have tried to argue that the manufacturing process for shale gas—which includes controversial hydrofracking—means that the fuel might be dirtier over the long term than coal, the general consensus is that natural gas emits about half as much carbon over its lifecycle as coal. Therefore, cheaper shale gas than enables utilities to switch from coal generation to natural gas should slow the warming of the climate—right? Maybe not so much. In a new study that will appear soon in the journal Climatic Change Letters, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) researcher Tom Wigley crunches the numbers and finds that switching from coal to natural gas will do little to cool the climate—in fact, depending on production methods, it might actually speed up warming. Here’s why: it’s true that coal contains far more carbon than natural gas, and when coal is burned to produce electricity, that carbon ends up in the atmosphere, intensifying the greenhouse effect. But there’s more than just carbon in coal—an average lump also contains large amounts of sulfur, ash other pollutants. When the coal is burned, those sulfates and other particles are also emitted into the atmosphere, and the smog and pollution they produce actually helps block incoming sunlight—cooling the Earth, and offsetting some of the warming effect of the carbon. But natural gas contains far fewer such pollutants. Using complex climate modelling, Wigley found that a 50% reduction in coal and a corresponding increase in natural gas would lead to a slight increase in global warming over the next 40 years of about 0.1 F because of the reduction in the sulfates and other sunlight-blocking pollutants contained in coal. The amount of warming changed depending on how much methane might leak on average from natural gas drilling. (Natural gas is essentially methane, which is itself a powerful greenhouse gas—during the natural gas production process, small amounts of methane can escape into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.) If the amount of methane leakage is about 2%—fairly optimistic—the switch to natural gas will keep adding to warming until the end of the 21st century, and the more methane that leaks, the longer that warming trend continues. Says Wigley: Whatever the methane leakage rate, you can’t get away from the additional warming that will occur initially because, by not burning coal, you’re not having the cooling effect of sulfates and other particles. This particle effect is a double-edged sword because reducing them is a good thing in terms of lessening air pollution and acid rain. But the paradox is when we clean up these particles, it slows down efforts to reduce global warming.

3. Kills climate diplomacy


The Hill, 2012 (Citing Michael Levi, Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment @CFR “Natural-gas boom could isolate US on climate change” http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/237601-natural-gas-boom-could-hurt-us-climate-change-efforts)

The domestic national-gas boom might thin the ranks of climate change advocates and put the United States at odds with the international community on the issue, an expert said Thursday. America's insistence that natural gas will play an important role in easing the effects of climate change runs counter to European views and will likely invite “friction,” Michael Levi, program director on energy security and climate change with the Council on Foreign Relations, said during a discussion hosted by the New America Foundation. He said Europeans view natural gas as a dirty energy source. That could isolate the United States in international climate talks, Levi said. “For the most part, people in the United States who care about climate change think that natural gas is good news,” Levi said. “That is not the view in Europe. In Europe, natural gas is generally seen as a bad thing for climate change and a bad direction for the climate. On the international level, that will put us in some problems.” Natural gas emits less carbon dioxide than oil or coal when burned as an energy source. But some environmentalists fear that emissions of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas -- at well sites could erode the climate benefits of the fuel. Climate change has garnered more attention in recent weeks as abnormal weather — including droughts, fires, windstorms and record temperatures — sweeps the country. Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano last week said there could be a link between the extreme weather and climate change. The expansion of natural gas might also cause environmentalists most concerned about resource scarcity to drop from a coalition of groups that push for climate change policies, he said. “If that piece of the coalition that wants climate policy in place vanishes because of this sense of abundance, then I think it becomes more difficult to put good climate policy in place,” Levi said.

4. Deforestation and Construction processes


Charman, 2010 (Karen, environmental journalist, Trashing the Planet for Natural Gas CNS December 2010 http://karencharman.com/resources/TrashingThePlanet.pdf)

Proponents argue unconventional natural gas is clean and needed as a “bridge fuel” that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help curb global climate destabilization until we can transition away from coal. But this claim neglects to account for both the energy required and the resulting emissions from extracting, processing, and distributing the gas—i.e., the use of fossil fuels to build pipelines, truck the enormous amounts of water needed for hydrofracking, drill wells, manufacture the chemicals for the fracking fluids, run the compressors, and treat and transport the wastewater. 57 Nor does it consider the loss of carbon sinks from forests cleared for drilling. 58 No scientific peer-reviewed analyses of greenhouse gas emissions measuring the entire fuel cycle for shale and other unconventional gas sources have yet been completed and published. Cornell ecologist Robert W. Howarth is analyzing total greenhouse gas emissions from Marcellus Shale gas development. His preliminary data suggest that because of the difficulty of obtaining the more diffuse shale gas, these additional emissions are likely to be at least three times the greenhouse gas emissions for extracting, processing, and transporting diesel fuel and gasoline. 59 Much more of a concern, however, is the leakage of methane into the atmosphere during all stages of drilling, processing, transporting and burning the gas. Methane, which is 72 times more powerful a greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2 , 60 is the major component of natural gas. Howarth notes that the numerous incidents of explosions and contaminated wells in shale gas drilling areas in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Ohio in recent years reveal pathways for methane to escape into the atmosphere: “The concentrations of methane necessary for an explosion are at least 10,000-fold higher than those normally in the atmosphere, and this leakage from contaminated groundwater is probably quite significant in terms of the greenhouse-gas footprint of shale gas.” 61 Although Howarth’s study is not yet complete, his preliminary results indicate that the greenhouse gas footprint of Marcellus Shale gas is “probably at least twice as great as the emissions from just burning the gas. That is, shale gas is not a clean fuel and appears to be a poor choice as a transitional fuel over the coming decades if the U.S. is serious about addressing global climate disruption.” 62

5. Trades off with renewables and displaces emissions.


Harvey 2012(Fiona, Environmental Correspondent for The Guardian, 'Golden age of gas' threatens renewable energy, IEA warns, 5-29-12, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/29/gas-boom-renewables-agency-warns)

A "golden age of gas" spurred by a tripling of shale gas from fracking and other sources of unconventional gas by 2035 will stop renewable energy in its tracks if governments don't take action, the International Energy Agency has warned. Gas is now relatively abundant in some regions, thanks to the massive expansion of hydraulic fracturing – fracking – for shale gas, and in some areas the price of the fuel has fallen. The result is a threat to renewable energy, which is by comparison more expensive, in part because the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are still not taken into account in the price of energy. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the IEA, said the threat to renewables was plain: "Renewable energy may be the victim of cheap gas prices if governments do not stick to their renewable support schemes." Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, told a conference in London: "Policy measures by governments for renewable energy have to be there for years to come, as it is not always as cost-effective as it could be." Shale gas fracking – by which dense shale rocks are blasted apart under high pressure jets of water, sand and chemicals in order to release tiny bubbles of methane trapped inside them – was virtually unknown less than ten years ago, but has rapidly become commonplace. In places like the US, the rising price of energy has made such practices economically worthwhile. On current trends, according to the IEA, the world is set for far more global warming than the 2C that scientists say is the limit of safety, beyond which climate change is likely to become catastrophic and irreversible. "A golden age for gas is not necessarily a golden age for the climate," warned Birol. The IEA report comes as the Guardian revealed that gas has been rebranded in secret documents as a form of green energy by the EU. Gas produces only about half of the carbon emissions of coal when burnt, which has led some industry lobbyists to attempt to rebrand it as a "clean" or "low-carbon" fuel. But its effect on the climate is less clear-cut than the direct comparison with coal would suggest. In the US, gas-fired power stations have taken over in some areas from coal-fired power, reducing the nominal carbon emissions from US power stations. But that does not necessarily equate to a global cut in emissions. Last year, the consumption of coal in Europe rose by 6%, according to Birol, which was a result of an excess of cheap coal on the market because of less consumption in the US, while the price on carbon emissions under the EU's emissions trading scheme – supposed to discourage coal – was too low to have any effect. That rise in coal consumption will have increased emissions in the EU, though the data has not yet been fully collected. This example shows that gas can simply displace emissions rather than cut them altogether, according to Birol. "Gas cannot solve climate change – we need renewable energy," he told the Guardian. Another important factor is the release of methane – natural gas – from shale gas fracking operations. Methane – a greenhouse gas more than 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide in terms of global warming – leaks from fracking sites, and is rarely captured by the gas companies because the technology to capture it costs money and they face no penalty for the leaks.A report by Scottish Widows found that these "fugitive emissions" were enough to offset the global warming benefits of switching from coal to gas-fired power generation.

AT: Plan Causes Renewables/Bridge

1. Doesn’t lead to effective renewable development and even if they do those renewables fail.


Bell, 2013 (Larry, correspondent citing: Murry Salby, climate scientist at Macquarie University in Sydney, EIA Figures, Patrick Genevein, CEO of the Dallas-based Tang Energy Group, US DOE, and the Sierra Club, “Natural Gas: Pipeline To Prosperity...Bridge Fuel To Nowhere” 7/23/2013 http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/07/23/natural-gas-pipeline-to-prosperity-bridge-fuel-to-nowhere/) Climate Crisis Confusion: First of all, while there can be no doubt that America is truly blessed with huge natural gas abundance, there is no basis whatsoever for conflating this enormous energy resource either with climate benefits over coal, or with disadvantages relative to non-fossil “alternatives”. At long last, even the New York Times reported on June 6 that “The rise in the surface temperature of Earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace.” Reporter Justin Gillis went on to admit that the break in temperature increases “highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system”, whereby the lack of warming “is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists.” Should lack of actual recent observed warming be taken to mean that climate doesn’t change, or that warming won’t occur again? No. But it does mean that the highly theoretical climate models upon which all crisis claims are entirely based can’t be trusted. Let’s recognize that the global climate has warmed in fits and starts since the end of the Little Ice Age which lasted from about 1400 with 1700 AD. That warming began some time before American industrialization brought carbon-stoked smoke stacks and SUVs….and that development occurred long after comparable or even warmer global temperatures existed during the Medieval Warm Period about 1,000 years ago. Some notable scientists attribute the Little Ice Age and recent flattening of global temperatures to periodic ebbs and wanes in the Sun’s energy output. In fact, scientists at Russia’s prestigious Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg have stated that solar activity is now waning to such an extent that the global average yearly temperature will begin to decline into a very cold and protracted climate phase. Observatory head Habibullo Abdussamatov, one of the world’s leading solar scientists, member of the Russian Academy of Science, and director of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, points out that over the last 1,000 years deep cold periods have occurred five times. Each is correlated with declines in solar irradiance much like we are experiencing now with no human influence. “A global freeze will come about regardless of whether or not industrialized countries put a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions. The common view of Man’s industrial activity as a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect.” Murry Salby, a climate scientist at Macquarie University in Sydney agrees about the cause and effect reversal: “in the real world, global temperature is not controlled exclusively by CO2, as it is in the model world…in significant part CO2 is controlled by global temperature, as it is in the proxy record.” Salby points out that when models that have been predicting CO2-induced heating differ from direct observations, then they’re wrong, calling practices that claim otherwise a “cult science.” And What Fossil Alternatives Lie Across the Natural Gas Bridge…..? According to 2012 EIA figures, slightly more than 42 percent of U.S. electrical power came from coal, 25 percent from natural gas, 19 percent from nuclear, about 3.4 percent from wind, and about 0.11 percent from solar. Both wind and solar are unreliable time-of-day, season and weather-dependent, as well as geographically very limited, typically in areas remote from urban population centers where demands are greatest. They are also very cost-inefficient compared with coal, natural gas and nuclear, requiring heavy subsidies and utility mandates to even begin “leveling” fields of competitive pricing. Since 2009 American taxpayers have shelled out $14 billion in cash payments to solar, wind and other renewable energy project developers. This includes $9.2 billion to 748 small and large wind projects, and $2.7 billion to more than 44,000 solar projects, which will add just 48 terawatt hours of electricity. Despite all of the sequester hype, the Obama administration’s Department of Energy has awarded more than $1.2 billion in charity to 435 new renewable energy projects since January 1, including 381 solar awards. In addition, DOE is pressing ahead with plans to throw in $150 million more for renewable projects which was left over from a separate 48C tax credit stimulus program. At least one green energy developer recognizes that these stimulus subsidy programs have a record of doing more harm than good, and he isn’t reluctant to say why. Patrick Jenevein, CEO of the Dallas-based Tang Energy Group, posted a Wall Street Journal article arguing that” the sequester offers Washington a rare opportunity to roll back misguided subsidies and maybe help reverse wind power’s stalling momentum.” Jenevein noted that since 2009, wind farm developers like his company have been able to get a cash grant or tax credit covering up to 30% of their capital investment in a new project, and that through May 2012 Washington had spent $8.4 billion on cash grants. He welcomes the fact that the cash-grant program will be cut back 8.7% between March 1 and September 30. Viewing this as a positive policy change, he wrote: “Government subsidies to new wind farms have only made the industry less focused on reducing costs. In turn, the industry produces a product that isn’t as efficient or cheap as it might be if we focused less on working the political system and more on research and development.” Patrick Jenevein points out that: “After the 2009 subsidy became available, wind farms were increasingly built in less-windy locations… The average wind-power project built in 2011 was located in an area with wind conditions 16% worse than those of the average… Meanwhile, wind-power prices have increased to an average $54 per megawatt-hour, compared with $37 in 2005.” He continued, “If our communities can’t reasonably afford to purchase and rely upon the wind power we sell, it is difficult to make a moral case for our business, let alone an economic one… Yet as long as these subsidies and tax credits exist, clean-energy executives will likely spend most of their time pursuing advanced legal and accounting methods rather than investing in studies, innovation, new transmission technology and turbine development.” Is White House Natural Gas Support Really Just a Promotional Pipe Dream? As the Obama administration blows more and more taxpayer money into the wind and pumping sunshine, it continues to unrelenting wage war on oil and gas drilling. This mission is accomplished through its EPA, Interior Department and an alphabet soup of other agencies, including: attempts to preempt state and private land rights; permitting complexities, delays and uncertainties on federal lands which discourage enterprise; punitive taxes on fossil fuels, and multi-agency regulatory threats against fracking. As Dan Kish, Senior Vice President of the Institute for Energy Research in Washington, D.C., observed in an interview I posted last March, the apparent intent is to make heavily subsidized, unreliable and costly “renewable” energy programs they are pushing more cost-competitive. “This is the Tonya Harding approach to energy… break your opponent’s kneecap if you can’t win fair and square.” Projects purportedly intended to serve as transition bridges from fossil-fueled energy use to so-called “clean renewables” often don’t receive as much love as we might expect from environmental organizations either. A 2011 U.S. Chamber of Commerce report titled “Project/No Project” found 140 renewable projects that had stalled, stopped, or been outright killed due to “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY) environmental activism and a system that allows limitless challenges by opponents. The Chamber study concluded that it is just as difficult to build a wind farm in the U.S. as it is to build a coal-fired plant, with about 45% of all challenged projects being “renewable energy”. This is accomplished by a variety of strategies, including organizing local opposition, changing zoning laws, preventing permits, filing lawsuits, and using other long delay mechanisms, effectively bleeding projects dry of their financing. The report also confirmed that there were very few “shovel ready” renewable energy projects that were truly qualified for support under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (stimulus funding). And according to the U.S. Department of Energy, even if all renewable sources (including hydro) were to grow at three times the pace of all others, they would still make up just 16% of all domestic supplies by 2035. Incidentally, most environmental organizations really seem to hate hydro. Absolutely no energy options are immune from environmental challenges. No, it’s certainly not just “dirty” coal, oil and natural gas, that are being challenged…or those “hazardous” nuclear plants. Hydroelectric dams are under assault for killing fish, biomass burning produces greenhouse gases just as fossils do, and geothermal power releases toxic ground and water contaminates. Wind turbines slaughter birds and bats, solar power disrupts fragile desert ecosystems. As Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern Energy Group, a wind farm developer observed, “We are starting to see all renewable energy projects, no matter how well planned are being questioned.” In 2012, the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Defenders of Wildlife filed suit to stop a 663 megawatt 4,600-acre Calico solar plant from being built on 7.2 square miles in the Mohave Desert northeast of Los Angeles. Originally planned to provide 850 megawatts of electricity generated by 30,000 solar dishes standing 40 feet high, the project was scaled back over concern about impacts on desert tortoises. Regardless, the deal ran into more problems with the Sierra Club, which joined with California Unions for Reliable Energy over the developer’s hiring of non-union labor. Together, they petitioned the state Supreme Court to block the project on environmental grounds. After those efforts failed, Tessera sold the project to a K Road Power, a New York firm, which decided to switch to solar panels. That still wasn’t enough, and the Sierra Club sued the BLM, FWS and the Department of Interior over threats to tortoises and other wildlife. The union group, which had signed a labor agreement with K Road, didn’t participate in the latest litigation. And what about those solar environmental advantages…like protecting the planet from climate-ravaging carbon dioxide emissions? Well, maybe not after all…at least not according to a letter of protest from three environmental organizations to BLM over new Department of Interior rules to streamline approval for solar energy projects on hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land. The letter complains that “no scientific evidence has been presented to support the claim that these projects reduce greenhouse emissions.” In fact, the letter issued by the Western Lands Project, Basin and Ranch Range, and Solar Done Right indicates that “…the opposite may be true. Recent work at the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of California, Riverside, suggests that soil disturbance from large-scale solar development may disrupt Pleistocene-era caliche deposits that release carbon to the atmosphere when exposed to the elements, thus negat[ing] the solar development C[arbon] gains.” And if this isn’t bad news enough, the letter says that the environmental impacts from the solar panels “..are long-term (decades to centuries)” and threaten the habitat of “…endangered species, including the desert tortoise, Mojave fringe-toed lizard, flat-tailed horned lizard, golden eagle and desert bighorn.” So should it really be all that vexing for anyone, even for the Sierra Club, to wonder why electricity and fuel prices have and will continue to skyrocket as a direct result of those “green” alternative energy dreams they have aggressively championed? Wasn’t that the idea all along?

2. This isn’t offense for the aff – there is natural gas now which should solve the transition.

And renewables will die out due to natural gas – lack of diverted funding for renewables


Jenkins and Trembath 4/30/12 (*Alex, Alex Trembath is a policy analyst in the Energy and Climate Program at Breakthrough, Alex is a graduate of University of California at Berkeley where he received his Bachelor's in Environmental Economics and Policy. *Jesse, Jesse Jenkins is a graduate student and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is a candidate for a Masters of Science in Technology & Policy. “Gas Boom Poses Challenges for Renewables and Nuclear” http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/gas_boom_poses_challenges_for)

From a recent high of over $13 per mmBTU in 2008, natural gas prices have plummeted to under $2.50 per mmBTU. These cost declines have been paralleled by similar drops in prices for wind- and solar-generated electricity, but improvements for clean tech have not yet achieved full cost-parity with natural gas. the While gas prices are not expected to remain at these markedly low levels, experts project them to hover in the $4-6 per mmBTU range for at least the medium-term, still very low by historical standards. By our calculations, natural gas prices at these levels yield a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of between $52-72 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for a combined cycle gas plant. Wind power, which competes directly with combined cycle peaking gas plants, ranges between $60 and $90 per MWh in the best wind sites. The federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) brings wind's LCOE down to $33-65 per MWh, but this credit is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Solar power doesn't compete directly with combined cycle gas plants. Utility-scale solar plants instead compete with combustion turbine gas plants, which have an LCOE range between $72 and $104 per MWh. We estimate levelized costs for utility-scale central-station solar photovoltaic range from $111 to $289 per MWh. The federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) brings this range down to an estimated $81 to $131 per MWh, helping solar compete in select markets. But the ITC, like the PTC, is temporary, and even with its support the broad market for utility electricity generation favors combustion turbine-generated electricity from natural gas. Residential and commercial rooftop solar have to contend with a broad range of retail electricity prices, from $80 to $193 per MWh. Residential rooftop solar, in comparison, ranges between $213 to $345 per MWh. The ITC brings this range down to $153 to $248, making rooftop solar competitive in some markets with high local electricity prices and high solar irradiance, including California, New Jersey, and Arizona. Residential rooftop solar is already competitive without subsidy in Hawaii, which has the nation's highest residential electricity prices and bountiful solar resource. There are line-of-sight cost reductions ahead for wind and solar. Analysts project the cost of wind turbines to decline between 10 and 30 percent over the next three years, pushing wind into wider cost parity with combined cycle gas. Solar too can achieve significant cost declines, with $1.00 per watt total installed costs possible by 2020, compared to over $3.50 per watt today. But these improvements will require sustained commitments to technological innovation, as well as improvements in transmission, balance-of-systems, and financing costs. Nuclear power faces perhaps the biggest challenges of all low-carbon power. Although nuclear has proven itself the most scalable source of zero-carbon baseload power, providing 20 percent of America's electricity generation, high capital and financing costs combine with high public risk perception and regulatory burdens that make new nuclear power comparatively expensive. Projected levelized costs for new nuclear power going online between 2016 and 2020 range between $112 and $130 per MWh. A federal Production Tax Credit for nuclear brings this down to $94 to 102 per MWh. With gas prices expected to remain well below these levels for the foreseeable future, the outlook for new nuclear power in the United States remains challenging. Zero-carbon power sources require continued improvements in technology costs and performance to achieve full market competitiveness. These challenges are amplified by astonishingly low natural gas prices in the wake of the ongoing shale gas revolution. However, lessons for zero-carbon power advocates can be found in the history of shale gas itself: just as the sustained public and private research and commercialization efforts drove breakthrough innovations in hydraulic fracturing and microseismic mapping technologies that enabled the shale revolution, so must the nation initiate smart and strategic public-private partnerships to drive technical improvements and cost declines in solar, wind, nuclear, and other zero-carbon energy technologies.

No – coal switch and liquefication means an increase in CO2.


EIA 2012(Energy Information Administration, Effect of Increased Natural Gas Exports on Domestic Energy Markets, January 2012, http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/fe/pdf/fe_lng.pdf)

On average from 2015 to 2035 under Reference case conditions, decreased natural gas consumption as a result of added exports are countered proportionately by increased coal consumption (72 percent), increased liquid fuel consumption (8 percent), other increased consumption, such as from renewable generation sources (9 percent), and decreases in total consumption (11 percent). In the earlier years, the amount of natural gas to coal switching is greater, and coal plays a more dominant role in replacing the decreased levels of natural gas consumption, which also tend to be greater in the earlier years. Switching from natural gas to coal is less significant in later years, partially as a result of a greater proportion of switching into renewable generation. As a result decreased natural gas consumption from added exports more directly results in decreased total energy consumption via the end-use consumer cutting back energy use in response to higher prices. This basic pattern similarly occurs under the Low Shale EUR and High Economic Growth cases – less switching from natural gas into coal and more into renewable than under Reference case conditions, as well as greater decreases in total energy consumption as a result of added exports. While lower domestic natural gas deliveries resulting from added exports reduce natural gas related CO2 emissions, the increased use of coal in the electric sector generally results in a net increase in overall CO2 emissions. The exceptions occur in environments when renewables are better able to compete against natural gas and coal. However, when also accounting for emissions related to natural gas used in the liquefaction process, additional exports increase CO2 levels under all cases and export scenarios, particularly in the earlier years of the projection period. Table 2 displays the cumulative CO2 emissions levels from 2015 to 2035 in all cases and scenarios, with the change relative to the associated baseline case.


Makes runaway warming inevitable – displaces clean tech and lock in


Massey 2012 (Nathanael, "Golden Age" for Natural Gas Might Prove Climate Challenge, Scientific American, 3-30-12, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=golden-age-natural-gas-might-prove-climate-challenge)

The world is on the brink of a "golden age" for natural gas, with demand for the low-carbon fossil fuel slated to rise by 50 percent -- as much as demand for coal, oil, nuclear power combined -- over the next two and a half decades, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency. Should those trends manifest, however, the world will have little chance of halting global warming at 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels, the limit most scientists say is necessary if runaway climate change is to be avoided. "We are not saying that it will be a golden age for humanity -- we are saying it will be a golden age for gas," Fatih Birol, lead author of the study "Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Natural Gas" told the BBC. Driven by increased exploration in North America and China, production of shale gas could triple to 1.6 trillion cubic meters during that period, swelling gas's share of the global energy mix to nearly a quarter by 2035. Advocates for natural gas often point to its potential as a "bridge resource" -- a low-carbon alternative for baseload power that can displace coal and oil until renewable energy sources like solar and wind become economically scalable. Yet deploying natural gas on the scale projected by the IEA report would mean building infrastructure that locks the world into gas for decades to come, the IEA notes. The report notes, as well, that "lower natural gas prices lead to slightly higher overall consumption of energy and, in some instances, to displacement of lower-carbon fuels, such as renewable energy sources and nuclear power." Gas no panacea for global warming The study projects an overall greenhouse gas increase of 20 percent compared to 2010 levels, slightly lower than projected if the current fuel mix, including coal, were to persist. "Overall, the projections [in the high-end usage scenario] involve only a small net shift in anticipated levels of greenhouse gas emissions," the study notes. Those projections see atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations stabilizing at 650 parts per million, resulting in a temperature rise of 3.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Those conclusions have drawn criticism from environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Fund, which argue that the analysis leaves out the important roles that energy conservation and renewable energy could play in the future. "We know how to build gas plants, how to get permits. There's a lot of momentum there, obviously," said Marty Spitzer, U.S. climate policy director at the World Wildlife Fund. "But I think we need to have a conversation about this and ask ourselves, just because we have the gas, just because know how to use it, does that really mean we should?" Spitzer agreed that gas might function as a bridge but only if it could somehow be used without locking the world into several decades of gas-fired infrastructure. "You need baseload capacity to offset things like solar and wind, so there's a good marriage there with gas," he said. "But even then, gas can't just replace all the other fossil fuels as the baseload. We need to be deploying wind, solar, geothermal at the same time."

AT: Warming Impact

No impact to warming


Stafford 3/11/2013 (James, 2013, interviewing Anthony Watts, 25-year broadcast meteorology veteran "Climate Change without Catastrophe: Interview with Anthony Watts," http://oilprice.com/Interviews/Climate-Change-without-Catastrophe-Interview-with-Anthony-Watts.html)

Anthony Watts: The premise of the issue for proponents can be summed up very simply: You put CO2 in the atmosphere and it makes it warmer, that’s bad. The reality is that the Earth’s climate system is far more complex than that: It isn’t just a linear relationship between CO2 and temperature, it is a dynamic ever-changing one, and climate is tremendously complex with hundreds of interactive variables and feedbacks. Predicting an outcome of a chaotic system over the long term is a very, very big task, one that we’ve really only scratched the surface of. Dr. Judith Curry of Georgia Tech describes it as a “wicked problem”. But it is being popularly portrayed as a simple black-and-white problem and few really delve much beyond the headlines and the calls for action to understand that it is really many shades of grey. Oilprice.com: As a former TV meteorologist and a developer of weather data dissemination technology, can you tell us more about how your background lends to your “pragmatic scepticism” on climate change? Anthony Watts: In TV, if I was wrong on the forecast, or the temperature reported was inaccurate, I’d hear about it immediately. Viewers would complain. That immediate feedback translates very quickly to making sure you get it right. With climate, the forecast is open-ended, and we have to wait years for feedback, and so the skill level in forecasting often doesn’t improve very much with time. Also, I’ve had a lifetime of experience in designing and deploying weather instrumentation, and like with forecasting, if we don’t get it right, we hear about it immediately. What I learned is that the government weather service (NOAA) had it right at one time, but they’d dropped their guard, and my recent study (preliminary) shows that not only is the deployment of weather stations faulty in siting them, but that the adjustments designed to solve those issues actually make the problem worse. Oilprice.com: Is there any way to remove the “camp” element from the issue of climate change? How far do disastrous weather events—like Hurricane Sandy—go towards reshaping the climate change debate? Anthony Watts: The idea that Hurricane Sandy, a minor class 1 storm, was somehow connected to CO2 driven “climate change” is ludicrous, especially when far worse storms existed in the same area in the past when CO2 was much lower. Hurricane Hazel in October 1954 is a case in point. In my view, the only way to null out the “camp” element is via education. Looking at the history of severe weather, there really aren’t any trends at all. Both the IPCC and The Journal Nature say this clearly, but activists persist in trying to link severe weather and CO2 driven “climate change” because since temperature increases have paused for about 15 years, it is all they have left. But even that doesn’t hold up when you study the data history: There is also some peer-reviewed analysis which goes into some depth on this subject. This analysis concludes that "there is no evidence so far that climate change has increased the normalized economic loss from natural disasters." Oilprice.com: Your message on climate change has been controversial among those who believe this issue is the gravest one facing us today. In what way do you think your message is misunderstood? Anthony Watts: They think and promote that I’m categorically a “denier” in the pay of “big oil” (for the record, I’m paid nothing for this interview) in an effort to minimize my views, while ignoring the fact that I was actually on the proponent side of warming at one time. Now, I’d describe myself as a lukewarmer. Yes, it has gotten warmer, CO2 is partially a factor, but catastrophic predictions of the future just haven’t held up when you look at the observed data compared to the early predictions.

No warming and not anthropogenic


Ferrara, 2012 (Peter, Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy for the Heartland Institute, Senior Advisor for Entitlement Reform and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation, General Counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, served in the White House Office of Policy Development, graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School , 5/31/2012, "Sorry Global Warming Alarmists, The Earth Is Cooling," http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/)

Climate change itself is already in the process of definitively rebutting climate alarmists who think human use of fossil fuels is causing ultimately catastrophic global warming. That is because natural climate cycles have already turned from warming to cooling, global temperatures have already been declining for more than 10 years, and global temperatures will continue to decline for another two decades or more. That is one of the most interesting conclusions to come out of the seventh International Climate Change Conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute, held last week in Chicago. I attended, and served as one of the speakers, talking about The Economic Implications of High Cost Energy. The conference featured serious natural science, contrary to the self-interested political science you hear from government financed global warming alarmists seeking to justify widely expanded regulatory and taxation powers for government bodies, or government body wannabees, such as the United Nations. See for yourself, as the conference speeches are online. What you will see are calm, dispassionate presentations by serious, pedigreed scientists discussing and explaining reams of data. In sharp contrast to these climate realists, the climate alarmists have long admitted that they cannot defend their theory that humans are causing catastrophic global warming in public debate. With the conference presentations online, let’s see if the alarmists really do have any response. The Heartland Institute has effectively become the international headquarters of the climate realists, an analog to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It has achieved that status through these international climate conferences, and the publication of its Climate Change Reconsidered volumes, produced in conjunction with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). Those Climate Change Reconsidered volumes are an equivalently thorough scientific rebuttal to the irregular Assessment Reports of the UN’s IPCC. You can ask any advocate of human caused catastrophic global warming what their response is to Climate Change Reconsidered. If they have none, they are not qualified to discuss the issue intelligently. Check out the 20th century temperature record, and you will find that its up and down pattern does not follow the industrial revolution’s upward march of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), which is the supposed central culprit for man caused global warming (and has been much, much higher in the past). It follows instead the up and down pattern of naturally caused climate cycles. For example, temperatures dropped steadily from the late 1940s to the late 1970s. The popular press was even talking about a coming ice age. Ice ages have cyclically occurred roughly every 10,000 years, with a new one actually due around now. In the late 1970s, the natural cycles turned warm and temperatures rose until the late 1990s, a trend that political and economic interests have tried to milk mercilessly to their advantage. The incorruptible satellite measured global atmospheric temperatures show less warming during this period than the heavily manipulated land surface temperatures. Central to these natural cycles is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Every 25 to 30 years the oceans undergo a natural cycle where the colder water below churns to replace the warmer water at the surface, and that affects global temperatures by the fractions of a degree we have seen. The PDO was cold from the late 1940s to the late 1970s, and it was warm from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, similar to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). In 2000, the UN’s IPCC predicted that global temperatures would rise by 1 degree Celsius by 2010. Was that based on climate science, or political science to scare the public into accepting costly anti-industrial regulations and taxes? Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Western Washington University, knew the answer. He publicly predicted in 2000 that global temperatures would decline by 2010. He made that prediction because he knew the PDO had turned cold in 1999, something the political scientists at the UN’s IPCC did not know or did not think significant. Well, the results are in, and the winner is….Don Easterbrook. Easterbrook also spoke at the Heartland conference, with a presentation entitled “Are Forecasts of a 20-Year Cooling Trend Credible?” Watch that online and you will see how scientists are supposed to talk: cool, rational, logical analysis of the data, and full explanation of it. All I ever see from the global warming alarmists, by contrast, is political public relations, personal attacks, ad hominem arguments, and name calling, combined with admissions that they can’t defend their views in public debate. Easterbrook shows that by 2010 the 2000 prediction of the IPCC was wrong by well over a degree, and the gap was widening. That’s a big miss for a forecast just 10 years away, when the same folks expect us to take seriously their predictions for 100 years in the future. Howard Hayden, Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Connecticut showed in his presentation at the conference that based on the historical record a doubling of CO2 could be expected to produce a 2 degree C temperature increase. Such a doubling would take most of this century, and the temperature impact of increased concentrations of CO2 declines logarithmically. You can see Hayden’s presentation online as well. Because PDO cycles last 25 to 30 years, Easterbrook expects the cooling trend to continue for another 2 decades or so. Easterbrook, in fact, documents 40 such alternating periods of warming and cooling over the past 500 years, with similar data going back 15,000 years. He further expects the flipping of the ADO to add to the current downward trend. But that is not all. We are also currently experiencing a surprisingly long period with very low sunspot activity. That is associated in the earth’s history with even lower, colder temperatures. The pattern was seen during a period known as the Dalton Minimum from 1790 to 1830, which saw temperature readings decline by 2 degrees in a 20 year period, and the noted Year Without A Summer in 1816 (which may have had other contributing short term causes). Even worse was the period known as the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715, which saw only about 50 sunspots during one 30 year period within the cycle, compared to a typical 40,000 to 50,000 sunspots during such periods in modern times. The Maunder Minimum coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, which the earth suffered from about 1350 to 1850. The Maunder Minimum saw sharply reduced agricultural output, and widespread human suffering, disease and premature death. Such impacts of the sun on the earth’s climate were discussed at the conference by astrophysicist and geoscientist Willie Soon, Nir J. Shaviv, of the Racah Institute of Physics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Sebastian Luning, co-author with leading German environmentalist Fritz Vahrenholt of The Cold Sun. Easterbrook suggests that the outstanding question is only how cold this present cold cycle will get. Will it be modest like the cooling from the late 1940s to late 1970s? Or will the paucity of sunspots drive us all the way down to the Dalton Minimum, or even the Maunder Minimum? He says it is impossible to know now. But based on experience, he will probably know before the UN and its politicized IPCC.

Tech and adaptive advances prevent all climate impacts---warming won’t cause war


Singer et al 2011 Dr. S. Fred Research Fellow at The Independent Institute, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics; Robert M. Carter, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia), palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience; and Craig D. Idso, founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, and Association of American Geographers, et al, 2011, “Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report,” online: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2011/pdf/FrontMatter.pdf)

Decades-long empirical trends of climate-sensitive measures of human well-being, including the percent of developing world population suffering from chronic hunger, poverty rates, and deaths due to extreme weather events, reveal dramatic improvement during the twentieth century, notwithstanding the historic increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The magnitude of the impacts of climate change on human well-being depends on society's adaptability (adaptive capacity), which is determined by, among other things, the wealth and human resources society can access in order to obtain, install, operate, and maintain technologies necessary to cope with or take advantage of climate change impacts. The IPCC systematically underestimates adaptive capacity by failing to take into account the greater wealth and technological advances that will be present at the time for which impacts are to be estimated. Even accepting the IPCC's and Stern Review's worst-case scenarios, and assuming a compounded annual growth rate of per-capita GDP of only 0.7 percent, reveals that net GDP per capita in developing countries in 2100 would be double the 2006 level of the U.S. and triple that level in 2200. Thus, even developing countries' future ability to cope with climate change would be much better than that of the U.S. today. The IPCC's embrace of biofuels as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was premature, as many researchers have found "even the best biofuels have the potential to damage the poor, the climate, and biodiversity" (Delucchi, 2010). Biofuel production consumes nearly as much energy as it generates, competes with food crops and wildlife for land, and is unlikely to ever meet more than a small fraction of the world's demand for fuels. The notion that global warming might cause war and social unrest is not only wrong, but even backwards - that is, global cooling has led to wars and social unrest in the past, whereas global warming has coincided with periods of peace, prosperity, and social stability.


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