Elon Musk Subsidies Are Bigger than Fossil Fuels Get | National Review Online

Elon Musk Subsidies Are Bigger than Fossil Fuels Get | National Review Online

Earlier this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released the most recent data available regarding energy subsidies provided by the federal government. The data, covering the year 2013, broke down total taxpayer subsidies across the different sectors of the energy industry. While fossil fuels did enjoy some government support through various direct expenditures, tax credits, and R&D programs, the data stands in sharp contrast to Musk’s claims.

Data from the EIA report, combined with numbers from an anti-oil advocacy group regarding state-level government support, reveals that total state and federal support for the oil-and-gas industry is no more than $5.5 billion each year. As stated, Musk’s companies combine for $5 billion in subsidies, a number that he has yet to dispute. Clearly, the difference is much smaller than Musk’s outlandish 1,000-to-one claim. Even without this data, Musk’s claims were completely ridiculous from the outset. Does the billionaire whom many regard as a genius not realize that 1,000 times $5 billion is $5 trillion, the equivalent of Japan’s GDP? (He may have had this bogus IMF study in mind.)

Certainly a healthy debate should and does exist about whether taxpayers should be helping oil and gas conglomerates. Arithmetic trouble aside, Musk insinuated that the fossil-fuel industry is the primary beneficiary of energy subsidies. That’s not true either. In fact, according to the EIA, total federal taxpayer support across the renewables sector totaled roughly $15 billion in 2013. The solar sector (Musk’s favorite) alone received about $5.3 billion.

And neither of these figures accounts for the various benefits and mandates that help renewable industries on the state level. No subsidy quite compares to the standards that exist in a plurality of states that force people and utilities to buy renewable electricity. In total, the renewables sector combines for a staggering 72 percent of all federal energy-subsidy dollars. Oil and gas, meanwhile, combine for a mere 4 percent of total federal support. Even throwing in coal adds only another 6 percent.

The EPA Report

http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/hf_es_erd_jun2015.pdf

We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances where one or more mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells. The number of identified cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells. 

That sounds kind of telling.  To be fair, the report goes on to say:

This finding could reflect a rarity of effects on drinking water resources, but may also be due to other limiting factors. These factors include: insufficient pre- and post-fracturing data on the quality of drinking water resources; the paucity of long-term systematic studies; the presence of other sources of contamination precluding a definitive link between hydraulic fracturing activities and an impact; and the inaccessibility of some information on hydraulic fracturing activities and potential impacts. 

But if the bad effects are so easily lost in the noise, maybe they're not that bad.

Solar Inefficiency Is Economically Ruinous | Somewhat Reasonable

Solar Inefficiency Is Economically Ruinous | Somewhat Reasonable

It's not cheap being green

In a previous post we pointed out that alternative energies (solar, wind, ethanol and other biofuels) bump up against implacable physical realities which no amount of government spending or research can overcome, and which are environmentally destructive despite propaganda to the contrary. Ethanol in gasoline, for example, according to EPA’s own data, increases key pollutants such as volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide by as much as 7 percent. Yet it was on the basis of phony scientific claims that ethanol would reduce pollution from automobile emissions that it use was mandated by the government.

Biofuels have a power density of only 0.3 watts per square meter, and modern solar voltaic panels about 6 watts per square meter. An average oil well producing 10 barrels per day is at 27 watts per square meter, and an average nuclear plant more than 50 watts per square meter. Biofuels used 247 million acres of land—that’s more than twice the size of California—to produce less than one-half of one percent of the world’s energy, according to Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, in 2014.

Now I have come across a book that really drives home how impractical it is to talk about replacing fossil fuels, which comprise 87 percent of the world’s energy, with any meaningful amount of these alternative sources. The book is Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism. Significantly, it is not from the fossil fuels industry or based on its data or research. Rather, author Ozzie Zehner assembles his case “from government offices, environmentalists, and scientists promoting solar photo-voltaics.” References for the quotations below can be found in the abundant footnotes in his book.

Zehner calculates what it would cost to replace the world’s use of fossil fuels with solar power using today’s technology. He writes:

By comparing global energy consumption with the most rosy photo-voltaic cost estimates, courtesy of the solar proponents themselves, [emphasis added] we can roughly sketch a total expense. The solar cells would cost about $59 trillion; the mining, processing and manufacturing facilities to build them would cost about $44 trillion; and the batteries to store power for evening use would cost $20 trillion; bringing the total to about $123 trillion plus about $694 billion per year for maintenance.

For comparison, GDP (gross domestic product) of the entire world is now $74 trillion, and U.S. GDP is $17 trillion. This includes all food, rent, industrial investments, government expenditures, military purchases, exports, etc. “This means,” writes Zehner,

that if every American were to go without food, shelter, protection, and everything else while working hard every day naked, we just might be able to build a photo-voltaic array to power the planet in about a decade. But, unfortunately, these estimations are optimistic.

If actual installed costs for solar projects in California are any guide, a global solar program would cost roughly $1.4 quadrillion….Mining, smelting, processing, shipping and fabricating and their associated hardware would yield about 149,100 megatons of carbon dioxide. And everyone would have to move to the desert; otherwise transmission losses would make the plan unworkable.

The cost of solar cells has dropped markedly, but Zehner says the panels

account for less that half the cost of an installed solar system, according to the industry. Based on research by solar energy proponents and data from the California Energy Commission …cheaper voltaics won’t offset escalating expenditures for insurance, warranty expenses, materials, transportation, labor and other requirements. Low-tech costs are claiming a larger share of the high-tech solar system price tag.

Finally, unforeseen limitations are blind-siding the solar industry as it grows. Fire departments restrict solar roof installations, and homeowner associations complain about the ugly arrays. Adding to the burden, solar arrays now often require elaborate alarm systems and locking fasteners; without such protection, thieves regularly steal the valuable panels…For instance, California resident Glenda Hoffman woke up one morning to discover thieves stole sixteen solar panels from her roof as she slept. [Replacement cost $95,000, was paid by insurance.]

There is no reason to believe a smaller program or a graduated one would be any more workable than worldwide replacement of fossil fuels. The losses would be smaller but would still be outweighed by costs in proportion. The only “benefit” of a smaller scale might be to make it easier to hide the costs in a labyrinth of subsidies and budgetary gimmicks and push the cost onto future generations by adding it to the national debt.

Energy Sense from an Unlikely Source | Power Line

Energy Sense from an Unlikely Source | Power Line

 It is in a series called “Getting to Zero” (as in zero carbon emissions), written by a self-described liberal convinced about climate change disaster, and described thusly:

In this series GETTING TO ZERO we will take a very hard-headed look at current energy policy and energy strategies. We will ask hard questions: does this really get us to zero? How much would it cost? How rapidly can it be deployed? We may find some answers along the way, but don’t expect them to be easy.

We’ve all read those rosy optimistic stories about renewable energy, and how in some given month 100% of new electrical capacity in the US was all renewable; or about how during some hour in the dead of night all of the electricity demand in Denmark was met by wind. You read those stories and you think, “Hey! We’re making progress in the climate fight!”

And that impression is dead wrong.

The second installment of this series looks at the economics of renewable energy and, citing a study in the journal Energy, concludes that it really blows (so to speak). The discussion gets a bit technical at this point, with an extended discussion about EROI (energy return on investment) and “buffering” (meaning essentially backup supply for sources like wind and solar that are intermittent) along with some very interesting charts, but the author ends up concluding that wide scale adoption of renewable energy “will reduce GDP. The economy becomes less efficient as we deploy less efficient energy sources to run it.”

The discussion of wind power is especially interesting:

Wind is a tricky case. If you ask most people, they will tell you that we don’t currently have energy storage for wind. In fact we do, but the buffering for wind comes from natural gas powerplants, which are typically built at the same time wind is deployed. When the wind dies, the backup gas plants are turned on, to keep the grid power reliable. Thus the energy storage for wind is embodied in the natural gas that isn’t burned when the wind turbine is producing peak output.

This means that wind, as it’s used now in the US, isn’t really zero-fossil. It’s a hybrid system that’s part wind, part natural gas. And considering the availability of wind (30% is typical for a wind turbine), most of the energy actually comes from the fossil side of the equation. We’re using the wind to offset some of the CO2 emissions from the gas plant (which is good), but instead of getting to zero, we’re just walking toward the cliff instead of running toward it.

Denmark currently is one of the most wind-energy-intensive countries in the world, which works because they buffer their wind energy against hydroelectric power from Norway and Sweden. When the wind is blowing in Denmark, they export electricity to Sweden, which then can turn down its hydro plants (thus keeping more water stored in the reservoirs behind the dam). When the wind dies, Sweden turns up the taps on the hydroelectric production, and exports that stored energy back to Denmark. It’s a great zero-fossil system, but it’s only possible because of the unique geography that places a flat windy country right next to a couple of wet mountainous countries.

The author concludes that we need a lot more hydropower and nuclear power—both forms of energy that environmentalists hate. (In fact, most state “renewable portfolio standards” specifically exclude hydropower as an option to satisfy the RPS mandate.)

The third segment in this series looks at energy efficiency, which many greens seem to think is the magical pathway to a carbon-free future. Here the author is even more scathing:

There’s just one problem. They [the efficiency/conservation advocates] are all completely and totally wrong. Increasing energy efficiency does not, has not, and will not ever reduce overall demand for energy. This is not just an opinion; it has been demonstrated with the cold hard equations of physics, based on the second law of thermodynamics.

Now don’t get me wrong. Energy efficiency has obvious economic benefits, and those benefits are often enough to make such improvements worthwhile. It’s not that we should stop being more efficient. It’s just that we should not expect those improvements to reduce energy demand or carbon emissions. Because they won’t do that.

So what Koch-supported, flat earth, denialist site hosted these sensible reflections?

The Daily Kos.

You read that right. Here are Part I, Part II, and Part III. I’ve never heard of the author, Keith Pickering, but if he keeps this up, he’s going to get “investigated” by House Democrats for departing from the script.

The High Cost of Energy Illiteracy | Power Line

The High Cost of Energy Illiteracy | Power Line

At the base of this is near total illiteracy about energy. The latest example is the giddy celebration that Burlington, Vermont, has become carbon neutral! And if a New England hippie town of 50,000 can do it, then surely Cleveland can do it too, no?

Take the PBS headline: “Burlington Is First U.S. City to Hit 100 Percent Renewable Energy.” 100 percent renewable energy? So everyone in Burlington has quit driving cars? Did every Ben & Jerry’s-eating yuppie in town sell their gas-fired Viking and Wolf kitchen ranges and gas-fired home furnaces? Are they getting all their groceries and other goods delivered to town by horse-drawn carts instead of trucks? (I guess it is hard to be bothered with the distinction between electricity and energy. And factoring indirect energy use is apparently challenging, too.)

But then the complete PBS report lets out this little detail: “the biggest portion of the city’s renewable production comes from hydropower…”

Ah yes—hydropower: the one form of carbon-free electricity production that environmentalists strenuously oppose as much as nuclear power. Most state “renewable portfolio standards” (RPS) specifically exclude hydropower from the menu of energy options that states can use to meet the mandate.

In fact, in Colorado right now there is a bill in the legislature to remove the barriers to counting hydropower toward the state’s RPS targets. Naturally, “clean energy” advocates are opposed:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) categorizes hydroelectricity as clean, renewable energy, and the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) determined that it produces air emissions on par with wind and solar. There is no justifiable environmental reason to keep these restrictions in place.

It may then come as a surprise that there are clean energy supporters who are actively fighting against this bill. Conservation Colorado, the Colorado Cleantech Industries Association, and the Distributed Wind Energy Association are all opposing the inclusion of hydroelectricity as a renewable energy resource despite the EPA’s evaluation.

In other words, no Burlingtons for you, Colorado.

The High Cost of Energy Illiteracy | Power Line

The High Cost of Energy Illiteracy | Power Line

“Energy romanticism” is perhaps the single greatest intellectual failing of environmentalists—the dreamy view that we can generate 95 quads of energy with puppy dog treadmills, unicorn flopsweat, and of course their beloved wind and solar. (Of course, most enviros say “What’s a ‘quad’?” when I ask for even a cursory inventory of energy sources that would supply America’s annual energy use.)

At the base of this is near total illiteracy about energy. The latest example is the giddy celebration that Burlington, Vermont, has become carbon neutral! And if a New England hippie town of 50,000 can do it, then surely Cleveland can do it too, no?

Take the PBS headline: “Burlington Is First U.S. City to Hit 100 Percent Renewable Energy.” 100 percent renewable energy? So everyone in Burlington has quit driving cars? Did every Ben & Jerry’s-eating yuppie in town sell their gas-fired Viking and Wolf kitchen ranges and gas-fired home furnaces? Are they getting all their groceries and other goods delivered to town by horse-drawn carts instead of trucks? (I guess it is hard to be bothered with the distinction between electricity and energy. And factoring indirect energy use is apparently challenging, too.)

But then the complete PBS report lets out this little detail: “the biggest portion of the city’s renewable production comes from hydropower…”

Ah yes—hydropower: the one form of carbon-free electricity production that environmentalists strenuously oppose as much as nuclear power. Most state “renewable portfolio standards” (RPS) specifically exclude hydropower from the menu of energy options that states can use to meet the mandate. By my rough estimate, it would require something like 1,000 to 2,000 new dams to replace just our current coal-fired electricity production. And there is only one significant dam proposed in the U.S. right now that I am aware of—on the Yukon River in Alaska. All of the usual suspects oppose that dam, naturally. In other words, policy in most states makes it impossible for other locations to imitate Burlington.

In fact, in Colorado right now there is a bill in the legislature to remove the barriers to counting hydropower toward the state’s RPS targets. Naturally, “clean energy” advocates are opposed:

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) categorizes hydroelectricity as clean, renewable energy, and the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) determined that it produces air emissions on par with wind and solar. There is no justifiable environmental reason to keep these restrictions in place.

It may then come as a surprise that there are clean energy supporters who are actively fighting against this bill. Conservation Colorado, the Colorado Cleantech Industries Association, and the Distributed Wind Energy Association are all opposing the inclusion of hydroelectricity as a renewable energy resource despite the EPA’s evaluation.

10 Charts to Brighten Your Century : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

10 Charts to Brighten Your Century : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Follow link to see charts.

1. There is a rape epidemic caused by rape culture.
...incidents of rape are lower than they have been in 40 years and have been reduced by more than half. It’s not clear what factors brought about such declines, but the declines should be acknowledged.
2. Police work is dangerous, so cops need military gear.
...it just isn't unusually deadly or dangerous — and it’s safer today than ever before. The data do not justify the kinds of armor, weapons, insecurity, and paranoia being displayed by police across the country.
3. Gun ownership increases violent crime.
The most remarkable statistic is that, since gun-related violence peaked in 1993, there has been an appreciable decline in gun violence ever since — all despite (or perhaps because of) significant national increases in gun ownership.
4. Concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere will lead to catastrophic climate change.
...despite significant increases in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, average global temperatures in the lower atmosphere have been virtually unchanged for more than 18 years.

What does this mean? At the very least, it means we should be dampening some of the climate-change hysteria, questioning the models that have predicted greater warming, and embracing a reasoned agnosticism about the issue until it’s better understood.

5. The rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

The truth is, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting richer, too. In fact, globally, the poor are richer than they have ever been in human history.

But what about in the US? As columnist and professor Michael Shermer writes in Scientific American, “The top-fifth income earners in the U.S. increased their share of the national income from 43 percent in 1979 to 48 percent in 2010, and the top 1 percent increased their share of the pie from 8 percent in 1979 to 13 percent in 2010. But note what has not happened: the rest have not gotten poorer. They’ve gotten richer: the income of the other quintiles increased by 49, 37, 36 and 45 percent, respectively.”

6. The air is getting dirtier due to more cars on the road.

In the United States, there are more than twice the vehicles on the road today than in 1980. Yet, the air quality has never been better. Remember pictures of Los Angeles in the 1980s? Smog. L.A. hasn’t seen that kind of filthy pea soup since Magnum PI.

7. We’re nearing  "peak oil."

Ever heard of Julian Simon? He’s the doomslayer who suggested we take any neo-Malthusian predictions of resource depletion with a grain of salt. Indeed, he suggested that because the human mind is the “ultimate resource,” resources would never run out. As long as there is a system of prices, property, and a profit motive, people will have incentives to conserve, innovate, or substitute. So what happened to peak oil? TheShale Revolution happened, just as Simon would have predicted. (Sorry, Professor Krugman.)

8. Our infrastructure is crumbling.

During the worst of the 2008 recession, one popular meme was that the nation’s infrastructure was “crumbling.” We were all to fear falling bridges and the general pothole-ification of America. Governments used such fearmongering to justify Keynesian stimulus policies through more taxpayer-funded investment in roads and bridges. But transportation analyst David Hartgen countered that false narrative right here in the pages of The Freeman.

9. The US health system ranks low among developed countries for health outcomes.

Not so fast. When one factors out deaths due to homicide and auto fatalities, the United States shoots to number one in health outcomes along a number of dimensions. Yes, health care is expensive. Yes, it’s convoluted. Yes, it’s corrupt — and it’s all thanks to political meddling. But the US health care system is still probably among the best in the world.

10.The Public Schools Need More Funding

Each year, the schools get more resources. Another Taj Mahighschool goes up. Another football stadium gets built. Another administrator’s salary goes up. Another union boss enjoys champagne in a hot tub. And what happens to educational outcomes? Forty years on … no change.

Robert Bryce: Dreaming the Impossible Green Dream - WSJ

Robert Bryce: Dreaming the Impossible Green Dream - WSJ

Mr. McKibben is among the world's most famous environmentalists. He's written or edited 15 books and been awarded honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. He is also the founder of 350.org, whose goal is to reduce atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels to 350 parts per million from the current level of about 400 parts per million. To achieve that goal, he's written that "we need to cut our fossil fuel use by a factor of twenty over the next few decades."

But what are the actual implications of cutting fossil fuels 20-fold? Let's "do the math," as Mr. McKibben is fond of saying.

Global hydrocarbon consumption is now about 218 million barrels of oil equivalent energy a day, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which includes 83 million barrels of oil as well as about 75 million barrels of oil equivalent from coal and about 60 million barrels of oil equivalent from natural gas. Reducing that by a factor of 20 would cut global hydrocarbon use to the energy equivalent of 11 million barrels of oil a day, roughly the amount of energy now consumed by India, where 400 million people lack access to electricity.

In 2012, the average resident of planet Earth consumed about 1.3 gallons of oil-equivalent energy a day from hydrocarbons. If Mr. McKibben's plan were enacted—and we shared those available hydrocarbons equally—-each of us would be allotted about eight fluid ounces of oil-equivalent energy from hydrocarbons a day. Today, the average resident of Bangladesh uses about half a liter of oil equivalent—slightly less than 17 ounces—a day. Under Mr. McKibben's prescription, the average Bangladeshi would be required to cut his hydrocarbon use by about half.

Like many others among the green left, Mr. McKibben insists that the prospect of catastrophic climate change means we must rely solely on renewable energy (and no nuclear power, either). What would that mean? Again, let's "do the math." And to keep it simple, let's ignore oil (even though it accounts for about a third of all energy consumption) and focus solely on electricity.

Over the past three decades, according to the BP Review, global electricity demand has been growing by about 450 terawatt-hours a year. And the International Energy Agency expects power demand will continue growing by about that pace for the next two decades.

What would be required if we relied on solar energy to keep up with expected growth in electricity demand? Let's look at Germany, which has more solar capacity than any other country, about 33,000 megawatts. In 2012 those solar facilities produced 28 terawatt-hours of electricity. Thus the world would have to install about 16 times as much photovoltaic capacity as Germany's entire installed base, and it would have to do so every year.

Wind? Merely to keep pace with the global growth in electricity demand would require the installation of about 280,000 megawatts of new wind-energy capacity every year. According to several academic studies, the areal power density of wind energy—that is, the amount of power that can be derived from a given amount of land—is about one watt per square meter. This means that installing the requisite additional wind capacity would require covering about 280,000 square kilometers (108,000 square miles of land)—an area nearly the size of Italy—with wind turbines, every year. (For comparison, the areal power density of nuclear power is more than 50 watts per square meter. The productivity of oil and gas wells vary, but even marginal wells have power densities of about 27 watts per square meter.)

Late last month I emailed Mr. McKibben, asking for his calculations regarding the energy-supply, land-use, or economic implications of his 20-fold reduction plan for hydrocarbons. His response included no math on the quantity of hydrocarbons available, nor any numbers for expected land use, or costs. Instead Mr. McKibben pointed mainly to a report earlier this year by Mark Jacobson, an engineering professor at Stanford University, which claims that wind, water and solar could meet all U.S. energy demand by 2050.

That document, in turn, refers largely to a 2010 paper Mr. Jacobson published in the journal Energy Policy, which rests heavily on the assumption that some type of electricity-storage system will be invented so that we can store the intermittent energy harnessed from the wind and sun. How reasonable is that assumption? Energy storage, Mr. Jacobson writes, "is a critical area for new research."

My email to Mr. McKibben also inquired about the need for refined petroleum products in transportation and aviation. His response ignored aviation but replied that "we've made great strides in electrifying vehicles." The energy he collects from the solar panels on his house, he wrote, can power his Ford C-Max on "most days."

Here's a suggestion: As a test of his scheme to cut hydrocarbon use 20-fold, Mr. McKibben and his allies making the pilgrimage to the September climate-change march, should be required to travel to New York City in solar-powered cars. If there aren't enough of those, they should be required to walk to the Big Apple.

It will be a good test. For if policy makers implement Mr. McKibben's energy plan, we'll all be walking. A lot.

Why Renewables Haven't Destroyed the Grid - Yet! - Pennenergy

Why Renewables Haven't Destroyed the Grid - Yet! - Pennenergy

When I talk to groups about renewable energy I start off with a Youtube video which demonstrates testing the compression strength of a concrete block. For 2 minutes and 40 seconds this is the most boring video you could imagine. The block shows absolutely no sign of stress. At 2:41 the concrete block fails and is utterly destroyed.  As far as I am concerned we are at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds with respect to the electrical grid.

In order to understand what I believe to be the serious risks facing the electrical generation and distribution system it is necessary to review the structure of the system as it was before renewables began to be developed in a significant way. The chart below shows hypothetical load profiles for a peak demand day during the spring/fall, winter and summer as well as a line that represents the overall generating capacity in the system.

It can be observed that the system demand/load varies considerably throughout the day and throughout the year. It is also clear that there is a great deal of excess supply available for most hours on most days. In fact, only on the highest peak demand days of the entire year will the demand come close to the supply. That is by design as every well-managed electrical generation system in the world requires a reserve margin of 8-15% above peak demand.

This reserve is meant to provide resiliency for the grid to accommodate scheduled maintenance shut-downs at major facilities such as nuclear plants, natural gas-fired and coal-fired plants as well as unscheduled outages due to storms or switching problems or other operational issues.

....

So before we began to develop renewable energy there was plenty of generation capacity within the system.  In fact, many generation facilities were not running at anything close to capacity most of the time.

Because of a public policy decision to reduce the burning of hydro-carbons (and the associated production of CO2 emissions) wind and solar generation sources have been subsidized through a variety of financial instruments including capital grants, tax credits, and feed-in-tariffs.  Renewables have also been given preferential access to the grid in most jurisdictions.

These measures have achieved the stated policy goal.  Wind and solar now make up a significant percentage of generation capacity in a number of jurisdictions and at times provide a large percentage of electrical production.

For example, Germany has developed over 30 GW of solar power and over 30 GW of Wind.  On a blustery spring day in Germany renewables can meet up to 40% of the total electrical demand for a few hours at mid-day.  There are regular announcements of "new records" for both solar and wind generation.  A similar situation exists in Texas with regards to wind and in parts of Hawaii with regards to solar.

Remembering that there was already a surplus of generation capacity in the system before the development of renewables it is obvious that when renewables hit their generation peaks most traditional thermal generation plants are unable to sell electricity.  That would not be a problem if the construction of these plants had not been financed based upon assumptions regarding how often they would be used and what wholesale electricity prices would be.  In fact, the economics of running these plants has deteriorated to the point where many utilities, especially in Europe, are on a "credit watch".

The rational response of companies trying to sell electricity into a market that has a great over-supply would be to decommission some of the oldest and most polluting plants to bring supply and demand into a better balance.  But there is a problem.  Renewable resources cannot be relied upon, particularly at peak demand times. The chart below displays the wind resource available compared to the demand curve for a week in November, 2013 in Texas (this week was not chosen on purpose to make wind look bad. It was literally the first file I found on the ERCOT site when I was starting to write this blog). 

In this situation demand rose throughout the week as a strong high pressure system spread across the state bringing with it colder temperatures while at the same time shorter days required more lighting.  One of the more troublesome realities of meteorology is that large, stable high pressure systems are often responsible for peak electrical demand in both winter and summer because they are associated with clear skies and temperature extremes.  These systems are also commonly characterized by very low winds across a wide area.

As a result while demand continued to climb wind energy faded away to almost nothing.  At this point most of the thermal generation assets available within Texas had to come on-line in order to meet demand.

So it is impossible to decommission even the oldest and least efficient thermal generation plants in the system regardless of how many wind farms have been built and solar panels deployed.  German utility E.on came face-to-face with that reality in the spring of 2013 when they were instructed by the local grid operator to keep an old plant operational even though it would rarely be needed.

Why the Best Path to a Low-Carbon Future is Not Wind or Solar Power | Brookings Institution

Why the Best Path to a Low-Carbon Future is Not Wind or Solar Power | Brookings Institution

1. What’s it going to cost me?
This is an important question because energy costs are private and owed by everyday consumers, whereas the benefits of reducing carbon use are shared as a global public good. So, what would it cost you and I to move toward a world where we generate electricity through mostly low-carbon technologies? How would the cost per megawatt hour (MWH) and kilowatt hour (KWH) change?
One of the best scenarios for our proposed low-carbon alternatives would be for each of them to replace the use of coal-fired plants when electricity demand is moderate, which is most of the time, and gas simple cycle plants during shorter periods of peak energy use.

The table above compares the cost per kilowatt-hour (KWH) of each of the five low-carbon technologies compared to the cost per KWH of the high-carbon technologies that it replaces. All of the low carbon technologies save on energy costs compared to coal and simple cycle gas plants: wind, solar and hydro because the energy from wind, sun and water is free; nuclear because uranium is cheaper than coal or gas per unit of energy; and gas combined cycle because it is much more energy efficient than coal or gas simple cycle. Four of the five low-carbon technologies, excluding gas combined cycle, have a much higher net capacity cost—that is, the cost of building and maintaining the low-carbon power plants—because all four are much more costly to build and maintain than a new coal or gas simple cycle plant. A gas combined cycle plant saves on capacity costs mainly because it costs about two-thirds less to build than a coal-fired plant.
Adding up the net energy cost and the net capacity cost of the five low-carbon alternatives, far and away the most expensive is solar. It costs almost 19 cents more per KWH than power from the coal or gas plants that it displaces. Wind power is the second most expensive. It costs nearly 6 cents more per KWH. Gas combined cycle is the least expensive. It does not cost more than the cost of power from the coal or less efficient gas plants that it displaces. Indeed, it costs about 3 cents less per KWH.
To place these additional costs in context, the average cost of electricity to U.S. consumers in 2012 was 9.84 cents per KWH, including the cost of transmission and distribution of electricity. This means a new wind plant could at least cost 50 percent more per KWH to produce electricity, and a new solar plant at least 200 percent more per KWH, than using coal and gas technologies.
2. Are the additional costs of wind and solar justified by the benefits of reduced carbon dioxide emissions?
The additional costs of wind and solar could be worthwhile, provided that the value of the emissions they avoid is great enough. However, as the following table shows, if we value the reduced emissions at $50 per ton of carbon dioxide, the benefits of wind and solar, net of their costs, is less than the other three low-carbon alternatives.

The emission benefits of four of the five low-carbon alternatives per KWH are roughly the same, about five cents per KWH. The benefits of wind and solar, minus their additional costs, are negative. The net benefits of the other three alternatives are positive and substantially higher. Gas combined cycle ranks number one in terms of net benefits while hydro and nuclear rank two and three.
A carbon dioxide price of $50 per metric ton places quite a high value on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the price for carbon dioxide emissions in the European Trading System reached a high of about 30 euros in 2006 and was trading around 5 euros at the end of 2013. Recent prices in trading systems in California have been around $12 and in several eastern U.S. states around $2 per ton.
3. Why are the costs per KWH of wind and solar so much higher, and the benefits not much different, than the other three low-carbon alternatives?
Costs are much higher for three reasons. First, the cost per MW of capacity to build a wind or solar plant is quite high (and much greater than that of a gas-fired plant). The cost per MW of solar capacity is especially high. Reductions in the cost of solar-voltaic panels have reduced the cost of building a solar plant by 22 percent between 2010 and 2012, but further reductions are likely to have a lesser effect because the cost of solar panels is only a fraction of the total cost of a utility-scale solar plant.
Second, a wind or solar plant operates at full capacity only a fraction of the time, when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. For example, a typical solar plant in the United States operates at only about 15 percent of full capacity and a wind plant only about 25 percent of full capacity, while a coal plant can operate 90 percent of full capacity on a year-round basis. Thus it takes six solar plants and almost four wind plants to produce the same amount of electricity as a single coal-fired plant.
Third, the output of wind and solar plants is highly variable—year by year, month by month, day by day and hour by hour—compared to a coal-fired plant, which can operate at full capacity about 90 percent of the time. Thus more than six solar plants and four wind plants are required to produce the same output with the same degree of reliability as a coal-fired plant of the same capacity. In the paper we estimate that at least 7.3 solar plants and 4.3 wind plants are required to produce the same amount of power with the same reliability as a coal-fired plant.
By way of contrast, a new low-carbon gas combined cycle or nuclear plant can operate also at 90 percent of full capacity and can replace a coal-fired plant on a one-to-one basis. A hydro plant with storage can operate at 100 percent capacity during peak periods and more than 40 percent during non-peak periods. In dollar terms, it takes a $29 million investment in solar capacity, and $10 million in wind capacity, to produce the same amount of electricity with the same reliability as a $1 million investment in gas combined cycle capacity.
The benefits of reduced emissions from wind and solar are limited because they operate at peak capacity only a fraction of the time. A nuclear or gas combined cycle plant avoids far more emissions per MW of capacity than wind or solar because it can operate at 90 percent of full capacity. Limited benefits and higher costs make wind and solar socially less valuable than nuclear, hydro, and combined cycle gas.
4. How can we be sure that a new low-carbon plant will replace a high-carbon coal plant rather than some other low-carbon plant?
We cannot be sure. If electricity producers do not have to pay a price for the carbon dioxide they emit, the likelihood is great than a new low-carbon plant will replace an existing, low-carbon gas combined cycle plant. The cost of running an existing coal plant is typically much less than running an existing combined cycle plant and the combined cycle plant will be shut down before the coal plant. The reduction in emissions will be far less than if the coal plant is shut down because a coal plant emits about three times as much carbon dioxide as a gas combined cycle plant.
However, if electricity producers have to pay a high enough price for the carbon dioxide they emit, then a coal plant will be shut down before a gas combined cycle plant. The price of carbon dioxide emissions required to tip the balance between shutting down coal and shutting down gas depends on the price of gas relative to that of coal. It also depends on whether we are talking about the short-term choice of running an existing gas plant rather than an existing coal plant or the longer term choice of investing in a new combined cycle gas plant rather than a new coal plant.
In the United States, where the price of natural gas is low compared to most other countries, the price for CO2 emissions had to be about $5 or more in 2013 in order to tip the short-term balance in favor of shutting down coal. At current U.S. gas prices, investment in new gas combined cycle is more profitable than an investment in a coal plant even without any price penalty attached to CO2 emissions.
In Europe, where the price of natural gas is much higher than in the United States, a CO2 emission price of $65 to $85 per metric ton is required to tip the short-term balance in favor of shutting down coal, far higher than the current price of CO2 emissions in the European Trading System. However, the price of CO2 emissions need only be about $12 to $22 per metric ton to tip the longer-term balance in favor of investing in a new gas combined cycle plant rather than a new coal plant.
5. What does this paper have for policymakers interested in reducing carbon dioxide emissions at a reasonable cost?
First, renewable incentives that are biased in favor of wind and solar and biased against large-scale hydro, nuclear and gas combined cycle are a very expensive and inefficient way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Second, renewable incentives in the absence of a suitably high carbon dioxide price are even less effective, because without a carbon price renewable energy will replace low-carbon gas plants rather than high-carbon coal plants.
Third, renewable incentives should be based not on output of renewable energy but on the reduction in CO2 emissions by renewable energy. They are not the same thing.
Fourth, a carbon price is far more effective in reducing carbon emissions precisely because it is not biased toward any one technology but rewards any technology that reduces emissions at a reasonable cost.
Fifth, the benefits of a natural gas combined cycle plant are not dependent on the natural gas fracking revolution in the United States. Combined cycle plants are highly beneficial even in Europe, where natural gas prices are higher and fracking more limited. The problem in Europe is that the price of CO2 emissions in the European Trading System is far too low to encourage production of electricity by gas rather than coal.
Sixth, even though the electricity sector accounts for only 40 percent of worldwide carbon emissions, cleaner electricity can reduce CO2 emissions in other sectors, for example by reducing the carbon footprint of electric vehicles and home heating.
Finally, the electricity sector offers one of the simplest and most cost effective ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Simply replacing all high-carbon U.S. coal plants with any of the five low-carbon alternatives can reduce U.S. CO2 emissions in the electricity sector by 50 to 70 percent. The potential reductions in other countries, such as China where coal is more important, are even greater.

'What's the Worst That Can Happen?' - WSJ.com

'What's the Worst That Can Happen?' - WSJ.com

It's been a Facebook meme.  What if we create planet-friendly green energy, end pollution, create millions of jobs, and it turns out we didn't need to?

If you count only the possible benefits of a policy, you can make a great case for that policy.

The "worst that can happen" is that we spend trillions of dollars trying to solve a problem that we can't do anything to stop; that we misallocate scarce resources in a way that slows economic growth; that slower growth leads to less economic opportunity for Boston College grads and especially the world's poor, and that America and the world become much less wealthy and technologically advanced than we would otherwise. All of which would make the world less able to cope with the costs of climate change if Mr. Kerry is right.

This is why wind energy can neither have nor produce nice things « Hot Air

This is why wind energy can neither have nor produce nice things « Hot Air

The tax credits are more valuable than the energy produced.

National Climate Assessment Report Raises False Alarm | Cato Institute

National Climate Assessment Report Raises False Alarm | Cato Institute

First, the assessment report frequently confuses climate with climate change. The natural climate of the United States is constantly overflowing with extreme weather hazards of all sorts — hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, blizzards, heat waves, hard freezes and on and on. It’s the norm. The assessment would have you think that every time one of these types of events happens, now or in the future, it is because we are emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Such a conclusion is a stretch and has never been proven. A thorough review of climate science would demonstrate that the impact of human-caused climate change on the behavior of most types of extreme weather is poorly understood. Instead, the vagaries of climate dominate our experiences.

Second, greenhouse gas emissions from the United States have a truly minimal and diminishing effect on the future course of the Earth’s climate. Rather, that course is being set by developing nations such as China and, soon, India. Research has shown that eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions from the United States now and forever only mitigates less than two-tenths of a one degree of warming by the end of the century — but the cost to do so would hurt our economy dearly. Few folks are willing to pay such a price for no measureable return.

Third, a growing body of scientific evidence — which is based in observations rather than climate models — strongly suggests that future climate change is going to be smaller than we are commonly told in reports such as this National Climate Assessment or those from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This means that reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from the United States will have even less of an impact than the tiny number mentioned above.

Finally, suggesting that we will be overwhelmed by negative impacts from climate change ignores our demonstrated human ability to respond to environmental challenges. A changing climate is only filled with negatives if we sit unresponsive and let it sweep over us. However, such an outcome is completely at odds with human civilization. The National Climate Assessment seems to sparingly recognize this fact, but then is quick to dismiss it as a way forward.

A glaring example concerns the death toll from heat waves. The assessment tells us that incidents of extreme heat have become more common and longer-lasting, and that we should expect the trend to continue into the future (until presumably that we stop emitting greenhouse gases). The report recognizes that “[s]ome of the risks of heat-related sickness and death have diminished in recent decades, possibly due to better forecasting, heat-health early warning systems, and/or increased access to air conditioning for the U.S. population.” It ignores those findings, though, to conclude “increasingly frequent and intense heat events lead to more heat-related illnesses and deaths.” This is not only a non sequitur but it is also completely wrong.

Scientific literature is chock full of studies that demonstrate that the population’s sensitivity to extreme heat is decreasing, resulting in lower rates of people dying during heat waves. This is true across the United States and in major cities around the world. A new paper by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health examined trends in heat-related mortality across the United States and concluded “[t]his study provides strong evidence that acute (e.g., same-day) heat-related mortality risk has declined over time in the U.S., even in more recent years.” Another recent look into heat-related mortality published in the prominent science journal Nature Climate Change concluded that “climate change itself leads to adaptation” a finding that “highlights one of the many often overlooked intricacies of the human response to climate change.” Such an observation applies directly to the National Climate Assessment.

BULLETIN: U.S. Navy Invents Perpetual Motion Machine | The American Spectator

BULLETIN: U.S. Navy Invents Perpetual Motion Machine | The American Spectator

<>All these stories overlook the inconvenient fact that  it takes energy to do all these things. It takes energy to split hydrogen out of water. It takes energy to synthesize it back into a hydrocarbon. And because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, energy is always lost in the process. Consequently, you always end up with less energy than when you started.

Lots of folks don't understand the Second Law of Thermo.
Interestingly enough, though, when I mentioned this in one forum, someone pointed out this would also be the case with the original hydrocarbon-based fossil fuel -- ignoring the fact that fossil fuels represent energy stored over time, millions of years ago. Fossil fuels are useful only because something else stored all that energy that we're now tapping.

Peer-reviewed, with the reviewers listed in the report.
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/

The newest volumes in the Climate Change Reconsidered series, due for release in April 2014, are Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts and Climate Change Reconsidered II: Human Welfare, Energy, and Policies. Digital versions of the reports’ chapters will be available here as they finish the editing process.

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts constitutes an independent, comprehensive, and authoritative report on the impacts of climate change on plants, terrestrial animals, aquatic life, and human well-being. Climate Change Reconsidered II: Human Welfare, Energy, and Policies then uses economics and policy analysis to explain the implications of climate change on energy production and consumption and a wide range of public policies.

These two volumes are the fifth and sixth in a series of scholarly reports produced by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), an international network of climate scientists sponsored by three nonprofit organizations: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), and The Heartland Institute. Previous volumes in the Climate Change Reconsidered series were published in 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2013. Those volumes along with separate executive summaries for the second, third, and fourth reports are available for free online on this site.

Whereas the reports of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warn of a dangerous human effect on climate, NIPCC concludes the human effect is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs.

Climate Change Reconsidered II consists of three parts, the two being released now and an earlier volume, subtitled Physical Science, released on September 17-18, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois USA. Additional release events took place the following weeks in Washington, DC, New York, Florida, St. Louis, England, Germany, Holland, and California. That volume can be viewed here.

Summary for Policymakers
Front Matter (Foreword, Table of Contents, Executive Summary, and Introduction)
Chapter 1. Carbon Dioxide, Plants and Soils
Chapter 2. Plant Characteristics
Chapter 3. Plants Under Stress
Chapter 4. Earth’s Vegetative Future
Chapter 5. Terrestrial Animals
Chapter 6. Aquatic Life
Chapter 7. Human Health
Appendix 1: Acronyms
Appendix 2:  Authors, Contributors, and Reviewers
Appendix 3:  Plant Dry Weight Responses to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
Appendix 4:  Plant Photosynthesis Responses to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment

Summary for Policymakers
Front Matter (Foreword, Table of Contents, Executive Summary, and Introduction)
Chapter 1. Human Welfare
Chapter 2. Climate Economics
Chapter 3. Climate and Energy
Chapter 4. Policy Implications
Appendix 1: Acronyms
Appendix 2: Authors, Contributors, and Reviewers

Tip Sheet: Hydraulic Fracturing | Heartland Institute

http://heartland.org/policy-documents/tip-sheet-hydraulic-fracturing

Point 1: The Yale Graduates in Energy Study Group found the benefits of hydraulic fracturing exceed the costs by a ratio of 400–1.
Point 2: By using horizontal drilling techniques, producers are able to drill multiple wells from the same drilling pad, reducing surface disturbance while increasing access to oil and gas resources.
Point 3: Fracking fluid is composed of 99.51 percent water and sand, and .49 percent chemical additives, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Such additives prevent corrosion in the well, reduce surface tension in liquids, stabilize clay particles, adjust pH, and eliminate bacteria.
Point 4: Shale gas production consumes less water per unit of energy generated than onshore oil production, ethanol production, and washing coal after it has been mined.
Point 5: Increasing reliance on natural gas has been a key reason why U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have fallen to their lowest levels since 1994 and are not expected to reach their 2005 levels again through 2040.
Point 6: Current available science and track record suggests moratoria on hydraulic fracturing are unnecessary.
Point 7: Low energy costs due to abundant and affordable oil and natural gas are projected to add one million jobs by 2025.

Industry, not environmentalists, killed traditional bulbs | WashingtonExaminer.com

http://washingtonexaminer.com/industry-not-environmentalists-killed-incandescent-bulbs/article/2541430

People often assume green regulations like this represent the triumph of environmental activists trying to save the plant. That's rarely the case, and it wasn't here. Light bulb manufacturers whole-heartedly supported the efficiency standards. General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — the three companies that dominated the bulb industry — all backed the 2007 rule, while opposing proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescent technology (thus leaving the door open for high-efficiency incandescents).

Competitive markets with low costs of entry have a characteristic that consumers love and businesses lament: very low profit margins. GE, Philips and Sylvania dominated the U.S. market in incandescents, but they couldn't convert that dominance into price hikes. Because of light bulb's low material and manufacturing costs, any big climb in prices would have invited new competitors to undercut the giants — and that new competitor would probably have won a distribution deal with Wal-Mart.
So, simply the threat of competition kept profit margins low on the traditional light bulb — that's the magic of capitalism. GE and Sylvania searched for higher profits by improving the bulb — think of the GE Soft White bulb. These companies, with their giant research budgets, made advances with halogen, LED and fluorescent technologies, and even high-efficiency incandescents. They sold these bulbs at a much higher prices — but they couldn't get many customers to buy them for those high prices. That's the hard part about capitalism — consumers, not manufacturers, get to demand what something is worth.
Capitalism ruining their party, the bulb-makers turned to government. Philips teamed up with NRDC. GE leaned on its huge lobbying army — the largest in the nation — and soon they were able to ban the low-profit-margin bulbs.

Six Myths About Renewable Energy - WSJ.com

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324432404579052900100464562?mod=djemITP_h

MYTH NO. 1: Renewables Are an Insignificant Source of Power

One of the most persistent criticisms of renewables is that they account for a fraction of the U.S. electricity system—despite years of federal subsidies and breakneck growth.

When looking at "newer" renewable energies such as wind and solar power, that's largely true. Wind accounts for about 5% of generation capacity and a little over 4% of U.S. electricity production, or roughly one-tenth what coal provides.

But the criticism overlooks one important point: Conventional hydroelectric power, such as the Hoover Dam, is also renewable energy. Taken together, hydroelectric and other sources—biomass, geothermal, solar and wind—combined to account for 12% of U.S. electricity production last year, and close to 14% so far this year. The entire nuclear fleet provides about 19%.

....

MYTH NO. 2: Renewables Can Replace All Fossil Fuels

The flip side of critiques of renewable energy is boosterism. A handful of proponents describe a future where 100% of energy needs can be met affordably and reliably by renewables.

....

In other words, there's no technical reason renewable energy can't provide 80% of the power in the U.S. by midcentury. But there are a host of challenges that would have to be met first.

....

MYTH NO. 3: Renewables Are Too Expensive

Forget about problems down the road. Another criticsm of renewables in the here and now: They're expensive ways to generate electricity.

....

But there are two big issues to bear in mind. First, costs are falling fast—thanks largely to technological advances such as larger wind turbines and cheaper components for solar-power arrays—so in some places, solar and wind power can cost even less.

....

MYTH NO. 4: Variability Dooms Renewable Energy

The sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow, so wind farms and solar arrays generally punch below their weight. A 100-megawatt wind farm will generate on average the equivalent of 34 megawatts of power that's available full time.

....

Still, things are improving rapidly. Consider the situation with wind power. Curtailments have fallen steadily in recent years as system operators have gotten better at using forecasting and integrating wind power. Investment in new transmission lines has also picked up pace, enabling wind farms in isolated locations to offer power more readily to a wider area.

....

MYTH NO. 5: Cheap Natural Gas Is the Enemy of Renewable Energy

With the boom in U.S. natural-gas production, many concluded that renewable energies would be battered by a relatively clean, cheap fuel source. While natural gas has transformed the electricity sector, gas and renewables are actually complementary, not rivals.

....

Granted, cheap natural gas makes it difficult for wind power to compete without federal subsidies. But researchers are finding that gas and wind complement each other as part of a balanced electricity-generation portfolio.

....

MYTH NO. 6: Renewable Energy Means Millions of Green Jobs

During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama touted the prospect that investing in clean energy could produce five million "green jobs." The idea of creating jobs helped underpin the $90 billion clean-energy stimulus in 2009 and later efforts, and remains a staple of administration rhetoric.

But renewable energy has not been the job creator that its boosters envisioned. While the amount of wind and solar power has more than doubled since President Obama took office, renewable-energy jobs have not.

....

Direct-employment numbers from renewable energies are clearer. In 2012, the wind industry said it employed about 81,000, the solar industry employed about 119,000, and geothermal energy may have employed about 20,000. The Hydropower Association estimates the sector employs between 200,000 and 300,000 people today.

(1) Alternative Energy: Should other nations follow Germany's lead on promoting solar power? - Quora

Link: http://www.quora.com/Alternative-Energy/Should-other-nations-follow-Germanys-lead-on-promoting-solar-power-1?share=1#ans3266927

The answer is the most forceful possible no.

Solar power itself is a good thing, but Germany's pro-renewables policy has been a disaster. It has the absurd distinction of completing the trifecta of bad energy policy:

1. Bad for consumers
2. Bad for producers
3. Bad for the environment (yes, really; I'll explain)

Pretty much the only people who benefit are affluent home-owners and solar panel installation companies. A rising tide of opposition and resentment is growing among the German press and public.

I was shocked to find out how useless, costly, and counter-productive their world-renowned energy policy has turned out. This is a serious problem for Germany, but an even greater problem for the rest of the world which hopes to follow in their footsteps. The first grand experiment in renewable energy is a catastrophe! The vast scale of the failure has only started to become clear over the past year or so. So I can forgive renewables advocates for not realizing it yet -- but it's time for the green movement to do a 180 on this.

Review & Outlook: More on Fracking and the Poor - WSJ.com

Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324094704579065432802151184.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

A new report from IHS Global Insight estimates that fracking added the equivalent of a cool $1,200 to real household disposable income on average in 2012.
Lower costs for raw materials were passed on to consumers via lower home heating and electricity bills and lower prices for other goods and services. Wages also increased from a surge in industrial activity. On present trend, IHS predicts that unconventional oil and gas will contribute more than $2,000 a year by 2015 and $3,500 by 2025.
Overall the industry lifted economic growth by $283 billion last year—$533 billion in 2025—and was responsible, ahem, for $74 billion in federal and state tax payments. The politicians should be doing cartwheels that the figure will rise to $138 billion in 2025.