Very civil discourse focused on content and issues, not personalities. Unlike in my recent debate with some anti-coal fanatics who cannot sustain a debate on issues and would quickly slide into personally attacking those who support a coal power plant or those who cast doubts on the renewables. See the 23+ pages debate here, Energy Econ 6: Intolerance in Anti-Coal Hysteria, Cadiz Coal Project, September 17, 2012.
Before that, let me insert this good chart about the estimated generation cost of various power sources in the US about four years from now.
Source: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm
Reposted with discussion by Willis Eschenbach, The Dark Future of Solar Electricity, December 03, 2011.
Here is our discussion. The related tables and charts mentioned here are posted in my article,
Energy Econ 2: Renewable Energy and High Electricity Prices, July 30, 2012.
July
28-30, 2012
Eto na, eto na, how
climate alarmism and racket would further rob more money from us, energy
consumers.
The guys who were
clapping their hands in making our energy prices become even higher are among
the champions of climate alarmism racket:
See my brief discussion
how Tony la Vina, WWF and Greenpeace fear of being followed even on twitter by
people who question their warming religion,
Climate Tricks 13: Block Skeptics
and Keep Fooling the Public, July 25, 2012.
The WB and ADB climate
and energy loans racket should be jumping also with joy with this
development.
About 2 or 3 years ago,
PDE organized a forum in UPSE about "burning planet and climate
mitigation" something like that. The 2 speakers were the head of the
Carbon Finance Solutions (CAFIS) and the chief economist of ADB, a Japanese I
think. Among those who gave welcome remarks were SE faculty member and now NEDA
chief Arsi Balisacan and Prof. Noel de Dios.
During the open forum, I
explicitly argued that the things that the CAFIS and ADB guys are saying are
based on very wrong premise -- that of an ever-warming, unequivocally warming
world due to more CO2 emission due to more humanity's modernization. The most
recent temperature data, air and tropospheric temp., land and sea surface
temp., are declining or at least flat-lining despite rising CO2 concentration
reaching around 390 ppm.
Know what the CAFIS and
ADB guys said? They are no scientists and they cannot comment on those things,
but what they offer are means to mitigate man-made warming and climate change, adapt humanity to such CC.
Hogwash. They cannot
defend a corrupted political science by the UN (IPCC, FCCC, UNEP, etc.)
masquerading as climate science, but we should nonetheless accept their proposals
-- more climate loans, more RE loans, more carbon regulations and taxation,
etc.
And this RE law and the
FIT scheme, along with the renewable portfolio standards (RPS) or mandatory,
coercively enforced, minimum percentage of power to be sourced from RE
companies, are running along those large-scale rackets.
The ADB, along with the
UN and WB, should be ashamed. But I think shame is not part of their genes
because they keep repeating the bleeding heart mantra of "saving the
planet". What they really mean I think is saving their pockets and high
flying lifestyle.
Any brave warming
propagandists, man-made climate change campaigners and loan racketers, please
stand up. UPSE or other groups can possibly sponsor a public debate on this
endless warming racket. My beef is that there is not a single brave soul in the
warming racket willing to defend this high level scam. But I really wish to be
disproven.
-- Nonoy
Looks like we
got stuffed again! That's what happens when you've got technocrats,
bureaucrats, and politicians running the show. We lack power and the solution
is to give us more expensive power. Ocean power my foot! Whenever you increase
the cost of power in a poor economy, you exacerbate the lack of power. Any
enterprise that needs crutches, especially on market share, has no reason for
being. The science is out there; it's the warped philosophy that stinks!
-- Ed Miguel
I remember a number of
groups tried to fight it at the ERC, but only after the
fact...and of course lost The problem was that the poor
govt bureaucrats really have little choice but to implement this
perverse policy, because it IS the law. Not entirely their fault.
The real wonder is how it became law in the first place without us knowing. It
somehow managed to excape the public radar/scrutiny along the way.
The public debates seemed to have started only after the law was already
passed.
Well, one way the public
can fight back, is to remember the names of every politician
who co-authored. Some of them will be contenders in the
coming local and national elections. They can each be made to account at
every step along the campaign trail. And their opponents can also be
fed some fodder. Make some stink. Especially if you believe they sold you crap.
If word gets around, they just might relent and retract a bad law before
election time. (Maybe). Bring the battle back to their backyard, where it
should have erupted in the first place..
-- Gary Makasiar
Right Gary, we are
actually helpless because the FIT, RPS and related rackets are in the law. In
fairness to the ERC, they postponed its implementation for 3 years, instead of
just 1 year as stated in RA 9513.
The legislators who
enacted this law actually played along cha-cha, tango, with the climate
alarmists headed by then DOE Sec. Vince Perez, his buddies in the WWF where he
quickly migrated when his term at DOE ended, Greenpeace karaoke, Oxfam, Tony la
Vina, Migs Zubiri, etc. And as I repeatedly argued, ADB and WB fanned the hype
by conducting several "save the planet" fora and meetings for heads
of governments, their environment and energy officials, and at the end of the
day, they say "help save the planet, we got billions of $ to lend to you."
Of course the mother of
all this corruption is the corrupt UN itself. They said that less rain and more
drought is proof of AGW (anthropogenic global warming). Less snow is proof of
AGW. Now they say more rain and more flood is proof of AGW and man-made CC,
more snow is proof of AGW. And that is how they managed to gather the Kyoto
Protocol, then the various UN FCCC annual global meetings in search of part 2
to Kyoto which will expire end of this year.
One solution to reverse
this racket is to have another law that will repeal RA 9513. But again, it's
another uphill battle as the bleeding heart planet saviors, the UN,
multilaterals, DENR, DOE, CCC, the WWF-Greenpeace-Oxfam triumvirate along with
their local partners, will oppose.
-- Nonoy
August
2-3, 2012
Noy,
I gather from your info
that the ERC is two years behind the deadline provided by law. Is this correct?
In other words, they are already in violation and still no one yet has been
hailed to court. And no one has yet dared hail them to court either. That
could be good news. It means they can even delay their decision
indefinitely at almost zero additional risk to themselves. Somebody
should convey the message, that they have a unique opportunity
to be national heroes.
FIT is really a
worrisome development, and its logic fails at several fronts simultaneously. Is
there any other country that has been similarly hostaged like us, at the altar
of RE????
I dont get how they were
able to calculate the needed cross-subsidy per kwh. for the diff RE types.
I had expected that the absolute value will have to depend on
the actual contribution or generation from an RE form, at any
given point in time, relative to the total power sold on all grids. . Since all
those magnitudes keep changing over time, it baffles me how
they came up with only one fixed figure for each type of RE. Their mathematics
is obviously too advanced for me.
And if RE power
technologies are really that desirable, its contribution should
therefore be expanded. which means there will even be less and less
conventional power to carry the burden of the subsidy as more RE
capacity is loaded onto the system. In layman's terms, that means the
subsidy burden per CE(conventional energy) kwh will also
spike, since its contribution to the grid will be continuously dwindling.
decision
Finally, if the reason
for the cross-taxation is cleaner air, then the entire population,
incl our foreign visitors , (not just local power-users) should be made to
share that burden. In other words, it seems like the type of expense
that a national government should logically shoulder since it benefits
everyone without discrimination. Or at least the cleaner air benefits cannot be
internalized to just a few. Or to just power-users. It doesnt seem
right that only power users be singled out and made to pay. An
alternative approach is to slap a carbon-penalty-tax on power
generated from CE (conventional energy or carbon-emitting)
technology, assuming deadly carbon emissions are for real,
and then make the REs compete freely. Under this scheme, government
at least gets to generate tax revenues. Under the ERC scheme, government gets
nothing. Everything goes to the RE sector. And rates are set at
levels that ensure their survival (including the least
efficient among them...)
What is worse is that
due to uncertainties surrounding solar and wind power (unreliable and
fluctuating intensities), the grids will need a back-up system. And guess what
it will be called? You guessed right, conventional power systems. In
the end , we will have to duplicate RE capacity just the same, with conventional
power, for the occasions that RE will fail to deliver. We
will end up with fully redundant systems. Both soon heavily
underutilized. It wouldn’t hurt so much, if each kwh from the default
system (in this case, the RE systems) were priced at their incremental running
costs, or close to zero. Just like nuclear. But the chances of that
happening are bleak, precisely because of the FIT scheme. Nuclear
would be a more attractive proposition than RE and wont have the carbon
handicap of fossils either. Of course, there is the issue of spent fuels, and
the risk of even just one meltdown. But at least that industry charges close to
zero running costs. With RE, we end up getting stiffed twice...first from
atrociously expensive FIT cross-subsidies, and second, from the
seriously-underutilized capacity redundancy. It is just one absurd
contradiction after another. While investment banker mercenaries are laughing
all the way to the bank, gloating over the need to raise funds for
the installation of un-reliable RE technologies, and then, a second round
of raising funds to build the more-reliable conventional power
systems to serve as back-up. That is called a double whammy. Maybe,
somebody should whisper to those over-eager ERC honchos that their country
needs them to sleep on their jobs a little bit longer. , Noy
Anunda, ikaw na! Tell them...whats a few more years between
fiends.... they shall not be risking much more. They are already
in legal violation anyway
-- Gary
M.
Hi Gary,
to your
questions/comments:
1. ERC is two years
behind the deadline provided by law. Is this correct?
Yes. RA 9513 was signed
December 16, 2008, became effective early 2009. The FIT was supposed to be
announced within one year or early 2010 but was finally announced (and
implemented?) July 2012 or 2 1/2 years delayed. The main reason for the delay I
think, is the opposition to FIT implementation by many groups, the FEF among
them, although I think some FEF guys also support the FIT silently. Tama ba
Alex, Romy?
2. Is there any
other country that has been similarly hostaged like us, at the altar of
RE????
From the presentation by
Vince Perez at the ADB on those renewable/clean energy things, he showed that
China, Indonesia, Korea and Thailand, aside from the Philippines, also have FIT
scheme. But the difference is that these 4 countries do not have renewable
portfolio standard (RPS) or mandatory/minimum percentage of power generation to
be sourced from RE. I showed portions of Vince Perez' slides here, Energy rationing 2: The Renewable
Energy (RE) law.
So the Philippines' RE
law is really more rent-seeking or more parasitic than the RE laws or policies
in Asia. I think this is consistent with the WWF bragging that the Philippines
is #1 worldwide every year, in the glorify darkness for 1 hour, aka Earth Hour
lunacy, of the WWF.
3. if
RE power technologies are really that desirable, its
contribution should therefore be expanded.
Yes, the RE law really
aims that way. Aside from FIT and RPS, REs here are also given (a) capital
subsidies or rebates, (b) tax credits, (c) VAT reduction, (d) tradable
renewable energy certificates (RECs), (e) access to public financing (via ADB
and WB loans?).
Lots of give aways that
are not given to conventional energy sources. It's clear and plain energy
cronyism, in the name of saving the planet from global warming.
4. due to
uncertainties surrounding solar and wind power (unreliable and fluctuating
intensities), the grids will need a back-up system. And guess what it will be
called? You guessed right, conventional power systems.
Right on the money.
Power redundancy yet we pay for expensive FIT. And many solar companies are
closing in the US, Europe, despite their government subsidies and loan guarantees
to them, partly or largely because their generation cost is simply high.
Another example aside from Solyndra in the US, is Abound Solar, also in the US.
From Reuters,
"Abound was still in the earlier stages of technology and commercial development and despite over $220 million in private investment and $70 million drawn from its $400 million U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee, simply didn't have the cost and downstream reach to survive in the tumultuous solar market."
In Germany, some 800,000
people are without electricity due to spiraling energy prices there, again
despite heavy German government subsidies to the renewables,
5. somebody should
whisper to those over-eager ERC honchos that their country needs them to
sleep on their jobs a little bit longer.
Not possible. Even the
Ayalas and the Sys, them who sit on the board of WWF, have also jumped into RE
cronyism because of sure profit while brandishing in their malls and real
estate projects that they also helped save the planet.
I think the only
solution is to have another law that will amend or repeal RA 9513 and abolish
the FIT, RPS and other schemes. But again, this is an uphill battle given the
huge number of trying-hard earth saviors among the population.
But there is one simple
and cute way we can help. If someone sends you photos of those cute wind farms
in Ilocos, or those flashy solar farms, do not forward or glorify those photos.
These are the same RE farms that will punch additional holes in our pocket as
energy consumers.
Lest the average earth
saver demonize me, I am not against RE farms per se. They are cute, they are
renewables. What I am against is the mandatory, coercive subsidies to be given
to those power sources and companies.
I will blog about this
thread once again, thanks again for the blanket permission to post your
comments Gary.
cheers.
-- Nonoy
If the other
countries dont impose mandatory minimum capacities or percentages, then their
nationals are not really hostaged to the same extent we are.
We are pitifully
caught between a rock and a hard place. What a petrifyng thought.
There may be a chance to
get the law amended, if we all forewarn the good authors of the law
that they will publicly be asked to account for the
financial burden they inflicted on the entire electorate,
making our export industries less competitive as well in the
process, when they kickstart
their campaign for the next elections.
(Noy, if my memory
serves me right, the blanket permission to post came with some conditions
that I trust you will respect.) It is news to me that you think
Romy is silently supporting FIT, altho I am aware he represents
Ayala interests in some corporate boards. And Ayala is rumored to have
purchased equity interests in RE technologies, (possibly because of the RE
law and the guaranteed incentives). Altho I overheard otherwise
just last weekend (that he could be a closet objector) .
Well, rumors fly fast and easy and talk is cheap. The only expensive thing
we are sure of at this point, RE & FIT.
In any cartel, the first
cheaters get to pocket the most benefits. Those who dont allow themselves
to be fooled into supporting an unlikely scheme as this , stand to make a
killing, if they stay with cheaper conventional systems that the
gullible will increasingly abandon. The worse part is that the
non-conformers will 'carbon-pollute' the entire planet anyway. Surely, in
the land of the blind, the ASTIG-matic is king!
-- Gary
M
Hi Gary,
Yes, the absence of RPS
scheme in China, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea's FIT system possibly explains why
their energy prices are not that high. In our case, we already have the highest
power rates in Asia without the FIT, so when the FIT racket kicks in, our power
rates will become even more expensive.
I know that Romy B. ever
since is against the FIT; problem is that he works for the Ayalas as a
consultant or board member somewhere, and the Ayalas, along with almost all
taipans in the country, are high profile earth savers, so they put in money for
the RE racket. So Romy cannot be a high profile opponent of the FIT.
Now we see the dots. The
Ayalas, Sys, Gokongweis, etc sit on the board of WWF. These taipans jump into
the save the planet and green earth bandwagon, like the RE racket, eco-bags
promo, etc., and the WWF cadres but coward ideologues move to ensure that the
FIT racket is fully implemented which brings more money to the Ayalas, Vince
Perez and other earth savers.
More proof why I keep
saying that the WWF and other earth savers are a bunch of noisy but coward eco
ideologues?
1. Sometime in November
2009 or Nov. 2010, I gave a talk on the climate racket at the Rotary Club of
Makati Urdaneta. Fine, I showed lots of graphs, charts, satellite pics, that
there is nothing alarming about climate cycles of warming-cooling-warming-cooling,
that we are only alarmed by alarmism.
Then one club member,
Dr. Joji Tan, said that the following week, her cousin, the WWF top guru, Lory
Tan, will be their club speaker to speak on the same topic, Joji asked me if I
can be a panelist to ask questions after Lory's talk, I immediately said Yes.
In my mind, it was one cool way to debate a warming guru.
About three days before
the scheduled talk of Lory Tan, I got a call from their club, kung pwede, I
don't come na lang to be a panelist, since it might cause some divisiveness in
the club on the issue. Well what can I do, you got disinvited, so ok. Of course
my friend in the club would not admit that Lory or other WWF honchos is a
coward if questioned point blank with really difficult data.
2. Months before that, I
emailed Lory and Yeb Sano of WWF about my presentations in other groups about
the issue. The response is usual: the sound of silence. Later on, Yeb Sano
would migrate from a WWF campaigner to a government bureaucrat aka one of the
commissioners of the climate change commission (CCC) and hence, would be
representing the Philippines in various global climate junkets, along with Tony
la Vina, known as UN FCCC meetings, and the various pre-summit meetings held
every 2 months on average.
3. April 22, 2009, aka
"Earth Day" I also gave a talk at the Rotary Club of Makati McKinley
about climate. It was a depressing day for the warmists because April-May each
year are the driest, warmist months of the year. But that day, or that week, and
the succeeding weeks, it was raining almost everyday. Anyway, my co-speaker
there was Ms. Tony Loyzaga (?), the head of the Manila Observatory. I spoke
before her, and I was explicit in my presentation that the UN IPCC is a liar
when it comes to their AGW claim. Since the Manila Observatory, along with
PAGASA, is among the local partners of the IPCC in generating local
"proof" of alarming global warming, I expected Ms. Loyzaga to
question some of my presentations, but she did not. Her presentation was about
how prone the Philippines is to CC like the fiction story called ever-rising
sea level.
I would be happy if this
email will be forwarded once again to the WWF eco nuts so they will summon some
courage to disprove that they are not cowards when challenge to a debate.
-- Nonoy
Noy, not all who jump
into the bandwagon do so for the exact same reasons. others may jsut be fending
off a public relations backlash without necessarily genuflecting at the
altar...... for instance, you could publicly renounce your beliefs and join
them too, and be a spy.(but i suppose your friends there have anticipated
that already with the kind of noise you make) anyway, have you checked if
those biodegradable plastic shopping bags work?
On a related note, it is
time we start a serious public debate/discussion regarding
public transport systems and road-use polcy. who is the upseea expert on that?
Can we hear from him? o ikaw din yun..?i
we dont have the FIT
yet, so it would be premature to blame our higher power rates on FIT.
there mus be another culprit(s). One is that we dont have an identical
fuel mix, because we are not all similarly endowed (especially with capital and
forex exchange resources). Many of them have relied on 'cheaper' nuclear
power way ahead of everybody else's curve (japan, france, us, uk, west g, etc).
the trade off they have accepted is that they chose risk plant
technical malfunctions as happened in chernobyl or 3 mile island or
japan. tahn be hunkered down by more expensive fossil fuels. after a
plant malfunctions, i am not sure how their accounting practices go. if a plant
is pulled out from the power grid, it is possible they also yank it
off the power sector accounting books with permission of the multilateral
institutions, lest the third world badmouths the nuclear industry which they
were also trying to prop up for possible exports to developing nd emerging
economies. ..their central govts may have chosen to underwrite the
clean-up costs from their general revenues, than risk public outcry if they imposed
same on power consumers.. .that way, the clean-up costs prolly get
reflected only in the national budget accounts, and not on power accounts,
relieving power tariffs of upward pressure. That would give the
impression (ilusion?) of cheaper power. But there is possibly
another culprit. our EPIRA needs reviewing, if not outright repealing. it
certainly was not necesssary.
-- Gary
M.
You're a
gunslinger Noysky so they don't want to go to OK Corral with you. What they
want is token opposition that will fold easily to make their side look good.
That's not you; you're scorched earth man!
-- Ed Miguel
---------
See also:
Fat-Free Econ 16: Coal, Climate and Government, July 17, 2012
Energy Econ 3: Market Reforms in India's Electricity Sector, July 30, 2012
Energy Econ 4: Oil Prices and Taxes, August 27, 2012
Energy Econ 5: Coal Power in Cadiz, Negros Occidental, September 06, 2012
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