Klamath Claptrap Continued (updated 26sep2011)

George Rebane

Congressman Tom McClintock has delivered some eloquent and incisive critiques in opposition to the intent of California environmental fanatics’ plan to demolish dams on northern California rivers.  These dams provide critical watershed control, agricultural water supply, recreation, and electrical power generation.  The congressman’s article ‘Klamath Claptrap’ is required reading in order to understand the nature of the debate over this issue.  But destroying functional dams as a part of California’s ongoing social(ist) engineering programs highlights the malady that has stricken our state, and is therefore worth study to appreciate our current road to ruin.

Also informative is how the left promotes such destructive policies in the larger and specific sense.  Instructive in this regard are the comments of Mr Steven Frisch appended to the congressman’s article.  (Mr Frisch is president of the non-profit Sierra Business Council, a northern California NGO promoting various environmental and leftwing regulatory causes.)

Discounting Mr Frisch’s regular lapses into blanket vilification and excoriation of other RR readers, his thread of argument and, more strongly, his cited references provide prima facie evidence that corroborate the internationally diagnosed and universally recognized California disease.  For reference, I list and link them here.

1.    ‘Implementing California’s Loading Order for Electricity Resources’, California Energy Commission, July 2005.
2.    ‘Deconstructing the Rosenfeld Curve’, Sudarshan & Sweeney, Stanford University, 1 July 2008.

Reference 1 is actually a 240-page book of the most insidious gobbledygook imaginable put out by the staff of one California’s public agencies that ranks right up there with CARB (California Air Resources Board) in driving the state’s economy into the mud.  The CEC would be a prime candidate for disbanding under a sane state legislature.  The report lays out a roadmap for “demand side management” of electric power in California, spelling out various stratagems for increasing the cost of electricity, making its rationing more facile for the government, and increasing the regulatory burden for everything that uses electricity in the state.

Its implementation will by and of itself explain away the exodus of businesses and investment from the state.  The means and methods it recommends for “distributed generation” of power is a thinly veiled approach to promoting uneconomical and infeasible green energy programs and projects by simply making the more conventional and economical sources (e.g. natural gas) more expensive through new regulatory hurdles, legislative prohibitions, expensive delays, and targeted fee hikes.

The approach to green power is as clear as ever – since green can’t compete on a utilitarian basis, regulate market-driven suppliers into submission to such an extent that the government’s green alternatives remain as the only alternative sources of very expensive energy.  The breezy justifications given for such implementations are based on nothing but progressive diktats for the proper organization of society.  I strongly recommend the more stalwart RR readers to plow through this tome, and challenge anyone to find in it any reasonable basis for tearing down northern California dams.

Reference 2 labors mightily to explain why California’s per capita annual electricity use has been more or less constant over the last forty years at about 7,000 KWh while the rest of the US has risen to 12,000 KWh.  The authors immediately launch into a painfully dissected factor analysis, based on a growing kitbag of assumptions, at the end of which they emerge with the conclusion that about a quarter of the difference is due to California’s history of enlightened regulatory policies (given the authors' institutional home, we are surprised at such a modest fraction).  The remainder being laid to “various structural factors” such as climate and concentration of industry.

The analysis quickly and necessarily becomes opaque in the limited 30-page disclosure.  But what struck me from the gitgo is that they never took a first look at the more simple, robust, fewer, and obvious factors that could well explain away the entire 5,000 KWh difference.  In these we could number the steady exodus of large energy consuming manufacturing businesses, the steady inflow of compactly housed and poor illegal aliens, among the highest electricity costs in the country, and the aggregate gain in energy efficient electronics for California’s large information industry sector (the latter helped by locating its huge energy-hungry server farms in states with much lower electricity costs thereby adding to their per capita consumptions).

Once more, there is nothing in Reference 2 that recommends California’s energy future should now continue with the destruction of California’s dams and water conservation reservoirs.  But the report is again worth at least a perusal, since it forms the ‘rigorous basis’ for the progressives' plan forward for California.  Almost no one reads these sleepers.  Of the remaining, few understand their methods and intentions, and yet all of the leftwing chorus wave them at us in defense of their next encroachments into our lives and businesses.  Dangerous stuff indeed.

[26sep2011 update]  RR has reviewed the recent Spanish experience in its embrace of renewable green energy sources.  It was an unmitigated economic disaster, counting among its effects the loss of 2.5 jobs for every job it claimed to have created.  A reader forwarded me a pdf of the definitive study of this public policy debacle from which Spain has yet to recover.  It is the March 2009 report – ‘Study of the effects of public aid to renewable energy sources’ – by Dr Gabriel Calzeda Alvarez et al of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos.  The reading of its 'Executive Summary: Lessons from the Spanish Renewable Bubble' should be enough to convince the reader why Agenda 21 proponents have quietly suppressed this experience in the United States, and why EU countries have implemented a pause in their recent rush to green.  There is a lot to digest here.

Comments

[Russ Steele]

We all have an instrument of “demand side management” on the corner of your house or garage, it is called a “SmartMeter.” It is only the camel’s nose under the tent. The next big push will be to legislate that all domestic devices that consume an X factor of electrical energy must be connected to the SmartMeter so that they can in fact implement “demand side management.” Right now it is just an environmental myth until your AC and appliances are connected, and you have to have a soft liberal brain to allow that.

And, “distributed generation” is a dog whistle code word for solar panels on every home and business owners roof. Frisch likes "dog whistle" code words.

One of the reasons that SBC opposes shale gas fracking is that this 60 year old technology supports the development of low cost gas fields. Shale gas has driven down the cost of natural gas over the past two year and it is expected to go even lower. As more shale gas enters the market, the cost differential between alternative energy and natural gas grows larger and larger, making alternative energy even less economically sustainable. When these two reports were written in 2005 and 2008, shale gas was just becoming a factor.

The mental giants from Stanford University write:

. . . we find that up to about 23% of the overall difference between California and the United States could be due to policy measures, the remainder being explained by various structural factors.

Your dam right, there were some policy measures! Those policies increased the cost of energy and business started leaving the state. The switch to alternative energy, which is less reliable than hydro or gas boiler, caused the big server farms to move to states with more reliable power. In Silicon Valley the IC manufactures all moved off shored, those chip foundries were huge power consumers, with the furnaces running 24/7 year around. All that IC manufacturing is gone -- off shore. Changes in the environmental regulations drove the small refineries our of business in California, the cement plants as well. Both big energy consumers. Hell yes there were“various structural factor” all of them man made in the California legislature.

[bill tozer]

This article is so disturbing that one must look at the bright side. Imagine if you will a friendly green to the max tree hugging organic farmer in the Klamath Basin told that the water supplies to his farm will be suspended indefinitely.

[stevenfrisch]

Amazing how completely oblivious to simple economics you guys are. Californians use half as much power as the average US citizen. Because of that we save money, to the tune of billion of dollars a year. We achieve this through a combination of conservation and implementing the loading order. It is that simple.

You can spin, and select, the data all you want, but that's the truth.

[George Rebane]

Nobody has disputed the per capita use statistic. Its achievement though is through one of the most foolish and repressive package of policies on this planet. The cost to the citizens of California of 'managed demand' is an economy on its butt, jobs leaving California by the thousands, high unemployment, a disgruntled and proudly ignorant electorate, public services cut on the working end and grown on the friction end, and no plan forward save to double down by increasing taxes and regulating more.

We pay at the highest of national rates for using the least energy - now that mind-boggler is a complete synopsis of the socialist's "simple economics". If we're so proud of our current per capita usage rate, let's triple the cost of electricity and see how much more proud we can be then. And I bet there are people at CEC and CARB working on that as their next chapter of social justice.

There is no spinning or selection of data, just count the moving trucks. California is now the home of the zombie economy based on a zombie ideology.

[Todd Juvinall]

Per capita costs SteveF. We have one of the highest if not the highest. Get educated.

[Todd Juvinall]

One more thing. Since government is mandating something like 30% of our juice to be from the highest per kilowatt sources by 2020 or so, tell us SteveF, what do you think the bill per capita will do?

[stevenfrisch]

Todd I posted direct conformation that our per capita cost is lower than the average American. I think what you mean is per Kwh.

Lets do the math:

If the average Californian used 7500 Kwh @ .18 per Kwh they would pay $1,350 per year.

If the average American uses 15000 Kwh @ .12 per Kwh they would pay $1,800 per year.

The cause of California's economic malaise is not power prices. It was bad economic policy at the national level, most particularly in banking and housing.

By the way Russ SBC does not "oppose shale gas fracking"--we have never taken any position as an organization on shale gas fracking--so why the lie?

You guys are insane--pure and simple.

[George Rebane]

Well, at least now we have a lucid home-grown version of ‘It was all someone else’s fault’ – Obama blames the national economy on Bush2, and California progressives blame its decades long slide into shambles on the feds. From this interval the Democrat controlled Sacramento emerges clean as the fresh driven snow.

And here’s a sample of zombie economics to illustrate how Californians save a billion annually on their decline into destitution. Now put your progressive thinking cap on to really appreciate this.

On day one all in the US pay the same amount, say, $0.20 per KWh, and all use on the average 5,000 KWh per year for a total annual cost of $1,000. Now the rest of the country’s electricity costs go to, say, $0.30 per KWh and their usage goes to 12,000 KWh for an annual cost of $3,600. In the same interval Californians’ cost goes to $0.60 per KWh, and for some mysterious reasons they wind up using only 7,000 KWh for a total annual cost of $4,200.

Now you would think that this indicates that Californians are paying more for less – paying $600 more for 5,000 KWh, or a greater than 40% reduction of electricity delivered to every Californian. In short, the Californian seems to be getting screwed. But that’s only because you don’t have your progressive thinking cap cinched on tight enough.

The progressive looks at this situation completely differently. To him the normal pre-regulated situation is one where the Californian pays $0.60 per KWh for 12,000 KWh, which comes to an annual cost of electricity at $7,200. Since the Californian actually pays $4,200 annually, this is a ‘demonstrated savings’ of $3,000 each and every year. Now with such good news from our progressive mavens, shouldn’t we all be happy dancing in the streets? Capice?

(Now undo the strap on your progressive thinking cap, and resume normal breathing. But you may still need it if you decide to risk reading Russ Steele's report of the latest stellar idiocy planned by the state's socialists here
http://2012nevadacounty.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/oh-my-god-californias-final-days-are-near/ )

[Todd Juvinall]

George, thanks for making it so clear how a liberal like Frisch thinks. No wonder he needs government grants.

You remember the liberals trashing the the Republicans in the late 90's over school lunches? They were screaming it was cuts and the mainstream stenographers of the press dutifully reported it their way. Well, the DC cut is actually a reduction in the rate of the budget increase! The school lunch program was in real dollars increasing but since the liberals used the Frisch syndrome of monetary calculation, they called it a cut. Frisch is certainly mentally and mathematically challenged. Very childlike too.

[Russ Steele]

Steven, You wrote:

By the way Russ SBC does not "oppose shale gas fracking"--we have never taken any position as an organization on shale gas fracking--so why the lie?

OK, I gues it was you that had take a position and not SBC. In Nov 7, 2010 you wrote:

By the way 'fracking' is still bullhockey.....there is NO WAY to evaluate the impacts, particularly on water.

Steven Frisch said:
That answer set in with the advocates of alternative and renewable energy sources you have commonly demonized here as un-realistic and single minded a long time ago. We have been saying all along that the answer to America's energy problem is not immediate turning away from fossil fuels, it is in the gradual reduction in our dependence on fossil fuels. You just have not been able to listen. By the way 'fracking' is still bullhockey.....there is NO WAY to evaluate the impacts, particularly on water.
Reply | Edit | View | Nov 7, 2010 on Is reality setting …

If I could I would edit the post to indicate it was you and not SBC that said fracking is bullhockey.

[Todd Juvinall]

He is a founding member of the rent seeking non profit so I would suggest it is SBC's position. It always cracked me up when people like him would testify at a hearing as an individual then return to the rostrum later as a member of some board of eco. It is the only way I have seen where a person can be two things at once, I called them schizo's.

[Russ Steele]

I am sending copies of Dr Gabriel Calzeda Alvarez study to all the political leaders in my e-mail address book. This study needs to get as broad of distribution as possible. It might even be helpful if they get multiple copies.

[Mikey McD]

One of these days the central planners will win a battle, until then they should all eat crow. The central planners make decisions in a vacuum and wonder why they fail in the complex system that is the real world. They hypocritically use government as a club and then bitch about the same club being used by Wall St. (big oil, the rich). They ignore the fact that power would be 1/10th the cost if the likes of the E.P.A. and laughing stock CARB had an ounce of common sense. They ignore the fact that drilling for oil here may have actually meant no Iraq wars (plural) and $.5 gallon gas.

[D. King]

"They ignore the fact that drilling for oil here may have actually meant no Iraq wars (plural) and $.5 gallon gas."

Amen Mikey!

[Russ Steele]

Mikey,

Great insight. I had never thought about the Iraq war in those terms. No need for Middle East Oil if we had our own. Excellent!

[George Rebane]

For the sake of perspective, for some years (especially when world oil was cheap and its total amount was considered limited) there was also a strategic reason to establish and maintain reliable foreign sources of the stuff - better we use up theirs first before depleting our own. This established a lot of policy, including letting the eco-nuts create the 'oil is bad' tenet that has had its greatest impact on domestic production.

And then oil got expensive and its sources unreliable.

[Todd Juvinall]

George, I have a 40 year friend who was in the oil leasing equipment business in the late 70's and early 80's who told me then the oil companies in Texas where he was, were drilling and capping thousands of wells for the very reason you spoke of.

[Bonnie M]

I suggested to Tom that he emphasize that taxpayers built the dams on the Klamath and they belong to the people.

[stevenfrisch]

I think the most important electricity rate issue no one here is acknowledging is that energy efficiency is less than half the cost of building new facilities. Whether your source of electricity is an Investor Owned Utility or a Publicly Owned Utility if you do not conserve energy you will either have to pay higher rates or higher taxes to pay for new production.

IT is that simple. Saving energy saves money.

[George Rebane]

SteveF 704am - can you relate your assertion to how it supports the expensive destruction of expensive infrastructure that has and continues to benefit the region?

[Todd Juvinall]

Conservation is fine as a part of the use of energy but when the elite solutions are dissected for their costs, they are simply unaffordable. Solar manufacturers get huge subsidies, the utility company charge a fee on our bills then redistribute the money to the "poor" and then when one builds a home the solar panels and their installation is also subsidized. The amortization show the cost is never paid back. These dams were built and provide the people many things, not just electricity. Most dams get paid for after so many years and like NID here, reaps the benefits which enable them to sell water cheaper and to hook up more people to clean water. The left simply has a blind eye because their agenda is clear. SteveF is involved in grants of tax money for these alternative and costly programs and his "non-profit" skims their piece of the action.