Promising the Impossible

Next week we will probably see the globe-trotting President off to Copenhagen. He's going early in the conference probably to avoid some sort of collapse at the end of the meeting which would be attributed as yet another Bamster slap-down by the world which he so wants to love him.

This professor from MIT who is clearly knowledgeable about the issues of carbon mitigation and the goals of Copenhagen is describing what the Messiah will promise and what it will mean to deliver it:

We Will Destroy the Economy to Save It

First let us note that the author does not base his piece on Climate-gate or the now completely discredited manipulations of the CRU at East Anglia. He's "fair and balanced" in simply saying that this is what will be promised and then this is how the numbers crunch to make that happen. No value judgments of good or bad. As Joe Friday used to say, "just the facts, Ma'am, just the facts."

Bamster will unilaterally promise to reduce the US carbon emissions by 83%. That means a current per-capita emission of 5.5 tons per year will be reduced to 0.63 tons. We will be at about 12% of our current carbon dioxide emissions.

To do that, he calculates:

1. 30,000 new megawatts of wind power per year for the next forty years--that's four times the increase of the record year, 2008


2. 35,000 new megawatts of photovoltaic power per year (that's solar for those in Granbury) for the next forty years--that's 100 times the increase of last year


3. Multiply the nuclear reactor fleet by five times--unlikely due to the mindless opposition of the eco-freaks


4. Convert all coal-fired power plants to carbon capture and double the total number


5. Finally figure out how to run a reliable power grid with dependenc upon that much wind and solar energy

So, what does that mean for us if we recognize that those are currently unattainable goals and failure in any of them means failure of the program?

It means lights go out. It means air conditioning and heating of our buildings is drastically curtailed. It means factory production is stifled. It means products which currently travel from farm or factory to market will have to become dependent upon fleets of electric or bio-fueled vehicles. It means prices will go up to cope with increased production costs. It means taxes will rise exponentially to build all of those windmills and solar panels and nuclear power plants. When prices go up and taxes go up we slough off jobs and reduce our standard of living.

There is no up side to that picture. And, most importantly, the professor doesn't even mention that fact that the entire "problem" may be fictitious and based on perversion of data for the benefit of a small ideologically driven cadre.