Stung by the FBI's and CDC's claim to the co-title as the least-trusted government institution, the Department of Energy makes its move
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energy secretary jennifer granholm: once a bimbo, always …
New Biden Inflation Act will cut CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030, Energy Department study “concludes”
… The first official federal calculations, shared with The Associated Press before its release Thursday, say that between the bill just signed and last year’s infrastructure spending law, the U.S. by the end of the decade will be producing about 1.26 billion tons less carbon pollution than it would have without the laws. That saving is equivalent to about the annual greenhouse gas emissions of every home in the United States.
The Energy Department analysis finds that with the new law by 2030, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions should be about 40 percent lower than 2005 levels, which is still not at the U.S. announced target of cutting carbon pollution between 50 percent and 52 percent by the end of the decade. But that 40 percent reduction is similar to earlier calculations by the independent research firm Rhodium Group, which figured cuts would be 31 percent to 44 percent and the scientists at Climate Action Tracker, which said the drop would be 26 percent to 42 percent.
Most of the projected emissions reductions in the nearly $375 billion spending package would come in promoting “clean energy,” mostly solar and wind power and electric vehicles, the federal analysis said. More than half of the overall projected emission drops would come in how the nation generates electricity, the analysis said. About 10 percent of the savings in emissions come from agriculture and land conservation.
The new law’s provisions that call for oil and gas leasing on federal land and water “may lead to some increase” in carbon pollution, the federal analysis said, but the other provisions to spur cleaner energy cut 35 tons of greenhouse gas for every new ton of pollution from the increased oil and gas drilling.
Outside experts (sic) say the new law is a big step for the United States, but it’s still not enough considering that America is the biggest historic carbon polluter, had done little for decades and lags behind Europe.
One wouldn’t think that citing Europe as a model for fossil fuel curtailment is the best tactic here, as that continent prepares to freeze to death and shut down its industries this winter, but leaving that aside, does any rational being (which excludes everyone in Washington, and all the leftist sponge brains) really believe that the wonderful new green infrastructure, dependent as it is on yet-to-be-invented technology, trillions of dollars that must be spent developing new mines, steel, chip, and battery factories, and the elimination of environmental laws that allow opponents to block wind and solar farms for decades, will all be accomplished in eight years? Or eighty? It’s a bait and switch operation, where our betters bait the gullible masses with a promise of salvation from the end of the earth, before switching to an even more powerful centralized government
As an aside, but important nonetheless, notice the fudge term employed here: “biggest historic carbon polluter”. The global warming mob uses this deliberately, for two reasons:
White guilt. The industrial revolution, which lifted the entire world’s living standards, originated in the west, and so our history of using fossil fuels is longer. Note that during most of those years of “carbon polluting” we, and the rest of the world, were using a fraction of what’s being consumed today, but the guilters don’t mention that, because it would undermine their argument that the west somehow “owes” our Asian and African an unspecified, nonspecific debt.
It distracts attention from the actual reality, which is this: as John Kerry noted, we could cut our emissions to zero, and because of China’s, India’s, and the Third World’s huge consumption of coal and oil, our beggaring of ourselves would make no difference. Because the goal of the warmists is the destruction of the west, this is not something they’d like us to know.
Leaving behind U.S. oil consumption in 1910, what’s happening today?
China’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 were more than that of the United States, the European Union, and India combined. In 2020, China’s carbon dioxide emissions were 10.7 billion metric tons compared to 9.7 billion metric tons for the next 3 largest emitters combined. Since 2000, China’s carbon dioxide emissions grew by a factor of 3. They increased 1.4 percent in 2020, while most other countries saw a decrease in emissions in 2020 due to lockdowns caused by the coronavirus. In 2020, carbon dioxide emissions were down 10.6 percent in the United States, 10.9 percent in the European Union and 7.3 percent in India. China’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2021 are expected to increase by 4 percent to 11.1 billion metric tons, contributing to the 4.9 percent growth in worldwide emissions, which are expected to reach 36.4 billion metric tons.
China’s carbon dioxide emissions come principally from coal, which is used extensively for electric generation and in industrial processes in China. China’s increased demand for electricity could bring development of up to 150 gigawatts of new generation coal capacity by year-end 2025, putting China’s known coal-fired generation capacity at 1,230 gigawatts—about 6 times the U.S. coal-fired generating capacity. China already accounts for over half of all global coal-fired electricity output. Coal consumption is expected to produce over 70 percent of China’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2021 (a growth rate of 2.5 percent from 2020), followed by oil consumption at a distant 16 percent. Coal consumption also is expected to produce over 70 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in India, with oil consumption also coming in at a distant second.
So I’m convinced: the Department of Energy is entitled to share the title of the least-trusted institution with its co-conspirators at our intelligence and public health institutions. But our media, which repeats and disseminates the lies of its masters, can have a medal too.
