Heating Homes with Coal on This Day in History

 

Jesse Fell burned anthracite on an open grate as an experiment in heating homes with coal on this day in 1808.

Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the highest ranking of coals.

Anthracite was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel in the US on 11 February 1808, by Judge Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on an open grate in a fireplace. Anthracite differs from wood in that it needs a draft from the bottom, and Judge Fell proved with his grate design that it was a viable heating fuel. In spring 1808, John and Abijah Smith shipped the first commercially mined load of anthracite down the Susquehanna River from Plymouth, Pennsylvania, marking the birth of commercial anthracite mining in the United States. From that first mine, production rose to an all-time high of over 100 million tons in 1917.

These days, "coal is enjoying a renaissance the likes of which it has not seen since the industrial revolution. In addition to soaring coal power use in the US (after the sector was left nearly for dead under Obama), China, the world’s biggest coal consumer, is expanding production of the fuel and its use in power generation, spooked by shortages last year that caused electricity cuts and outages throughout the country, energy experts say.

India is also leaning hard on coal as energy demand increases. The nation’s coal-power generation hit a record in April, said Rahul Tongia, a senior fellow at New Delhi-based think tank the Centre for Social and Economic Progress.

Domestic coal production in China and India helped drive a 10% increase in global investment in 2021, the International Energy Agency reported last month. The IEA projects another 10% increase this year as China and India try to stave off shortages." Source

“The developing world overwhelmingly uses fossil fuels because that is by far the lowest-cost way for them to get reliable energy. Unreliable solar and wind can’t come close. That’s why China and India have hundreds of new coal plants in development.” Alex Epstein on Twitter

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Enron's Bankruptcy on This Day in History

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This day in history: American energy company Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on this day in 2001. 

From Thomas J. DiLorenzo: 

In the eyes of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, nearly everything that goes wrong in the world is caused by the fact that government is not big and powerful enough. In a mid-December 2001 column he blamed both the bankruptcy of Enron and the collapse of the Argentine economy on deregulation. But, as is so often the case with Krugman, the facts point in the opposite direction.

He claims that the Enron bankruptcy was all “about doing away with regulation” of energy prices and of financial trading. Huh? The regulatory budgets of both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are at all-time highs, and they employ more regulatory bureaucrats than ever. If anything, the Enron debacle proves once again the ineffectiveness of SEC and CFTC regulation. Enron collapsed despite layers and layers of financial regulation.

Krugman’s claim that Enron used its “political clout” to create a “regulatory black hole” in energy markets is equally absurd. There has been very little, if any, deregulation of energy markets: oil, electric power, and natural gas remain among the most heavily regulated industries in the United States, as they have been for over a century. Radical environmentalists in and outside government continue to impose a regulatory blockade on energy development. What Krugman calls “deregulation” is really re-regulation, or a change in the form of regulation. A good example is California’s crazy electric power regulatory regime that blocks energy development while placing price controls on power, thereby guaranteeing periodic shortages and blackouts. He routinely misleads his readers by referring to this Byzantine regulatory morass as “deregulation.”

Like other anti–free-market commentators, Krugman also spreads the false tale that Enron’s chairman, Ken Lay, was a free-market disciple. This too is, well, baloney. Lay was a member of the group of extreme anti-capitalist ideologues known as the Union of Concerned Scientists. He was also a strong supporter of the Kyoto global-warming treaty. He supported this treaty (which the Bush administration refused to sign on to), because he wanted his company to profit from another Byzantine regulatory scheme concocted by the government: the trading of carbon dioxide emission permits. Lay wanted government-imposed restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions to create an artificial market for air pollution “credits” to be purchased to burn coal. A government-controlled and -supervised “market” is not a genuine market, of course, but more like the failed experiments in “market socialism” that occurred in some of the former communist countries.

Enron collapsed primarily because it made some bad business decisions. It reportedly invested billions in failed power plant, utility, pipeline, and waterworks companies in India, Brazil, and Great Britain. When the profits from these investments failed to materialize, investors got wise and dumped Enron stock. The energy-trading business is competitive and, as with all competitive industries, market leaders can expect their profits to be whittled away by new competitors.

If there was accounting fraud, that’s not a result of “deregulation” but the fact that there are sinners in all walks of life. Governments commit accounting fraud all the time; during the Clinton administration it was reported by Gene Epstein of Barron’s that the Social Security and Federal Highway Trust Funds were being plundered and the money placed into the current-year budget so that Clinton and Congress could take credit for balancing the budget. But don’t expect Krugman ever to call for smaller government whenever such fraud is uncovered.

In this respect Enron’s demise is an example of free-market success. The energy trading market in general is thriving; the fact that one firm that once had 25 percent of that market has left the industry is by no means an example of “market failure.”

Wrong on Argentina Too

Krugman is just as wrongheaded in his comments on Argentina. He blames the entire collapse of the Argentine economy on one thing: that country’s adoption of currency boards, as have been advocated by such free-market economists as Steve Hanke of Johns Hopkins University. Once again Krugman commits the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy (after this, therefore because of this). Yes, a currency board existed in Argentina, and yes, its economy has gone down the tubes. But Krugman never even attempts to prove causation. Anything that smells like a free-market institution must, in Krugman’s mind, be the culprit.

In reality, the fault lies with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S. government, which have been subsidizing Argentina’s failed statist economic policies for many decades. The IMF promised to subsidize Argentina’s currency-board regime, which caused a flood of investment in Argentine bonds. The Argentine government was known to be hopelessly spendthrift and corrupt, but with the IMF’s guarantee, international investors began earning above-average returns on Argentine bonds with what they saw as virtually no risk. IMF funding created a massive moral-hazard problem.

The Argentine government used this massive influx of credit to enlarge an already bloated government sector, which always causes the private sector to shrink. Government spending doubled during the decade of the 1990s, far outstripping personal income growth. When a recession hit in the mid-1990s, the government responded in a prototypical Keynesian way by spending even more extravagantly and accumulating more debt. Private investors began shying away from Argentine bonds in 2000, at which time the IMF poured another $48 billion down the government rat hole.

The one good thing the IMF did finally was to refuse to continue to bail out Argentina’s politicians, and that is what caused the bottom to fall out of the Argentine economy.

For decades, Argentina has practiced the kind of economic statism that is championed by the likes of Paul Krugman. Its guiding philosophy has been that its economy should be centrally planned by domestic government elites with the help of the IMF bureaucracy. Its politicians were shielded from taking responsibility for the inevitable failures of these policies by IMF and U.S. government foreign aid. Now that the Argentine bubble of economic statism has burst, the Paul Krugmans of the world are frantically seeking to shift the blame to the free market. Sorry, Professor Krugman, it just ain’t so.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo – Department of Economics, Loyola College, Maryland

Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Thomas DiLorenzo is an author and professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Nuclear Energy on This Day in History

This Day in History: The nuclear power station at Calder Hall in the United Kingdom was connected to the national power grid on this day in 1956, becoming the world's first commercial nuclear power station to generate electricity on an industrial scale.

If people truly cared about the environment, they would wholeheartedly embrace nuclear energy.

From Christopher Barnard writing in 2019:

There is a deafening silence surrounding nuclear energy. Yet, if you are to believe the current climate alarmism on display, the world’s future is hanging by a thread. Indeed, the forceful climate marches in London last week, the Greta Thunberg-ization of the world’s youth, and David Attenborough’s new Netflix documentary are all symptoms of a growing call to arms. According to them, climate change is real and impending, and, in young Greta’s words, they “want you to panic.”

If these people truly care about the environment and the damage being caused by climate change, why is no one talking about nuclear?

The situation appears dire. Yet, assuming it is, there seems to be a gap in reasoning. Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are calling for a “Green New Deal,” which would seek to remove America’s carbon footprint by 2030 by “upgrading” every single one of the 136 million houses in America, completely overhauling the nation’s transport infrastructure (both public and private), and somehow simultaneously guaranteeing universal health care, access to healthy food, and economic security—without any consideration of cost. In other words, a complete pie-in-the-sky scheme that is more concerned with virtue-signaling than with pragmatic reality.

But if these people truly care about the environment and the damage being caused by climate change, why is no one talking about nuclear?

Nuclear Power

Nuclear is fully carbon-free and therefore a “clean” energy source in carbon terms. This is crucial considering the primary villain of climate change is CO2; switching to nuclear would directly cut out carbon emissions and thus represent a significant step forward, except for the construction phase (which would create a one-off nominal carbon debt about equal to that of solar farms). It has successfully contributed to decarbonizing public transport in countries such as Japan, France, and Sweden.

It is also often overlooked that nuclear is the safest way to generate reliable electricity (and far safer than coal or gas) despite Frankenstein-esque visions of nuclear meltdowns à la Chernobyl, which are ridiculously exaggerated and exceedingly rare.

A common (legitimate) concern with nuclear is unhealthy radiation, but its usage emits less radiation than the burning of coal.

Nuclear is also incredibly reliable, with an average capacity of 92.3 percent, meaning it is fully operational more than 330 days a year, which is drastically more reliable than both wind and solar—combined.

Finally, whereas a common (legitimate) concern with nuclear is that it creates unhealthy radiation, its usage actually emits less radiation than, for example, the burning of coal. Moreover, the problem posed by waste is more psychological and political nowadays than it is technological. Despite the Simpsons-inspired image of green, murky water, nuclear waste is, in fact, merely a collection of old steel rods; the nuclear waste produced in America over the last 60 years could all fit into a single medium-sized Walmart. Furthermore, it is not only securely stored in concrete-and-steel casks in the middle of deserts, but it also loses radiation over time and can actually be recycled to extend the life of nuclear production by centuries.

France and Sweden

There are explicit success stories that attest to the power of nuclear. France and Sweden, which have some of the lowest per capita carbon emissions in the developed world, both rely heavily on nuclear (72 percent and 42 percent, respectively) rather than on wind or solar power. France generated 88 percent of its electricity total from zero-carbon sources, and Sweden got an even more impressive 95 percent. At the same time, these countries have some of the lowest energy prices in Europe, whereas renewable-heavy countries such as Germany and Denmark have the two highest energy prices on the continent—without much carbon reduction to show for it relative to France and Sweden.

Renewable energy isn’t always reliable because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

So why, if people such as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez care as much about the climate as they claim to, are they seemingly so blindly attracted to over-ambitious, unrealistic proposals? Indeed, a near-utopiazation of renewables fails to take into account many of the issues associated with these while neglecting the advantages of nuclear.

Renewable energy isn’t always reliable, as mentioned (which makes sense when you consider the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow). When the reliability of these renewables falters (wind turbines only provide energy 34.5 percent of the time, and solar panels an even lower 25.1 percent), expensive and carbon-heavy stop-gap measures act as backup.

Ecological Problems

There are also ecological problems. Wind and solar farms require tremendous amounts of wildlife-cleared land and are often protested by local conservationists. Electricity from solar panels on individual homes, on the other hand, a plan AOC apparently endorses, is twice as expensive, thus making it unaffordable for many American households. Though the debate rages, there is also a case to be made for the fact that wind turbines represent serious hazards to rare and threatened birds such as eagles and other birds of prey. They also threaten marine wildlife such as porpoises and coral reefs.

When compared more directly with various forms of renewable energy, the narrative also skews in nuclear’s favor. Solar farms require 450 times more land than do nuclear power plants; nuclear plants require far fewer materials for production than solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal; and solar produces up to 300 times more hazardous waste per terawatt-hour of energy than nuclear.

Some think that left-wing politicians idealize renewables because they provide an environmentalist façade for increased government intervention.

Yet the issues aren’t merely technological and ecological. Indeed, there is an argument that renewables such as solar and wind will become more and more efficient and cheaper over time, which is certainly true (though some experts dispute the net validity of this claim). A different problem, however, is that the context within which they are promoted, such as the “Green New Deal,” often translates into economic madness (the GND would cost up to $90 trillion according to some). It is striking how the Green New Deal encapsulates not only climate change but also health care, jobs, and housing.

Indeed, it goes much further than simply combating the issues facing our environment, incorporating a much wider agenda of socio-economic transformation. And this is why some, such as Michael Shellenberger (president of Environmental Progress—a pro-nuclear, climate change NGO), argue that left-wing politicians in the mold of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez idealize renewables: they provide an environmentalist façade for increased government intervention in areas far beyond the climate.

Expensive and Risky, but Worthwhile 

Of course, nuclear isn’t perfect; it is still very expensive (though this is increasingly solvable through more standardization and long-termism), the risk of Fukushima-like disasters will probably always exist, and the localized environmental impacts are concerns to be addressed. Most importantly, the political will is still lacking.

Despite the fact that the public and private sectors spent a combined $2 trillion between 2007 and 2016 on solar and wind power, solar energy still only accounted for 1.3 percent, and wind power 3.9 percent, of the world’s electricity generation in 2016. Operating at a scale of 94 times more in federal subsidies in America for renewables than for nuclear, this looks like an unsustainable trend. Imagine if it had been invested in nuclear instead.

Rather, the Ocasio-Cortezes of the world, who are by far the most vociferous when it comes to climate change, should put money where their mouths are. Though this article is far from exhaustive and was unable to account for all the nuances and intricacies of environmental and energy policy, it seems that, at the very least, nuclear deserves a spot at the table if we are serious about saving our planet.

Christopher Barnard

Christopher Barnard is the Head of Campaigning & Events for Students For Liberty UK, as well as a final-year Politics & International Relations student at the University of Kent. He tweets at @ChrisBarnardDL.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The Chernobyl Disaster on This Day in History

The Chernobyl disaster occurred on this day (April 26) in 1986.

From James Peron:

When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in 1986 the world held its breath. In the aftermath, we were told that a catastrophe had taken place. Ten years later Greenpeace said the accident was “blamed for the deaths of some 2,500 people, has affected millions and displaced hundreds of thousands, many of whom have still not been able to return to their homes.” Greenpeace called nuclear power “the most dangerous energy source yet devised by humankind.”

Since those claims were made another long ten years have passed. But now the United Nations has released a report showing that, first, the accident has not been nearly as deadly as originally projected, and second, that although the accident was horrific, the official response made things worse for large numbers of people. Chernobyl also has some lessons on the detrimental effects of welfare. Moreover, even after hundreds of scientists have produced an exhaustive report on the matter, the environmental ideologues refuse to change their tune, but instead denounce the scientists.

The myth-busting report, “ Chernobyl ‘s Legacy,” was published in two versions by the Chernobyl Forum, a collection of international organizations formed in 2002, including the World Health Organization, the UN Development Program, and the World Bank, along with the governments of Russia , Belarus , and Ukraine . (The second version of “ Chernobyl ‘s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-economic Impacts and Recommendations to the Governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine ” is online at http://chernobyl.undp.org/english/docs/chernobyl.pdf. Quotes in this article appear in both versions, except one, which is taken from the second version.)

When Unit 4 of the Chernobyl reactor exploded it was predicted that tens of thousands would die. The report notes that “Claims have been made that tens or even hundreds of thousands of persons have died as a result of the accident. These claims are highly exaggerated.”

This doesn’t mean no one died. But the numbers directly attributed to the accident are much lower than most would assume. The year of the accident 28 people died from exposure to acute radiation syndrome (ARS), all of them emergency workers at the reactor. From 1987 until 2004 19 more emergency workers died from a variety of causes, “however their deaths are not necessarily—and in some cases are certainly not—directly attributable to radiation exposure,” the second version reported.

The main problem found in the general population was for young children who drank milk that was produced by cows that ate contaminated grass. For them there was a clear increase in thyroid cancer. But this cancer is highly treatable. The report noted: “

For the 1152 thyroid cancer cases diagnosed among children in Belarus during 1986–2002 and treated, the survival rate was 98.8%.”

Except for these two groups, the direct medical impact of Chernobyl was minimal. According to the report, “Among the general population affected by the Chernobyl radioactive fallout, however, the radiation doses were quite low, and ARS and associated fatalities did not occur.”

Chernobyl took place in 1986. The Soviet Union ‘s socialist system finally collapsed in 1991. In the years immediately following the collapse living standards dropped. The economy was a disaster, and medical care had become almost nonexistent. People all across the region saw life expectancy decline. Chernobyl ‘s effects were tiny in comparison to the larger picture.

The 50-some deaths are firm numbers. But the projections of possible other deaths are estimates. The Chernobyl Forum reported: “[T]he number of deaths over the past 20 years that may have been attributable to the accident are only estimates with a moderately large range of uncertainty. The reason for this uncertainty is that people who received additional doses of low-level radiation have been dying from the same causes as unaffected people. Moreover, in all the groups studied, of both emergency workers and resident populations, any increase in mortality as compared to control groups was statistically insignificant or very low. Estimates related to projected deaths in the future are even less certain, as they are subject to other major confounding factors. In reality, the actual number of deaths caused by the accident is unlikely ever to be known with precision.”

A year ago the New York Times reported that “for the millions who were subjected to low levels of radioactive particles spread by the wind, health effects have proved generally minimal.” It added that there was no rise in leukemia rates except for a small number of plant workers. Nor has any increase in birth defects been noticed nor decrease in fertility rates.

The reason for this is simple. Only people in the immediate vicinity of the accident were exposed to sufficient radiation to cause problems. As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission explains in its “Fact Sheet on Biological Effects of Radiation,” “Radiation is all around us. It is naturally present in our environment and has been since the birth of this planet.”

Most people seem unaware of this. The average American is exposed to 300 millirems of radiation per year, and over 80 percent of that is from natural sources. Residents of Denver receive about 1,000 millirems because of the altitude. A person working in a nuclear power plant is exposed to about 300 additional millirems per year, while regulations limit annual occupational exposure to 5,000 millirems. However, pilots, airline crew members, and frequent flyers can be exposed to an additional 500 to 600 millirems. That’s quite a bit when you consider that living next door to a nuclear power plant only increases exposure by 1 millirem per year. If that worries you, remember that the human body produces about 40 millirems per year entirely on its own.

For most people affected by the reactor accident, levels of exposure were not extraordinary. “ Chernobyl ‘s Legacy” states that “the average doses received by residents of the territories contaminated by Chernobyl fallout are generally lower than those received by people who live in well known areas of high natural background radiation in India , Iran , Brazil and China .”

Dr. Burton Bennett, chairman of the Chernobyl Forum, told the BBC last year: “This was a very serious accident with major health consequences, especially for thousands of workers exposed in the early days who received very high radiation doses, and for the thousands more stricken with thyroid cancer. By and large, however, we have not found profound negative health impacts to the rest of the population in surrounding areas, nor have we found widespread contamination that would continue to pose a substantial threat to human health, with a few exceptional, restricted areas.”

Mass Evacuations

At the time of the explosion entire regions were evacuated—due more to panic than anything else. Dr. Fred Mettler Jr. of the Chernobyl Forum, a Veterans Affairs hospital radiologist, said, “People were evacuated from areas that now have dose levels lower than where I live in New Mexico.” And the evacuation itself caused many problems and possibly harmed far more people than the accident.

At first the Soviet Union tried to hide the accident from the world. This unnecessarily exposed people in the immediate vicinity to risk, especially children who now suffer from thyroid cancer. As Bronwen Maddox of the Times of London wrote last year: “Better warnings in the first week could have averted this. But the Government’s desire at first to cover up the explosion meant that it delayed warning people or moving them to safety.”

Later, when the disaster became public knowledge, the Soviets exaggerated the health effects. Maddox wrote: “The underlying level of health and nutrition [in the region] was abominable; there was every interest in exaggerating the impact to get aid money; the Soviet culture had never been shy of using science for political ends.”

Of course environmental activists and antinuclear ideologues also had reasons to exaggerate the consequences, hence the predictions of hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of the accident. Add to that the natural tendency of the media to prefer the sensational aspects of any story, and it is no wonder that people around the world were in an induced panic. Individuals who lived in the vicinity suddenly found themselves being relocated, often against their will. They lost their homes and were subjected to regular medical checkups, all of which had to raise their anxiety levels. Many of these people simply came to assume that they had been exposed and were doomed.

Fear of course is detrimental to health. “People have developed a paralyzing fatalism because they think they are at much higher risk than they are, so that leads to things like drugs and alcohol use, and unprotected sex and unemployment,” Dr. Mettler said. In an article about the Chernobyl report, the Washington Post noted “that lifestyle disease, such as alcoholism, among affected residents posed a much greater threat than radiation exposure.”

Tomihiro Taniguchi, a deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted in the Guardian as saying, “[T]he situation was made even worse by conflicting information and vast exaggerations—in press coverage and pseudoscientific accounts of the accident—reporting for example, fatalities in the tens or hundreds of thousands.” Taniguchi added that “many of the 350,000 people evacuated and resettled by authorities would have been better off staying home.”

The Chernobyl report states that “individuals in the affected population were officially given the label ‘ Chernobyl victims,’ thus frequently taking on the role of invalids. It is known that if a situation is perceived as real, it is real in its consequences. Thus rather than perceiving themselves as ‘survivors,’ the affected individuals have been encouraged to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future.”

Predictably, people have taken advantage of the accident. Kalman Mizsei, a director of the UN Development Program, said “an industry has been built on this unfortunate event,” which has a “vast interest in creating a false picture.” The Russians and environmental ideologues have already been mentioned. Moreover, millions of people were paid benefits on the basis of being victims.

The negative consequences of welfare for Chernobyl “victims” are real. Seven million people received various benefits from the Russian government due to their exposure. Although the effects of radiation diminish with time, the number of people claiming to be disabled is climbing. In Ukraine in 1991, 200 people were considered permanently disabled from Chernobyl . In 1997 the number was 64,500, and by 2001 it was 91,219. The report is blunt: “The dependency culture that has developed over the past two decades is a major barrier to the region’s recovery. The extensive system of Chernobyl-related benefits has created expectations of long-term direct financial support and entitlement to privileges, and has undermined the capacity of the individuals and communities concerned to tackle their own economic and social problems.”

Furious Reaction

How has the UN report been received? The media found it a fascinating story because it has the element of sensationalism that sells papers and boosts ratings. But the beneficiaries of Chernobyl , and the ideological groups that use the accident for their own agendas, are furious. They refuse to accept the report and instead denounce the UN for producing it.

Greenpeace in particular was most upset. William Peden, a Greenpeace researcher, said that the projection of 4,000 deaths total “is ridiculous” and “many thousands more may die in the decades to come.” Jan van de Putte, another Greenpeace activist, says the UN was “denying the real implications” of Chernobyl and that is “insulting [to] the thousands of victims.” He also said the report is dangerous because it may lead to “relocating people in contaminated areas.”

Greenpeace also asserted that the low death projection omitted the harm to much of Europe. But this was omitted because there wasn’t any. Most of the radiation fell within a few dozen miles of Chernobyl. It’s yet another example of how environmental ideologues will bend science around politics.

James Peron

Jim Peron is the author of Exploding Population Myths (Heartland Institute). He is executive director of the Institute for Liberal Values in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.