Weekend Links, News, And Views; Norway Abandons Carbon Capture; BNSF Announces Minnesota CAPEX; Bloomberg On Futility Of Renewables; France And Germany Appear Tone-Deaf

Norway abandons its "much-vaunted" plans to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground: mounting costs and delay. The BBC is reporting:

The outgoing government in Norway has buried much-vaunted plans to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground amid mounting costs and delays.

The oil and energy ministry said the development of full-scale carbon dioxide capture had been discontinued.

It said it remained committed to research into carbon capture.

When the Labour Party presented the plan in 2007, it was hailed as Norway's equivalent of a "Moon landing."

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his allies lost a general election to conservatives and centrists this month, and are due to step down shortly.

Even the outgoing liberals saw the debacle it was. 

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Some years ago when I noted the increasing rail traffic in North  Dakota due to the oil and gas industry I opined the regional economy would be spurred by capital expenditures on improving rail and maintenance. I remember someone wrote in to comment that BNSF had been shipping grain for decades and the company would not see any increased expenses because of the oil and gas industry; maintenance and improvements would remain the same. Prairie Business is reporting:

BNSF Railway Co. plans to invest an estimated $95 million on maintenance and rail capacity improvement and expansion projects in Minnesota this year.

BNSF’s 2013 capacity projects in Minnesota include terminal improvements at Northtown Yard in Minneapolis to expand rail car classification and inspection capacity by reconfiguring tracks and switches, expanding parking capacity at BNSF’s automotive facility in St. Paul to support growth in new automobile traffic, as well as signal upgrades for federally mandated positive train control.

BNSF will continue its robust maintenance program in Minnesota, which will include more than 1,800 miles of track surfacing and undercutting work, and the replacement of 55 miles of rail and about 290,000 railroad ties.

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Bloomberg has a nice article on why "wind and solar can't save climate" (whatever that means; I did not know the "climate needed saving"; whatever). The entire article provides data like this:

Wind energy’s paltry power density means that enormous tracts of land must be set aside to make it viable. And that has spawned a backlash from rural and suburban landowners who don’t want 500-foot wind turbines near their homes. To cite just one recent example, in late July, some 2,000 protesters marched against the installation of more than 1,000 wind turbines in Ireland’s Midlands Region.

Consider how much land it would take for wind energy to replace the power the U.S. now gets from coal. In 2011, the U.S. had more than 300 billion watts of coal-fired capacity. Replacing that with wind would require placing turbines over about 116,000 square miles, an area about the size of Italy. And because of the noise wind turbines make -- a problem that has been experienced from Australia to Ontario -- no one could live there. 

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But don't tell that to Germany. Nature is reporting that Germany will continue its renewable program despite the facts:

But the economic challenges are daunting, with the total costs of the Energiewende estimated to top €1 trillion. Europe's deep financial crisis looms large over a project of that scale, warns Roger Pielke Jr, an environmental-policy researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. “The German public has so far shown great willingness to pay for the transformation, but there will be limits to that willingness, especially if the economic climate gets rougher.”

For example:

For German consumers, the costs of that shift are apparent in their monthly electricity bills. The statements include a litany of 'shared costs' that are split by all households to fund the Energiewende — and result in some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. (Heavy industries are currently exempt from paying the surcharge.)

The shared costs are a mechanism for promoting green forms of energy, which are more expensive to produce than electricity from coal and natural gas. Germany's Renewable Energy Act (EEG), the legal force behind the Energiewende, allows owners of solar panels and wind turbines to sell their electricity to the grid at a fixed, elevated price. Renewable-power producers cashed in an estimated €20 billion last year for electricity that was actually worth a mere €3 billion on the wholesale electricity market. The difference came out of the pockets of consumers.

It will be interesting to check back in on Germany in 10 years.

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But even France can out-do the Germans in craziness (though that hardly needs repeating). Bloomberg is reporting:

France will introduce a levy on nuclear energy as well as a tax on carbon emissions from fossil fuels to raise billions needed to boost renewable power and improve energy efficiency.

“All change is expensive in the short term even if it’s beneficial in the long term,” French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said today in a speech about the environment in Paris.
The nuclear levy will be applied to Electricite de France SA’s existing atomic reactors, he said. The carbon tax will be introduced “progressively” on fossil fuels in order to earn 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion) in 2016. 

The country gets about three-quarters of the power it produces from EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors, more than any other nation. The energy transition will cost an estimated 20 billion euros a year, Hollande said yesterday.

Wow.

I can't think of a more regressive tax than increased taxes on utilities.

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And with that Mr Hollande becomes the "O'Bama of Europe." Reuters is reporting:

French President Francois Hollande saw his approval ratings fall to their lowest level so far in a monthly poll that showed less than a quarter of voters were satisfied with his actions. 

Taking a page from President O'Bama's playbook:

The poll also showed Hollande's ratings among supporters of the Green party had slid by 19 points since last month, a sign of growing tensions between Hollande's Socialists and their Green allies in government.

Hollande this week outlined plans to slash fossil fuel use, supported by a new carbon tax, in an announcement seen as aimed at reassuring the Green party.