Weekly John Locke Foundation research division newsletter focusing on environmental issues.

The newsletter highlights relevant analysis done by the JLF and other think tanks as well as items in the news.

1. Dem gubernatorial candidate makes unintended acknowledgment in boasting support for NC's high cost renewable energy mandate

In a recent fundraising email, Democratic primary gubernatorial candidate Walter Dalton made a somewhat odd and apparently unreflective claim when boasting about his support for North Carolina's renewable energy mandate legislation passed in 2007. This legislation forces electricity customers to pay extraordinarily high utility rates so that utility monopolies like Duke Power and Progress energy can meet a state mandate which compels the utilities to generate 7.5 percent of their electricity from so called renewable sources like the wind and the sun. This is called a renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Here's what Dalton proclaimed in his letter:

While in the legislature, I fully supported the development of the state's renewable energy portfolio, which invested $2.6 billion in renewables and created 2,700 green jobs.

I sent his campaign an email asking for the source of these numbers but have yet to receive a response. Assuming these numbers are accurate, as a result of North Carolina's RPS, $2.6 billion is being spent, or as Dalton says "invested," with a payoff of 2700 jobs. If there are other positive results, such as improvements in air quality, Dalton chose not to mention them. The only "benefit" that Dalton seems to be able to come up with, at least in this letter, is that our heralded RPS standard has "created" 2700 "green jobs" with a price tag of close to a million dollars each. By the way, I will speculate here that the $2.6 billion figure does not include the higher utility costs to ratepayers. But if this is the best you can say about North Carolina's forced renewable energy standard then it certainly isn't anything to brag about. In fact, I dare say that these numbers would actually put it into the category of "costly boondoggle."

2. Human caused weather extremes not the case

The Washington Times is reporting that, of all institutions, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that property losses caused by extreme weather events are not due to human activity. Here's what the Times reported:

The surprise absolution of human beings from the crime of triggering severe weather phenomena was handed down by none other than the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), leader of the campaign to sell the world on anthropogenic climate change. The IPCC's Special Report on Extremes, released March 28, reads, "There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized [property] losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change."

The article goes on to note, citing Roger Pielke, University of Colorado environmental studies professor, that:

...hurricane wind speed - an indicator for the amount of energy in the atmosphere - has remained steady for the past 15 years. Accordingly, there is no evidence that weather extremes are on the rise globally, much less that they're increasing because of human activity.

3. Ozone Report

The 2012 ozone season began on April 1 and, as in the past, each week during the ozone season this newsletter will report how many, if any, high ozone days have been experienced throughout the state during the previous week, where they were experienced, and how many have been recorded during the entire season to date. The ozone season will end on October 31^st. All reported data is from the North Carolina Division of Air Quality, which is part of the state's Department of Environment and Natural Resources. During the period April 2^nd to April 8^th there were no reported high ozone readings on any of the state's monitors.

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