Mott's Blog

   Maybe the Polish policy-makers thought that a renewable energy law had to keep being renewed?    More delays have emerged in March as the "legal commission" made its changes and now the local government organizations and the environmental committee weigh in. The biggest external source of pressure for changes is undoubtedly the European Commission, on two fronts - the DG Competition that determines what state aid will not distort competition (which has not been an unintended consequence in Poland but part of the design of the law) and the DG Energy that determines if the law meets the transposition requirements of the Renewable Energy Directive.    The delays seem to be inevitable, since major interests were locked out of the deliberations and the successive drafts were all prepared in secret and largely ignored the consultation period inputs. Several political miscalculations have also been in play, i.e. the ruling coalition assuming hat green ene...

   Mark Twain observed that people who love sausage and respect the law have never seen either being made. A remark which seems to apply with enormous validity to the Polish legislative process.    While I have followed some legislation here in the past, I have been buried in the new renewable energy law deliberations, obfuscations, and incoherence for over two years. As part of the renewable energy sector and a lawyer by training, I have been wrapped up in the technical details, the policy scheme, and the impact of it all on our sector. But I also have to comment on the process itself, which is about as dysfunctional as a democracy can be. It is a chilling thought to realize that the people of Poland have entrusted their future and their children's to such a flawed and corrupt process.    The most striking comparison to what I observed and often participated in while a lawyer in Washington DC for twenty five years, is the secrecy employed here. Taki...

Almost nine years after starting to provide state support for renewable energy, the Polish Government late last week finally started considering the European Commission's rules on state aid and unfair competition. The committee set to act on the proposed new Renewable Energy Law decided to send the bill back for more work. Apparently the Commission's enforcement action on co-firing and support for old hydro projects got some people to finally talk to lawyers! There is still a public veneer of confidence that everything is fine, but it obviously is not fine. The bill needs to be redone to meet EU legal requirements, ignored until now. See Polish Biogas Association letter to the Office of Competition. I have advocated doing two bills to address these problems: the first modified the Green Certificate program and levelizes the support to meet all EC requirements. It excludes aid to old hydro and co-firing. The second bill adds whatever aid to co-firing that the Polish Governme...

The Energy Regulatory Office just announced that the 2014 replacement fee (the amount charged if an electrical company does not have either the green energy or the green certificates to fill the gap) will go to 300 PLN/MWhr . This is the base price for green certificates. When combined with the upcoming shortage of certificates when co-firing and old hydro lose their support (70% of current certificates), this will mean that the income to renewable energy producers will go up significantly - even without a new law in effect. The new law is obligated to provide levelized support for biogas, which has been calculated to be twice the value of the Green Certificate.  I predict a biogas boom in the next 12-18 months. If they make technical changes that we have suggested in the law, it will also contribute to making biogas a more available option for organic waste management.

Randy Mott Vice President, Polish Biogas Association                     http://www.reo.pl/powody-oporu-rzadu-przed-biogazem-pozostaja-tajemnica  [PL ver]      There is hardly anything unkind ever said about biogas by the Polish Government. It remains a major part of the national plan for 2020 renewable energy goals. It helps solve many of the environmental issues surrounding organic waste and has been highlighted by the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Environment when the new auction law was introduced in November. Biogas has a flat-line, stable electrical output and can actually be built to match the 24-hour electricity demand curve.     But somehow none of the biogas industry’s concerns about the new law ever get addressed . We are ignored almost entirely. This treatment is puzzling to say the least, since the Polish Government expects biogas developers to invest billions of PLN...

Randy Michael Mott, Vice President, Polish Biogas Association     As the news broke that Poland has received notice of a state aid enforcement investigation into its Green Certificate program , particularly support for co-firing biomass with coal , the full implications of where this can lead have not been appreciated here. Several complaints were apparently received by the Commission. Support for co-firing in the current and proposed law is effectively over . There may be a delay in the acceptance of this fact, but it is a fact. Efforts to enact a complex law that still favors the state-owned utilities will also be frustrated by this development. However, things can also get a lot more complicated, especially if the Polish Government continues to bungle this issue.      As background, the European Treaty prohibits state assistance to industry that will distort competition in the European market. All such state aid must be submitted to the E...

I will post more details on this topic soon. But I am in the renewable energy business (biogas from waste to electricity and heat). This business is capital-intensive and often displaces more traditional energy that is labor-intensive. That may mean less jobs are created not more. There are good reasons to pursue alternative energy sources, but creating jobs is not one of them. Some research is reviewed in a University of Illinois study .

I have been involved in hazardous material and waste matters for thirty-years. Usually on the side of giving advice to the companies with the problems. So I will do a very brief synopsis. Obama was told early on that the chances of capping the broken wellhead were not good. Estimates of oil volumes privately provided were also much highly that the public heard in the first weeks. With that set of facts, the first order of the day should have been mitigation measures. That means destruction of the oil while far at sea (fire booms or maybe even military means to ignite it), sand berms and other containment means, and rounding up all of the equipment possible to remove as much as possible before it hit sensitive areas. None of that happened. Obama played golf and then lectured us. The federal alphabet agencies did what they do best, used red tape to frustrate people who have to deal with the real world. Democrat politicians ought to demonize the oil industry, at the expense of worse...

It is no accident, I am sure, that the world seems far less predictable and safe in the last few months. After alienating most of our allies, bowing to foreign dignitaries, and trying to appease our avowed enemies, the Obama Administration is starting to reap the harvest of American contraction. We have emboldened enemies on almost all fronts. A defiant Iran is now supported in its nuclear ambitions, not only by Russia and China, but by Turkey, a NATO member. Israel is more isolated than anytime since the 1973 war, with its Muslim adversaries feeling a new sense of boldness in their actions. North Korea has engaged in open acts of war with the South and has suffered no adverse consequences or reactions from the global community. America itself has been subject to an increased number of near misses in terrorist attacks. We have dodged the bullets largely out of luck and human errors on the other side. Our international popularity has only grown among the Leftist politicians in som...

I have an unusual hypothesis that may explain a lot about the attempted Times Square terrorist attack. Other than remotely triggered IEDs in Iraq, it seems that the specialty of Jihadists is suicide bombers, trained to self-destruct in ways that grossly simply fuse and trigger schemes. Just about all of the information coming out about Shahzad shows that he was hanging around with the varsity of suicide bombers in Pakistan. So what happened in New York City?  I think that Shahzad was supposed to be a suicide bomber and got a change of heart and improvised the trigger mechanism (which is why it was sloppy). It also explains his rather ad hoc escape plan. His apparent willingness to talk about the whole scheme when he was arrested also fits with the reluctant bomber motif. That the Pakistani Taliban would fund him and send him on this attack also may say a lot about how short of willing and quasi-rational suicide bombers they really are.  We had been told by the Left that ...

The above chart was used in the healthcare debate to illustrate the bureaucracy that the bill would introduce. Apparently nothing relevant has changed and 159 new agencies and bureaus will be created. It completely defies logic and history that this complex set of regulatory, personnel and factual decisions will produce a rational, intended outcome. Those banking on the implementation of the healthcare take-over to increase its public support are betting on a lottery ticket in a rigged drawing. Many discretionary decisions must be made under the new law by people that are yet to be appointed, trained, or identified. One of the first "Polish jokes" I learned in Poland was the tale of the new potato inspector. The young man was briefed on what are good and bad potatoes and given a pile of several hundred by his supervisor. He was told to sort them as instructed. Hours later the supervisor returns and see that only eleven potatoes have been sorted. He demands to know why. The...

As I watch the agony of the House Democrats telling their sob stories to try to justify the greatest legislative mistake in modern times, I cannot imagine the incredible stupidity and arrogance that is driving their suicide pact. To think that this vote will somehow put these issues behind us is one of the most naive political hypotheses ever espoused. This issue will dominate the next two election cycles and will create a giant scythe that cuts down hundreds of Democrats at all levels of government. We have come to accept that only about half of the public votes, but conservative voters are significantly more likely to vote even in normal times (hence the inevitable 6-8 point difference in polls of "adults" versus polls of "likely voters"). But now we will see a growing disparity, with conservative voters making the elections a crusade against evil. There may be no counterpart to what is happening in our political history. Congressman Stupak's opponent, just ...

Dr. Phil Jones of East Anglia University was leading the charge by Michael Mann et al. to deny the existence of the Medieval Warming Period for years. This was important because many, many scientists report that it appears to have been warmer that today's climate, making the "unprecedented" recent warming not "unprecedented." In his recent interview, Dr. Jones still tries to do the alarmist dance by arguing that there is insufficient evidence of the MWP in non-North America data. Coming from the cherry-picking crew of tree-ring data fame, this is a pretty outlandish claim. First, the IPPC thought that there was a MWP, before they became so thoroughly politically-indoctrinated that science was sacrificed on the altar of grant money:   Second, the Idso website ( CO2 Magazine ) has a compilation of over 800 studies that support the MWP, including many from outside the Northern Hemisphere. (Note: if Northern Hemispere data is inadequate to generalize from, why...

Below from Democraticstuff.com The stimulus is a bust ( as anyone with a handle on economics would have expected )(see Hot Air graphic comparing self-recovery of prior recessions with prolonged current recession), the healthcare bill is DOA, Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts have swung over 20 points toward Republicans in about one year's time, rhetorically embracing with our most avowed enemies abroad has only empowered them to be more intractable, this President's popularity has dropped more in the first twelve months than in any other first term, and the 2010-2012 polls look like the word "Democrat" on a ballot may be as popular as the ex-spouse at a second wedding. Der Spiegel has a January headline "The world says goodbye to Obama." Time to sell off all of your Obama promo butons and tee-shirts at a discount? Yes, literally it is! There is an official campaign liquidation sale!!!

Why are the Democrats trying to pass a healthcare bill that meets none of the announced objectives of the White House,  that is opposed by an angry majority of likely voters, that will likely cost them control of the House and maybe even the Senate, and that the country manifestly cannot afford? One is reminded of Dr. Johnson's famous statement about dogs who walk on their hind legs: "One wonders not so much how they do it as why their bother?" Of course, Democrats bother with this leftist drivel because they have convinced themselves that this is the only moment in years where it may be possible. They selectively look at the polls, normally the ones that are of "adults" and heavily tilted toward Democratic Party weighting (using data now quite obsolete and meaningless). Democratic Members of Congress who are in tough districts and states, no doubt, are more nervous. Maybe their aides are telling them that there is time for voters to forget by November 2010. ...