This report makes interesting reading!!

It appears to refute the opinion piece completely.

With England becoming a net exporter of wind power.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/may/20/offshore-renewables-pirc-report

Peter A. - tnks for the link. The report Monbiot is referring to is another example of the crankiness you get in this area. It even talks about jobs created which is eyewash. Consumers have to pay for those jobs, and that means jobs lost elsewhere. the result will be a net job loss..

Mr Lawson

On the contrary, I think I understand very what you are driving at. You have two main contentions in your paper. First, in your own words "no one has shown that green electricity supplied to an operating power network actually reduces emissions" and second that "additional backup generator capacity will be required for intermittent power sources". You cite three sources to support your arguments. In reading those sources (as I have previously indicated), I have found that none of the papers agrees with your first contention. You argue that the figures stated (and also presumably those in the subsequent press release from Netz) are theoretical, but that means by logical extension that your argument is also theoretical rather than definitive.

If I have an issue it is that you cannot cite sources then selectively use them to support your argument while ignoring those parts of those self-same sources that you disagree with.

I note that you are releasing a book soon which presumably deals with the IPCC among other things. Would you accept such a methodology from the IPCC?

I will get on to you second contention in due course, but there is a 350 word limit on these comments.

Many bloggers believe that carbon dioxide is driving planetary heating.
The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, when asked for the science that proves that CO2 is a pollutant couldn't find it in their files.
Here is their email;
I am going to try to help in answering your questions. I work at the IPCC Secretariat in Geneva....On your question about whether CO2 is a pollutant, I can not answer that as I have not found the answer in one of our reports. I know that whether CO2 could be considered as a pollutant under the US Clean Air Act was a controversial issue for many years - and I think that now there was an EPA decision in favor of it and therefore it can now be considered a pollutant according to the Clean Air Act's definition of a pollutant. Perhaps that definition depends on each country's legal definition of a pollutant.
Best, Mary Jean Bürer
CO2 is a legal pollutant because a legal decision was made in the USA. This was so that the traders in carbon credits and derivatives can make money out of selling hot air. Paid for by our taxes.
Don't believe me? Why don't you write to the IPCC?

Loxton - one more go to make you see reason. Again you have it almost entirely turned around.. You are the one citing theoretical arguements. I never cited any press release. You are the one doing so. The very point about the article is that there is hardly any references to carbon saved. The one reference is the Netz report. The rest of the Netz report is relevent only in your own mind. the German report talks about the immense cost of green power. Quite so. Its immensely costly. Both reports are as I set out in the article.
If you want to make a difference then rather than search desperately in reports for material that can be twisted to confuse the issue, find real world calculations of carbon saved. Find real world examples of the cost of green power. Leave it with you.

>> If I have an issue it is that you (Mark Lawson) cannot cite sources then selectively use them to support your argument while ignoring those parts of those self-same sources that you disagree with. <<

Loxton - the author (Mark Lawson) has a habit of cherry picking then changing goal posts (even playing fields) when challenged

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9484#151550

Some 'authors' deliberately distort and misrepresent their subject matter - why you may well ask.

If they're not distorting or misrepresenting the science deliberately, they don't know their subject matter very well - as we have seen.