My last post on Tuesday reported on the Soho Forum climate change debate that had taken place the previous day. Debater Andrew Dessler, arguing in favor of rapid reductions in human greenhouse gas emissions by the method of vastly increasing electricity production from wind and solar generators, had heavily relied on the assertion that wind and solar are now the cheapest ways to generate electricity. An important slide in his presentation showed comparative costs of generation from various sources, with wind and solar clearly shown as least expensive. At the bottom of the slide, the acronym “LCOE” was legible.

LCOE stands for Levelized Cost of Electricity. I first encountered this term a couple of years ago, and thought that I should get on top of it to understand its significance. It took me about a half hour to figure out that this metric was completely inapplicable and invalid for purposes of comparing the costs of using dispatchable versus non-dispatchable generators as the predominant sources to power an electrical grid that works. The reasons are not complicated, but do take some minutes of thought if the matter has not previously been explained to you. In Tuesday’s post, I asked as to Dessler’s reliance on this LCOE metric:

[I]s he aware of this [inapplicability of LCOE] and therefore intentionally trying to deceive the audience? Or, alternatively, is he innumerate, and does not understand how this works quantitatively?

The Soho Forum “climate change” debate yesterday went off without a hitch at the Sheen Center on Bleecker Street in Lower Manhattan. The proposition debated was “Climate Science compels us to make large and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.” Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M University took the affirmative; Steven Koonin of NYU took the negative. Mrs. MC and I were among the sponsors of this debate. Daughter (and MC contributor) Jane Menton, who is Chief of Operations for the Soho Forum, was responsible for lining up the speakers and taking care of all the event details.

Congratulations to the Soho Forum for succeeding in having Dessler actually show up and participate in this debate. Generally, the official position of the climate alarm movement is that no adherent should ever debate a skeptic who expresses doubt about any aspect of the orthodoxy. After the debate, I made a point of approaching Dessler, and thanking him personally for his willingness to participate. In our short conversation, he said that several of his colleagues had told him that he should not debate a “denier” like Koonin, but that he had decided that it was important to engage with the public. This willingness to engage publicly is much to Dessler’s credit.

I was very much looking forward to hearing one of the marquee names of the climate movement give his best statement of the basis for the position that “greenhouse gas” emissions must be reduced. At the end, I was left thinking, “Could this really be all they’ve got?”