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Global Warming on 15-Year Hold
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Suddenly This Summer
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FakeGate: Just Another Day at Team Green
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“Climate” and the Campaign
January 12, 2012 | 8 comments
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Germany’s Green Bubble Follows Spain’s; Will Congress Waste More Billions on Ours?
December 15, 2011 | 3 comments
The Spectacle Blog
Such headlines and breathless e-mails from Big Solar and Big Wind today!
Solar is about to be competitive! So is wind!
Since, no, they do not accept an end to their special subsidies, of course they’re not really arguing that they are competitive now. They’re, well, just a few years around the corner.
Still.
As they have always been.
And always will be.
Of course, it’s tough to explain away problems like, even when they’re up, well, they don’t do a whole lot. Which, yes, does have something to do with their not being economic alternatives or even serious energy sources. Remember: wind, solar and coal fired electricity were all commercialized within ten years of each other. Two of them are just losers, is all. Who else would try calling coal yesterday’s technology, but they, why, they’re nascent. Of course you are, dear.
All these missives are are signs of escalating campaigns against the push to stop wasting your money on ‘new energy sources, of the future’, if invented so very long ago.
Those gravy trains must run on time!
PattyMor| 4.7.11 @ 12:24PM
Wind and solar are inefficient and/or costly and require HUGH subsidies just to get anyone interested in producing energy from them. Then they again game the system by passing laws "mandating" that utilities purchase it, when they would not otherwise do so.
Just to see how it plays out, look to Spain. They went heavely for wind and solar and now Spain is teetering on Bankruptcy. Is this the pattern we want to follow? To do so, just reserve our place at the edge of the cliff.
David W| 4.7.11 @ 12:39PM
I just read that in my area (North Texas) there is a bill that will add a surcharge to my monthly electricity bill that will be used to help reimburse people for putting solar panels on their homes.
Of course, those having problems paying their bills may not be able to handle the extra $12 a year. So maybe they can increase my bill a bit more to help those who can't pay the extra tax pay the extra tax. Though there may be some who can't handle the extra extra tax, so they raise my bill a bit more to help them, and so on and so on.
Maybe someone can develop a "power cell" that can use the "glow those wonderful progressives put out when they are doing what is right" to generate electricity. There would be enough glow from Obama to light all of North America.
Grzmlyk| 4.7.11 @ 1:10PM
Gosh, Chris, what a negative Nellie you are.
Don't you understand that all we need to do is arrange for we Good and True liberals to gather together, hold hands, chant "Gaia Loves Renewable Energy" over and over again, scatter pixie dust and puppy dog smiles around the country and then, praise be to Mother Earth, wind and solar will - by dint of our own Righteous Purity - become efficient, cheap and abundant, and Gaia will begin to heal from her years of abuse at the hands of greedy conservatives?
And don't forget, we don't want to make energy TOO abundant.
As we roll out the New Progressive Feudalism, the vassals - you know, the suckers who pay the taxes - will, of course, be prohibited from using any technology that requires electricity, fossil fuels or any energy that does not come directly from the windmills and solar panels we will allot them (IF they get their minds right, that is).
In the meantime, we'll make sure that jet fuel and other petroleum products, along with the electrical grid, will only be available to self-anointed elites like me.
After all, my moral superiority to base, craven, global warming-denying infidels and greedy bigots necessitates that I live lavishly in walled-off enclaves with my intellectual equals.
I mean, who else is going to divvy up the booty with UN dignitaries and third-world tyrants if not we Superior Ones?
And somebody has to keep the filthy wog taxpayers in their place.
B. McElhone| 4.7.11 @ 1:13PM
The smug self-righteousness and fact-avoidance of those supporting solar and wind power is so off-putting that it is hard to separate the potential benefits of the alternative energy industry from its supporters. Although they're terrible; it might grow into something entirely desireable.
In the meantime, we should all advocate for the elimination of subsidies (tax breaks included) from the entire energy industry -- oil, coal and ethanol included. Wouldn't that be the truest market based position?
Al Adab| 4.7.11 @ 1:39PM
Maybe the wind farm should be built in DC. After all, there is enough hot air there to keep the turbines turning.
God Is Truth| 4.7.11 @ 1:46PM
Just one question here. What if God were to darken the sun & cease the wind? Any answers "Greenies"?
Grzmlyk| 4.7.11 @ 1:53PM
I believe that the combination of physics and economics precludes wind and solar from ever being viable energy sources.
If you look at the entire value chain, from capturing the energy to storing it to distributing it where it is needed, the reality is that these "renewable" resources (and I include ethanol) are a net negative; it requires more energy - more infrastructure, more man hours, more money, etc. - to bring the energy online than the energy will subsequently yield.
It's like paying for a $10 gold piece with a $20 bill.
As a result, these pie-in-the-sky solutions will never be viable until fossil fuels are entirely removed from the equation, either by legal fiat or through exhausted reserves.
And even then, our entire economic composition would be drastically downsized as a much larger portion of our GDP would go toward energy - or else we would revert to a pre-industrial economy, which is, of course, exactly what progressives want - for everyone but them.
For the foreseeable future, fossil fuels and nuclear are the only energy alternatives that comport with the hard boundaries of reality.
Pete| 4.7.11 @ 2:29PM
With all of their dire "climate change" models you would think the risk inherent in relying on wind and sun might occur to them? It would be more funny than sad if these imbeciles weren't in charge.
Oldefarte| 4.7.11 @ 3:12PM
Chris, does this mean that I/we may be able to obtain a converted sun-roofed vehicle [with solar panels instead] with an attached windmill [and with a converted gasoline tank into a juice bar] in a few years???????????
Curtis Rasmussen| 4.7.11 @ 4:46PM
Where is the talk about the grid and the ensuing power fluctuations created by unpredictable sources? I'm sure that blackouts and brownouts would become a problem, leading to traditional sources of power either idling and ready to go or supplying power, in any case running at all times. Double the plants to deliver the same supply=disastrous cost increases.
Also, there might be niche markets for solar and wind. let businesses perform their own analysis to determine if alternate sources are a good fit without government subsidies or economy-destroying regulation.
Alan Brooks| 4.7.11 @ 5:27PM
Nuclear can remain competitive, can't it? it would be very disappointing if we will have to remain forever dependent on Mideast cartels.
Willy| 4.7.11 @ 6:03PM
Yes, nuclear is competitive IF you shorten the lengthy wait to get approval to build a plant. Fossil fuels here would take care of our needs for many years IF the government would allow for drilling in places where we already know there are huge reserves. So our problem isn't resources. It is the morons we have chosen to determine our energy policy, including the farm state legislators who came up with the brilliant idea to turn food into energy(with a subsidy, of course).
Dave Hansen| 4.7.11 @ 10:57PM
Sorry, to my fellow conservatives BUT, solar is about to be much cheaper than the grid, and with no subsidies reqired. I know because I am half inventor of a system that is so much cheaper that it costs less than half the grid over the life of your home.
Grzmlyk| 4.7.11 @ 11:18PM
And I have a system by which you can invest $20 and, in just six months, realize a return of over 1,000%.
Just by my audio CD's with three easy payments of $39.95 each.
Dave, it's NEVER going to happen.
Sorry.
But keep selling that perpetual motion machine; there's a sucker born every minute.
Alan Brooks| 4.8.11 @ 12:54AM
Solar, nuclear, wind, are the best trajectories. But we will see-- everything gets lost in the shuffle these days.
Grzmlyk| 4.8.11 @ 8:42AM
Nuclear, yes.
Solar and wind, well, you might as well burn hundred dollar bills to keep you warm on those below-zero nights.
It will be cheaper than solar and wind. And more effective.
And less instrusive on our dear, victimized, oh-so-fragile - sniff, sniff - planet.
Richard Baker| 4.8.11 @ 9:02AM
Solar and wind are the stuff of what the Germans call "Wolkenkuckucksheim", cloud cuckoo land. These "supporters" don't handle reality well, do they? Can somebody tell me where I can buy a Fish carburetor?
TennesseeVolunteer| 4.8.11 @ 10:12AM
My company was asked to design framing to hold solar panels for a solar farm on the roof of a commercial building.
The overall budget is $200,000 and the expected positive cash flow is $1,000/month less interest and maintenance with a Federal tax credit of 30% and a 3 year accelerated depreciation schedule.
It makes no sense but the company that is selling it has an inside contact for federal funding with no money down. So after almost $100K in tax credits and write offs, the Feds are going to finance it too.
You can't make this stuff up.
john dubose| 4.11.11 @ 10:08PM
There is a reasonable probability that a viable and economic solar technology will come along. There is research going on to use algae and or some exotic rare earth chemistry to generate the equivalent of gasoline from solar energy systems. By making fuel, one would not have transmission and storage problems. Plus, we would not need a lot of new infrastructure. The real problem is that ( if they work ) these things can be done by lots of independent ( not necessarily large ) companies. The power freaks of the central government and major corporations will not get to pull the strings. Expect them to try to strangle these new technologies.