Leaked Spanish Report: Obama’s Model ‘Green Economy’ a Disaster (PJM Exclusive)
(The article below was published in La Gaceta on May 21, 2010.)
Spain admits that the green energy as sold to Obama is a disaster
The Spanish government leaks a report that admits the ominous economic consequences of betting in favor of renewable energies.
by Cristina Blas
The president of the United States, Barack Obama, doesn’t seem to have chosen the right model to copy for his “green economy,” Spain. After the government of José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero demonized a study of different experts about the fatal economic consequences of renewable energies, an internal document from the Spanish cabinet that it is even more negative has just been leaked.
To one of the authors of the first report, Gabriel Calzada, “the government has leaked it intentionally in order to turn the media against renewable energies and to be stronger in negotiations with businesses.”
Because even though Zapatero himself opposes abandoning his grand bet, some voices — such as the minister of Industry, Miguel Sebastián — are beginning to express their worry over the enormous debt that has been generated by the investment in so-called clean energies, which could even delay Spain’s exit from the economic crisis.
On eight occasions, the occupant of the White House referred to the Spanish model as an example to follow. The paradox is that it is a model that Obama himself wants Spain to abandon, as made clear in his call to Zapatero last week in which he asked him to change his strategy on the crisis.
The internal report of the Spanish administration admits that the price of electricity has gone up, as well as the debt, due to the extra costs of solar and wind energy. Even the government numbers indicate that each green job created costs more than 2.2 traditional jobs, as was shown in the report of the Juan de Mariana Institute. Besides that, the official document is almost a copy point by point of the one that led to Calzada being denounced [lit. "vetoed"] by the Spanish Embassy in an act in the U.S. Congress.
The presentation recognizes explicitly that “the increase of the electric bill is principally due to the cost of renewable energies.” In fact, the increase in the extra costs of this industry explains more than 120% of the variation in the bill and has prevented the reduction in the costs of conventional electricity production to be reflected on the bills of the citizens.
If the document indicates that the development of renewable energies has had a positive impact, especially in the reduction of emissions, it has also admitted that the evolution has been too fast, due to subsidies.
“Between 2004 and 2010, the quantity of subsidies has been multiplied by five,”,says the text of the Spanish Ministry. In 2009 alone they were doubled from the previous year to 5,045 million euros, the equivalent of the whole public investment in I+D+i ["Investigación + Desarrollo + Innovación tecnológica", or "research, development, and technological innovation"] in Spain.
The numbers in the long run are even scarier. The government itself says that the alternative energies sector will receive 126 billion euros in the next 25 years. Just an example: The owners of solar plants make 12 times more than what they pay for the energy coming from fossil fuel combustion. The majority are subsidies charged to the consumer.
The conclusion is that with the economy at the point of bankruptcy, it is not possible to keep injecting money in such a costly sector. And the government seems to realize this now.
But aside from all this, Obama’s green energy project might cost him votes. The republican Rand Paul, animated by the tea party movement, won the primary on Tuesday for Kentucky’s U.S. Senate seat owing to, among other things, being a fierce critic of the president’s agenda on climate change.
Obama has made the focus of his economic and environmental politics a change towards a “green economy,” which, to the judgment of some analysts, could be a risk for the recovery of the world’s biggest economy.
Oops…. reality really does, bite! Now, perhaps some may want to look at all of those prognostications made by the UN IPCC & Al Gore, that seem to be based on facts that have been fabricated, manipulated, adjusted, & made to look good by omitting some of the facts that would have destroyed their conclusions. The ‘green’ push has been created by the uber left to establish international governance. They want a system that controls the governing policies of every nation, by unelected bureaucrats. Or more accurately, zealots. The plan hatched by people like Maurice Strong, etc, from the very start, has been to create an international or global taxation system, that benefits outfits like the UN. The UN desperately wants a lucrative & independent of nation states’ dues, funding stream. With it in place the UN can act independently of the desires of those dues paying member states that might just hold out on dues if the UN takes actions they do not approve of. So, our internationalist friends decided to fund the UN with taxes paid for by average people for something people were told would save their planet. Except the plans to save the planet have been exposed as fraudulent. They lack real scientific substance & unfortunately for the internationalist crowd & those who expect to make billions in the cap & trade carbon sales commodities market, someone discovered how ridiculous many of the world ending claims really are. In short, the sky really is NOT falling & will not be falling due to the claims these folks have made.
In the end, many have to thank the few who stood up & told the world these claims were based on faulty & even false science. Many should thank the few who realized this was a greedy political power grab & not a plan to save the planet. Children have been traumatized. Governments have taken steps that are simply idiotic. Companies have made really poor investments in products & systems that can never repay their initial investments.
The world has been had & if those responsible are not called to account in courts of law, the people will rise & demand such actions take place.
based on facts that have been fabricated, manipulated, adjusted, & made to look good by omitting some of the facts that would have destroyed their conclusions
—
Like deleting from your database, all stations that do not show a pattern of warming. As demonstrated in the Russian data?
Another blow to the sanctity of the ground based temperature network.
Here’s an animation that shows how the ground based network has been degraded over the last 100 years.
Beyond that, look how sparsely the world is covered even at the height of the network.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/05/the-great-dying-of-thermometers/
Mr. Obama’s policy is SPEND UNTIL IT HURTS. If it hurts, then the President is doing the job he set out to do: Produce chaos in the American economy, thus bringing it to its knees, fomenting political revolution, and permanently weakening America in its ability to promote its democratic ideals. Mr. Obama’s words do not matter, only actions. Do not listen to him, but watch him very carefully.
The only “green” energy that is economically viable is nuclear. The wind often doesn’t blow, and the sun shines only half the time if we’re LUCKY. and nobody has invented the GIGANTIC BATTERIES to store the power for when it is NOT being generated, which means powerplants must be running at all times just to cover for wind stoppage and night time.
oil moves 80% of our goods. ELectric semi trucks that cover 1800 miles of interstate in two days with forty stops for delivery are NOT on the horizon just yet.
Development of an energy source should be based on its ECONOMIC viability, not on some dimwitted crusade against the largely imaginary evils of oil.
But what they’re trying to do is create it, FORCE it upon us as the ‘new primary system’, and then PROFIT from it because we consumers have no other options.
THey’re trying to become what they claim to hate, the monopolistic money hungry abusers of the little guy… their trade unions were formed to PREVENT this kind of thing, and now they’re trying to become the ultimate version of MANAGEMENT.
Actually, the greenest energy policy is a surprisingly low-tech approach. By eliminating single-use zoning laws, we can allow the natural movement of uses within existing development so that a pedestrian lifestyle is possible in each development, thereby eliminating the need for automobiles for travel within those communities. As the local economies revive, local entrepreneurship and employment will increase, thereby reducing automobile commuting. Then, with no need for automobiles for a significant part of the local population, the need for parking space and roadways will decline to the point that the land from these can be reclaimed for other, more economic uses like gardens for food or fiber (hemp for clothing, paper and rope) and factories for canning or clothing, paper and rope manufacturing. Eventually, this localization of the economy will reduce the use of energy in transportation to a trickle. Moreover, the stationary energy needs of the local factories, compared to transportation, are more easily satisfied by solar and wind energy devices. Further, note that the gardens consume carbon dioxide while the cars expel it and that hemp captures carbon more quickly and retains it longer than trees used for wood pulp.
This will help, but the reduction in transportation needs will be a few percent at best.
The percentage of decline depends on the degree to which movement is made to diversity zoning, how many pedestrian (road-less) communities are formed, how many people switch from automobile commuting to working locally, the dispersion of business activity away from the large metropolises, how much infill development occurs and how much road space is converted to productive use. Certainly, a complete conversion would eliminate automobile transportation while reducing public transport of people and goods with more even usage. The economies of scale of factories and the like would have to be balanced directly with the the diseconomies of assembling the workers needed to run them, instead of pawning them off as social costs, thus reducing the size of such operations and their contribution to our transportation needs.
Another utopian idea. Sorry Carl, if that is the “natural” path of development, how do you explain the Houston highway system – one of the biggest and most extensive in the country?
Apparently, Houston’s development is not exactly natural. I found this posted summary of a paper on the subject:
The myth of “no zoning” in Houston
I found this Michael Lewyn paper (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=837244) very interesting. Here is his bottom line:
In fact, Houston regulates land use almost as intricately as cities with zoning by mandating suburban-style low densities, ordering businesses to hide their stores behind an asphalt ocean of parking, encouraging segregation of land uses, and forcing pedestrians to cross wide streets and to trudge through long, intersection-free blocks to go from one place to another. These policies have helped to make Houston as sprawling and automobile-dependent as other American cities (if not more so). By reversing such policies, Houston and other municipalities with similar policies can create an America that is both more deregulated and less sprawling.
It’s a good paper.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 11, 2009 at 10:45 AM in Law
And we all know how Utopias end!
The problem with wind and solar is that they are unreliable. It doesn’t matter how little energy your utopian factory uses, wind and solar still aren’t suitable. Unless you are willing to pay your employees for sitting in the dark.
Solar actually will work in places. As a resident of Las Vegas for the last 15 years, I can attest to the abundance of sunlight on most normal days in this state. I recently went down to the local OSHA office and took my installers test and subsequently given my license. That was 5 months ago. As of yet I have found no employment in that field and have looked into why. As most of you know the left is aligning itself with Labor in attempts to secure certain things. In Nevada and surrounding states certain proposed projects have been held up due to the fact that the local union was not getting the contract to build. A recent conract for a solar generating plant in southern California was halted by union intervention (lawsuits/greivances) because the main investor stated that it did not want to be required to use union labor to build the site. Tactics like this will not help job creation in this country. I think that there exists a path to a renewable energy future, but the process must be on where renewables grow at a steady pace and the outdated energy means are slowly phased out. Solar power is a rapidly changing science and should not be trashed because of miscalculations in the climate debate.
But what happens, Professor Carl, when the businesses within walking distance of your home don’t have any jobs for your skills?
I know! The Great Obama, head of The Great Compassionate Government, demands that the bosses in your neighborhood hire you! After all, It’s For The Planet!
Mobility = freedom. Those that want to restrict mobility frequently use it as a method of restricting freedom.
If you can’t find a job, you make a job by starting your own business. For this, you do not need Obama or Palin to hold your hand. However, it would help if they didn’t let Walmart overrule city hall.
Also, forced mobility from sprawl does not produce freedom but enslavement. At a minimum, you have to buy a car, maintain it, get in it, drive it and park it at your destination in order to get anything accomplished. Once there, if you want to take a hike, sail across the lake or raft down the river, you have to hike, sail or portage back to where you parked your car and then drive home. Walking frees you from all of this.
‘hemp for clothing, paper and rope’, yeah, okay, I’ll buy that for a dollar. Jebus you beggars must think we’re stupid.
Stupid? The United States Constitution was written on hemp. The military had used hemp rope for many years until it became illegal. Hemp is a very durable fiber and has been used to make clothing by many people over the century’s. George Washington and many others of that time all raised hemp.
Carl Peter Klapper – Wake up. You are living in a fantasy LALA Land.
Its MORONS like this that got us into this position.
FIRE ever liberal you meet, and refuse then unemployment. Preferable throw them all out of the United States. They are too stupid to even deserve to live here.
What you don’t think that is practical? It’s not FAIR?? Neither is the STUPID moronic idea you just put out.
Go get laid, that will be far more productive for you than continuing to think.
And do you have a point to make?
So, rope is going to be a primary component of our future economy?
The internal report of the Spanish administration admits that the price of electricity has gone up,
The Spanish text is more radical: “el precio se ha disparado” means “going up very fast”. Like a bullet. (in Spanish Disparo = firearm shot )
“Between 2004 and 2010, the quantity of subsidies has been multiplied by five,”,says the text of the Spanish Ministry. In 2009 alone they were doubled from the previous year to 5,045 million euros, the equivalent of the whole public investment in I+D+i in Spain.”
I+D+I = Research and Development
The owners of solar plants make 12 times more than what they pay for the energy coming from fossil fuel combustion.
Wrong!!!!!! The sentence says that they make 12 times than what it is being paid (aka market price) for energy from fossil fuel combustion. Personal note: you can bet some people are selling fossil fuel energy as “green energy”. That is unavoidable when you have tow parallel markets and still more in a country whose government employees have never been between the most efficient and honest in the world.
“The owners of solar plants make 12 times more than what they pay for the energy coming from fossil fuel combustion.
Wrong!!!!!! The sentence says that they make 12 times than what it is being paid (aka market price) for energy from fossil fuel combustion.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No, that is correct. You see, they get paid most that extra money in the form of SUBSIDIES from the government. And then they turn around and charge the customers more to cover the “Higher Cost” of generating the energy. They are ripping people off two ways! 1) Higher prices 2) tax dollar funds given them by the government. Both sources eventually come from the energy user/taxpayer.
How STUPID do people have to be to get they are being robbed blind… and all for a HOAX?!?!!
Talk about “Man created disasters” … exactly.
Danae
What you say is correct, however my post was not about right or wrong but about pointing mistakes and inaccuracies in the translation. BTW, I am a native Spanish speaker. Spanish from Spain not South-America
Of course we both know there is no way someone can make 12 times what competitors are making unless the governement is subsidizing him or forcing customers to buy from him. But that was not the point.
the Green technology that makes sense is using the improved uses of insulation (foam etc.)!
I wonder if the CEO’s of those windmill and solar panel companies will show up in this thread as well to claim that renewable energy can still work, it’s just that the Spanish didn’t do it right.
(Kind of sounds like the excuses that have been made for socialism/communism for the last 50 years.)
“I wonder if the CEO’s of those windmill and solar panel companies will show up in this thread as well to claim that renewable energy can still work, it’s just that the Spanish didn’t do it right.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Have anyone stopped to wonder where all the “Green Stimulus” dollars went? Lets take the example of a company in Maryland. For 30 years they have been making good solar panels. They just recently had to fire 300 or so employees. What you say?? Yes, fired them. Why? Well because there are a number of companies now that are getting US Government stimulus dollars to build solar panels… So they can sell the panels cheaper to the consumer, you know, make it easier to “go green”. Compounding that, those companies are buying the components and parts from overseas companies or if they are manufacturing their own, the factories are located overseas. So in the end, the “green Stimulus dollars” are all going OVERSEAS, and doing NOTHING for our economy.
But don’t let the TRUTH get in Obama’s way. He isn’t for America anyway. He hates this country. He is following Cloward and Piven and Alynski and Ayers. They all want Socialism and the fastest way to get there is to destroy the current government and society. The step that follows that includes murdering all the clear thinking people capable of leading the people to revolt AGAINST socialism.
Don’t believe me, just look at history. Russia, Cuba, North Korea…. MILLIONS died because of Socialism.
How “Green” is that?
I pity the fool who buys into this sort of “pie in the sky”
… and yeah, it’s all for the children
Let me see if I have this right.
Spain’s attempt at a “green energy” economy has failed, spectacularly so.
Obama is recommending that Spain abandon their “green energy” agenda in order to begin their economic recovery,
yet
Obama insists that the US adopt Spain’s economic model of a green economy in the form of the American Power Act.
So, our President wants us to adopt an economic policy that we know is a failure and has been proven so on the world stage?
Can someone please explain this to me? It sounds contradictory, if not downright schitzophrenic.
The answer is that Obama wants Spains economy to recover. Ours, not so much.
Isn’t it obvious? The reason Spain failed is that they didn’t spend enough money. The US has vastly more money and thus can throw as much as is necessary to make the Spanish plan work here.
Sadly, I wish I was joking…
It would be a better story if it came from another Spanish newspaper. La Gaceta is a rightwing publication — not that there is anything wrong with that. Americans need to understand the political landscape of Spain and the partisan nature of its press before grabbing headlines and using them.
@ Quique 9.:
Fair enough. But is the story right, or wrong?
Have the “liberal/scocialist” papers responded to this negatively? “Quiet” on something like this equates to agreement in my experience.
It is enough if the facts of the case are accurate. Or are you suggesting shooting the messenger?
And The New York Times is a left-wing publication, which should always be borne in mind when reading its articles.
All papers have an ideological slant, something a reader should always keep in mind. Gaceta may be right-wing, but that alone says nothing about the truth (or lack thereof) of its reporting. It’s incumbent on the reader to approach all news an opinion articles with a critical eye. The real question is, therefore, not Gaceta’s ideological slant, but “is it leaving out any material information that’s contrary to the thrust of its article?” I have no idea, but what they’ve printed seems pretty damning.
Mr Quique:
Are you familiar with this sentence: Truth is truth be it Agamemnon or his pig herder who says it? While we are at it what would you consider a credible publication? Publico? EL Pais?
For American readers: Publico is an ultra far-left newspaper, El Pais is owned by teh same group Prisa who by falsely reporting evry ten minutes that bodies of suicide terrorists had been found betwen other white lies was crucial in turning the outcome of the elections after the Madrid bombings.
I’m skeptical of ALL the media in Spain. They all are tied to their agendas being either to keep the PSOE in power or to get the PP into power.
So I ask again: What might, or might not, be wrong or missing in the article?
It’s a fact that green energy costs more than fossil based energy (at current price levels). Spain’s governemnt knows it and chooses to ignore it as does President Obama. My point in all this is that the messenger (La Geceta)is as important as the message (Spain’s Green Energy Policy is a sham – agreed). It does matter where truth comes from if you want to persuade people on the other side of the arguemnt, otherwise it’s all just a bunch of yelling.
Good point, and one I’m inclined to agree with. It’s too bad that, in my opinion, the Wall Street Journal is the ONLY publication left anymore that attempts (and mostly succeeds in) objectivity. The messenger does, indeed, often influence the message.
But until I read otherwise, the facts of this particular story are pretty clear, regardless of the vehicle.
A few days ago an eeeeevil right wing spanish site published what looked like an official document from Spanish government basically saying what the article says. AFAIK its authenticity hasn’t been denied.
These two humorous cartoons sum up my response to the article.
“The One Promise” Obama will keep at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/keeping-one-promise/
“The Job Creation Myth” at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/reality-vs-fantasy/
it would be nice if the department of energy did its job and completed an honest study of energy in america. additions, replacement, alternate, non conventional energy should be accurately priced out so that one and all can see the costs, effectiveness, efficacy and availability. other than that we are just looking at gore statistics and fabrications.
Green jobs are not about energy independence or protecting the enviroment. Health care reform is not about health. Financial regulations are not about consumer protection. Fanny and Freddie are not about housing the poor. Transparency and accountability are about clever deceptions. A political promise is not about keeping it.
The Great Satan himself takes notes on the cleverness of the lies coming from Washington and how those lies are twisted into public belief. “I may have misspoken, but I will not allow anyone to impunge my record.” The administration has turn the economy around. Baghdad Bob is alive and well on all networks. Who you gonna believe, me or your own lieing eyes?”
Do you really think this will stop the ONE from pursuing his agenda?? If BO could cover this up he would – that’s what he did with the healthcare bill – cover up the real costs and deny. Hey he’s arrogant enough to think that he’s smarter than the Euros and can do Socialism much better than they can. Plus he wants the power.
It is a proven fact that solar,wind and battery tech. cannot at this point compete with: Petroleum and coal energy. If we really wanted to go GREEN, follow France’s way and go nuclear.
The present Obama regime has an agenda to ruin the United States and its capitalist system. Watch what he does and not what he says, words are cheap but his actions will bankrupt the system and make us vulnerable to our enemies. Obama works with a purpose and his tools are using the “useful idiots” of Lenin’s, they have not gone away but have been honed by Alinsky and his students of which Obama is one of them and his main adherent.
Obama is like the petulant child, who, after the parent tells him/her over and over again not to do something (Coakley, Corzine, Deeds, Specter), simply waits until the parent isn’t looking, then does it anyway. It’s reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode where the fortune teller mom keeps telling the little girl not to pick her nose, and the minute mom turns her head, the finger goes right back into the nose.
Obama keeps trying to shove a green agenda down our throats, despite a continued and resounding “no” from the public, and despite the fact that it hasn’t worked in other places such as Spain. However, there’s one thing of which I’m sure: he’ll understand the “NO” he gets in November 2012.
Funny, isn’t it, that the only time you will ever see the government get concerned about wasting money is when their fat pensions and early retirements are at stake.
Then, suddenly, it’s time to get serious about pissing tax dollars into a rathole.
If only they cared about our financial well being as much as they care about theirs.
Face the facts, Obama is an idiot, along with any that follow him like Hillary and Biden.
Don
At root, Obama’s claim that switching to “green energy” will create jobs and stimulate economic growth is based on the lamest, and possibly the oldest, economic fallacy on the books. It’s called the fallacy of the broken window.
As Henry Hazlitt explains it, the broken window fallacy consists of looking at the baker’s broken window as a blessing, since it will create work for the glazer. But what the fallacy does is confuse need with demand. The broken window creates a need for the glazer, but it does not automatically make the money required to pay the glazer come into existence.
Instead, the baker will have to pay the glazer with money that he had planned to spend with the tailor. So the glazer’s gain is merely the tailor’s loss — and in the end, the baker is simply poorer by the amount he had to pay the glazer and now has no money to spend with the tailor. So the broken window was a net COST to the economy, not a net BENEFIT.
Likewise, the fool Obama believes that the alleged need to switch to “green energy” will be a net benefit because it will create jobs building solar panels and windmills. But the alleged need to switch to these power sources — and I for a moment do not believe any such need exists — but even if it did, that alleged need would not magically create all the extra money that will be required to pay for solar panels and windmills. Instead, Americans will be forced to spend far less for other products so they can pay the vastly higher power bills and taxes that will be required to subsidize all of this.
In the end, it will be an economic disaster of untold proportions. And the insane Obama team will pursue it to (our) bitter end.
Keynsian economics in general fails on the principle of the broken window. They actually believe that by taking money away from individuals, and spending it on what the govt wants, instead of what the individual wants, they can make society richer.
Unfortunately, the only ones who get rich under Keynsianism are the politicians.
Hopefully, someone here will send this to Hannity, Greta… Beck… O’Reilly…Rush… Hello?!? This should be shouted from every corner of this country!
As for the 2.2 regular jobs that are lost for every one green job, it’s already happening here. San Patricio County, TX accepted the installation of wind-power mills along the fields facing Nueces Bay not long ago. Once installed, the number of jobs created as a result of them have been a big, fat zero. Knowing how the Corpus Christi area strongly depends upon the petroleum industry for many of their revenues, and how so many of those jobs have been disappearing like magic since the moment the last state was counted for the Electoral College in 2008, it is no surprise.
For an economically depressed area of the country like the Corpus Christi area, windmills are no help at all.
This should also be sent to anyone in Corpus Christi who will listen. After all, Corpus is a Sister City to Toledo, España.
Chistopher Horner is not the only one who “told you so” when it comes to the disatrous effects of a government-forced green economy. So did Keith Lockitch at the Ayn Rand Center, in this article (from last year, I think) on “The Green Energy Fantasy”:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=22651&news_iv_ctrl=1021
This story is just one of a huge list of reasons that highlight why opposition to the notion of AGW is rational and correct.
For argument’s sake, any “warming” that may be happening is not leading to cataclysmic results except possibly at the margins. It is not a crisis, but one of nature’s cycles, and humanity has always adapted. All these great initiatives and projects and draconian legislative and regulatory proposals are simply meant to take advantage of a manufactured crisis for personal and group gain, and should be resisted.
Like all things on the left, these days, it’s damn the facts! Full Speed ahead!
New technology and job creation are just a couple of benefits of going green. We must remember that the alternative is not acceptable. People are tired of Oil and transferring our wealth to some mid east country that does not like us anyway. We must get off the oil addiction and switch to renewable, clean energy and nuclear fuel sources. Failure to do so will only sentence us to more of what we had and have now, wars, spills and servitude. Oil has its place, but its consumption must be reduced and/or eliminated if we are to have a successful future. It is the only real, viable choice. So say yes to the future.
How many times are you going to spout this tired, disproven tripe?
There is no new technology.
There are no new jobs, as the article proves, jobs are destroyed.
If you were really interested in stoping the flow of money to the Arabs, you should be backing drilling and mining everywhere hydrocarbons are to be found.
Renewables consume more energy than they create, that’s been proven time and time again.
Wind and solar are the past, they are not the future.
@ Poor Citizen 24.: New technology and job creation are just a couple of benefits of going green.
Yes, but only for a select few, as of now.
We must get off the oil addiction and switch to renewable, clean energy and nuclear fuel sources.
We can. AND recycle, into the bargain. Please see ultracleanfuels.com and read how waste coal can be converted into clean, efficient, recyclable energy.
(Disclosure: I am personally involved with this effort, having written about it as a journalist. And I can tell you that it is being stonewalled at the highest level. Not sure why.)
Okay, Poor Citizen, show us poor benighted conservatives the way.
Let’s see the windmills and huge solar panels at your home. Let’s see you cut yourself off from the grid (which uses fossil fuels) and exist solely on those two sources of electricity.
Let’s see you walk or bicycle your way to work, to the store, to the doctor. Let’s also see you live life without plastics, since many of them are made with petroleum.
Once you do that, then maybe… just maybe, you will have the standing to lecture us on what we should do.
Until and unless you do all those things, what you’re giving us is, “do what I say, not what I do,” better known as the typical lefty double-standard.
the racist commie bongo will do as much damage to america as he and the national socialist democrats can before we get rid of him.lets hope we can repeal every thing he and the traitor democrats pass as well as impeaching every commie judge that bongo appoints.
Bruce 25
You need to look up the way Wilson’s facist and socialist policies were reversed after WW1. Tell your friends.
i did a lot of reading about wilson in school however my questions about wilsons’constitutional violations i never got a straight answer.i kind of figured wilson was no good even though our history books were kind to the fascist i found books that told the truth about him.
I just shake my head and wonder about folks who want to go back to the days when there were windmills at the big water tanks which drew up water from the pasture wells for our cattle in South Dakota. When the wind failed,and it often did for DAYS and DAYS at a time we had to haul water for the cattle from the deep well at the home farm – the dust bowl years. We pumped water from that well with a fuel powered tractor and then hauled the water out to the tanks in the six 640 acre pastures. We ran between 340 to 400 head of cattle on owned land and also raised wheat, hay, sorgum and barley. We also had chickens, a few pigs and a wind protected apple orchard and a large kitchen garden. Oh, and we farmed mainly with horses until 1924. It took 24 horses to run that farm – when we went to the tractors, it took two….
I read about the people who want to be able to walk to their place of employment, and live in a “green” friendly “village”.
Well, I left that place back in the early 1950′s and I will keep my washer and dryer, my electric lights. my computer and I thank God everyday that I no longer have to can and smoke and dry enough food through the spring, summer and fall to get us through to the time that the garden is again ready to harvest meals from.
Or to butcher that chicken, hog or cow – or to hand milk and churn for the butter and butter milk and make “farmers cheese” or to gather, wash and “candle” the eggs or to cut and haul enough ice in the middle of winter to pack in the “ice house” with straw and sawdust and hope that the ice will be enough to keep the eggs, milk and fresh meat that is waiting to be smoked, canned or dried to “keep” for food until we could again cut ice. To make the sausage and the lard and the soap….been there, done that and Oh, how about the cutting and chopping enough wood to heat the house and fuel the kitchen stove. Wood was hard to come by on the “high plains” and so we gathered the cattle “chips” and used that for heat and to fuel that big iron stove which also had a water tank on it that was the source of our “hot” water for washing up and bathing. The kitchen featured a hand pump to get the water to use for drinking, etc.
Although I still have a small garden and a couple of dwarf apple trees, you could not get me to even think about the “pleasures” of the way we lived back in the “good old days”!!!!
DRILL baby DRILL
Let’s face it, we could go back to the days of cowboys and Chisolm Trail cattle drives and the left would still be whining about “Bovine Flatuance” destroying the ozone… or something. Science, you know!
Sharmist — I love your commentary on how life was on the farm. What a great lesson! I doubt if the people who are calling the shots in Washington have a clue what it’s like to work so hard. They are a bunch of weenies who have lived off the fat of the land for too long.
@Sharmist, I agree completely that people tend to wax nostalgic without considering the real and actual costs of some of their fantasies. On the other hand, it does seem that regardless of GW/climate change, fossil fuels are dirty, nasty, and cause serious pollution. Our oil would be better used to make cheap plastic while it lasts as petroleum is the only way to make hypoallergenic and medical plastics (natural renewable sources are NOT hypoallergenic and are very expensive by comparison). Instead of DRILL BABY DRILL, I say nuclear power and building a better electric infrastructure. To the people that would claim nuclear isn’t safe etc, I would point out the growing number of environmentalists and liberals that are moving over to nuclear’s side because they finally stopped and did some research. There is a reason independent and unbiased engineers and scientists usually support this energy source and non technical organizations like Green Peace make all their arguments emotionally avoiding real facts and numbers. Sorry about the rant, I’ve just been getting seriously irritated at some of the propaganda pushed by alt energy organizations and media outlets about nuclear power and its viability.
http://www.mitc.com/PDFs/renewable_energy_spain_germany.pdf
“Germany and Spain have been selected for the 2009 Renewable Energy Mission, based on their
success in both the implementation of renewable energy resources and their positions as global
leaders in the industry. Both countries are European leaders in on- and offshore wind energy projects.
Spain currently ranks 3rd in the world, behind the United States and Germany, for both
production of wind turbines and installed capacity of wind power”
“The Spanish company Iberdrola recently purchased the American energy company
known as Energy East, the largest industrial acquisition ever by a Spanish company in the
United States. Iberdrola was already the 2nd largest company in wind power within the
United States, operating at 2,000 MW, prior to the acquisition. Iberdrola intends to
increase that capacity to 6,900 MW of operating capacity by 2012.”
they are EU green taxes sponsored enterprises because of the “Gobal Warming”footprint not counting the sponsored jobs by state subsidies
Flatulence, also, lol!
#24 Poor Citizen — New technology and job creation are just a couple of benefits of going green.
Statements like yours are nonsense bordering on technology creationism, as if engineers are little more than idiot savants — “we could have made green stuff 30 years ago, but government didn’t tell us we had to” — and abracadabra, the savants serve it up on command, no different than trained seals.
The way things work is that processes are discovered in research, and engineers work with the discovering scientists to make the discovery do a practical thing that is already sought. Technology creationism presumes that discovery can be mandated. What idiocy. One doesn’t poof discovery and/or the resulting technology into being via fiat.
Some of the Green True Believers presume that a Manhattan Project is all that’s required (make the engineers aware that we really really want this) and boom, green tech is delivered. Ummm… no. The aforementioned project was a success because the underlying discovery had already been made, and this was engineering.
True Believers are so technologically illiterate that they can’t tell discovery from engineering, and you’re proof of it.
Dear PJM folks,
Don’t get so excited about the collapse of Spain’s green bubble. First, GW is real and here to stay. That little graph at the weather station atop Mt Mauna Kea has shown a steady increase in C02 ppm since the 1950s, and C02 will trap heat and cause the temperature to rise. Whatever natural mechanism is slowing down (IPCC and CRU morons aside) the process is likely to be eventually b overwhelmed by continued CO2 dumping into the atmosphere on our part. Personally, I like the green tech part of Obambi’s “stimulus” package. Not because of any green tech power plants that might be built, but because of the large amount of R&D money that’s being thrown at alt energy tech. Check out places like MIT’s Technology review and Wired.com. Sooner or later, somebody or a lot of somebodies in the USA , Japan, China, India, Germany, etc, are going to make the breakthroughs that will make a lot of alt energy tech feasible, and you want the USA to be well-positioned to take advantage of the situation WHEN it happens, so spend the money on R&D. However, a better way to have spent the stimulus cash would have been a steady amount of money poured into alt energy, instead of this one big burst of money. Eight, ten billion a year over a period of years like Bill Gates recently suggested. I agree with Benton, though nukes have to be a big part of our energy future. They’re the only clean, steady mega-level power source we have. My favorite scenario is nukes and some alt-tech for electricity, combined with plug-in hybrid cars using algae-derived biofuel. Finally, I live an work in S. Korea. Samsung just announced a $20 billion green tech program. There aren’t a lot of unrequited socialists here in Seoul. The main problem with Obambi’s energy policy is that producing new energy for the the USA was only one of its two primary goals: the other was to increase the Dems economic and social control over the life of every American.
Hope you’re right, friend.
Would appreciate more evidence.
It is irrelevant that Green tech is overrated and inefficient. One thing only matters, that it harms the economy and particularly harms millions of Americans.
One must understand the drive of liberal hate & lust for dominance, then the rest falls into place. The evidence of the Green failure is out there but it doesn’t matter. In fact it’s the goal.
Why is there such profound hatred for green energy tech on the conservative side of the fence? All new tech is inefficient at first. The first airplanes were glorified kites (Wright Brothers Flyer-go see it at the Smithsonian A&S Museum). The first jet engines were fuel hogs. In WWI, their idea of a portable radio was a wireless telegraph (no voice)set that needed six men to carry it. America’s first submarine, Holland’s X-1, was a little rubber duckie compared to today’s nuclear attack boats. The first computers were room-sized vaccum tube brutes that had to rewired for each new set of calculations. Galileo’s first telescope was a cereal box toy compared what’s available today even for amateur astronomers. I could go on, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Again, any new tech is clunky at first. The only way to unclunk it is to use it and improve it as time goes on. Hi tech doesn’t end with 15-story tall oil derricks and 300,000 ton supertankers. It’s techno-war out their beyond America’s shores, and knee-jerk reactions to new technology are only going to put the USA behind the rest of the pack in the race for power and influence.
M. Gallagher
Seoul
Let the free market decide, not the government.
Because it is a mix of armed robbery and fascism?
when the wind don’t blow the juice don’t flow and none of it is cost effective and there is no substitute for oil or coal.it is just left wing b.s. like glow bull worming.
When one includes the very long list of externalized costs attributable to coal and oil based consumer culture, including endless war, investment choices become clear. I add here that present day accounting principles are entirely appropriate for a culture that has learned to become sustainable by externalizing profits rather than costs.
http://www.iea.org/files/energy_subsidies.pdf
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-07-iea-stunner-global-subsidies-dirty-energy-top-550-billion-year/
IEA stunner: global subsidies to dirty energy top $550 billion a year. The IEA estimates that energy consumption could be reduced by 850m tonnes equivalent of oil — or the combined current consumption of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand — if the subsidies are phased out between now and 2020. The consumption cut would save the equivalent of the current carbon dioxide emissions of Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and Spain. Fossil fuel subsidies average out to 2.1% of GDP of the 37 countries surveyed.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6103RM20100201
2009-2019 US Oil&Gas companies subsidy = $36.5 billion.
ExxonMobil 2009 NET profits = $45 Billion
ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009
2009 US military spending to protect foreign oil&gas supply routes : $ 650 000 millions
2000-2009 US military spending to protect foreign oil&gas supply routes : $ 4 733 000 millions
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1733&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en
Brussels, 18 November 2009. The agreement will strengthen the building codes and energy performance requirements for buildings across the EU and fixes 2020 as deadline for all new buildings to be nearly zero energy buildings. Moreover, the recast Directive also improves the information provided to consumers in the buildings energy performance certificate. Not only the energy performance certificate shall be shown to the prospective new tenant or buyer of the building, but the energy performance indicator of the building shall be stated in the sale or rental advertisements. Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of EU CO2 emissions. It is estimated that, by strengthening the provisions of the Directive on energy performance, the EU could achieve a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 70% of the current EU Kyoto target. In addition to this, these improvements could save citizens around € 300 per annum per household in their energy bills, while boosting the construction and building renovation industry in Europe.
When one includes the very long list of externalized costs attributable to coal and oil based consumer culture, including endless war, investment choices become clear. I add here that present day accounting principles are entirely appropriate for a culture that has learned to become sustainable by externalizing profits rather than costs.
http://www.iea.org/files/energy_subsidies.pdf
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-07-iea-stunner-global-subsidies-dirty-energy-top-550-billion-year/
IEA stunner: global subsidies to dirty energy top $550 billion a year. The IEA estimates that energy consumption could be reduced by 850m tonnes equivalent of oil — or the combined current consumption of Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand — if the subsidies are phased out between now and 2020. The consumption cut would save the equivalent of the current carbon dioxide emissions of Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and Spain. Fossil fuel subsidies average out to 2.1% of GDP of the 37 countries surveyed.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/04/06/exxon-tax/
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6103RM20100201
2009-2019 US Oil&Gas companies subsidy = $36.5 billion.
ExxonMobil 2009 NET profits = $45 Billion
ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009
2009 US military spending to protect foreign oil&gas supply routes : $ 650 000 millions
2000-2009 US military spending to protect foreign oil&gas supply routes : $ 4 733 000 millions
Don’t trust La Gaceta, it belong to Intereconomía Group. What they usually say is worth a used condom.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=216476536295#!/group.php?gid=216476536295&v=info
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