That Magic Touch
A manufacturer of solar panels which President Obama touted as “a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world” has declared bankruptcy 15 months after the President touted it as the proud symbol of potential new Green Jobs.
It may be taking half a billion dollars worth of taxpayer money down the drain with it. “The federal government offered $535 million in low cost loan guarantees from the Department of Energy. NBC Bay Area has contacted the White House asking for a statement.” The failure of the company, according to sources of the Washington Post, was “unexpected”. Apparently nobody, least of all the President in the full rhetorical cry, anticipated that Solyndra, along with similar companies in California, would be driven down by cheaper competition from China.
“We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed,” Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow said in a statement. “But we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America’s leadership in the global economy.”
The Treasury Department provided Solyndra’s loan, on the assurance of the Energy Department. The terms were reviewed in advance by the White House Office of Management and Budget, and almost all of the $535 million has been disbursed to Solyndra.
Taxpayers might be on the hook for most of the loan if Solyndra is unable to repay, said experts in the stimulus and loan guarantee program. The Energy Department could seek repayment in court, but receiving more than a nominal amount is unlikely because of the company’s depleted cash and assets.
Also in danger of being bankrupted was the image of President Obama competency in geography. When he declared Solyndra the way to a “brighter, more prosperous future” he failed to note that this future would transpire across the Pacific Ocean in China.
Part of the problem, according to Spengler at PJ Media, is President Obama’s difficulty with cost curves. Hiring what Spengler called “the best incompetence that money can buy”, the President nominated an economist to his Council of Economic Advisers to advise him. Unfortunately that economist believes that as prices go up, demand correspondingly rises. That is to say when Ramen noodles become more expensive, you buy more of it.
But on Planet Obama, Spengler notes, the demand curve slopes upwards. That could explain why he failed to foresee that China would beat out the government-backed solar companies in California. It costs China less to produce what California produces. So that should have meant boom times for California, on Planet Obama that is. Neverthless, the President has requested Congress to meet in joint session so that he can set the assembled legislators straight on the matter of creating jobs. Whatever else has declined the President belief in his own economic competence isn’t one of them.
Obama writes that it is his intention “to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the Middle Class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.”
The President is convinced he’s got the answer to the problems confronting the economy. “We don’t have magic bullets, but what we do have, I think, is the capacity to do some things right now that would make a big difference,” Obama said in a interview with popular radio talkshow host Tom Joyner. But with the company Solyndra gone, perhaps to be followed by other government companies in a similar competitive situation he’s going to need some his old magic back. Instead of “Hail to the Chief” the following music may be more suited to his Congressional address.
You-oo-’ve got the magic touch (woo-oo)
It makes me glow so much (oo-woo-oo)
It casts a spell, it rings a bell
The magic touch.If I go reeling, uh-oh
I’m feeling the glow (uh-oh)
But where can I go from youI didn’t know too much (woo-oo)
And then I felt your touch (oo-woo-oo)
And now I’ve learned I can return
The magic touch
(Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dooooo)
“No Way In” print and Kindle edition at Amazon
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ABC News ran a news item in May about the administration’s cutting regulatory corners to get Solyndra approved:
“The Obama administration bypassed procedural steps meant to protect taxpayers as it hurried to approve an energy loan guarantee to a politically-connected California solar power startup, ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News have learned.
The Energy Department in March 2009 announced its intention to award Solyndra Inc. a $535 million loan guarantee before receiving final copies of outside reviews typically used to vet such deals. An independent federal auditor who has reviewed the energy loan program said moving so quickly without completing thorough reviews risked exposing the program to claims of political influence and put taxpayers at greater risk.”
And surprise, surprise: some big-time Obama donors were involved:
“The loan guarantee, the administration’s first for a clean energy project, benefited a company whose prime financial backers include Oklahoma oil billionaire George Kaiser, a ‘bundler’ of campaign donations. Kaiser raised at least $50,000 for the president’s 2008 election effort.
Several political allies of the president have ties to companies receiving Energy Department loans, grants or loan guarantees. For instance, the venture firm of another top Obama bundler, Steve Westly, has financially supported companies that won more than half a billion dollars in energy grants and loans during President Obama’s time in office, iWatch News and ABC News reported in March. Relatively few applicants succeed in winning such benefits. The Energy Department said every one of those awards was won on merit.
When the Obama administration announced financing for Solyndra in 2009, the company was only four years old, and had been shipping solar panels for about a year. Officials said the administration was eager to stimulate the economy and encourage green energy start-ups. Energy Secretary Steven Chu promised Solyndra’s package alone would create more than 4,000 jobs.”
One analyst warned of trouble ahead three months ago:
“Mehta has long raised questions about the company’s manufacturing costs in a world market where China offers stiff competition. He said Solyndra has focused on cutting those costs, but that there’s no assurance the company — or the government loan guarantee — will prove successful.
‘There’s a lot at stake here, not just for Solyndra,’ Mehta said. ‘This is going to be held up as a cautionary tale if things don’t work out for Solyndra. People are watching very closely from all angles.’”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/obama-administration-solyndra/story?id=13640783
Rarely has such a massively corrupt administration come a-cropper so quickly. This seems to be the result of a unique combination history has not seen for a long time, of arrogance, ambition, greed, self-delusion, graft, and stupidity.
And yet there are still millions of fools who are convinced our president and his administration are the smartest and most devoid of sin EVER…
“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.”
“Again?”
“Wrong hat.”
There was an episode of Criminal Minds in which the “Unsub” ended up locked up in a padded cell with two cell phones. One was his and the other was his dead girlfriends. He called her obsessively to hear her message, “I’m out there living my life.” This ties together this and the last thread. Is reality just the electronic messages we believe in? For Obama, who has nothing but his own belief in the power of his voice and imagery, the cruel fate that awaits may be to be ignored. He may call a party and have no one show. In Texas they may say he is “All hat and no cattle” but the truth may be that, despite his advertising, there is no hat.
I congratulate them on their timing, right before Obambus’ jobs speech.
In case anybody here needs some tips on how to use up $535,000,000 of taxpayer money, here are some pointers:
* your business plan claims customes will happily pay 3x more for your product than for the competition’s, in part because of that red, white and green “Made in the USA” logo
* your business plan uses rose-tinted glasses to predict the economy will soar and the price of conventional energy will skyrocket so everyone will justify huge amounts for solar
* you buy all employees Obama t-shirts to wear on the assembly line
* you spend it all before your first output reaches the market
In the real world, you don’t ever issue 100% loan guarantees, so I’ll be interested how much non-government money burned up in Solyndra.
http://www.solyndra.com/technology-products/cylindrical-module/
My first take on this is that it’s crackpot technology from start to finish.
I’m not saying that this would never happen under a Bush or McCain administration, but it is so typical of the delusion and mathematical incompetence that typifies Obama himself, the mainstream of today’s Democratic party, and the hysterical green movement generally.
The only valid comparison is to the recent London riots – except, of course, the London rioters were more honest in their motivation, looting.
“We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed,” Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow said in a statement. “But we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America’s leadership in the global economy.”
As Soviet expatriate and now US money manager Vitaliy Katsenelson once said “Communism failed for a reason: government is a horrible capital allocator.”
In the Third year of his presidency I am still unsure how much of his incompetent arises from stupidity, how much from mal-education, how much a pathological attachment to a failed ideology, or if it really is all part of a grand plan to bring the country to it’s knees. Obama is either the most incompetent stooge to every hold the office or a malevolent traitor and I am not sure which scares me more.
A local govt here made subsidies available, thanks to a special tax, encouraging homeowners to install solar panels. The cost of adopting these things is simply staggering. Even with the subsidy it’d cost you a pretty penny, and at current electricity rates the panels would take decades to pay for themselves. Things weren’t helped when the local govt basically stole all the money it had set aside for the subsidies and welched on the deal. This was a reimbursement subsidy, too. You had to pay for installation first and then you’d get a check.
The whole thing stinks of corruption everywhere you turn. This is not singualar corruption, or even double corruption, or even corruption squared. It’s factorial corruption. The solar companies get subsidies, the local govt gets subsidies, it can also supplement them with a special tax, forcing everybody to pay into the green energy fantasies of the liberal down the street who’s dedicated to proving his bonafides.
When these jokers get down to directing the political economy towards the suitable intelligent, nuanced, and visionary ends, you can bet what’s looming is a cluster. I shudder to think what Obama’s going to announce on Thursday, odds that this will be a horrifically expensive misadventure that ultimately fails are high.
Their gurus have even suggested we imagine that Mars attacks in order to bootstrap our economy. And, that if Mars were to attack, it’d be to stop AGW. No absurdity seems out of bounds, yet every one seems meant to further their own impossible hucksterims.
They are mad. Unhinged. Swinging light sabers in a fog.
Solyndra’s gambit was that govt would guarantee not only its finances but also its market. The govt was to inflate a bubble for solar technologies. This is the only possible way solar technology can thrive. Conviction that with time solar technology will improve to make it competitive with the “fossil fuels” is a marketing conjecture. Even supposing that a solar panel could convert solar energy into electricity at a 100% rate of efficiency, you can’t have enough such solar panels. It is far cheaper, easier, dependable, and more efficient to simply burn coal for your kilowatt hours. Only subsidies make solar remotely viable for all but a handful of niche applications, such as space vehicle power or electric fences for cows. What a juxtaposition! Sputniks and Ole ‘Bessy!
These facts are widely acknowledged, that green energy techs are fundamentally not viable or competitive absent subsidies. The whole point of carbon credit talk and Cap and Trade markets hinge on this realization. Basically, the promise of green energy of all stripes rests on the ability of a government to blow economic bubbles.
Anybody up for more of that?
The material for this post required suggesting either “You’ve Got That Magic Touch” or the “Great Pretender” as accompanying music for the scheduled speech. Magic Touch won by a hair, but for those who’ve never heard the runner up, I’ve provided some of the lyrics of Great Pretender below.
solar electric systems do work – but they are very expensive for the returned power
we have a 4.5KW array here – with a battery bank, and a propane powered 10KW generator –
nothing to do with being ‘green’ – everything to do with survival
we are tied to the ‘grid’ – but at the very end of a long thin line way up in the woods – we get power outages every year – usual a day or two, but sometimes for weeks -
we are in that small niche category where it makes sense, if you can afford it in the first place – set-up costs are very high – so far maintenance is quite low – it’s about 8 years old – and it will soon be time for new batteries –
biggest maintenance problem is removing the snow from the panels —
would I do it again? – yes – it allows us to live here through ice and wind and flood storms which cut our grid-tie off – especially in winter – otherwise we would have to evacuate – but I’m thinking a generator alone would suffice for most of that -
having a whole system – grid-tie, batteries, panels, generator – means we can stay up and running for weeks, if not longer without the Grid power – and always have sufficient power for water, refrigeration, lights, radio, internet, tools etc
it does reduce our electric bill,by back-feeding to Grid during sunny days – but i doubt i’ll ever recoup our set-up costs in dollar terms –
we do it for our safety – we did not file or claim for any government kick-backs or tax-backs – and none of it is Chinese made – German panels, USA generator and batteries
but i completely understand that it is a niche product – not suitable for grid power – it only makes sense for personal use, for houses that are off grid or have frequent grid-outages – and winters.
Recently, various experts on the automotive industry are concluding that given problems and limitations of battery technology, the all-electric car is just not ever going to be economically viable vs cars running on liquid fuels. China is dumping it’s big plans to convert almost all cars in the big cities to all-electric. Wind Power is garbage, Solar Power is garbage, All-Electric Cars are garbage. Only bio-fuels show potential over the course of decades. In the best case, by mid-century a significant portion of our transportation fuels will be bio-fuels. But, maybe not even then.
Just last week a company announced that they have perfected a means of economically extracting oil from the oil shale in the Unita Shale formation in Utah and the Green River Shale formation in WY, that does not use any water. (The requirement for huge amounts of water was a deal killer up to now.) If this company’s technology proves out, the USA can (and will, once we get rid of Obama) tap into a supply of oil many times larger than all the oil in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. But we have got to rid ourselves of the Green Eco-Fascist state first, or we will continue to stagnate and wither on the vine.
H/T Maggie’s Farm
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/17848-Saturday-morning-links.html
quotes Surber:
Re Al Gore, via Surber:
From the Hill on Friday: “Al Gore on Friday bashed the notion that climate scientists are manipulating data for financial gain, a charge levied by global warming skeptics, including GOP White House hopeful Rick Perry.”
From the Telegraph on November 3, 2009: “Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies. Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology. The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.”
(links at Maggie’s)
***
tv report today related that Seattle had successfully completed its home-weatherization program. The stim bill sent ‘em $20,000,000 and they weatherized three (3) homes with it.
At almost seven million dollars per, say the weatherization saves –let’s be WAY generous –$5k/home/yr times three homes = $15k/yr, or a one thousand three hundred thirty-three year payout.
Figure the compound-interest time value of the 20 mill and, boy, you got yourself a convoy!
As the saying goes, green jobs=fake jobs.
However, green subsidies are all too real, and all too expensive to the taxpayer.
Gore’s VC baby Silver Spring is ‘spose to’ve IPO’d on the NYSE –i think as [SSNI] iirc –a few months back. However i can find no quotes on it. odd.
Did see where it’s stock in trade is a fee-based service based on collecting grid info from your home or biz vis an elecrical device that tells the utility –or rather its contractor Silver Spring –how much juice you’re metering in at any particular time –so you can ID the ebb and flow and practice conservation.
The corporation’s model is to charge a monthly fee for that info, as per the cable tv model.
The piece i read was clearly puffery, but in the usual conflict between puffery and a writer’s desire to protect his longer term brand, the writer slipped in an offhand BTW about the company being a little concerned with an extremely low -cost device available in hardware stores that does the same thing as their set of top-heavy middlemen info collectors and re-resellers.
Heh –looks like Gore may be stuck in the bargain-basement massage situations awhile longer.
Anyhoo, no Tea win in 2010, Gore woulda got his legi$lation, and the two dollar meter from China would never have shewn up at Home Depot.
The gig is up for the AGW crowd. Way past up……
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2011/08/30/005260-new-cern-cloud-study-makes-al-gore-climate-change-forecasts.html
IF CERN says it’s the sun that causes Global Warming (IE:Climate Change) it’s the sun that causes climate change. Period. You can take it to the bank. This new report completely knocks the props out from under the watermelon stand.
Green job, Black job, Red job, Blue job. It seems they are all just jobs….
Imagine that!!!
BTW, If you have a decent graphics program, grab that .jpeg and blow it up.
Algore in all his glory
Green energy is the modern substitute for Boss Tweed’s government sinecure jobs. You bundle cash for the party and they fund your “start-up”, you then hire your buddies at very large salaries and go out of business in a few years.
Thankfully there are a few real scientists doing real work hidden away here and there. At the University of Kentucky it appears that they have discovered a reasonably cheap way to split hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight; http://highfrequencytraitor.blogspot.com/2011/08/good-news-or-so-it-seems.html
The whole Greenie thing might just be moot if the researchers at CERN can get word out that the sun’s cosmic rays are the real source of global warming; http://highfrequencytraitor.blogspot.com/2011/08/love-you-too-al.html The Movement does have to try to keep that hushed up though as there is no guilt (and less graft) in agreeing that nature has its own way of doing things, and man might just be little able to heat or cool the planet.
As far as the Resident’s employment plan goes I must confess that I think it has as much success as that last two trillion dollars in “stimulus” has had at creating jobs. The Resident has never shown a mastery of any real-world skills outside of teleprompter reading. His real skill is hubris, but I can’t find anybody willing to pay for that.
When Obama’s governance has finally left the USA, if there is any honest men running the Justice Department and GAO, there’ll be scandals popping-up for years and years. There was simply so much money spent so quickly and with such little oversight, it’s a dead-certain-lock that Democrat crony’s will have ended up with hundreds of $Billions of government funds salted away in numbered Swiss accounts.
Here’s to the coming transparency …
O.S.
Buy high and sell low.
The profits in the bail out.
And its all legal!
Per my comment #12:
The development of technology to tap the Oil Shale in Utah without using any water:
http://redleafinc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26:technology&catid=3:technology&Itemid=4
An also onn the solar front, apparently the production of solar panels is dumping huge amounts of lead pollution into the third world:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-08/uota-sir083111.php
I’m looking into putting a new roof on my barn, and when I blanched at the estimate the roofer said that the price of shingles has skyrocketed because the stimulus projects have gobbled up so much of the asphalt.
So naturally, I’m thinking I’ll just do the part of the roof that’s necessary, my roofer will make less money, and the Obama plan will continue to eat away at us.
Joe, I think the thing to be afraid of is not them but us. The devil is an opportunist, and if we continue to play the host for these parasites, we’ll deserve what we get. Fortunately, it’s beginning to look like a mistake to underestimate the common sense of the American people (as they apparently have).
Besides the fact these solar companies would simply not exist without subsidies, many companies with gigantic solar arrays on their roofs, are going to have a huge problem when they need to replace the roof. The cost of a roof replacement will skyrocket. Not to mention which landfill will accept the spent solar panels. Cradle to grave thinking was shoved aside with irrational exuberance to ‘be green’.
Here’s an update on the gibson guitar story. apparently the feds want them to ship their jobs to Madagascar http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011/08/31/doj-advises-gibson-guitar-to-export-labor/
The Green, Green Grass of GE & Mao.
…-
“*General Electric where CEO Jeff Immelt earned $15.2 million in 2010, while the company got a $3.3 billion federal refund and invested $41.8 million in its own lobbying and political campaigns.”
“Study: Some U.S. firms paid more to CEOs than taxes”
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2011/08/31/18622761.html
…-
“General Electric moves production from its lamp plant in Virginia to China”
“• GE is investing $2bn in China setting up joint ventures
• US has lost 40% of its manufacturing jobs since 1979
• US government hopes to create 800,000 green jobs by 2012″
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/11/general-electric-production-shift-china
There are now two thorium projects started in the USA plus a couple of hot & cold fusion projects–some with serious private funding — suggesting they may have promise.
http://mnispel.net/neengineer/?p=139
I havn’t seen the green river tech story before but the idea of cooking the oil in the ground has been around for awhile and they have been doing some testing for quite some time–though maybe not with this new gambit. To cook the shale insitu will take a lot of energy.
Next year will be a big year for Joule Unlimited. They have been able to produce biodiesal for 1.20 @ gallon in their test facility. They believe they can produce biodiesal for .60@ gallon their scaled up 1000 acre facility in new mexico. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/08/02/energy-in-america-new-diesel-biofuel-faster-more-efficient-to-produce-says/
Currently oil and natural gas shale fracking has the potential to make the USA energy independent in 10 years. said by one oil industry exec.
http://www.hannity.com/videos/?uri=channels/400391/1450625
said by another.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43494365/CNBC_TRANSCRIPT_CNBC_S_JIM_CRAMER_SPEAKS_WITH_AUBREY_MCCLENDON_CHESAPEAKE_ENERGY_CEO_TONIGHT_ON_MAD_MONEY_W_JIM_CRAMER
Re 11. bits
I’m thinking about building my own solar setup after this storm knocked out my neighborhood.
I have a couple questions:
How do you get internet when the grid is down? Through satellite?
Can you run central heat/AC (did you have to get more efficient or lower voltage appliances?) Or do you use space heaters and window AC?
What kind of batteries do you use? I heard lead ones need to be topped off.
FYI I’ve heard tying your private system to the grid increases vulnerability to EMP/surges.
c @ 9: Solyndra’s gambit was that govt would guarantee not only its finances but also its market.
excellent point. which brings up the point, what happened, feds couldn’t find $500,000,000 worth of government building rooftops to cover with the stuff, or the first installations didn’t work?
j @ 26: lots of options, and unless your are a king hell engineer, you want to buy solutions not build them, so you shop for answers, but one is that you’d like to get a lot of heat from hydrocarbons, from natural gas to propane to wood. and if you’re worried about EMP/surges, have to make sure your own system doesn’t pick them up as well, there are solutions but I think few have them.
c @ 25: I’m optimistic on the thorium and pessimistic on the fusion, have to research what companies are funding these efforts, and at what levels. even GE might put a few bucks into a crackpot effort “just in case”.
do you believe this big SV green energy company bloomenergy.com? they just installed five of the units out back at Megabank, but haven’t turned them on yet. seems waaaaaay too good to be true. apparently it works, at least a little, so the question will come down to operating and maintenance economics. afaik at least it’s private money, I presume money to burn, until and unless they get to the IPO.
This thing reeks of skimming. Designed to fail. How does a start up blow through a half a billion dollars in one year? ?Got to hire one hell of a lot of people and spend a ton on equipment to blow that much in a year’s time. Ya need to ramp up to spend that much. Someone, probably the Obama contributors ran off with the money. Denninger is on it.
“But we can’t stop investing in game-changing technologies…
Sure. That’s a guaranteed way to win at the gambling table, too. You don’t have so stop investing – just double your bet after each loss and you’re guaranteed to win big, eventually.
Jay at 26.
Phone lines have there own power source. Usually very very reliable. If lines are down however…other wise use your smart phone. Cellular towers generally have some back up power.
Solar panels. Some numbers…(Love numbers, they speak truth). On the best day, at the best time in the best place, (summer solstice, high noon, clear day between tropics, and preferably at high altitude) solar incidence on planet earth is about 1 kw per m2. That is the theoretical maximum. Best panels today get about 20% of that, or 200 watts (2 light bulbs, old style).
Of course, from about 3 minutes after noon and off season, our light bulbs get ever less power. Unless you are bits @ 11, you can’t get there from here.
I believe Obama has a very deep influence from Prince – he is clearly the PARTYMAN!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Bj_So1PuA&NR=1
(oh, yeah)
All hail – the new king in town
Young and old, gather ’round (yeah)
Black and white, red and green (funky)
The funkiest man U’ve ever seen
Tell U what his name is
Partyman, partyman
Rock a party like nobody can
Rules and regulations – no place in his nation
Partyman, partyman
Party people – say it now: YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!
Somebody holler if U wanna party
“Ladies and gentlemen, [no] pictures, please!”
Get it up, oh yeah
Partyman, partyman
Get it up, get it up
“Ooh, I love purple”
I rock the party, I rock the house
I rock the whole world, north, east and south
In the west – 17 horns blowin
Partyman, partyman
(Lose me now boy)
Get it up
All hail the new king in town
Ain’t nothin’ but a muffin
We gotta lotta butter 2 go
(Y’say aye, an’ I like ya ‘way, but don’t come now)
And if it break when it bend
U better not put it in – uh
Giddy up
(Ride ‘em boy)
Partyman, partyman
Partyman
Partyman, partyman
Young and old, gather ’round
“… to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses”
Had the planners at central government thought of this before, things may have turned out differently. But as things stand, this administration has done everything possible to burden small business, which in effect, is the middle class. So Obama got his first factory tour. Now if someone could give him a tour of an Economics 101 class. And, who in the hell “lends” a startup 535 million dollars anyhow? Solar is a pretty soft market, even with government subsidies. Perhaps the administration didn’t, necessarily, skyrocket the prices of electricity soon enough. The money would have been better spent on import controls. How about an import tax on companies that cannot show good corporate governance and environmental stewardship? It is demanded from companies in California, it is about time the field is leveled.
A very intelligent man I know, a college professor, has put photovoltaic solar arrays on the roof of his home. They are sufficent to run the place, and then some, on most days, but he has no power storage. The lights would go off when the sun went doan. So he is on the regular grid and sells power to it when the sun is up and buys power when the sun goes down. Basically he pays nothing for electricity.
But it cost him $50K to do it. The system is guaranteed to last 20 years, and even not calculating the future value of money, that works out to $208/month for electricity. In contrast, I average $80 a month for a power bill.
Of course, it would be great to have power after a hurricane; I have been without power for as much as 10 days. But you really need the power at night, so you can cool the house down enough to get to sleep, and at that time there will not be any without the power grid being up.
When he put the system in 3 years ago he was counting on the cost of power spirling upwards thanks to Cap and Trade, so he would be both saving money and making more. That does not appear likely now.
Another friend of mine has a cabin so far back in the mountains of Vermont that he has no commercially supplied power. He has solar cells and a back-up propane generator and a back-up back-up gasoline powered generator. He gets along fine – but is not insane and thus does not try to live there in the winter; he has a house in Florida.
Locally we have an absurdity under construction. Our coal-fired power plant was torn down and is being replaced with a natural gas fired plant. But in a nod to fashion the lights in the power planet will be powered by solar arrays!
And not far from that plant several acres of dying citrus trees were ripped up and covered with solar arrays.
Solar cells will continue to be used in all kinds of applications in places where they are appropriate – which is to say, where nothing else is available, such as on satellites and remote locations. I think that using solar-powered auxillary cooling systems to augment the regular house air conditioning in hot weather probably makes economic sense as well. But I am afraid all of this Go Solar! nonsense is more of an impediment to the industry than an aid.
“I’m optimistic on the thorium and pessimistic on the fusion,”
Why? Fusion is a done deal;
https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2010/nnsa/NR-NNSA-10-01-02.html
Getting the power up to the levels need to start the process was the hard part. The Magnetic containment is basically an engineering project, as is getting the power out and about. The First production reactor is still scheduled to start up next year, AFAIK.
There will be problems, of course. Any cutting edge technology has teething issues.
Nothing that can’t be solved. The watermelons will raise ‘ell, of course but they do anyway so nobody pays them much attention.
Once the CERN report of solar created climate change goes viral ( It will have to, the MSM won’t touch it) and GOP candidates for POTUS are talking about it, the ability of wacko greens to stop innovative energy solutions will sharply decline, if not vanish.
Boy who cried wolf syndrome. Just in case you didn’t pass the URL on, here it is again;
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2011/08/30/005260-new-cern-cloud-study-makes-al-gore-climate-change-forecasts.html
I know it’s silly to use a chain letter technique to spread the good news but the MSM will go all out to stop this report from being disseminated through normal channels.
The Watermelons understand that after the East Anglia debacle, The CERN report would be a stake through the heart. No recovery from it. Dreams die hard and the Moonbats will be in full bark over this.
CERN depends on government funding to survive so the URL and the report it contain has to be spread far and wide enough to avoid being wiped.
Remember a liberal faced with an irrefutable message tends to reach for their side arm while eyeing the messenger.
fusion has been a done deal since about 15 billion years ago, a billion years after the big bang when the first stars ignited.
but we’re still working on the earthbound version, the only ones that work so far tend to destroy everything in a nine mile radius.
it would not surprise me at this point if earthbound fusion is a thousand years away, though we can capture fusion energy by space-based solar after a 100-year project to built it out to industrial levels.
unless someone wants to build a mile-wide pit that we blow up h-bombs in twice a day, and generate power from the red-hot lava created.*
*patent pending, I wish
Now and again, I use a fuel that is made from solar energy, water and air. It’s a renewable form of energy called firewood. It warms the heart too.
I used to follow the studies in nuclear fusion research, magnetic confinement, electrostatic confinement, inertial fusion with lasers, x-ray lasers, electron beams, and etc. They all tended to follow the same path, fusion at the lab bench level, then they’d start scaling up. The best of them would make it through two scale ups and then the financial draw backs would hit, not enough power out in ratio to the power consumed, exotic hydrogen isotope consumption to high for commercial viability, eddy current problems, and others. I’ll get excited when someone builds one that sells commercially; maybe if the Navy puts one in a ship.
More than a handful of scientists have been providing proof for the cosmic origins of global warming for sometime now. As it turns out, increases in cosmic radiation correlate perfectly with warming trends. Pretty simple model. Maybe that is its downfall, climate scientists have been in search for the grand unified global modeling method and have been trumped by Occam.
PBS had a three part series on the accent of man and hypothesized bipedalism was a genetically selected trait to allow a nomadic man to deal with the wild climatic swings of the African rift valley where man is to have evolved. Got that? Global warming six million years ago. It must be that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble were heating up their environs with Pterodactyl powered appliances back then. Good grief. That is about six million years ago and it really pisses me off that these @ssholes in the government are just getting around to take up the cause against humanity to solve this dilemma. We the people must take cause against the neo-genocide elite by thinning their herds at the ballot box.
re: 26 jay – - – How do you get internet when the grid is down? Through satellite?
yes – although often the phone-lines will work – dial-up – even if the power lines go off- different systems – Grid – electric power lines – have switches that cut off to save system, prevent fire / further damage – telephone is very low voltage – they don’t usually have any cut-out switches –
- – - do you use space heaters and window AC?
No – I live up North, no need for A/C – but we do use a lot of electrics in winter for circulation – water and air – we run an outdoor wood fired heater, hot fluid – heat-exchanged into a floor heating system – two air pumps needed for fire-box – 3 needed for floor fluid circulation –
- – -What kind of batteries do you use? I heard lead ones need to be topped off.
Rolls – the best – traditional lead-acid – they do need to be maintained – checking and refilling 2x / year works –
- – - FYI I’ve heard tying your private system to the grid increases vulnerability to EMP/surges.
sort of true – EMPs would be a problem for anyone – - I hope we don’t get any – my understanding is a high altitude EMP would knock you out wether you were tied to the grid or not
normal power-line surges and ‘brown outs’ can be filtered – a nuclear high altitude EMP would be a big problem – can be dealt with, but – - i haven’t done that – sensitive electronics could be kept in a Faraday Cage — but – if we get hit with one of those, were going to have bigger problems than home electricity — have thought about it – may do some Cages for ‘putes and radios – I’ll die last
# 31 michael hoskins
I am very aware of the limitations and realities — i do it because I can, and I am interested – and our system allows us to run during sunny daylight without the generator on, and at night – batteries / inverters will run our place for 12 hours in summer – to 6 hours in winter – without generator on –
this allows time to get awake – get organized, food, clothing, find tools – and do any maintenance / start-ups – work arounds – that may be needed – it is not practical for most people – we live in a very remote area, and are at the very low end of the Grid repair priorities for our local electric grid –
- it is very expensive – I would recommend most people just get a good, well sized propane generator – and use solar / batteries / etc. only if your really interested in this stuff and can afford to put in a substantial system – and experience frequent long outages, and need to keep electric power going – many don’t – most don’t – I do. ymmv
In a way, we’re talking in circles here. We know that this administration is infested with scandals, several of which are quite spectacular, but — to paraphrase that last great and decent Democrat — we’ve defined “scandal” down. Now “we” would be the MSM and the political class, but the general public is not getting the full stories. Obama pulls a Watergate several times a year each year, but where’s the outrage?
Tangentially related:
The small, coal-fired powerplant in Alexandria, VA, a DC suburb, is being shut down. It is part of the rogue EPA plan to eliminate coal-fired plants without their being a replacement plan in place. The original plan was to have the Alexandria plant reduce its pollution levels with a $32 million grant. Instead, the plant has to return that money, and shut down. This is crazy. There are no plans to replace the plant or convert it to gas. Alexandria will be at the mercy of the general Virginia Power grid.
Quick!! For an ”A” in the Golden [Very] Oldies course—who did those songs?
Yessir . . . The Platters with their yummy female singer.
Wretchard said:
“The failure of the company, according to sources of the Washington Post, was “unexpected”.”
What planet are the Washington Post moonbats living on?
Fun with numbers:
15 months = 10957.5 hours
$535,000,000 / 10957.5 = $48825 / hour
Pissing away money at a rate of $48825/hr would be hard work. If I was burning the money as one dollar bills, I would need to burn 13.5 bills a second. That’s probably not achievable. I could probably do it if I was throwing $20 bills into a shredder. However my arms would get pretty tired after spending a day doing that.
I wonder how many of Obama’s pals got a piece of that action? Supposedly, Obama’s re-election campaign is well funded. The money wasted trying to get Obama re-elected represents another bonfire of $100 dollar bills. I guess it’s only fiat money and merely paper and ink.
I used to put on my tinfoil hat and consider that the Obama Administration was the result of a left wing conspiracy. Given the level of ineptitude displayed in all facets of governing I’d then swing over to the idea that they were the results idiots working together. Now with an extra layer of foil I’m starting to believe Obama was put into office by a cabal of white collar criminals. Corruption is a given in government but I don’t remember seeing such blatant and crude extortion, blackmail, and thievery before. It is much more like a Mafia bust out than a government. A bust out is when the mafia will take over the operation of say a supermarket, they’ll sell everything at discount prices and keep the suppliers and creditors at bay as long as possible. Then one day they’ll strip everything in the store to sell then bust out and vanish leaving suppliers and creditors holding the bag.
Yes, as long as the hurricane didn’t take the solar panels with it. Years ago, I bought a portable generator for when the power went out – a frequent occurance in the PNW when a wind storm followed a heavy rain. The Alders would come down like dominoes, and occasionally the big Doug Firs would too, taking out power lines. First big storm after I bought the generator, a 100′ Doug Fir came down on the shed and smashed the generator! Oops…
But I think the question was about internet service. If you have DSL, it goes over phone lines, but the switches at the other end of the wire will need power to get you onto the Internet.
On the general subject of household backup power, I think it’s a good idea. The people running the power grid in the US (and these days that unfortunately includes the politician and EPA types) have no strategic planning ability. Seems like there are now three kinds of people running power systems: breaucratic apparatchiks, crony capitalists, and Wall Street brown-nosers focused on short term profits. The first two wouldn’t know what strategic planning was if it jabbed them in the fuse box with a live wire, and the last type doesn’t care cause strategy won’t pay off before they’re pulled the rip cords on their golden parachutes.
I’m expecting our grid to become increasingly unreliable.
In my experience in Silicon Valley startups, venture capital people act more like a bunch of penguins on an ice floe. They all stand around waiting until one of them decides to jump off, then they all jump off together.
The biggest problem with government investment in high-tech areas is that by picking winners and losers, the government also ends up deciding those segments of the industry that private investors are going to be putting their money into as well.
It’s just another one of those law of unintended consequences things. By investing in “green” technology, the wizards-of-smart in our nation’s capitals have managed to suck all of the investment capital out of the private sector that otherwise would have been available for alternative technologies; technologies that would have had a far better chance of proving both useful and profitable.
So the true cost to our society for this debacle is not just the half-billion the gov’t has lost, but also all of the private investment capital that went down the drain with it.
28. Unsk
This thing reeks of skimming. Designed to fail. How does a start up blow through a half a billion dollars in one year?
Solyndra is a union shop. That may have been a factor.
wildiris @ 46 said:
“… venture capital people act more like a bunch of penguins on an ice floe. They all stand around waiting until one of them decides to jump off, then they all jump off together.”
“Judas goat” might be a better animal analogy. Obama loaned Solyndra $535 million. Consequently, the sheep thought the deal was safe because it had government backing. However after Solyndra goes through the Chapter-11 process, the federal government will get most of its loan money back (secured debt) but the venture capital schlemiels who invested in Solyndra will be left with their pants pulled down.
@33
“Our coal-fired power plant was torn down and is being replaced with a natural gas fired plant. But in a nod to fashion the lights in the power planet will be powered by solar arrays”
Sorry, but I think that’s funny. A One-Giga-Watt electrical power plant is compensated for by a Hundred-Watt solar panel. Never realized the the local power company had such a sense of humor. Or maybe they are operating on the assumption that one can never go broke overestimating the gullibility of the squishy SWPL’s, the Planet-Green-TV-network watching types who go for all this Green junk.
Actually, Planet-Green network are a bunch of hypocrites. They have a reality show about contestants who run around the country contesting in Barbeque Cook-offs (for prize money). Think of all that dastardly smoke emitted by fat dripping on the charcoal! Oh my planet! Oh the Humanity!
My experience with Silicon Valley is that the engineering isn’t really very good. Well, there are good engineers there, but the bench is very shallow considering the volume of companies. There aren’t enough quality engineers to go around, and the majority of SV firms don’t seem to care. SV is more of a VC construct than a technical one. But that’s really no surprise considering the history. San Francisco was the West Coast’s banking capital. Most of the engineering went on down south in LA and San Diego. Engineering was primarily Aerospace and big-scale infrastructure (like the CA Aqueduct, a southern state pheonomenon).
The Bay Area has pretty good research staring in the 50′s with Stanford/HP/XEROX PARC, and Shockley/Caltech, which of course spun off Fairchild which spun off Intel. There were good engineers working at those companies, but the horde of follow-on Tech startups, funded by the active banking/VC community, really overwhelmed the available supply of quality engineers. Migration in tapered off some time back, when the real explosion in volume hit, because the Bay Area is not an attractive place to live for a family man. It’s great for gays and bohemians, but (stereotype alert!) you can only use so many designers and artists before you need some engineers.
The style of Silicon Valley is money and business plan over engineering. The relative handful of good engineers are already employed, but the startup frenzy continues oblivious, second rate execs hiring third rate engineers, everyone scuttling from one fiasco to another.
“go broke overestimating” should be: “go broke underestimating”
The problem with Solyndra is rich people are not taxed enough. They just don’t pay enough of their share or Solyndra would have overcome their weaknesses out-competing the Red Chinese.
45. JMH
“I think the question was about internet service.”
Indeed it was, since everything is DSL here. There is no more dial up to speak of, even if the phones work.
After the storm the phones were down with the internet, since it’s the same company and the same equipment. Bundled services save the company lots of money, but when they go down everything goes down.
Another symptom of grid issues is they started letting the frequency shift. We have an old oven clock that wants to see 60Hz to keep time. It’s been losing a few minutes a week.
59 Hz and 9% unemployment – the new normal.
Ironically, one of the reasons for Solyndra’s failure is likely the high taxation, anti-business regulatory environment in California, and possibly its status as a union shop. This environment brought to you by the same ideology that brought you “Green Jobs”.
Just another example of progressive liberalism as a self-defeating ideology.
Bell Curve #49:
Hilarious indeed, but, well, you see, Florida Power and Light solicits voluntary contributions for people to pay more than their actual electric bill in order to pay for “green” energy sources. So by putting in that trivial amount of solar power they will get their customers to pay for the company’s own lights.
And besides, it will look so nice in their advertising….
Don Rodrigo (#41)
The coal-fired power plant in Alexandria is also an important supplier of electricity to parts of the District of Columbia and Reagan Airport. The cables from the plant supply much of the Federal government’s power supply as well as vital voltage and frequency support during periods of high demand. If the plant closes DC will be totally reliant on supplies from Maryland, which also features an anti-generation bias. Stronger transmission lines will be needed from the east (Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant) and from the Northwest (PJM Interconnect).
Have any of these geniuses figured out how long new Tx lines will take to complete in DC and Maryland? OTOH, developers stand to make a bundle on the redevelopment of the power plant site.
Here’s a green job:
Go to a wind power forest and collect all the dead eagles. These will be legal eagles because they were killed by government-subsidized green power, therefore they are dead-green eagles. Pluck the tail feathers and any others that have ceremonial value and hie thee over to the nearest Indian reservation.
Go to the casino and ask to speak to the manager of the gift shop. Sell him/her the feathers for a high price because of his/her assumption these were obtained illegally. The manager can then claim they were captured on the reservation for religious purposes.
Send the feathers to China or Viet Nam to be made into ”authentic” ceremonial headdresses. It won’t matter if these were really the ones used in this tribe or not as most of the tribal ”members” are only 1/16th or 1/8th Indian anyway and anyhow nobody knows what the old folks used to wear. Further anyhow, the tourist chumps in the casino really don’t care as long as they’ve got the ”war bonnet” in their poker room and can insinuate it was bought illegally from the back of a poacher’s pickup outside Gold Nugget, California.
Thus, poor dead eagles, killed illegally except for the fact that nobody in authority gives a **** are turned into a source of income for poor Native Americans and can then go on to fertilize the soil. This is a renewable resource until the windmill harvesting of eagles exceeds the laying of eagle eggs, at which point the windmills will be available for scrap metal, another renewable resource until . . . . . . . . .
re# 57
good one – lol – here’s a true story – many years ago I was in Panama, on a sailboat with a small wind-generator – Milaflores yacht club – built by the US military, way back when we still controlled the Panama canal; — a very nice quiet place – that was being harassed by a nest of ‘killer bees’ –
well, one day, as I was sitting out taking some sun and indulging in adult beverages – one of the bees whacked into the spinning blades – interesting I thought – then a few more came along – than a whole bunch came along – they all attacked the wind-generator blades – i surmise that they were attracted to the smell of bee death – eventually – I had hundreds of dead bees on and under the windmills blades – and the ‘yacht ‘club’ was rid of it’s ‘killer bee’ problem –
we had a party that night, and I got free drinks — silver lining in everything I suppose –
Donkatsu 56,
The Federal government is already full of Dim Bulbs.
re: 200 watts per square meter.
And that’s when the sun’s out. I saw an equivalent number for the giant wind turbines (the 2 and 3 megawatt versions) and it was equivalently bad. Just a few hundred watts per square meter of land occupied (not just space for the turbine but wind flow interference with other turbines). Given we’re building a conventional gigawatt (delivered which means generating 20% more to cover the transmission and related losses) of electrical power every few months, we’d have to cover entire states with turbines just to match one year’s construction. To say nothing of the requirement for matching watt-for-watt with natural gas turbines to deliver power when the wind isn’t blowing.
Part of our problem is our citizens are not numerate. Exponentials are beyond them, both large and small. Else they’d laugh at reporters, politicians and shysters who hype alternative energy (Steve Den Beste where are you when we need you?)., AGW, the next Alar scare, or Arsenic found by test instruments that now have two more digits of sensitivity than they had 10 years ago.
Bad news is the Asians are numerate (their schools still insure a high school graduate is competent through Algebra I) – and we lose more and more of their respect with every one of these little insanities.
And the (soaked in their citizens’ blood) Russian-trained engineers who are the Chinese party leadership (and are more than numerate) are laughing at us as well (and are culturally wired not to laugh in our face, which is a pity..). I wonder if anyone in D.C. reads (and forwards to the politicians) the intelligence reports of same.
There is some good news for solar – when it competes with no power. See Clayton Christensen’s (The Innovator’s Dilemma) at about 47m:10s into this talk:
http://sc10.supercomputing.org/?pg=keynote.html
In a major break from MSM policy, ABC News today did a hard-hitting story on the collapse of Solyndra and very openly connected it with Obama’s political allies, and with Obama’s cheerleading, and with insufficient scrutiny of the business model prior to granting that $500 million Federal loan guarantee.
Looks like the monolithic, praise-Obama-at-all-costs MSM facade has suddenly developed a substantial crack.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/solyndra-investigation-probe-white-house-role-massive-energy/story?id=14434588
Next thing, the NYT and LAT will be editorializing on the Justice Department’s complicity in ‘Fast and Furious’, and ‘Gunwalker’. Oh, wait, they just did…
Might be nice if a fully-informed public went to the polls in 2012, unlike the half-informed version the MSM sent in 2008.