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tomarin
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Don’t the Germans also get a lot of relatively inexpensive energy from Russian natural gas pipelines?
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lynnvinc
Guest
Jimmy Carter actually put up solar panels on the White House in the 1970s, but Reagan took them down. And apparently Obama is going to put them back as part of his Climate Plan (they wouldn’t be as efficient compared to panels now, but why let them collect dust in some storeroom):
dailykos.com/story/2013/06/25/1218833/-Solar-Panels-to-be-installed-on-Whitehouse-Roof#
But to be frank, I do not consider Obama or Clinton to be much of environmentalists…
However, the Vatican has solar panels and our holy fathers since the 70s have been excellent environmentalists
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130228-environmental-pope-green-efficiency-vatican-city/
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Ridgerunner
Guest
Long ago I took a course that mainly was on the subject of taxation. I remember the teacher saying “Never get a tax break that costs money just to get a tax break.” I then made it a rule that I do not go for tax breaks unless it’s on something that I understand fully and that’s indisputably income-producing. I don’t do it to buy something that “saves money” because claims of savings are usually only marginally true if at all, and you can spend a lot of money on things that don’t do you a whole lot of good.
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Ridgerunner
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Lots of people believed in MMGW back in 2007. Bush certainly did, but he doesn’t anymore.
Now, of course, the Climategate scandal is known and the scientific consensus has shifted. The Pope’s latest statement about the environment did not include climate change at all. The fact that antarctic ice is actually increasing might have influenced his thoughts as well.
Well, and those pesky Russians claim arctic ice is increasing too.
As a Latin American, he might have, in 2007 been more concerned about deforestation and desertification, both of which are serious problems in Latin America, and can, indeed, cause atmospheric warming. He did not mention CO2 specifically.
And I doubt very much that he would encourage politicians to cause utility bills to “skyrocket” on the poor, as Obama wants to do.
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lynnvinc
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From all I’ve heard wind is now cheaper than fossil fuels, and if one figures in externalities or harm, then it is much cheaper.
There are several ways to solve the “intermittent wind” issue:
- Put wind generators in the most windy places (but out of the path of rare birds
- Put wind generators in several locations throughout a state or region; when it is not windy in one place, it might be windy in another.
- Have wind power go into the grid, and when the grid (name removed by moderator)ut is going beyond demand, cut back on other power sources like coal or gas.
- Have both wind and solar operations – when it is most sunny it is often not very windy; and when it is most windy is often not very sunny (e.g. at night).
- For those off the grid, have some wind, some solar, a good battery pack to store energy for a day or so, perhaps some small-scale hydel power from a stream on one’s property, and a back-up generator, gas or petrol. (Our solar installer does also install solar, etc for off-the-grid clients.)
Eventually there will be a max out re how much wind can be part of the energy mix – some say 30%, some say much more. In 2012 it accounted for 9.2% of electricity in Texas. I think we could go up to maybe 40% in wind and another 30% or more in solar, maybe in a couple of decades if we put our noses to the grindstone. Texas would still need fossil fuels to fill in the gaps. Fossil fuels are not going away entirely, which is why it is best to conserve them so future generations will have what they need.
There is also the issue of becoming evermore energy efficient and conservative, reducing our demand and our costs.
One thing I know re our solar is that we are not only getting a $8500+ tax-break from the gov next year, but our base provider, AEP, which Green Mountain Energy uses to supply us energy, is giving us a $7500 incentive on installing solar (see txreincentives.com/apv/). I’m not sure why, but I’m thinking it could be because it costs more for them to build new power plants; they also allow us to install a meter that goes in reverse when we are generating more energy than we are using. Also Green Mountain allows us to apply energy we generated in excess of our electric needs in a particular month to next month’s bill (at equal KWH price).
There are also many other advances in various alt energy sources in the works or in the plans - tidal, algae, high-in-the-sky wind generators, biofuels from ag waste or marginal plants that grow like weeds (like the moringa tree), etc. And there are some promising carbon draw-down projects, like bio-char thru pyrolysis (which can be used as a productive soil amendment for farmers). And a process to create hydrogen fuel very cheaply requiring salty water and silicate was also found to greatly draw down CO2 – eenews.net/stories/1059981902
We should never give up hope that there are solutions to problems; we should never give up seeking good solutions; and we should not fail to face problems just because initially the solutions seem daunting or very costly. God is always with us, ready and eager to help.
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qui_est_ce
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This is interesting.
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styrgwillidar
Guest
No they are not. Hence why as soon as government subsidies are withdrawn, windmill farms are shut down because they are not economical to operate. They cost more, far more, than fossil fuels. 14,000 have been shut down in the US, and windmills have been shut down in Spain, Germany and England for the same reason. When the government stops giving heavy subsidies they are not economically viable.
Just like the electric vehicles are not economically feasible in the vast majority of cases unless someone else picks up the tab, or a large part of the tab for you and you charge them from solar panels vice the grid.
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lynnvinc
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It’s sort of like this, Clinton and Obama talked some environmental talk to get votes. Just the way many on the other side talk about making abortion illegal to get votes, but in my books many are not really very sincere, except it’s no skin off their noses to vote for laws against abortion, since they have no intention at all of spending tax dollars on children or pregnant women in need.
I know that all sounds very cynical…but I think there’s at least some grain of truth in it.
OTOH, I do consider Gore to be a good environmentalist, but he unwisely did not talk about the environment or ACC during his 2000 campaign, bec he feared that he was already painted and smeared by the right as too much of an environmentalist (and I guess he figured environmentalists would know and vote for him anyway).
But what happened is the Right helped fund Nader as the Green Party candidate (no kidding), and many enviromentally-inclined voters, esp younger ones, actually didn’t know Gore was an environmentalist and voted for Nader, drawing perhaps as much as 2% of the vote away from Gore, swinging the election to Bush.
Now I think Nader is also somewhat of an environmentalist…, which comes in a close 2nd to his being a consumer protection person (and these overlap in areas), but in my books Gore was still a better environmentalist than Nader.
Other environmentally inclined voters voted for Bush, since he promised to do lots of environmental good thing, but actually ended up doing harm. Tho he did say when leaving office, “Americans are addicted to oil.” Pretty impressive coming from a Texas oil man. Reminded me of Eisenhower’s warning about “the military-industrial complex” coming from a WWII general. Which now I understand to be “the industrial-government-media-education-church complex,” out there to suppress correct information about ACC and other environmental problems so as to protect dirty & harmful biz interests.
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Ridgerunner
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Might want to think that out some before repeating it. If he was a good environmentalist, he would not have made well-known false assertions in his movie and wouldn’t be a profligate user of fossil fuels himself.
Pick someone else, I beg you.
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Ridgerunner
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Not topical, either in the statement or my response, but I really can’t let this go. The “other side” is the only one, and continues to be the only one that actually has defunded abortion and limited it whenever it could. Plenty of tax dollars are spent on children and pregnant women in need. Nobody in either party opposes that.
What do you want either party to do differently regarding children and pregnant women in need?
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lynnvinc
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Just did a quick search:
One site, based on a 2012 report, said wind is just a tad more expensive than coal once subsidies from both wind and coal are removed, but that wind is expected to come down further: meic.org/issues/montana-clean-energy/cost-of-wind-vs-fossil-fuels/
Another says wind is now cost-competitive with coal and gas: cleantechnica.com/2013/06/29/ges-brilliant-1-6-100-clean-green-grid-ready-wind-power-cheaper-than-coal-or-natural-gas/
But that is not the whole picture that I’m concerned about. You’re missing the point. We should be willing to pay more for energy that is less harmful to human health and lives. I am.
When such externalities are added in, fossil fuels are much more expensive…even priceless, if they manage to pollute huge watersheds serving lots of people, who then have to ship their water in for themselves & skip their animals, livestock, gardens and crops (but from where, once many sources are polluted for many centuries or millennia to come and people in those locations also need shipped in water). Then there is the issue of those who get sick or die from the air pollution from burning such fuels. Don’t those lives count in anyone’s books?
When we went on wind energy in 2002 we paid about $5 to $10 more each month. Now we are paying about $5 less than the dirty fuel sources – no doubt in part due to the subsidies. But I really would not mind continuing to pay more. We give to charity to help people; why not give to reduce our harms to others?
There are lots of cars much more expensive than my Volt – like Benz & Jaguar, etc. People don’t buy cars solely based on their price.
In my case I was willing to pay more so as to reduce my harms to human health and lives and others of God’s creation, and would have paid the full price without the tax-break; I’d been waiting over 20 years to buy an EV, and it just turned out – lucky me – there was also a tax-break for us, and our 98 Taurus was leaking badly, too costly to repair, and we needed a car just at the right time, before the tax-breaks run out.
Some other people want some status symbol car, and others buy expensive Hummers and SUVs bec they think they are safer – for their families, if not for the families with smaller cars they might crash into.
Each to his own.
I celebrate the wonderful tax-breaks given for alternatives that are less harmful to health & life. Makes me get all teared up for joy inside. Great use of my tax dollars, even if I were not capping in on the breaks.
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lynnvinc
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You can stand by your information if you wish, but I’m standing by mine. In fact my heart cries because of the virulent venom being spit out against Gore here at CAF and elsewhere – who has become the favorite whipping boy of anti-environmentalists. Why, bec he’s trying to be a good steward of God’s creation.
In my books Gore is a good environmentalist and would have been a good environmental president. Better than Obama or Clinton – up there with Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt. And no one is perfect. Not Gore, not me – and I’ll readily admit that. But to my knowledge I don’t think he is any worse than anyone here on CAF who bitterly opposes him, and he is probably much better.
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Ridgerunner
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But see, you’re assuming the underlying premises. You’re assuming the pollution is inevitable and irreparable, neither of which is true. You’re also assuming a catastrophic consequence that’s really not based on anything but imagined extension of known, but rare, effects.
I could just as easily point to one of those wind farms on the Baltic (that Germany is now going to phase out) and add the fact that many birds carry harmful bacteria and viruses, some of which are well known to be harmful to humans and animals, and when those wind farms splatter the birds (which they often do) they spread those bacteria and viruses far and wide. The viruses in particular can become airborne and be carried for perhaps hundreds of miles, infecting crops, the ocean, people, farm animals, water sources and the very ground.
It gets worse! It’s well known that some birds cross the Atlantic. Birds carry some diseases (histoplasmosis, for instance) that are endemic in parts of North America where people acquire early immunity by and large. But in Europe, people have not developed immunity! and will surely die like flies.And then i could ask whether the human lives so affected count in anyone’s books.
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lynnvinc
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I was referring to many many harms and risk re fossil fuels.
Just a very few:
- Bitumen spills perhaps ruining the Ogallala aquifer for 100s of generation to come thru proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Such spills (in part due to bitumen’s highly corrosive nature) are already grossly harming a Michigan river and other places.
- fracking fluids making water dangerous and undrinkable – just looking into increasing trihalomethanes levels in our RGV drinking water – some beyond the legal limits – and how this could be caused by city water chlorine coming into contact with bromides commonly used in fracking fluids – can cause kidney, liver, and neurological problems and cancer, and anencephaly. The glycol ethers in fracking fluids render reverse osmosis filter useless, bec it eats thru the membrane.
- air pollution from cars killing 1000s of people per year – incl small particulate matter, benzene, mercury, and many other hazards ICE vehicles emit
- coal mining and mountaintop removal and the terrible pollution & health harms caused by that
- coal burning pollution causing local pollution and regional acid rain
- coal ash spills
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Seachange
Guest
This is an example of what Obama has done so far.
Obama Has Not Learned from Solyndra Scandal
Solar panel makers grapple with hazardous waste problem
Solar Companies Creating Millions Of Pounds Of Polluted Sludge, Contaminated Water
February 11, 2013 8:23 AM
That Nobody Knew
Obama Has Not Learned from Solyndra Scandal
Nor are solar panels particularly clean to produce. In Solyndra’s case, the taxpayer was left with the bill and millions of pounds of hazardous waste to treat; waste which must be transported by road or rail to treatment plants using fossils fuels to reach the plants and creating risk to everyone along the transport route.
Solar panel makers grapple with hazardous waste problem
for something more recent -
Solar Companies Creating Millions Of Pounds Of Polluted Sludge, Contaminated Water
February 11, 2013 8:23 AM
The Greenhouse Gas
That Nobody Knew
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Lapey
Guest
huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/28/epa-fracking-environment-climate-change_n_3174590.html
For every topic you site there is an opposing view which has viability if there is an open mind. You, like many environmentalist have one thing in mind, end the use of fossil/carbon based fuels. Therefore you have an agenda which is evident in your list of horrors here.
Last July I worked storm damage in West Virginia for a couple of weeks. Remember I work for an electric utility, you know, one of the evil polluter corporations that supply the nation’s power. It was in the hills where the local economy is very dependant on coal mines. Do you want to know what we found there; probably not because the results of the crimes perpetrated by our government in your eyes are justified for the common good.
I’ll tell you anyway, we found extreme poverty in the area we worked because the coal mines were shut down by our government. I met a little baby girl there, her name is Shaley, cute as could be. If fact I sent a picture to my wife with the note that I was bringing her home, Shaley was about 3 years old then. Her family was and probably is in such dire straights that when we ate lunch the entire crew I was supervising didn’t eat, they gave their food to them. I gave Shaley some apples and some bottles of sports drink and it appeared that she was experiencing Christmas morning with all the food and gifts of a rich family.
The people being hurt by this administration are real; the science you spout is questionable at best. If you don’t believe that BO shut down these mines, go search youtube, it won’t take but a couple of seconds to hear his vision of the future of the coal industry.
You can tout your “science” all you want, but truly all you have are ideas and opinions. There is proof of true pain that is being inflicted on this nation in the name of environmental protection; but to see it you must have an open heart. The intellect you use won’t do it, you’re not that smart.
You use junk science to overlook the pain and to scare the masses into sitting on their hands. Al Gore thanks you for your help in earning him billions. He’ll probably wave to you out of his Gulf Stream jet as he flies over to his next speaking, excuse me, scaring engagement. This is true hypocrisy and to use one of your phrases from another thread, not the American way and surely not the Catholic way.
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Ridgerunner
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This administration, like some awful poltergeist, battens and thrives on the misery it generates. The only thing preventing it from doing much more is the fact that it does not totally control congress; something it intends to remedy in 2014. The last time it controlled congress, we got the Obamacare that even the administration knows will be so bad that it put off its worst effects for years, the last deferral being the deferral of the employer mandate to 2015.
It does not care one hoot about Shaley or all of the Shaleys it is casting into misery. Its approach to the Shaleys of this world is to persuade their mothers not to have them at all.
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qui_est_ce
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Thank you guys for your thoughtful and informative posts. People like you make me realize how beneficial CAF is.
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styrgwillidar
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Have you ever heard the scientific expression, " You don’t eat the menu". Models and theories are nice, but they aren’t reality.
You can tell if energy sources are cost-competitive in a very easy way. Whether a company can make a profit, if they can they produce them using that method. They will build them and you will see them operating without subsidies.
How much more, and based on what information that they save lives?
Here in the land ruled by the insane and senile, California, the government which is the laughingstock of the world, CARB (state equivalent of the EPA) imposed diesel regulations. These were based on a study that claimed diesel emissions were killing thousands. So, CARB designed a whole series of rules which have destroyed 100,000s of jobs and 100s of companies have gone out of business. A lot of diesel equipment has been abandoned or destroyed-- imagine the waste of enegry there. The time effort and energy to create equipment destroyed after having only been used for a fraction of its projected lifetime.
Oh, and the study? Done by a person who faked their credentials as well as the data in the report. It has been thoroughly disproven by someone who actually had the appropriate degrees and expertise. CARB found that out, and acknowledged it prior to actually implementing the regulations. They reprimanded but didn’t fire the individual. But they still went ahead with the regulations which don’t reduce lost lives at all. But those regulations were consistent with their ideology/religion. Many folks in power have an agenda, and they’ll find the studies/folks that will justify it without any concern over truth.
Drive whatever car you want, for whatever reason you want. But if its a great idea, then you don’t need me or other taxpayers coughing up our money to you. I don’t blame you for taking advantage of a tax-break, you would be stupid not to, I blame the legislature for creating it in the first place.
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qui_est_ce
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You guys elected them.
The problem is rising prices on necessary goods. Higher gasoline=>higher food consumer commodities, higher energy costs for heating homes. They poor cannot afford this. Heck, even the average worker like me can’t afford it. They’d have to replace their cars, their water heaters, their furnaces to be compliant to the new fuel sources. (solar, wind). But hey, they’ll get tax-payer subsidies from people who can’t afford it even with subsidies.
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