This is very disturbing.
Coal and oil are under attack; jobs and the U.S. economy are being squeezed and this "Tea Party" person is getting in bed with the green environmental movement?
October 17, 2014: Tea party pushing for Florida to step up solar energy efforts
For over 40 years I’ve dreamed and schemed of better or novel ways to create energy. I’ve come up with some real doosies, but never did gov’t intervention or subsidies (taxpayer $) enter into my thinking.
The single biggest help to the energy industry would be for gov’t to mind their own business. Let the marketplace pick our energy strategy.
I don’t have any problems with solar power, as long as it’s not funded via crony capitalism. In fact I would encourage people to do what they can to get off the grid.
The progression of many movements: idealistic fringe cause —> mainstream movement —> corrupt racket. This lady has moved from fringe cause to corrupt racket without ever advancing her Tea Party chapter to mainstream status. Truly amusing...
This woman is either a dupe or a pathological liar.
Solar has always been “back to the land” for me. It’s as natural as hunting and camping. I am always befuddled at the few Conservatives who get in a twist about it.
“I fully believe energies that hurt the environment should be taxed.”
Yeah, define “hurt”.
Another watermelon with a financial interest in high priced energy.
Not really. Conservatives aren't opposed to solar energy; we're opposed to government subsidies to promote it.
Just guessing here, but I’d follow the money. Is she a paid consultant to any Solar Power company, group or organization? Does she own an interest in any solar connected entity? Has her group received any large donations because of her support? Does she get financially substantial (to her) speaking fees to solar group meetings.
Conservatives have no reason not to support development of distributed generation in general and solar energy production in particular. The issue should be, to keep solar energy development and implementation in the private sector, and keep the government out.
The problem with "the environmental movement," other than the fact that half of them are certifiably crazy, is that they are a stalking horse for government control and don't really give a sh&t about the "environment.".
I’m pro solar and renewable energy. Doesn’t mean I’m an environmental wacko.
I’m anti government subsidies, but very much pro solar.
TPINO
Tea Partier in name only.
Frauds will always be with us.
“founding member of the national Tea Party”
There is no “Tea Party” just a lot of opportunists who tried to either quickly amass money or political power when they saw a movement.
TEA is basically leaderless, and revolves around stopping runaway government and its spending.
The problem is that while there is daylight, we are going to school or working. Solar requires us to sell our power back to the government on pennies on the dollar. We can’t save the energy, the technology just isn’t there yet.
But this article may help http://www.tweaktown.com/news/40554/next-gen-lithium-ion-battery-charges-20x-faster-lasts-20x-longer/index.html
If we can charge a battery 20 times faster and have it last 20 times longer, that may be a game changer.
The only forms of energy that should be considered are those that are unsubsidized and economically feasible. Everything else is a drain on our money.
Given Dooley does not have solar panels or wind turbines on her rented home, she loses some credibility with me.
Solar panels are not yet economical for the homeowner. The payback period is NEVER after you pay for installation & maintenance.
I’d like to get her opinion after she spent a year on the roof cleaning the panels. Dirty or snow/leaves/bird crap covered panels don’t produce much electricity. Going up on a snow covered, steep, slick roof to remove this stuff from the panels is not for the faint of heart. Now, do that every other day forever. Is it really worth risking your life? How do you factor that into the cost/benefit comparison?
Safely maintaining a bank of batteries is no picnic, either. Battery fumes are both explosive & poisonous. Keeping them in the house is dangerous, so you will need a well ventilated outbuilding. Batteries don’t do well in the cold, so some heating will be needed to keep them in optimal working order. All this will take some considerable wiring by a qualified electrician. Your insurance company could increase your premiums to cover this potential hazard, or they may not cover you at all.
So, if you’re thinking of installing solar panels, then sitting back & watching the money flow from the sun, I hope you have previous experience at high rise window washing & serious electrical skills. Otherwise, any money saved from “free” energy will be spent on the electrician & panel cleaner.
“Coal and oil are under attack; jobs and the U.S. economy are being squeezed and this “Tea Party” person is getting in bed with the green environmental movement?”
I’m on your side, and admittedly I don’t know what her exact position is, but in my view it is definitely a good idea to keep working on developing viable alternative energy strategies.That doesn’t mean we shut down coal and oil at this point, or any point in the near future, but eventually someone will find workable alternative solutions (e.g. - if we ever get fusion to work in a practical way). I hope that someone is us.
Eventually workable alternatives will be found
Either Debbie Dooley has not done ALL her homework and left herself with some half truths on energy issues, or she is knowingly exploiting some half-truths to support her own position.
On subsidies:
(1) The statements that harp on what are called the high “subsidies” for nuclear energy or fossil fuels - in attempts to promote subsidies for solar energy, focus on whole dollars. That makes for a huge factual error. If I gave Jack a $1million discount for traveling one million miles, and only a $100 dollar discount to Jill for traveling ten miles, have I cheated Jill? No. In fact, Jill got $10 dollars for every mile, but Jack only got only $1 dollar for every mile. If you consider energy equivalents in the various modes of energy produced, solar is one of the most highly subsidized forms of energy produced, on a unit of energy equivalent basis.
(2) The advocates of “solar is not as subsidized as nuclear or fossil fuels” also use the “green energy” advocates’ own methods of what a “subsidy” is, and many of the so called subsidies they include for nuclear and fossil fuels are their own projections of what something about nuclear or fossil fuels “indirectly costs society”, yet most solar subsidies are not theoretical at all but direct either to the solar energy, or solar equipment producer or the consumer.
Ms Dooley also appears to think it O.K. that a grid-energy producer that WANTS to buy more energy than they are producer can go into the wholesale energy distribution market to get it, at wholesale, but, under many state laws, whether the grid producer wants or needs your rooftop solar panels’ electricity, they are required to buy it, and they are required to pay retail. The difference between the wholesale cost and the retail cost amounts to (a) a solar subsidy paid by the power company to the home owner and (b) lowers the revenue and the ROI of the power company, which, as state after state has seen, raises the likelihood their state utility will grant them a rate increase to keep ahead of their costs.
A factual misunderstanding about an electric grid energy producer is the myth that if you “save” electricity in how you manage your home, the power company’s power plant will produce less electricity and the cost of operating the plant will be less too. It doesn’t work that way. An electric power plant runs 24/7 producing what it is capable or producing, sending it into the grid, whether or not many of you turn out your lights. The power is there in the power-line network (regardless of how much of it is “used”), and the operating costs for the plant have not changed. This fact makes it very difficult for lower rates to automatically follow consumption efficiencies of the electricity consumer. Yes, on the margins - not in the main - a power company may buy less extra power on the grid produced by others, if conditions allow permit. But for a supplier-producer with their own power plants, those adjustments are a minor part of their annual costs compared to the power plant costs they have, and the power plant costs - their main costs - are not affected by retail consumer’s household efficiencies.
Frankly, I am all for “the end of the grid” and “energy self-sufficiency” AS SCIENCE AND THE ECONOMICS OF PRACTICAL ENERGY ENGINEERING PERMITS. But, subsidizing solar at this point in time, by many methods and particularly by forcing power plant producers to pay retail for energy they can buy wholesale, is not the right way to go.
There are situations when intermittent power is OK like running desalinization plants or pumping water.