Posted on 05/12/2009 12:26:20 PM PDT by neverdem
Repeating past mistakes has long been a part of Washington's energy policy, but Congress used to wait a while before making the same blunder again. Not anymore. New legislation requiring wind energy closely resembles the ethanol mandate that sparked a backlash just last year.
For many years, wind has benefited from generous tax credits and subsidies, but it still provides less than 2 percent of the nation's electricity. By comparison, coal supplies around 50 percent (and with considerably fewer federal incentives). Natural gas and nuclear, meanwhile, account for about 20 percent each.
No wonder wind supporters want a federal mandate atop all the handouts. The targets in various bills range from 15 percent to 25 percent electricity from wind and other renewable sources, to be ramped up from current levels over a decade or longer.
Let's see: a heavily-subsidized energy source that needs a mandate to get it over the top. Sound familiar? It should. It's the same situation we were in with corn ethanol a few years ago. Up through 2005, ethanol's high cost, among other problems, were such that even a 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit and other giveaways couldn't enable it to capture much more than 2 percent of the motor-fuel market.
However, the minuscule market share worked to ethanol's advantage in that its shortcomings weren't noticed by the public. This made it possible for the corn lobby and other proponents to get away with calling it a success and prevailing upon the feds to mandate that more of it be mixed into the gasoline supply.
By 2008, 9 billion gallons of ethanol were required to be used, nearly triple the 2005 levels. But at these volumes, the problems were no longer so easily hidden.
Last year was one of record oil and gasoline prices. Yet ethanol still added...
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
Mythanol is the latest prime example of rabid ecobabbling based on emotion not hard data.
GE is pushing the wind power bs as well as 0b0z0’s health scheme.
The real problem is that it screws up the power system when the wind stops and there is a sudden decrease in power.
The power system cannot absorb quick changes in supply or loads.
Wind energy replaces coal and natgas, resources we have God’s plenty of, very inefficiently, at high cost. It takes up enormous amounts of land per watt generated compared to either coal or nat gas.
It doesn’t replace even one single drop of imported petroleum. Not one.
If you’re bought off by OPEC, and pretending to be an environmentalist, thats its attraction. It allows you to strut and pose and pretend to do something about energy while doing absolutely nothing effective to change the equation at all. And if you’re in the DNC rank and file, and you fall for this, just think of it as an IQ test that you just flunked.
In addition, their is very little cross country carrying capacity. Building lots of windmills with only local use available at the moment. Anyone priced cross country transmission lines lately. Where do these scammers come from and just how long do they think they will be able to sell what no one should be buying.
What is the impact of sucking that much energy out of the wind stream? It can’t be nothing.
I'm sure the impact is greater than the impact of CO2 on Globull Warming.
Wouldn't that be fun to tell the globull warmongers that windmills cause global warming?
Yep! We build them. They ain't cheap! :)
Local gas station went out of business, they dug up the tanks, and the store sits empty. I’ve been telling everyone they are now selling alternative energy...
Take a look at this thread I posted yesterday.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2248459/posts
Wind energy is nothing but a liberal pipe dream. It’s a way for democrats to reward their useful idiots!
Anything — *any thing, or any service* that requires an ongoing subsidy for production, should be suspect.
There are good arguments for government support of pure research. Sometimes, it makes sense for government to support early product development (e.g. prototypes). It almost never makes sense for government to subsidy full-scale production.
The prevailing government strategy is to offer massive subsidies for production — and mandates to require the consumption of “green” energy (along with financial penalties and regulations to curtail use of fossil fuels). The assumption is that the subsidies and mandates will spur more R&D, and that costs will drop as production volume increases. It's an insane, and wasteful strategy.
A reasonable strategy would be to support R&D efforts, until the cost of producing “green” energy compares with the cost of fossil fuels. At that point, private investors would rush in — without the need for further government intervention.
Hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars will be wasted — but don't hold your breath awaiting an accounting.
Energy policy in/of the United States is being manipulated and controlled by IDIOTS..
Here’s my question about subsidized “green” energies or transportation. Won’t they end up using more energy than they save, via the labor needed to generate taxes to pay for these?
Example, if wind power is subsidized 2 billion a year, that means tens of thousands of tax payers must commute to work (collectively) millions of miles for the purpose of generating the resources to pay for this.
Imagine you had a light bulb that emitted as much light as a 150W bulb, but required only 1W. It would seem like it was saving energy.
But if someone had to drive 60 miles every day to work to pay for the tax-subsidies, it wouldn’t seem to be saving much energy.
Carrying power for long distances is inefficient.
A certain amount of the power is dissipated as heat, so the longer the lines, the higher is the loss.
Every time I consume ethanol I produce wind.
Good post, but it is longer than I can read. :)
New wind farms in northern Montana.
Owned by the Spanish and Irish. Transmission by Canada. Delivered to California. Built by itinerants. And getting county 10-year tax breaks.
Oh, and Canada is delivering CO2 to Montana for burial, thanks to our pie-faced governor.
Can you say our new motto: Montana, it’s a whole other Third World Country.
Essentially correct but it is much more complicated than that. The problem with renewables such as wind and solar is that their output is relatively unpredictable. In utility parlance it’s not “dispatchable”. Utility load dispatchers are charged with matching available generation to load. With the various computer models and historical data that is a fairly easy proposition provided you have generation that you can modulate on demand. Thermal generation, i.e. electrical generators that burn stuff (or split atoms) are designed to do this. But when you throw in a bunch of generation that’s here one minute and gone the next the utility’s job just became much more difficult. Therefore to ensure that there is adquate generation to meet load at any point in time the utility must have thermal units running and ready to accept load on short notice. The problem is that these units are running way down on their efficiency curve and producing far more emissions per unit of production than if they were running fully loaded.
When you get much more than 15% - 20% renewables on the system the problems become even more complicated as the stability of the high voltage bulk transmission grid becomes a real issue. And of course when the rates double and day-long power outage become the norm it will be those big, insensitive electric utilities that will get the blame.
The problem with all of these a$$ hat politicians and envrionuts is that they know sh*t about the electric utility business. We are headed for a real energy train wreck in the near future if this continues down the path it’s headed.
And that is the elephant in the living room that "renewable" energy advocates refuse to acknowledge. Relying heavily on sources like solar and wind builds in a structural requirement to burn more fossil fuels to keep a reliable backup ready to switch in if the other ones go away.
Either that or go to the "smart grid" concept. You know what that is? It is code for energy rationing. It means if you depend on the unreliable guys and have done away with the reliable guys and the unreliable ones go down, you don't have energy. So your "smart grid" decides who will get power and who won't. Another way of controlling the populace, because it's a short step from not having power to having it and not wanting you to have it, for whatever reason those running the "smart" grid might have.
Imagine these guys climbing into the cab of an eighteen-wheeler and insisting on driving it.
"I'm from Harvard, and I'm very smart". With his promethean powers of analysis and his enormous heart, he'll not only drive this rig, he'll drive it like no one before him ever has.
No one would hire these guys to fix their computer, or fix anything, no one would hire them to run a convenience store or a Starbucks for that matter, but we've hired these guys to run our whole economy and given them carte blanche to do it. Normally I'd say anyone stupid enough to elect these people and hand them the keys to Treasury deserve the debacle they've signed up for. The trouble is that we're all along on this ride, deserving or not.
Thanks for the link.
Solar, wind and electrical demand do not occur simultaneously. Electric power is not stored. People pushing this over fossil fuels and nuclear don’t know what the hell they are talking about.
Example, if wind power is subsidized 2 billion a year, that means tens of thousands of tax payers must commute to work (collectively) millions of miles for the purpose of generating the resources to pay for this.
Profound thinking my friend and unfortunately completely lost on those needing it the most, we both know who THEY are.
From a utility executive roundtable........
On the Energy Information Administration’s assumption of a 40% load factor for wind generation...
Chris Crane, President & COO Exelon Corp.: “Consumers are being sold a bill of goods.”
These guys are living in a never land. Average wind power capacity factor is 25%. At least a few of the utility execs are standing up to this clueless administration.
http://www.uptilt.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1988320&mlid=112304&siteid=12331&uid=da1546e367
thanks neverdem.
Spain Is Tilting at Windmills
Power Magazine | 5/1/2009 | Dr. Robert Peltier, PE
Posted on 05/11/2009 6:36:21 AM PDT by nuke rocketeer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2248459/posts
The Bum Rap on Biofuels
American Thinker | 5-13-08 | Herbert Meyer
Posted on 05/14/2008 3:59:06 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015711/posts
Campaign to vilify ethanol revealed
ethanol producer Magazine | May 16, 2008 | By Kris Bevill
Posted on 05/17/2008 9:22:13 AM PDT by Kevin J waldroup
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2017389/posts
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