Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 03/12/2010 10:40:36 PM PST by george76
In ten years Oregon has handed out $1.3 billion in tax credits for renewable energy and conservation projects like wind power, but questions about why the state is spending so much on something that may have a hidden environmental drawback have been raised by some.
Wind power is touted as the cleanest and greenest renewable energy resource.
But Todd Wynn of the Cascade Policy Institute says it’s not as clean as advocates claim.
He says it’s simply because the wind is volatile and doesn’t blow all the time, and Johnson said "you don't know what (the wind) is going to do moment to moment."
There has to be a backup source to power generated by wind at all times to ensure electricity flows to customers without interruption. The more wind power put on line, the more backup power is needed, and often it’s coal or natural gas.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, people prefer hydroelectricity.
“So when the wind blows, the dams stop generating electricity, and when the wind stops, the dams continue to generate electricity,” said Wynn. “So, in fact, wind power is just offsetting another renewable energy source. It’s not necessarily offsetting any fossil fuel generation.”
Oregon is requiring that the largest utilities get one quarter of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. For Washington, it’s 15 percent by 2020.
(Excerpt) Read more at katu.com ...
I believe you are wrong about this. The following is linked to the source:
Where have we heard about "green jobs" creation before?
Windmills work.....if you can store the energy.
That would take massive amounts of baterries....and they’re not “green”!
I love pointing out the irony in liberal thinking!
If we switch from oil-based fuels to electric, we are switching from big oil to big electricity.
Does anybody know of an electric generation company that is a mom-n-pop operation?
I would like to see them explain how long it takes to offset the carbon it takes to manufacture and ship one of these huge machines.
My wife and I add our voices to yours in claiming that record keeping of our car’s gasoline miles per gallon proves that ethanol is not green and a poor utilization of our resources.
You are right on the money on ethanol!
“Greenism” is a religion. It’s not a science and is increasingly an abandonment of even common sense. I never voluntarily buy anything that advertises itself as “green.”
This whole debate about green power is nothing more than another angle on the climate hoax which is part of the strategy of the UN’s Agenda 21 (search it) with the goal of absolute control of the world's population.
Trying to expose the fallacies of one aspect or another of green power generation, without addressing the goal, is to fall into the intended trap. For every fact you give, the counter is some emotional argument which cannot be won.
Just my 2 cents.
The following might be of interest to you,
Clean and green, the energy system we aspire to, is subsidized like no other energy source in history. By whom? Us, and our progeny. All energy has historically received some type of public support to even out the volatility of high and low price cycles. The Energy Information Agency of the U.S. government’s Department of Energy reports that, for 2008, natural gas was subsidized 25 cents per megawatt hour of electricity produced, coal received 44 cents per megawatt hour, nuclear $1.59. Oil was not reported in these numbers since oil is hardly a factor in electricity production. However, oil benefits from a variety of tax subsidies for dry well expenses and royalty holidays dating from the $10-a-barrel oil days of the late 1990s, which the administration promises to rescind. At the same time in the same year, wind energy received public subsidy of $23.37 per megawatt hour; solar energy received $24.34. These numbers do not include the additional subsidies we taxpayers have been compelled to pay for wind, solar and biofuels through the stimulus plan, the 2010 budget and the 2011 framework budget. These subsidies help support 2 percent of today’s energy system. Their proponents promise to double and double again the amounts of subsidized supply from clean and green with no commitment to ending subsidies. That’s not a new energy system.
http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Awakening-History-Future-Nuclear/dp/1605980404
Reviewed here:
Highly readable and understandable.
An example worth remembering, as analogies are worthwhile in ocnverversations about nuclear power:
“If only spent fuel could be chemically processed, then the inert stuff could be removed and the radioactive component would be extremely small and much easier to deal with. In the case of processed spent fuel, if all the electrical power a person used in a lifetime were produced by nuclear fission, the radioactive waste product from all the power would fit in a Coke can and weigh about 2 pounds. If that same power were produced by burning coal, the solid portion of the waste product would be a small mountain. However, that small can of waste has acquired such a dangerous stigma, it is limiting the benefits such a vast reduction of solid waste would bring to our environment and economy.”
"...in 1977 President Jimmy Carter forbade NRC from licensing the plant. Mahaffey notes:
'This seemed an odd scenario, but the president’s veto remains in effect, mothballing the plant, wrecking a half-billion dollar private investment, increasing the mass of nuclear plant waste by a factor of 33, and making the United States dependent on Canada for medical isotopes. Nuclear-fuel reprocessing is routine business in France, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, and Russia, but not in America. By blocking a privately funded fuel-reprocessing plant, antinuclear forces have made waste disposal more difficult than it needs to be…'”
Jimmmy Carter, the disease that keeps on giving.
Does anybody know of an electric generation company that is a mom-n-pop operation?
Yup. Toutant Hydro, Putnam, Connecticut.
And when the water you saved gets too high behind the dam, you open the spillways and bypass the turbines generating no electricity.
The big thinkers in Oregon.
s/
Yup, we should not fall into the trap. To accept the idea that we should stop using fossil fuels is to give the third world thugs at the UN power.
That would take massive amounts of baterries....and they’re not “green”!
Don't forget the energy conversion and storage losses.....
.....If we were to replace ALL fossil generation with wind and solar, we would need a whole lot of environmentally unfriendly batteries to replace it MW for MW. The we would need even more windmill and solar capacity to cover the losses from storage conversion and storage losses. The sheer quantity of generating units and sites would be a tremendously widespread and costly operation - maintenance effort. It would also be an ugly blight upon the land, not very naturish for all those greenies.
The economics and environmental benefits are not there...
There has to be a backup source to power generated by wind at all times to ensure electricity flows to customers without interruption. The more wind power put on line, the more backup power is needed, and often it’s coal or natural gas.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, people prefer hydroelectricity.
“So when the wind blows, the dams stop generating electricity, and when the wind stops, the dams continue to generate electricity,” said Wynn. “So, in fact, wind power is just offsetting another renewable energy source. It’s not necessarily offsetting any fossil fuel generation.”
Just in time for today’s Earth Day festivities, President Bush has announced a new initiative to combat global warming. He set a goal of stopping the growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2025 and reducing emissions thereafter. But rather than plan for 2025—which is another two or three presidencies away—Bush should immediately fix his ethanol policy, which is increasing GHG emissions and raising food prices not only in the United States but all over the world.
American companies are still trying to digest the ethanol mandates passed by Congress last December. Congress mandated the production of 9 billion gallons of ethanol or other renewable fuels this year; that number will gradually increase until it reaches 36 billion gallons in 2022. In addition, ethanol producers receive a tax break of 51 cents a gallon, and corn growers receive huge subsidies that may increase in the next farm bill.
I just read where wind power provided 19 percent of all the power on a particular texas grid. Wind power already provides 6.2 percent of the power in texas and way more than that percentage in Iowa.
Bush, Clinton, whoever, government mandates are destructive. There's a new ethanol plant near the town I live in. It was finished 2 yrs ago...it never opened, not one gallon of ethanol has been produced.
I'm sure that's just one of many built to comply with a mandate in hopes of more promised subsidies.
There will always be NIMBYs. The limousine liberals will support any kind of monstrous thing, as long as it doesn’t affect their precious neighborhood and the value of their multi-million-dollar homes.
The people in charge always make policies that don’t apply to them. Like Congress and healthcare.
ALL PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE----FRIGGIN' HYPOCRITES
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