I finally am getting a glimpse of what is going on in the world of Renewable Energy. Obama and the rest of our "leaders" in Washington are implementing another war, this war is against our energy "crisis" and global warming. Bush's war was against all of those nasty people in Iraq who were going to blow us to smithereens. It made no difference that there weren't any people in Iraq attempting to do that, or that they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of accomplishing that if they tried, or that there really were folks attempting to do just that but they are our "friends" and therefore get a "pass." The point was all about creating a highly visible action to hide the process of moving the money and power of the United States into the hands of a small number of exceedingly rich and powerful people. It was obviously insane at the time of the start of the Iraq war, and has all but crushed America. The fact that it was a shooting war causing to death of hundreds of thousands of people (maybe millions), and destroyed vast stretches of the world's environmental resources had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the decisions - the only thing that counted was moving money, resources and power from the American (and other Country's) citizen tax payers to the pockets of the world's richest people. Most of the rest of the world saw through this insanity and refused to join in on it except in a token way.
The current push of our government to build as many monstrous wind and solar farms as possible is exactly the same type of effort. It is a push to transfer as much money, land, resources and power (literally and figuratively) to the same very small group of the world's richest people. The fact that it is destroying vast stretches of our natural resources, is resulting in our giving away some of our most precious lands to foreign investors, that it is destroying the living, environment and homes of millions of Americans, and that it does so without any energy, global warming, or cost benefits is totally irrelevant. Nobody in power cares a wit about the impact of their actions, all they care about is transferring as much of the resources of America as fast as possible while it is still possible to do so. They are doing this under the cover of a trumped up emergency or threat to Society as we know it. They seem to be very concerned that they won't get all of the value out of America while there is still some value to take before it totally collapses - so they are pushing very hard to get this done ASAP.
For example, right now the Congress is debating a bill that will fund the construction of 100,000 new giant wind turbines (up from the 7,000 in place today). This will require significantly more than a trillion dollars, and is projected to quadruple the price of electricity to the user. Since that huge increase in power costs cannot be all be passed on directly to the consumer, it will be offset by many trillions of dollars in tax incentives and other monetary vehicles paid for by the taxpayers. We will pay it one way or another, but some of it it will be hidden from direct view.
You might argue that there is a real emergency with regard to our excessive use of fossil fuels and its impact on global warming and other types of pollution - therefore we have to do whatever we can to solve this problem. I am not denying that there are significant problems that need to be solved. However, I extremely concerned that we have chosen a path that has been proven to be ineffective, extremely costly, extremely dangerous, and that creates environmental havoc along the way. All of the engineering studies that I have researched show that once the wind reaches about 10% of the total generation it becomes extremely inefficient (maybe to the point of producing zero additional power) and no longer reduces CO2 emissions. (We are rapidly approaching that threshold) Not only that, but at that point the grid will no longer be able to accept any new "rooftop" solar (small, distributed) systems. The grid can only accept a given amount of variable power from wind and solar so it is a zero sum game whereby the installation of one necessarily reduces the installation of the other. Also, once there is a significant amount of the electricity made by wind (but not necessarily small scale net metered solar), there is a real danger of have a massive blackout that is so severe that it could destroy the infrastructure of the grid, requiring a year or more to get power back on line, at a cost of many trillions of dollars! This is a BIG safety and security problem! Can you imagine what would happen if the Western United States were without power for a year?
To top it all off, we have perfectly good solutions that will result in no loss of land or impact to the natural environment, no lose of resources, cost hundreds of billions of dollars less, will result in an electricity cost to the consumer of less than 1/2 the current cost, and will result in an immediate huge increase in the high paid labor requirements in the USA. If done properly, it could also result in a revitalization of the manufacturing base in the United States. All without any transference of money from the taxpayers because it can currently be implemented without any tax incentives beyond some short term loan guarantees to homeowners and small businesses that will be quickly paid back in full, with interest.
I am speaking about a two pronged solution.
The first, and best, is to rapidly reduce our need for energy through increased efficiency (and therefore reduced consumption) through a wide and varied range of options. There are affordable and viable options in almost every aspect of energy use in residential, industrial, governmental and other activities. For example, the automobile industry just agreed to reach a fleet wide mileage goal of 50 mpg by 2020. That would cut our gasoline use in half! Why are they willing to do that? Because they already can do this. The technology has been developed, and has largely been in place for the past ten years so there is very little risk in them agreeing to do that. My question is why haven't they already done that? I suspect that the reason is that they wanted to wait until they get money (incentives and assistance) to do so in the future, they won't get anything if they just go ahead and do it now.
There are enough "low hanging fruit" examples of highly cost effective energy conservation measures available right now to reduce our total power use (including electricity) by far more than 50% within a couple of years. The "extra" costs of these improvements would be paid back in dramatic reductions in energy costs, and would "pay back" in about two to three years on the average. Because of the short payback period, there is little or not additional cost to making these changes - they are essentially free to the Country - the only "incentive" needed might be low interest loans for a short period of time to allow the user to pay the upfront costs while reaping an immediate reduction in their expenses by reducing their energy costs more than enough to pay back the loan.
The second fork to solving the problem is small scale, "roof top" PV solar that provide most or all of the electricity requirements of the building or business that they are connected with. The best arrangement for these is through "net metering" whereby the meter goes both ways to register the average power use (or production) over a period of time (typically a month or a year). These systems can now be installed for a price that results in a payback time of less than 5 years, meaning that if you installing a system now and pay back what you would have been spending in power if you hadn't installed they system, in five years it would be paid back and then you would have up to 35 more years of free power. They are effective in all of the lower 49 States (I am not sure about Alaska - but it might work well there too as long as there is an alternative for the long winter night.). Of course, it isn't necessary to pay it all back in 5 years, it could be paid back in 15 years resulting in a significant reduction in costs during that time period, with only 25 or so years of free power after that. The point is that it is within the reach of all homeowners and small businesses to purchase and install these systems by paying less than it would be if nothing is done at all. It might require some low interest loans and loan guarantees to implement but would not require any additional incentives or any tax money. Of course, adding investment tax incentives would certainly increase its rapid acceptance. We are already paying what it would require to do this whether we do anything or not.
There seems to be two options in front of us at the moment. We could continue to install large wind and solar installations costing the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, with the resulting quadrupling in energy costs and massive destruction of the environment without reducing our fossil fuel use or reducing CO2 emissions, or we could do the right things that would cost the tax payers nothing, would not destroy any environment, would cut the energy costs in half, will actually reduce fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions, and would result in a large and sustained new job market.
Which choice seems right? Spend a lot for nothing, or spend nothing for a lot? Gosh, it is such a difficult choice - makes you wonder why our politicians and big industries are having such a difficult time with it. Oh yes - now I remember, the reason is that it isn't about saving fuel, the environment or reducing costs - it is all about the same things as the Iraq war. It is all about moving money, resources and power from the hands of the American public into the hands of a few extremely powerful individuals. I get it, there really isn't any decision to be made at all - of course we will charge ahead with the wind turbines!
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