After Denmark (Europe's star wind energy performer), Germany boasts (sic!) the highest power costs in Europe -- Danes and Germans alike pay about 300% more than Americans for electric power that is increasingly unreliable. The Australians, who had charted a similar course, threw out their Green government. But what will Americans do?
Greens carp about fracking, partly because it uses some water (up to 6.0 gal/MMBtu of energy produced). Yet they champion ethanol, which uses up to 29,000 gal/MMBtu, and biodiesel (up to 74,000 gal/MMBtu). Is this mere Green hypocrisy, or Greenback Greed? It is well past time to end the mandates and the subsidies for ethanol and biodiesel.
When Presidential candidate Barack Obama said in 2008 that under his energy plan, "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket," he wasn't kidding! His new EPA carbon capture scheme is not designed to work but to force coal plants to shut down forever.
Australians threw out the government that forced the carbon tax upon them as soon as they got the chance. Who will learn from the Aussie example?
EPA’s primary role is to confirm what was already laid out by statute in terms of annual volumes of biofuels. That so called “renewable fuels schedule” established in 2005 and update in 2007 requires an ever increasing amount of biofuel to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply until the total hits 36 billion gallons in 2022. Those volumes, however, are completely unrealistic – a fact even EPA recognizes.
With nearly 300 power plants scheduled to be shut down in the next few years, and with environmentalists both opposing any form of electricity generation that is effective, efficient, and economical and to mining the raw materials needed to build the wind turbines, solar arrays and other "renewables" they claim to want—only one conclusion can be made: Environmentalists want you powerless.
The more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more it is absorbed by plants of every description – and the faster and better they grow, even under adverse conditions like limited water, extremely hot air temperatures, or infestations of insects, weeds and other pests. As trees, grasses, algae and crops grow more rapidly and become healthier and more robust, animals and humans enjoy better nutrition on a planet that is greener and greener.
Since 2009 American taxpayers have shelled out $14 billion in cash payments to solar, wind and other renewable energy project developers. This includes $9.2 billion to 748 small and large wind projects, and $2.7 billion to more than 44,000 solar projects, which will add just 48 terawatt- hours of electricity. Just as in Europe, without all that help, U.S. wind and solar wouldn’t have survived, and very likely won’t in the future. In December 2010 the Wall Street Journal reported American Wind Energy Association CEO Dennis Bode warning that without the extension of the Federal 1603 grant program investment credit, the wind industry would “flat line” or slope downward.
Oil depletion allowances, the first category, principally apply to small independent producers, with similar benefits available for all mineral extraction, timber industries, etc., allowing them to pass the depletion on to individual investors. Large integrated corporations haven’t been eligible for these since the mid-1970s. Expensing indirect drilling costs involves writing off expenses in the year incurred rather than capitalizing them and writing them off over several years. Closing this “loophole” would only change the timing of taking he expense, not the total amounts of the so-called “subsidy.” The third category, a tax credit for taxes paid to foreign nations, is available for all international companies. This provides an offset to foreign taxes, often paid as royalties, so that the companies aren’t taxed twice on the same income.
The problem with regard to consistency get larger as we come to realize that whatever they support is permitted; whatever they oppose violates the Precautionary Principle. They support windmills; therefore there is no violation. They oppose fracking; therefore it violates the principle.... In the view of activists and regulators, regulations exist to delay, block or destroy things they oppose. The fact that regulatory actions may well cause prolonged energy deprivation, poverty, unemployment, disease, malnutrition or premature death is irrelevant to them.
The collapse of Solyndra solar a while ago focused much attention on the cost of so-called renewable energy. But according to James Rust of the Heartland Institute, subsidies for solar are just the tip of the expensive renewables iceberg . . .
Producing electricity from the burning of wood, or biomass, has long been viewed as an environmentally friendly way of generating power. But now this once favored source of green energy is losing its luster . . .
Bats are struck by blades traveling 100 to 200 mph at their tips or felled by “barotrauma,” sudden air pressure changes that explode their lungs, as explained in a 2008 Scientific American article “On a wing and low air: The surprising way wind turbines kill bats.”
Soros was instrumental at the least, integral at the most, in writing Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Bill that put nearly $100 billion into various Green energy companies and projects. Additionally, there is a little-publicized connection between Soros, Green energy advocacy, and the White House.... Lakatos’ thorough research discovered that Soros’ Green tab exceeds $11 billion of stimulus money (dwarfing Citibank’s) –– and we, the taxpayers, footed the bill.
Morano appeared on Canda's Sun TV to discuss why winter cold is killing many times more Britons than heat. He also addresses the stunning admission that a widely publicized study claiming unprecedented warming in the past 100 years was not "statistically robust"--another way of admitting that their conclusions are scientifically baseless.