Fighting global warming would save energy, cost less, and create jobs

From the Climate Denial Crock of the Week:

Of course this flies right in the face of most conservative, and denialist, claims about fighting global warming.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 12:54 am and is filed under Climate change, climate_change, Economics, Energy, Environmental protection, Global warming, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

193 Responses to Fighting global warming would save energy, cost less, and create jobs

Ed Darrell says:

October 12, 2011 at 3:13 pm

Red herring #1:

The Earth climate is dynamic.
Only fools think it is static

No one said climate is static. Within the fluctuations in which life as we know it and love can prosper, however, never before has the climate warmed so greatly with no transitory cause. Warmings, like the so-called and much limited Medieval Warm Period, were fluctuations away from a norm, back to which the climate moved once the pendulum had swung.

Global warming today is different. Instead of having CO2 follow the warming trend, and feeding warming trends a bit, CO2 is the chief driver of the warming trend. Moreover, CO2 in the atmosphere generally takes about 200 years to settle out, if forests and oceans are healthy and can absorb it.

If the excess CO2 is not absorbed, the physics of the molecule tell us that warming will get greater, and feedback on itself.

Yes, Earth’s climate is dynamic. But there is nothing to suggest any reasonable brake on the current warming, if humans don’t act.

Claiming that anyone said climate is NOT dynamic, is false, an argument intended solely to mislead. Red herring.

Some fish is rotten in that barrel of red herrings.

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 11:00 am

Another example of how “Greenie” tech improves economics…

The City Council voted 4-3 to seek bankruptcy protection for Harrisburg, which has a debt burden five times its general-fund budget “because of an overhaul and expansion of a trash-to-energy incinerator that doesn’t generate enough revenue,” Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

…ooops, sorry – the other way around :)

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Pangolin says:

October 12, 2011 at 10:27 am

Black Flag appears to be an accomplished spam artist and typist but like many a poor student trying to b.s. the test he didn’t do his homework.

The basic physics and chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere in regards to AGW were first described by John Tyndall. Tyndall noted in bell jar experiments that any 7th grader can replicate the experiment that shows pure CO2 absorbs more heat than oxygen or nitrogen or the common mixture called “air.” Add more CO2 to an air mixture and it absorbs more heat; period.

The basics of global warming science are more than a century old.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-is-old-news-scientis-2008-12-04, http://www.jstor.org/stable/108724

Of course Black Flag can’t refer you to any reputable scientific institution but merely parrots the widely discredited WUWT site’s arguments once more. They’re simply wrong. The arguments he uses here would get him a failing grade any freshman college atmospheric science course. (Bible colleges excepted)

Anthropogenic Global Warming is NOT dead but actually has had more than enough evidence of its factual basis for dozens of years. Instead the new science that has been published in the last decade confirms it with an extreme degree of certainty. The melting of ice in the North and South polar ice caps confirms it. The melting of glaciers on all continents excepting Australia (where no glaciers exist) confirms it.

Black Flag is simply another fraud.

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Pangolin says:

October 12, 2011 at 10:20 am

Black Flag appears to be an accomplished spam artist and typist but like many a poor student trying to b.s. the test didn’t do his homework.

The basic physics and chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere in regards to AGW were first described by John Tyndall. Tyndall noted in bell jar experiments that any 7th grader can replicate the experiment that shows pure CO2 absorbs more heat than oxygen or nitrogen or the common mixture called “air.” Add more CO2 to an air mixture and it absorbs more heat; period.

The basics of global warming science are more than a century old.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=climate-change-is-old-news-scientis-2008-12-04, http://www.jstor.org/stable/108724

Of course Black Flag can’t refer you to any reputable scientific institution but merely parrots the widely discredited WUWT site’s arguments once more. They’re simply wrong. The arguments he uses here would get him a failing grade any freshman college atmospheric science course. (Bible colleges excepted)

Anthropogenic Global Warming is NOT dead but actually has had more than enough evidence of its factual basis for dozens of years. Instead the new science that has been published in the last decade confirms it with an extreme degree of certainty. The melting of ice in the North and South polar ice caps confirms it. The melting of glaciers on all continents excepting Australia (where no glaciers exist) confirms it.

Black Flag is simply another fraud.

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 8:21 am

Ed,

AGW myth is dead.

Only the zealots are screaming it.

Sane people are discarding it, as they should have done a few billion dollars ago – but better now, then let the insanity of the AGW political action take hold.

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 8:17 am

Ed,

By all means, cite a few. Cite one.

Gee, Ed, your reading list must be very small.

Have you ever gone to Anthony Watt’s site?
He has a trove of such links.

You’re aware that a handful of papers have been recalled over the past year, I suppose.

What recall? Who recalls any papers?

They are refuted, Ed, by other science, like basic ones called physics and chemistry.

The junk science of AGW depends on the ignorance of physics and chemistry – that somehow, puny man has God-like power to alter the Climate.

Despite the false claims that scientists were unethical when their e-mails were unethically stolen and unethically released, repeated investigations show the climate scientists who warn us of warming have been right, and on the up and up.

First, the claims were not false – they were unethical.

You blame the messenger for revealing the liars! How telling of you, Ed!

No climate scientist has been “right” – their predictions are of fools, as science does not predict

Despite the false claims that warming isn’t occurring, warming continues; the glaciers continue to melt (99% of them — minor exceptions do not rebut the science),

Ah, Ed what part of being in a “Interglacial Period” misses you?

Glaciers have been melting for 40,000 years.

You just figured this out recently?

oceans continue to warm

…and cool.

weather extremes continue to be more extreme (including both drought and flood — and the oddities of devastating floods that don’t break the droughts)

Total BS.
No statistical evidence has shown any extreme change – you are merely human and sort sighted in viewpoint and memory.

What you see “today” magnifies in your brain to be a trend.

, CO2 continues to rise, and calamities due to the warming continue to roll.

Re: Co2 rise -Possibly true, but the science is still out on that
Re: calamities? They happen all the time, as do “no calamities”. You’ve already bought into statistical foolery once, it is no surprise you continue to fall for it.

Plants and animals including insects are not swayed either by Al Gore’s rational case, nor Sen. Inhofe’s irrational case. They respond to the warming you claim isn’t happening.

Yet, they are back and nothing of real note has changed.

Again to believe it is static is the ignorance – and then to say that any move away from some artificial static line is man made is an ignorance multiplied.

Ed, do you think for yourself, or do you completely depend on other men who were white coats and pretend to be “scientists”? Can you tell the difference between what they say to be fact or hypothesis?

Do you have any knowledge at all in science?

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 8:04 am

Ed,

Got some sources that discredit the work

You live under a rock?

Wegman ripped apart Mann’s statical foolery.
It is a defining point – either you hold statistic calculation as a methodology, or you believe Mann – who not only fudged out the ME warming period, but redefined a new “statistical” methodology along the way.

It is an either/or.

If Mann is right, then a few hundred years of statistical methodology is wrong.

sources that work in the area and publish with at least the same rigor of review of those who warn us of warming? You’ve shown nothing yet.

You are hung up on publishing papers in magazines.

This is science to you, Ed?

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 7:58 am

Ed and dear readers

Myth No. 1: What global warming? Earth has actually been cooling since 1998.
Some people skeptical of global warming claim that Earth’s global surface temperatures have been falling or have leveled off since 1998. They point to data now several years out of date from U.K. researchers that put 1998 as the warmest year on record. They also point to an unusually cool summer in North America in 2009 followed by an abnormally cold winter across all of the northern hemisphere. People who had to shovel record snows from their driveways or live without power during ferocious snowstorms in the northeastern United States began to doubt decades of scientific evidence on global warming.

Myth 1:
The Earth climate is dynamic.
Only fools think it is static

Myth No. 2: Increased carbon dioxide (CO2) can’t contribute to global warming: It’s already maxed out as a factor and besides, water vapor is more consequential.

It is true that water vapor is the most significant contributor to warming the earth – without it, we’d be totally frozen.

In comparison, CO2 is an extremely minor part.

“maxed out as a factor” … compared to what?
Co2 absorption is logarithmic – that is, it takes 10x more the concentration to double its effect.

This is a fact of science, as it is verifiable by experiment.

A small increase in C02 has a very very very small impact on any temp. rise – there has been no significant increase in the concentration to make a measurable change in climate temp.

Further, the cause of any increase in CO2 is questionable.

Myth No. 3: You can’t trust climate models because they do a lousy job representing clouds and aerosols.
Climate modelers have traditionally had a hard time incorporating clouds because clouds are very complex. On the one hand, by reflecting sunlight, they tend to cool Earth. On the other, they tend to hold in heat from the surface, which is why cloudy nights tend to be warmer than clear nights. The models also divide the atmosphere up into blocks much larger than clouds, so it’s difficult to create realistically sized clouds.

..have a hard time?

Modeling is not science.
Modeling provides hypothesis, not proof.

No climate model -none- has ever modeled the Earth and none -zero- have any ability to “predict” outcomes.

The moment anyone points to a model as “proof”, they are proving politics but not one darn thing about science.

Myth No. 4: There have been big climate changes in the past, such as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, so why can’t recent climate changes just be explained by natural variability?
People who dispute evidence of recent global warming sometimes point to two episodes in the past 1,000 years called the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period — times when northern hemisphere temperatures were higher or lower than average for decades or even centuries — as examples of internal variability, a kind of natural randomness in the climate system that can’t be explained by any specific forcing. If true, perhaps internal variability could explain the current rapid global warming, skeptics argue. In other words, maybe our current warming is just an unlucky roll of the dice, a blip rather than a long term trend.

“Unlucky”????

You think warming is unlucky???

Try living on a glacier…..

Thus, by this statement, it is demonstrable that this “link” has -at best- superficial junk science at as its root. It is stuck full of mush like “unlucky” as a description of what is a natural variation of climate.

Myth No. 5: Natural forces such as solar variability, cosmic rays or volcanic eruptions can explain the observed warming.
Nearly all of the heat at the surface of Earth comes from radiation from the sun. Perhaps, as one hypothesis goes, that radiation has become more intense in recent decades and is making the planet warmer. A second, more complicated hypothesis involving the sun proposes that higher solar activity tends to suppress the levels of cosmic rays, high energy particles from space, hitting our atmosphere. Cosmic rays help form water droplets and clouds. Clouds are thought to have an overall cooling effect on the planet. Still with us? So in this view, if the sun is more active, then there are fewer cosmic rays, less cloud cover, and a warmer Earth.

Cosmic ray connection to Earth’s climate is science as it has been verified by experiment, unlike the AGW Hypothesis, which has been refuted by failure of experiment.

To hold to the AGW hypothesis in the face of its failure of experiment, while confirmation of alternative hypothesis has been found by experiment demonstrates the political nature of the issue.

But the zealots of AGW were never about science, but full of some political agenda that they attempt to apply junk science as an advocate.

Myth 6. The urban heat island effect or other land use changes can explain the observed warming.
The urban heat island effect is a well documented phenomenon caused by roads and buildings absorbing more heat than undeveloped land and vegetation. It causes cities to be warmer than surrounding countryside and can even influence rainfall patterns. Perhaps, the argument goes, ground based weather stations have been systematically measuring a rise in temperature not from a global effect but from local land use changes.

An audit of such measuring stations has definitefly demonstrated that the data from such stations is fundamentally flawed – and further compounded by the irrational “fudge factors” applied to the data to derive some statical demonstration.

Too many times it has been shown that pro-AGW “scientists” have made fundamental arithmetic errors, some by orders of magnitude, in an effort to promote their AGW political agenda.

Myth 7. Natural ocean variability can explain the observed warming.
The oceans are the largest single reservoir of heat in the climate system. And they do have internal cycles of variability, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). These cycles have impacts on the sea surface temperature in specific regions that vary from year to year and even from decade to decade. So perhaps, the argument goes, we just happen to be in a warm period that will last a few decades and the oceans will eventually switch back to a cool period.

Indeed, these oscillations do explain the variability in the Northern Hemisphere climate.

But as typical, what happens in North America is claimed to be “global” – thus a warming or cooling there determines -by political decree – “global warming or cooling”.

Myth No. 8: In the past, global temperatures rose first and then carbon dioxide levels rose later. Therefore, rising temperatures cause higher CO2 levels, not the other way around.
Ice cores from Dome C in Antarctica record surface temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 going back over 800,000 years. During that time, several ice ages came and went. After each ice age ended, temperatures rose first and then several centuries later, CO2 concentrations rose. This lag, some skeptics conclude, proves that CO2 increases are caused by global warming, not the other way around.

This is a fact that ice cores show Co2 concentrations as a consequence, not a cause, of climate change.

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 7:38 am

Pangolin

Nope. We don’t play the game where you get to dance around semantically pretending that you know or respect science; you don’t.

So, you do not know the scientific method, you do not understand science.

You are political….and ignorant of science.

Refer to past literature.
Refer to recent literature.
Submit your own data, calculations and conclusions to peer review.
Expect to defend your work if and after it gets published in a respected journal.

You offer a political process as if it replaces science

Science is:
Observation
Hypothesis
Experiment
Data
Observation…

As such, the hypothesis of AGW has long been refuted on many grounds.

You’ve already made several extraordinary claims with no backing in scientific literature. Claims that are debunked elsewhere with full references. Claims the denialists KNOW are false.

Of course it has!
But you already admit you ignore this – but you do not have any skill in science to know this

You are merely a soap box for political action based on things you have no understanding or skill to discern. You simply cherry pick things that forward your bizarre political agenda – to you that is scientific inquiry.

Thus, you are a waste of time in discussing science.

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Ed Darrell says:

October 12, 2011 at 3:57 am

Black Flag claimed:

ANTHROPOGENIC Global Warming, Change, Disruption or whatever the latest muck word of the day, is a farce.

Dear Readers, check here for the mass, and massive, rebuttal to this tired old claim:
http://www.utexas.edu/know/2010/11/08/climate_myths/

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Ed Darrell says:

October 12, 2011 at 3:08 am

Gee, isn’t that what you’ve done – picked up a few -old and widely discredited- papers and married them?

No.

Got some sources that discredit the work, sources that work in the area and publish with at least the same rigor of review of those who warn us of warming? You’ve shown nothing yet.

Nice to have new people with differing views in for discussion. Nicer when they discuss.

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Ed Darrell says:

October 12, 2011 at 3:07 am

Come on, the volumes that have already dispute your junk is plentiful

Feel free to offer examples. Any time.

Got some?

Got any?

How about one?

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Ed Darrell says:

October 12, 2011 at 3:06 am

So, all the peer review papers that dispute you are….. what?

By all means, cite a few. Cite one.

You’re aware that a handful of papers have been recalled over the past year, I suppose. I suspect you’re not aware, or you’ll deny, that all the papers found to be faulty were those that assume your political position.

Despite the false claims that scientists were unethical when their e-mails were unethically stolen and unethically released, repeated investigations show the climate scientists who warn us of warming have been right, and on the up and up. Despite the false claims that warming isn’t occurring, warming continues; the glaciers continue to melt (99% of them — minor exceptions do not rebut the science), oceans continue to warm, weather extremes continue to be more extreme (including both drought and flood — and the oddities of devastating floods that don’t break the droughts), CO2 continues to rise, and calamities due to the warming continue to roll.

Plant zone changes continue. Migration patterns of birds, fish, insects and anything else that can move, continue to respond desperately to ameliorate destructive changes from climate change (warming, overall). Those are things we need to look at, and heed. Plants and animals including insects are not swayed either by Al Gore’s rational case, nor Sen. Inhofe’s irrational case. They respond to the warming you claim isn’t happening.

Who to believe, all the science, scientists and nature, or your lying, averted eyes? Not a tough choice for me.

But please, by all means, cite the sources you claim we’ve missed.

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Pangolin says:

October 12, 2011 at 2:59 am

Nope. We don’t play the game where you get to dance around semantically pretending that you know or respect science; you don’t.

You’re posting from the side that doesn’t produce original work but picks at other people’s work and claim that you have superior understanding. The same rules apply to you as apply to all other conversants in scientific inquiry.

Refer to past literature.
Refer to recent literature.
Submit your own data, calculations and conclusions to peer review.
Expect to defend your work if and after it gets published in a respected journal.

You’ve already made several extraordinary claims with no backing in scientific literature. Claims that are debunked elsewhere with full references. Claims the denialists KNOW are false.

This is just a process where you repeat the lies you tell enough to fool some people into thinking they’re the truth. Usually people who want to be fooled. Because, face it, the actual consequences of anthropogenic climate change are terrible. Truly, truly awful.

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Black Flag® says:

October 12, 2011 at 12:04 am

Pangolin

Another Flat Earther shows up and disputes either ALL peer-review journals or merely all those peer reviewed journal articles that disagree with his viewpoint.

Gee, isn’t that what you’ve done – picked up a few -old and widely discredited- papers and married them?

But you have avoided my question:
Do you know what the “scientific method” means?

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Pangolin says:

October 11, 2011 at 11:54 pm

Another Flat Earther shows up and disputes either ALL peer-review journals or merely all those peer reviewed journal articles that disagree with his viewpoint.

My favorite bit of idiocy is when they cherry pick and choose data points and/or specific phrases from other’s peer-reviewed papers while denying the conclusions of the author’s of those papers.

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Black Flag® says:

October 11, 2011 at 10:50 pm

Pangolin,

Please show well-referenced, peer-reviewed sources of your claims.

Oh, you mean the garbage peer review that you are holding up as a truth???

Come on, the volumes that have already dispute your junk is plentiful.

Besides, do you not know your own science, or do you just believe what others tell you?

Everybody else is wrong but you huh? Including all those crazy “scientists” who publish “papers” in “journals” like Science or Nature. It must echo like hell in your personal universe.

Yawn.

So, all the peer review papers that dispute you are….. what?

But let’s cut to the chase:
Do you know what the “scientific method” means?

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Pangolin says:

October 11, 2011 at 10:37 pm

Black Flag_ You are late to the fight and you’re showing up with yesterdays scraps from the top of the compost heap. Please show well-referenced, peer-reviewed sources of your claims. Otherwise you might as well be selling canned unicorn meat.

Everybody else is wrong but you huh? Including all those crazy “scientists” who publish “papers” in “journals” like Science or Nature. It must echo like hell in your personal universe.

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Black Flag® says:

October 11, 2011 at 9:34 pm

The Medieval Warm period myth debunked and fully referenced here

Oh ..my…Gawd.

You actually believe the Medieval Warm period is a myth, based on a web-site hosted by a team dedicated to protected the lie of the Hockey Stick graph!

You do realize that Mann purposely wrote out the Medieval Warm period with statistical crackpot foolery, right?

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Black Flag® says:

October 11, 2011 at 9:31 pm

Pangolin,

The information coming from the physics economy says that burning oil, coal and gas is slow suicide for the human race and a large percentage of megafauna currently living on the planet

Please provide what “physics” you speak of?

As a physicist, I’m not aware of such calculations…

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Black Flag® says:

October 11, 2011 at 9:26 pm

Ed,

Your link, showing a mobile solar cell system for an infantry men, is your definition of going “whole hog into solar”????

Solar has its place – like where you can’t get gasoline to run a generator.

I have installed solar powered cellular transmission towers -in the middle of God-knows-where, because…well it is in the middle of God-knows-where and regular fuel deliveries for a generator is simply out of the question.

The cost: huge – probably 10x that of a gen-based tower. But, the cost of cutting a road a few hundred kilometers through a jungle is was a lot more.

Economics, sir, economics. There are places where solar makes sense, but a whole lot of places it doesn’t.

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Black Flag® says:

October 11, 2011 at 8:47 pm

Late to the cage fight, however….

Global Warming and Cooling is a natural phenomena.

ANTHROPOGENIC Global Warming, Change, Disruption or whatever the latest muck word of the day, is a farce.

No amount of human action possible has any measurable effect on Earth’s climate. The Earth’s climate change is due to the changes of the Solar radiation forcing, and not one thing man does either enhances it or reduces it.

“Green” alternatives – are not green. Each one of them requires massive industrialization – and most -if not all of them- require more industrialization processes than the current “non-Green” systems.

In other words, the current systems are more “green” then the “Green” systems.

Regardless, if “green” alternatives are viable, they will find their place in the marketplace. IF they are not, they will be discarded – as any and all economic goods should be (and normally are).

If an industry needs subsidization, it cannot exist without it – EVER.

Thus, it is an industry that without stealing money from non-subsidized companies (that -obviously- are economic viable), they would not be economically viable, they are therefore an economic parasite – they do not create jobs, they do not “pay for themselves”

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Alan Scott says:

October 11, 2011 at 6:49 pm

Ed Darrell,

” I asked Alan to back up his claim that the solar energy systems the Pentagon uses are too costly for widescale use or commercial success. “That’s pure bull excrement, Alan. Am I wrong? Show us the numbers on those solar systems the Pentagon is using.” ”

I have looked and have not found anything. Which to me means there is basically nothing to find . You posted an extremely misleading statement. You know I did not think it was worth my time to check out your link, but I was wrong . You have less respect than I could have anticipated for being accurate. I now see that I will have to check out all of your assertions.

” If you won’t listen to your own sources, how about the Pentagon? As it happens, solar power works well for the Pentagon because fossil fuels are so damnably expensive on the battlefield — so where reliability counts for real lives, solar goes to work. ”

Where are the examples of solar on the battlefield, in your link ? I kept looking. Your link is a sales pitch for solar. Yea some bases are putting in solar panels. How is that different than paying civilians to install worthless solar technology that will never ever be cost effective ? Before the cost is made up , the panels have degraded to 60 or 40% of their original capacity .

Where is this reliable solar technology saving lives on the battlefield .? Nothing in your link has any value towards advancing your argument that the military has developed cost effective solar technology that has civilian applications .

The Pentagon has a huge budget, which they do not want cut. How hard is it for Obama inc. to say to them, ‘ lets make a deal ‘ ? We won’t cut your budget too much if you put in some solar public relations crap. Our crony capitalist solar buddies get a kickback in selling you guys useless junk and you guys can help develop the next generation of useless junk .

I could not find battlefield applications for solar, in anything you linked to. But I figured, there has to be something. Well as Gomer Pyle used to say, ” Surprise, surprise “. The US Army has deployed REPPS, which are solar blankets in a backpack . A year ago one Combat team was testing the system in Afghanistan .

These may or may not work out, but I cannot see how these can have any practical large scale uses in the civilian world .

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Ed Darrell says:

October 9, 2011 at 10:11 pm

I asked Alan to back up his claim that the solar energy systems the Pentagon uses are too costly for widescale use or commercial success. “That’s pure bull excrement, Alan. Am I wrong? Show us the numbers on those solar systems the Pentagon is using.”

Alan said:

When I have the time, I will research it .

Again I thank you for the discussion. You two are not the worst I have gone against. But I do not do this just to be a jerk, though it is great fun . I honestly believe your agenda is killing our country and you must be stopped.

And I honestly understand and can document that people who make foolish claims without any supporting evidence are creating an agenda that is killing our country, and they should be educated so they can see the error of their ways and repent.

There are none so deaf as those who have their fingers in their ears and sing “Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala” at the top of their lungs.

You don’t know beans about energy in general. You don’t know much about fossil fuels. You know a lot less about solar, and you misread what you do find in the newspapers, thinking those articles say solar doesn’t work, when they say exactly the opposite. You appear to think that solar power is a fringe energy source, with unproven technologies and fly-by-night or startup companies producing who cannot compete in the real world. You appear completely blind to the reality, that companies like GE are steaming ahead because they see it as a profit center, that the Pentagon is going whole hog into solar, not only on the battlefield but wherever they can.

I am convinced that people who don’t know the truth, but insist they have the answers, will mislead us almost every time. Right now you stand as a shining example of my conviction.

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Alan Scott says:

October 9, 2011 at 8:45 pm

Pangolin,

” Ok, here we have the meat. Alan is just a lot of bit racist” .

Thank you very much. You have done me a great honor. I do not deserve the honor, but I am none the less eternally grateful . I have seen so many Conservatives and Republicans branded as racist by Liberals . Honest people, who dared to speak against Obama the Great. To be included with those men and women is a badge of honor . When you guys run out of gas, you just recklessly call your enemies racists . Keep it up, I don’t mind .

” On balance, Audubon strongly supports wind power as a clean alternative energy source that reduces the threat of global warming. ”

Which means that like every other environmental group, the bird people have sold out to the green anarchists .What are a few eagles and falcons next to keeping the lie alive ??

” OK, mr. patriot; what were the maximum individual and corporate tax rates during the Eisenhower administration. A little higher perhaps. ”

You really will never out argue me, but you are the second best I’ve been up against lately. My answer is that I do not care what the tax rate was under Eisenhower. I have fought this fight before .

The 50s still had tax rates from WW2 and FDR. These did not have the predicted bad economic effects because our competitors had not yet fully recovered from WW2. We were the only major economy that had not been flattened during the great war. Plus, this was still in the era of America producing 100% of it’s oil. Once we had to buy oil at high cost from the Arabs, we could no longer afford high tax rates.

” ground-source heat pumps either of which would be cheaper than building a single new coal or gas plant or even replacing worn plants. ”

You are right. I am not up on large scale ground source heat pumps. If they were the answer, private companies would be doing them, trust me. As far as residential ground source heat pumps, I got no problem. But they have a long pay back time and they simply are not feasible everywhere.

” He’s here to attack Obama and this is the handle he thinks he can grab. ”

I confess you are right. However what I am saying is not false. I believe every single thing I say .

” A damn pitiful display actually. ”

It’s a real shame that I am not just a liberal yes man .

Ed Darrell,

” That’s pure bull excrement, Alan. Am I wrong? Show us the numbers on those solar systems the Pentagon is using. ”

When I have the time, I will research it .

Again I thank you for the discussion. You two are not the worst I have gone against. But I do not do this just to be a jerk, though it is great fun . I honestly believe your agenda is killing our country and you must be stopped.

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Ed Darrell says:

October 9, 2011 at 9:36 am

Since many military situations are uneconomical , your argument is moot.

That’s pure bull excrement, Alan. Am I wrong? Show us the numbers on those solar systems the Pentagon is using.

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Pangolin says:

October 8, 2011 at 11:52 pm

Alan_ If we believed for even a microsecond that you had any real concern or feeling for the raptor population your protests might be worthy of investigation. If you weren’t otherwise a source of rampant, unrepentant, repeated falsehoods.

On balance, Audubon strongly supports wind power as a clean alternative energy source that reduces the threat of global warming. Location, however, is important. Many National Audubon Society Chapters and State Programs are actively involved in wind-power siting issues in their communities. Each project has a unique set of circumstances and should be evaluated on its own merits.

_http://policy.audubon.org/audubon-statement-wind-power

Of course if you really cared about birds you would be concerned about mercury pollution from coal burning.

Inorganic mercury which enters a water source is readily converted to methyl mercury by aquatic microorganisms and accumulates in the tissues of fish. In Michigan, the common loon, mink and otter have been poisoned by mercury as a result of ingestion of mercury contaminated fish.

Waterfowl may be exposed to chronic low levels of mercury present as an environmental contaminant. Mercury which is eliminated from the female via egg laying, has been reported to cause abnormal egg laying behavior, impaired reproduction, slowed duckling growth, and altered duckling behavior in mallard ducks.

_ http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26953–,00.html

But the truth is that bird kills are just a handle you use to attack a perceived enemy.

OK, mr. patriot; what were the maximum individual and corporate tax rates during the Eisenhower administration. A little higher perhaps.

The highest tax bracket on earned income today is 35%. During Ike’s administration, the highest tax bracket was 92% in 1953, and 91% thereafter [1]. Yes, taxes on the Rich were almost three times higher under the Republican Eisenhower compared to our current President, or compared to the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton!

_http://www.blueworksbetter.com/EisenhowerFlamingLiberal

You can’t refute this so don’t even bother.

My argument is economic . Solar does not work economically,,,,_Alan Scott

You live with the delusion that the “capitalist” dollar economy (Adam Smith would puke) is some sort of irrefutable physical fact; it’s not. The only true economy is that of energy and material flows governed by physics. The information coming from the physics economy says that burning oil, coal and gas is slow suicide for the human race and a large percentage of megafauna currently living on the planet. But this also is just a handle to mask your true outrage.

Uncle Freaking Obama….Uncle Freaking Obama…..worthless hero Obama….his Majesty Barak Hussein Obama……Bank of Obama….Obamanuts…….That Sir, has been true since the 2008 elections._Alan Scott

Ok, here we have the meat. Alan is just a lot of bit racist. His knowledge of energy economics is paltry and appears to come straight from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck; false either way. He knows nothing factual about solar power, nothing factual about wind power. He makes no argument for conservation or ground-source heat pumps either of which would be cheaper than building a single new coal or gas plant or even replacing worn plants. He’s here to attack Obama and this is the handle he thinks he can grab.

A damn pitiful display actually.

LikeLike
Alan Scott says:

October 8, 2011 at 9:27 pm

Ed Darrell,

Would you please explain why you subjected me to listening to 8 minutes of a rather boring Presidential speech ? I have all the admiration in the world for President Eisenhower. However after listening to the farewell speech, I realize you are cherry picking the parts that fit your left wing anti corporate ideals. Well I can play too.

I especially love this part and I say it is anti entitlement . Very anti Obama care. Anti Porkulus .

” We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. ”

I only quote the following because I find that most of you left wing types are very Atheist .

” Throughout America’s adventure in free government, such basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations
To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. ”

” No, it’s not an argument for cost effectiveness everywhere. It IS a demonstration that solar works, and that solar systems are reliable enough that in critical situations where lives are on the line, it works as well as or better than fossil fuels, fully refuting your claims to the contrary. ”

It does not fully refute Jack . My argument is economic . Solar does not work economically,,,, Period . Since many military situations are uneconomical , your argument is moot.

” It’ll probably happen before oil and coal can be deployed without government handouts, and I’m not counting the freedom to pollute. Call and wake us when the U.S. stops providing handouts to oil companies. ”

You keep repeating the same lie. The same lie. The same lie. Add up the tax revenues that oil, gas and coal generate to Uncle Freaking Obama. Now subtract the so called handouts ,,,, and guess what ? The Federal Government made a humongous, ginormous profit !!!! Not to mention real jobs, not phony Solyndra-type Jobs.

Now same freaking Formula applied to wind and solar. Guess What ???? Uncle Obama is a Loser!

As I have said to many a left wing liberal. Prove me wrong!

No wait let us add in the murky costs to the precious freaking Environment, shall We ? For Solar and Wind to have any practical economies of scale, they have to have a Sasquatch size geographical footprint . In the Caleefornia desert your brother environmentalist wackos are having a fit on the impact to the desert tortoise on the proposed solar farms.

I’ve already brought up the raptor deaths from wind turbines. Then there is the noise pollution and the rusting hulks from obsolete wind farms.

Previously you brought up hydro power. It is true it is more cost effective and reliable than your typical green boondoggle, but it too has major environmental trouble. In Myanmar the people and what is called a government are standing up to the Chinese who wish to flood cultural and environmentally sensitive parts of what was Burma, all to give China electricity.

I guess all of those wind farms and unplugged solar panels in China ain’t gettin the job done.

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Ed Darrell says:

October 8, 2011 at 7:11 am

I apparently am not done. First off, as long as the Pentagon is controlled by his Majesty Barak Hussein Obama, I will not entirely trust anything they say .

Nor will you pay attention to the age of the project the Pentagon is working on, which predates Obama considerably. One more sign that you really don’t have a good eye or ear for accurate information. If you think any president “controls” the Pentagon, you need to study history.

Second, on certain battlefields where the cost of bringing in fuel can be 4 times what it is here in America, solar can be a limited option . That does not mean it is cost effective for large scale use in The United States .

No, it’s not an argument for cost effectiveness everywhere. It IS a demonstration that solar works, and that solar systems are reliable enough that in critical situations where lives are on the line, it works as well as or better than fossil fuels, fully refuting your claims to the contrary.

But also, the high cost of battlefield fuel is NOT an argument that solar power is NOT cost effective. It is merely an observation that the Pentagon would gladly pay a lot more to keep soldiers up and running. Unless you’ve got something to demonstrate more clearly that the solar systems used on the battlefield are not cost effective in Salt Lake City or Boston, we cannot conclude they are not, at least not from the evidence there.

Pangolin,

” It’s a stable technology. Costs are dropping quickly and haven’t yet hit a new, lower, plateau. ”

That tells me nothing .When Solar is deployed with out Government handouts, then and only then will it be viable. You are forcing me and every other taxpayer to pay for something that could be ready someday. Well wake me up when it is.

It’ll probably happen before oil and coal can be deployed without government handouts, and I’m not counting the freedom to pollute. Call and wake us when the U.S. stops providing handouts to oil companies. Set a second alarm to let us know when the costs of oil start to fall, seriously, to pre-1980 levels.

”Wind power has been widely used since the first guy powered a canoe by hanging a hide off of a stick.”

A totally irrelevant statement. That first guy was still cooking his wooly rhino meat and heating his cave with carbon dioxide emitting technology .

Which only demonstrates that wind power has been free and non-polluting for much, much longer than you acknowledge, and victim of the governmental choices and business choices to promoted fossil fuels over wind.

We can answer the question, “What do we do when the wind doesn’t blow?” We just make wind power denialists go live nearby, and if the wind ever slows, they can start blowing about how wind power can’t work, thereby moving the vanes again.

” You’re simply in denial of large parts of reality. ”

Your reality .

” Try to deal with the shock when you don’t recognize the world you have to live in. ”

That Sir, has been true since the 2008 elections .

Ah, we finally get to the real problem — you cannot deal with reality. Imagine how the rest of America felt for the previous eight years, and every time John Boehner shows up on TV. Having just one adult in D.C., in the White House, isn’t enough for the rest of us, but we don’t try to bring down America as a result.

Here, study history about presidents controlling the Pentagon:

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Alan Scott says:

October 8, 2011 at 6:46 am

Ed Darrell,

I apparently am not done. First off, as long as the Pentagon is controlled by his Majesty Barak Hussein Obama, I will not entirely trust anything they say .

Second, on certain battlefields where the cost of bringing in fuel can be 4 times what it is here in America, solar can be a limited option . That does not mean it is cost effective for large scale use in The United States .

Pangolin,

” It’s a stable technology. Costs are dropping quickly and haven’t yet hit a new, lower, plateau. ”

That tells me nothing .When Solar is deployed with out Government handouts, then and only then will it be viable. You are forcing me and every other taxpayer to pay for something that could be ready someday. Well wake me up when it is.

” Wind power has been widely used since the first guy powered a canoe by hanging a hide off of a stick.”

A totally irrelevant statement. That first guy was still cooking his wooly rhino meat and heating his cave with carbon dioxide emitting technology .

” You’re simply in denial of large parts of reality. ”

Your reality .

” Try to deal with the shock when you don’t recognize the world you have to live in. ”

That Sir, has been true since the 2008 elections .

LikeLike
Ed Darrell says:

October 8, 2011 at 2:58 am

Have you actually spoken to anyone who has put a wind turbine on their property ?

Yep. Both people who hooked ’em up for their own use, and people who leased land to the big wind farms.

It works, it pays, it’s economically viable — which is why banks are still willing to loan money to utilities to put up the big ones.

Alan, I cited articles showing the Texas officials noting wind power saved the state last winter when the coal plants failed, and this summer in the great heat wave. You claim exactly opposite to the facts.

Wind has not replaced coal, and probably will not, soon, if ever. But as a nation, we cannot afford to let other industrial powers pass us up in the use of alternative, non-fossil-fuel electrical generation.

Each and every one of your complaints sources out to say the opposite of what you claim. Surely you’ve noticed. Your own sources are trying to tell you something.

If you won’t listen to your own sources, how about the Pentagon? As it happens, solar power works well for the Pentagon because fossil fuels are so damnably expensive on the battlefield — so where reliability counts for real lives, solar goes to work.

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Pangolin says:

October 7, 2011 at 10:03 pm

Alan_ At this point you’re just being a loon.

I go to scholar. google.com and type in “solar power costs” and I get 591,000 hits. Solar power works. It’s low risk. It’s a stable technology. Costs are dropping quickly and haven’t yet hit a new, lower, plateau.

Wind power has been widely used since the first guy powered a canoe by hanging a hide off of a stick. Compared to the immediate and delayed pollution costs of burning coal, oil and natural gas solar and wind power might as well be free.

You’re simply in denial of large parts of reality. Try to deal with the shock when you don’t recognize the world you have to live in.

LikeLike
Alan Scott says:

October 7, 2011 at 8:32 pm

Pangolin,

You know it’s been really fun, but I’m done .

LikeLike
Alan Scott says:

October 7, 2011 at 8:29 pm

Pangolin ,

” For a very small cost, and in many cases at considerable actual savings, we can reduce that risk by minimizing, and eventually eliminating fossil fuel use. ”

This is simply not true. Wind and Solar do not work, Period! Have you actually spoken to anyone who has put a wind turbine on their property ? I thought not . The wind in free. The freaking wind turbine ain’t free. The maintenance is not free . The stresses on a wind turbine are similar to that on an airframe. Long, long before you make your money back on the purchase price , the parts on the wind turbine have worn out and have to be replaced !

” Confronted with the facts, they do what every other addict does; they keep lying. They double down on the stupid. ”

Believe it or not there is a psychological term for what you are doing . Projection . Wikipedia, which I normally would not use, but in this case I will,

” projection is a psychological defense mechanism whereby one “projects” one’s own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else. ”

You are doing projection on steroids .

” But I suppose an affidavit signed in blood by George W. Bush himself wouldn’t be good enough. ”

Only if it was in triplicate and in a sacrificed goat’s blood .

” So what do these guys know about fossil fuels that US conservatives aren’t understanding? Limits perhaps? ”

These guys have more money than US Liberals and so can afford to be much more stupid !!! You have given absolutely no cost analysis , None what so ever of what the real cost per mega watt hour is against the cost from existing capacity . Also the Island is not tied into the larger power grid. The smaller grid is simpler to manage solar than a larger one. Not to mention this is Saudi Arabia, not cloudy, rainy North America. Oh yea,,,, maybe a freaking desert is different ?

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Pangolin says:

October 6, 2011 at 4:21 am

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/10/05/170310.html

Saudi Arabia’s first solar power station inaugurated on Farasan Island, Wednesday, 05 October 2011
By AHMED AL-ZILA’I
FARASAN SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia inaugurated its first solar power station on Sunday. It is located on Farasan Island and will produce 864,000 kilowatts.

The station, which contains 6,000 solar cells, was built by government-owned utility Saudi Electricity (SECO) and Showa Shell Sekiyu, a Japanese energy company partly owned by Saudi Arabian Oil.

Ali bin Salih al-Barak, executive head of SECO, said that the project is the beginning of a new era for the production of solar energy in the kingdom.

He also said that there will be constant coordination between the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology and the King Abdullah City for Renewable and Nuclear Energy to advance the best ways to invest in the production of solar power.

Deputy head of the Jizan region, Abdullah bin Mohammad al-Swaid, said that the island was chosen because it lacked connection to the general electricity grid and that providing power to the area’s population consumed a large amount of oil.

Farasan is located southeast of the Red Sea, 40 kilometers from Jizan City.

So what do these guys know about fossil fuels that US conservatives aren’t understanding? Limits perhaps?

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Pangolin says:

October 6, 2011 at 12:42 am

Alan apparently has reading comprehension problems.

From the link HE cited……

The plot below, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007), shows numerous Northern Hemisphere paleoclimatic temperature reconstructions. The various studies differ in methodology, and in the underlying paleoclimate proxy data utilized, but all reconstruct the same basic pattern of cool “Little Ice Age”, warmer “Medieval Warm Period”, and still warmer late 20th and 21st century temperatures.

and….

In summary, it appears that the late 20th and early 21st centuries are likely the warmest period the Earth has seen in at least 1200 years. For a summary of the latest available research on the nature of climate during the “Medieval Warm Period”, please see Box 6.4 of the IPCC 2007 Palaeoclimate chapter. To learn more about the “Medieval Warm Period”, please read this review published in Climatic Change, written by M.K. Hughes and H.F. Diaz. (Click here for complete review reference). Discussion of the last 2,000 years, including the Medieval Warm Period, and regional patterns and uncertainties, appears in the National Research Council Report titled “Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years”, available from the National Academy Press.

The general issue is should we use massively polluting coal or or solar and wind power. Alan’s claim is that there is no need to use alternative energy because there is no climate change risk, solar and wind aren’t economic and laughably, that solar power companies are subsidIzed by a process more corrupt than the fossil fuels industries.

But all this is just quibbling. The basic issue is the progressives have solid scientific evidence that the environment that we all depend upon to keep us alive is at risk. For a very small cost, and in many cases at considerable actual savings, we can reduce that risk by minimizing, and eventually eliminating fossil fuel use.

The conservatives, it turn, offer up lies. Time after time conservatives have been caught out in outright falsehoods in support of their buddies in the fossil fuel industry. Confronted with the facts, they do what every other addict does; they keep lying. They double down on the stupid.

As to whether oil had anything to do with the Iraq war? No less than Alan Greenspan admitted that.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece
and an adviser to Tony Blair….
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ahJS35XsmXGg
The there’s these guys…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

But I suppose an affidavit signed in blood by George W. Bush himself wouldn’t be good enough.

LikeLike
Alan Scott says:

October 5, 2011 at 8:43 pm

Pangolin,

Your proof of the medieval warming period not happening was not proof. I tried to read the article after the first article and found it unreadable. Mostly mumbo jumbo .

In this article, http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html

they acknowledge the medieval warming period . They also say that ” data become sparse going back in time prior to the last four centuries. ”

Now if NOAA says that climate data is sparse prior to 400 years ago how can you make any claims that recent temperatures are warmer ????????

The data ain’t there for saying it is warmer now than at any time in human history .

” Alan still decrees Solyndra as a worthless business because it received government loans. ”

What don’t you get ? Half a billion is gone after Obama was warned that Solyndra was no good .

” Where’s your criticism of the military procurement process Alan? ”

What the heck does that have to do with the price of eggs ?

” Do you have similar criticism for mining laws that allow coal companies access to federal lands for far less than the purchase prices of similar property would be? ”

Coal is a real business!!!!! Besides , this again has nothing to do with the price of eggs. You can argue the coal companies should pay more, but that is a totally, totally separate issue . You mix in things that have no business in this argument !

” Do you criticize the many oil company subsidies not the least of which has been two wars in Iraq? Links please. ”

Again total nonsense . Deduct the oil subsidies from the total federal fees and taxes the oil companies pay and guess freaking what ?!! The Government made a ginormous profit . We lost $500 million on Solyndra. They were a good little green socialist POS! They did not make an evil profit .

You green Progressives demonize companies that actually make money and pay taxes and fees to the government. You praise and protect money losers.

The wars in Iraq . You just keep on keepin on they was about gettin oil for Bush’s oil buddies . I’m sick of explaining the truth .

” They aren’t likely going to mention green power are they? Not while taking those giant oil company ads several times per week. ”

Regardless, if green was worth mentioning they would have . Again you have no actual figures to back up your claim that green pulled Texas through .

” The one bit of good news you bring: the citizens of Texas might get some pollution relief in the foreseeable future. ”

The inconvenient facts are more blackouts and higher bills . Everyone in Texas should bend over like in Animal House and say to our fearless leader, ” Thank you Sir, may I have another ? “

LikeLike
Pangolin says:

October 3, 2011 at 4:07 pm

Alan Scott proving once again that no AGW denier mole stays whacked.

If pollution’s “good side” is that it defrays the effect of other pollution while causing millions of cases of asthma and lung cancer then it isn’t all that much of a benefit. The air in Chinese cities is possibly the worst in the world.

The Medieval Warm period myth debunked and fully referenced here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/11/medieval-warm-period-mwp/

The Texas State Climatologist seemed to think the weather was unusual. http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/01/301763/state-climatologist-texas-severe-drought/

Alan still decrees Solyndra as a worthless business because it received government loans. Where’s your criticism of the military procurement process Alan? Do you have similar criticism for mining laws that allow coal companies access to federal lands for far less than the purchase prices of similar property would be? Do you criticize the many oil company subsidies not the least of which has been two wars in Iraq? Links please.

Alan you’ve proven before that you know little or nothing about any electricity market anywhere. Referring to a WSJ article might as well be referring to Rupert Murdoch’s secretary. They aren’t likely going to mention green power are they? Not while taking those giant oil company ads several times per week.

The one bit of good news you bring: the citizens of Texas might get some pollution relief in the foreseeable future.

LikeLike
Alan Scott says:

October 3, 2011 at 3:36 pm

Ed Darrell,

” Warming was dulled in the past decade by greatly increased particulate and sulfate pollution from China.”

So pollution has a good side ? And by contrast as the US puts out less particulate and sulfate pollution, we cause the earth to warm.

” The decade was still the warmest decade in human history. ”

Since recording global temperatures is very recent in human history, how do you know for sure ? Is it even warmer than the medieval warming period ? Oh wait that was a myth, wasn’t it ? I’ve read all of the the medieval warming denying propaganda from you guys .The facts are the Vikings established settlements in Greenland and elsewhere that were not possible earlier. Then the Greenland settlement was wiped out in the 1400s by the returning cold . It is in Rachael Carson’s book .

” no one said each year would be warmer than the previous one, nor that each year’s hurricanes would be more numerous nor more severe than the previous year’s.”

I admit I do not have recorded proof,,,,but yes they most certainly did ! How could they not ? How could they resist saying it ?

” Worse, in most years, you’d see year-over-year increases in the damage from global warming. You pick one year out of 30 that doesn’t meet that criterion with regard to hurricanes. ”

And you guys don’t do that constantly ? What are you doing with the current Texas drought, except cherry picking data ???

” Reality denial is a key component of warming denialism, though — do you guys ever drink coffee?”

That’s really a very funny argument. Are you an ax murderer ? No ? Denial is the first sign of an ax murderer . Yes, I drink coffee. Is that another denial red flag ?

” I’m curious, too — do you take money from China to denigrate U.S. businesses to the benefit of the communist Chinese? ”

I denigrate worthless US businesses like Solyndra . All solar economics is solely based on government welfare. The only exception is very limited isolated low power installations. Actually the more the Red Chinese get sucked into the green economy, the less I fear them as an economic competitor . Just like all you green goblins cite China’s high speed trains, to plead for more mass transit money, because the US is being left behind . The Chinese run their trains like Gomez Adams .

” Spain is not even mentioned. ”

If ‘ you ‘ bothered to read articles of Spain’s experience , you would find the same thing and worse, happened in Spain .

” Too many plants off-line for maintenance, a refusal to plan for greater capacity required for severe heat events, and the privatization of power generation in Texas after deregulation, which has crippled the state’s ability to keep up with demand. ”

You brought up Texas. I was not informed of the specifics of the Texas electricity market . If I had been I would have been better able to dispute your claims . But I come up to speed really fast sometimes.

In today’s WSJ, an article about Texas helped me quite a bit . Strangely , nowhere in the article was any mention of how green power was saving the day . No mighty mouse. The problem is that after deregulation, there is no incentive to add capacity because electric rates are so low. Texas also cut access to out of state power because of Federal interference.

And your worthless hero Obama is making the situation worse by sending his EPA to attack Texas’ remaining coal plants. Bad for Texas, good for Green .

LikeLike
Flakey says:

October 1, 2011 at 5:22 pm

As an aside, Britain just ever had its hottest day in October ever recorded.

LikeLike
Ed Darrell says:

October 1, 2011 at 9:06 am

Were global warming to stop, there are several effects we would see — or, alternatively, if global warming were not valid, we should have already seen these things, I noted earlier: “There would be fewer hurricanes over time, and hurricanes would have less force. There would be fewer tornadoes instead of record years back-to-back.”

Mr. Scott refuses to look at the big picture, but leaps at minor wigglesin the hockey-stick graph scoring on his goal:

Maybe you heard about the year 2005. It was an exceptionally bad year for major Hurricanes . That year was posted as proof for your little pet theory. You Global Warmers predicted even worse , the next 2 years. Funny thing was, the next two years, were very tame for Hurricanes hitting the US.

So did Global Freaking Warming take the next two years off or what ?

Warming was dulled in the past decade by greatly increased particulate and sulfate pollution from China. (Yeah, that’s the same study I noted earlier — maybe Alan will read it this time.)

Two years off? The decade was still the warmest decade in human history. Though “cooler” than you think it should have been to verify warming, it was vastly warmer than the 20th century average. (See here, “Where’s that global cooling the denialists promised us?”)

You make straw man claims of warming theory — no one said each year would be warmer than the previous one, nor that each year’s hurricanes would be more numerous nor more severe than the previous year’s. But if you’d bother to look at a decade, you’d see that.

Worse, in most years, you’d see year-over-year increases in the damage from global warming. You pick one year out of 30 that doesn’t meet that criterion with regard to hurricanes. Why don’t you ask about 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010? If you ignore 90% of the data, your conclusions may not be correct.

Markets fluctuate, and so does weather. One must not seize on every minor fluctuation contrary to trend, in order to appear wise in the conclusions one draws.

Reality denial is a key component of warming denialism, though — do you guys ever drink coffee?

I noted the great contributions of wind power in Texas, as acknowledged by the state’s grid managers, ERCOT: “Wind power bailed out Texas in July and August when there wasn’t enough coal capacity.”

Why oh why was coal capacity lacking ? ? ?

Too many plants off-line for maintenance, a refusal to plan for greater capacity required for severe heat events, and the privatization of power generation in Texas after deregulation, which has crippled the state’s ability to keep up with demand.

This is the Morning Call article I previously referred to.

http://mobile.mcall.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=919443&postId=919443&postUserId=48&sessionToken=&catId=6090&curAbsIndex=2&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A48%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%26DQ%3DsectionId%253A6090%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

Nothing in that article supports any of your claims about solar power in Spain. Overall, the article notes that solar power growth has been significant in Pennsylvania, and that government incentives have helped. The problem the article cites is that too many people are flocking to solar power, using up all the incentives. Solar power is much more popular than policy makers had dreamed.

Spain is not even mentioned.

Did you read the article? It says:

Pennsylvania has nearly 100 megawatts of installed solar power capacity through 2010. This year, Air Products in Trexlertown switched on a 15-acre solar farm that will power half of the company’s six administrative buildings and save the company $250,000 per year.

The state ranked fourth in the nation in new solar energy installations in the first quarter of 2011, according to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The program was so successful that utilities have nearly met state benchmarks for solar power production through 2014, according to Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, a statewide environmental organization. (Allentown Morning-Call article)

That’s quite the opposite of what you’ve been arguing here.

Mr. Scott said:

I am curious. Have either of you gentlemen installed Solar or Wind capacity on your estates ? If I believed as you did, no price would be too high to save Mother Earth . I actually might install some myself one day. I will not ask my fellow citizens to help pay for it or force them to buy electricity from me.

Faux empathy doesn’t cut it with me. You claim no price is too high to save Mother Earth, to you — but you condemn spending anything in that process. You claim no spending is necessary, and you deny the evidence that Mother Earth is in trouble. Blood on the floor, Mother Earth’s arteries are gushing, and you claim everything is just fine, no reason to apply even direct pressure, let alone drive off the thugs slicing her up.

I’m a teacher. I can’t afford to go big on solar. However, we xeriscape, and we have planted to reduce power bills in the summer and winter. We insulate. Cycling is not an option on our no-bike freeways; my wife trains to work.

Energy conservation is the real key to our future, I believe. Conservation of soil and water resources are closely related. I’m active in those areas.

I believe there just has to be a whole lot of scrap solar panels and used wind turbines priced at distressed levels right now .

But again, you’re wrong in your beliefs. There are not cast-off windmills and solar panels from failed installations. There is instead high demand for more turbines, and very high demand for solar panels. China and Germany both subsidize their solar panel industries to get the lead. Stick to the facts, you’ll do better in the long run.

I’m curious, too — do you take money from China to denigrate U.S. businesses to the benefit of the communist Chinese? Or do you do this out of vast ignorance of the global markets in solar panels?

Pangolin,

I want to hear more about Rachael Carson-phobes. I have a lot of interest in Rachael Carson, so I am curious .

Start here: “DDT Chronicles at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.”

Best summary of the Carson-phobes is probably the one done by Quiggin and Lambert at Crooked Timber. Quiggin’s follow up will key you into the responses from Carson-phobes, and the responses to their slanders and mental slips. Don’t miss Bug Girl’s take down of them, either.

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Pangolin says:

October 1, 2011 at 12:39 am

Alan_ I’m in a town where the brewery, the sewage treatment plant, the junior college, gas stations, the county jail, the University of Pheonix branch, the high schools, some bus stops, occasional random trees and dog knows what else have solar panels on them. That includes the carport over my parking space. (townhouse)

The sun shines a lot around here. For a while our minor league baseball team was named The Heat.

I drive my car so rarely that I have to mount a solar panel in the window so the battery stays charged. I bicycle as does a major contingent in this town. I know people who are embarrassed to show up to public events in a car.

So yep. I cycle my talk.

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Alan Scott says:

September 30, 2011 at 10:17 pm

James Kessler,

” Ed, what do you think Allen thinks of the fact that Costa Rica gets 80% of its power from hydroelectric’s and 10% from geothermal?

I just love conservatives inherent belief that the United States can simply not do things better then other countries. ”

Now I don’t have a lot of knowledge about Costa Rica, but I can guess a whole lot . Costa Rico, I guess gets a lot of rain, compared to the US. If the geography is suitable for damnable rivers, then it is logical for hydro electric.

The US already has developed most of it’s potential hydro capacity. And I know many in the US kayaking community consider hydro to be environmentally offensive.

Hydro and geothermal are not as useless as wind and solar, but they are very location specific. And yes . believe me when I say we simply cannot do certain things even as well as other countries. I am talking about ethanol .

Ethanol makes great sense when you are the Saudi Arabia of sugar, as Brazil is. Even you environmental types know that the US Corn based Ethanol is totally idiotic in economic and especially environmental terms .

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Alan Scott says:

September 30, 2011 at 10:00 pm

Ed Darrell,

” There would be fewer hurricanes over time, and hurricanes would have less force. There would be fewer tornadoes instead of record years back-to-back. ”

Maybe you heard about the year 2005. It was an exceptionally bad year for major Hurricanes . That year was posted as proof for your little pet theory. You Global Warmers predicted even worse , the next 2 years. Funny thing was, the next two years, were very tame for Hurricanes hitting the US.

So did Global Freaking Warming take the next two years off or what ?

” Wind power bailed out Texas in July and August when there wasn’t enough coal capacity. ”

Why oh why was coal capacity lacking ? ? ?

This is the Morning Call article I previously referred to.

http://mobile.mcall.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=919443&postId=919443&postUserId=48&sessionToken=&catId=6090&curAbsIndex=2&resultsUrl=DID%3D6%26DFCL%3D1000%26DSB%3Drank%2523desc%26DBFQ%3DuserId%253A48%26DL.w%3D%26DL.d%3D10%26DQ%3DsectionId%253A6090%26DPS%3D0%26DPL%3D3

I am curious. Have either of you gentlemen installed Solar or Wind capacity on your estates ? If I believed as you did, no price would be too high to save Mother Earth . I actually might install some myself one day. I will not ask my fellow citizens to help pay for it or force them to buy electricity from me.

I believe there just has to be a whole lot of scrap solar panels and used wind turbines priced at distressed levels right now .

Pangolin,

I want to hear more about Rachael Carson-phobes. I have a lot of interest in Rachael Carson, so I am curious .

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James Kessler says:

September 30, 2011 at 10:43 am

Oh I know. The point was that it can be done.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 30, 2011 at 10:34 am

With all the volcanoes, I’m surprised that it isn’t 80% geothermal and 10% hydro. As a pragmatic matter, we don’t have the proportion of hydropower to population that a small, mountainous nation like Costa Rica does. We aren’t building any more Glen Canyons or Flaming Gorges.

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James Kessler says:

September 29, 2011 at 6:43 pm

Ed, what do you think Allen thinks of the fact that Costa Rica gets 80% of its power from hydroelectric’s and 10% from geothermal?

I just love conservatives inherent belief that the United States can simply not do things better then other countries.

Super-patriots indeed.

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Pangolin says:

September 29, 2011 at 5:45 pm

But, I think there are a few other areas of science denial, too. There are vaccine denialists, and there are DDT denialists and Rachel Carson-phobes._ Ed

I must concede your point here given my firm belief that the only inexhaustible resource in the universe is stupidity.

I would point out though there are no sitting U.S. Senators publicly advocating a widespread halt to vaccinations. Fox News doesn’t run a daily piece where they pretend that some mosquitos haven’t evolved resistance to DDT. If you dump a quart of almost any non-organic pesticide on the head of a Rachel Carson-phobe the judge is still going to nail you to the wall for attempted bodily harm or worse depending upon the toxicity of the substance.

In short, each of these is a marginal belief that doesn’t have the backing of the entire Republican Party, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several major oil corporations the way AGW denial does.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 29, 2011 at 5:21 pm

There is a big article in the Allentown, Pa Newspaper of record about the over supply of Solar power . I live just North of that city. This is what happened in Spain . Everybody built and bought solar panels to harvest the government credits. Now our brilliant politicians want to raise the amount of Green energy the power companies are forced to accept from the solar idiots.

The Allentown Morning Call? A great paper, I used to work with their D.C. correspondents.

This story, about the “Alternative Nobels” going to solar power advocates in Spain, from the issue of the newspaper of September 29, 2011?

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Solar power technology and efforts to protect the rights of birthing mothers, victims of dictatorship and farming communities were rewarded Thursday with the Right Livelihood Awards, sometimes referred to as the alternative Nobel prizes.

Human rights activist Jacqueline Moudeina of Chad; Spanish-based nonprofit GRAIN; and American midwifery educator Ina May Gaskin will share the euro150,000 ($205,000) cash award.

Chinese solar power pioneer Huang Ming receives an honorary award for developing “cutting-edge technologies.”

I don’t see any complaint about solar power in Spain there.

Can you give us some sort of citation on the article?

You know you had me confused about when the coal fired plants needed to be bailed out by your wind power . I assumed you meant the summer, but now you mean in the winter.

Wind power bailed out Texas last February during the blizzards, when the coal plants failed. Wind power bailed out Texas in July and August when there wasn’t enough coal capacity.

Wind power is a key part of the energy picture in Texas.

A friend complaining about the windfarms and how they change the scenery, and that reminded me: With the gas boom, most of the new gas wells in the Panhandle are solar powered. Cheaper than gasoline, no wiring needed.

Solar is even big in fossil fuels.

I know, I know blizzards are another sign of Global Freaking Warming. Every thing is.

Weather extremes are sign of warming. Warmer air has more energy in it, and consequently there will be more violent discharges of weather to bring the energy out. Freak storms are a sign of that — snow in Houston is, indeed, a sign of global warming.

You were very good about tracking when the coal plants were down . How about figures of when the wind did not blow and coal bailed out wind ?

Hasn’t happened yet. This is Texas, home of the winds.

Don’t have on line availability for each power source ? How can you argue your point without those figures ?

I always ask this of my Green friends. Any theory also gives the criteria for disproving itself. So what would be the weather events that would disprove your pet theory? This way, when they do not happen, it would prove you to be right.

Decreasing average temperatures, milder weather, fewer records at the extremes — those would disprove warming.

See if you can find some evidence of any of that.

I mean cold, heat, drought, floods, Hurricanes , and tornadoes all prove there is Global Warming. What would happen if there was no Global Warming ?

There would be fewer hurricanes over time, and hurricanes would have less force. There would be fewer tornadoes instead of record years back-to-back. Snow would return to traditional haunts, the glaciers in the Himalayas would start building up again, as would glaciers in South America, Europe, North America and Antarctica. The alpine forest lines and tundra lines would shift down and south. Fewer El Ninos and La Ninas over a couple of decades (those phenomena used to occur maybe once a decade — in the past two decades they have become almost annual). Lake effect snowfalls would decrease. The surface of the oceans would cool. Greenland glaciers would stop melting in many years, and grow in the winters. Pack ice in the Arctic Ocean would increase.

There are lots of signs of decreasing global temperatures that could signal an end to global warming — were there an end to global warming.

I mean, when your green solutions are enacted, how are we , the unwashed, to track your progress in fixing the trouble that we sinners have caused ?

There’s a chart on the lower right hand corner of this blog that tracks CO2 concentrations. When those numbers fall below 350 ppm., and then keep falling for a while, that will be a big clue.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 29, 2011 at 4:50 pm

There are only two major areas of scientific denial in the U.S.; climate change deniers and creationists.

I like your step-by-step dissection of CO2 denialisms.

But, I think there are a few other areas of science denial, too. There are vaccine denialists, and there are DDT denialists and Rachel Carson-phobes.

Don’t get me started on the economics denialists.

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Alan Scott says:

September 29, 2011 at 4:42 pm

Ed Darrell,

There is a big article in the Allentown, Pa Newspaper of record about the over supply of Solar power . I live just North of that city. This is what happened in Spain . Everybody built and bought solar panels to harvest the government credits. Now our brilliant politicians want to raise the amount of Green energy the power companies are forced to accept from the solar idiots.

You know you had me confused about when the coal fired plants needed to be bailed out by your wind power . I assumed you meant the summer, but now you mean in the winter. I know, I know blizzards are another sign of Global Freaking Warming. Every thing is.

You were very good about tracking when the coal plants were down . How about figures of when the wind did not blow and coal bailed out wind ? Don’t have on line availability for each power source ? How can you argue your point without those figures ?

I always ask this of my Green friends. Any theory also gives the criteria for disproving itself. So what would be the weather events that would disprove your pet theory? This way, when they do not happen, it would prove you to be right.

I mean cold, heat, drought, floods, Hurricanes , and tornadoes all prove there is Global Warming. What would happen if there was no Global Warming ?

I mean, when your green solutions are enacted, how are we , the unwashed, to track your progress in fixing the trouble that we sinners have caused ?

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Pangolin says:

September 29, 2011 at 12:59 pm

Ed_ It’s not just the deniers like Alan Scott are wrong; it’s how they’re wrong. They are wrong about science only where the science is applied to the thermal absorption and radiation patterns of greenhouse gasses are applied to atmospheric science.

A few examples:

There are no “gas turbine” deniers that contest the ability of CO2 to transport heat away from engine parts
There are no “thermal expansion” deniers that contest the thermal absorption and expansion ratios of CO2 when injected into oil wells.
There are no “acidification deniers” that dispute the ability of CO2 gas dissolved in water to lower pH and produce wanted chemical reactions
There are no “reduction deniers” in ceramics that dispute dispute CO2’s thermal or reactive chemistry
There are no “astronomy deniers” that contest CO2’s radiation band in evaluating the spectrum readings of stellar objects.

Where CO2 physics are involved there are only climate change deniers.

There are only two major areas of scientific denial in the U.S.; climate change deniers and creationists. Which is convenient since they tend to be the same people. Given the very narrow window in which the scientific process regarding greenhouse gas research is denied it leads to a specific conclusion. The deniers know they are wrong.

They actually understand the science enough to be very specific in their denial. The accusation of scientific fraud is only leveled at those papers supporting AGW theory. Which is odd since the very same physical properties of CO2 are used regularly in industry without contest or dispute.

So they’re lying. They tell a deliberate, repeated falsehood for whatever reasons they might have.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 29, 2011 at 11:50 am

Thousands of the World’s best experts once thought the World was flat .

Not after Eratosthenes determined it to be round. The experts weren’t listened to by non-experts, however — just as you refuse to listen to the experts who know best, now.

Besides Academia is controlled by global warmers . A researcher disputing it simply will not get funding or tenure. You know I am right .

Exxon would fund such a scientist mightily. Were the science to prove right, there might be a Nobel Prize in it. I know your claim is exactly contrary to the way academe and science and business function. So do you.

No rational person rationally denies warming, now. Even for those who hoped the plateauing of warming between about 1998 and 2008 might mark the end of the trouble, now we know that it was more sulfate pollution that masked the effects of CO2, and not an end to warming.

The abstract of that article says:

Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008. We find that this hiatus in warming coincides with a period of little increase in the sum of anthropogenic and natural forcings. Declining solar insolation as part of a normal eleven-year cycle, and a cyclical change from an El Nino to a La Nina dominate our measure of anthropogenic effects because rapid growth in short-lived sulfur emissions partially offsets rising greenhouse gas concentrations. As such, we find that recent global temperature records are consistent with the existing understanding of the relationship among global surface temperature, internal variability, and radiative forcing, which includes anthropogenic factors with well known warming and cooling effects.

But why do I bother to cite the best science to you? We know you won’t bother to read it.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 29, 2011 at 11:39 am

I noted: “In any case, an interested and unbiased reader might recall the great blizzard that shook Texas last winter, and the rolling brownouts — prompted by the failure of coal-fired power plants. Wind farms kept the state running.

“One need not be a historian to remember this summer’s record heat and drought across Texas. Once again, the wind pulled us through. ”

Mr. Scott said:

Wind power pulled you through ? I find that funny as all heck. And if reliable coal power failed, I have to wonder what you Green Goblins did to cause it to fail.

“Act of God.” Turns out that coal generating stations in Texas are not winterized — usually the weather is good enough that water pipes aren’t covered from weather, and not heated. Cold shut down two critical coal-fired power plants and played havoc with several others.

Wind blows in all weather, and cold doesn’t affect the wind turbine generators.

Interesting that you cite goblins. Such faith in fairies and imaginary monsters is exactly the problem with much of warming denialism. Time to wake up, smell the coffee, and recognize and deal with reality.

Did you have your buddies at the EPA bury them in new regulations, just to make your hot air machines look good ?

No, they failed on their own, of their own accord. EPA can’t control the weather, it turns out. Nor can Rick Perry, nor does he have a clue which way to push it.

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Alan Scott says:

September 29, 2011 at 6:39 am

Pangolin,

” Alan_ I don’t have to prove anthropogenic global warming. Thousands of papers published in dozens of journals, most notably Nature and Science have provided clear and compelling evidence of human caused climate change. ”

Thousands of the World’s best experts once thought the World was flat . Besides Academia is controlled by global warmers . A researcher disputing it simply will not get funding or tenure. You know I am right .

” One of the facts that science has observed is that increased CO2 in our oceans is killing coral reefs the world over. Coral reefs have a geological history that predates humans, primates or even land animals. A world that cannot support coral reefs is unlikely to have a biosphere that humans can tolerate for long. Everything humans do is a subset of the larger environment. ”

Coral reefs come and go all of the time. There are ancient coral reefs in the geological record that died before Global Warming. The seas and the weather have warmed before . Look it up .

” Oh, you’re right. Solar and wind power cannot replace petroleum with a cheap, dense liquid fuel.”

They can’t make economical electricity either .

” Ultimately this discussion with you is futile. You are immune to facts. See, the difference between ignorance and stupidity is the stupid person gets it wrong ”

I was wondering when you would call me stupid for not believing your truths . Again, I saw the outright lies you guys will tell , during Jimmy Carter’s Presidency . All of your claims are simply bogus. I feel sorry for you . With President Obumbler on his way out of power, much of the funding for what you believe will be cut. We will see if any of it can survive in the real world .

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Pangolin says:

September 29, 2011 at 2:10 am

Alan_ I don’t have to prove anthropogenic global warming. Thousands of papers published in dozens of journals, most notably Nature and Science have provided clear and compelling evidence of human caused climate change. The oppositional arguments are fronted by a collection of crackpots that haven’t a leg to stand on in actual scientific circles. The post science-y articles on their blogs and pretend that is equivalent. It is; for idiots.

One of the facts that science has observed is that increased CO2 in our oceans is killing coral reefs the world over. Coral reefs have a geological history that predates humans, primates or even land animals. A world that cannot support coral reefs is unlikely to have a biosphere that humans can tolerate for long. Everything humans do is a subset of the larger environment.

Oh, you’re right. Solar and wind power cannot replace petroleum with a cheap, dense liquid fuel. That means if we want the same services we’ll have to find other ways of getting them. Luckily the world’s engineers already have a tool kit that will provide for food, clothing, comfortable housing, reasonable transportation etc. provided that crucial bit about not poisoning the biosphere is managed.

Those plants in Texas; they closed because there wasn’t enough cooling water in their reservoirs. http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/08/24/more-power-plant-woes-likely-if-texas-drought-drags-into-winter/

Ultimately this discussion with you is futile. You are immune to facts. See, the difference between ignorance and stupidity is the stupid person gets it wrong AFTER the correct information is given to them. Which is what you’re doing.

At some point climate change denialists need to be treated like the idiot children they are and relegated to the kind of echo chambers of the internet that white nazis, astrologers, flat earthers, alien abductees and other crackpots reside in. That point is long overdue; reasonable adults should not have to entertain the delusional forever.

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Alan Scott says:

September 28, 2011 at 10:03 pm

Pangolin ,

” The elephant in the china shop that Alan wants to ignore or deny is that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is very real, is accelerating, and is producing increasing damage to human economies. ”

You cannot prove that . Many of the predictions of people supporting that theory have simply not happened . Also every weather event which you can produce as proof can be explained by other theories .

” At some point in the next few decades we will stop burning fossil fuels and we will do it because populations will understand at a very deep level that to continue means certain obliteration of what we know as “civilization.” ”

You must have watched the documentary Earth 2100 . I am betting a giant Asteroid will obliterate civilization before rising sea levels will . But lets say for stupidity’s sake that you are completely right. Man made Global Warming is real and I am full of crap . Your windmills and solar cells do not work. They will not replace fossil fuels. The technology is not good enough right now.

But, again for stupidity’s sake, we will assume that 30 years from now , solar and wind actually do work. Deploying today’s technology today will do nothing . You assume that for solar and wind to advance, we must waste money today. I say no. Scientists can continue to develop their toys in labs. The government can even pay them. When one of their lab rats is ready for prime time, only then do we deploy them .

” Right now the externalized costs of coal, oil and gas burning are so high that wind and solar power are a fraction of the cost for electric power. Simply because the electric company doesn’t charge you for mercury in every lake, river and ocean fishery doesn’t mean it’s free. Even the “cleanest” fossil fuel, natural gas, ultimately raises atmospheric CO2. ”

You are a very clever rabbit. You add in costs that are not there. Well I can do that too. I value every raptor that has ever been chopped up in a windmill at $ 100 Billion . That takes out wind power . Then there is the environmental impact of Solar on the poor desert tortoise in California deserts . I value those at $ 200 Billion per turtle .

” At some point the demographics will change. The deniers, mostly older, will die off and younger people more comfortable with science will win out. At that point we will need every bit of installed wind and solar power we can get our hands on at any price. ”

Don’t bury me yet . And you seem to forget that wind and solar have limited life spans .We will soon have green power slums . Obsolete equipment littering the landscape. Read the following and try to dispute it .

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html

Ed Darrell,

” In any case, an interested and unbiased reader might recall the great blizzard that shook Texas last winter, and the rolling brownouts — prompted by the failure of coal-fired power plants. Wind farms kept the state running.

One need not be a historian to remember this summer’s record heat and drought across Texas. Once again, the wind pulled us through. ”

Wind power pulled you through ? I find that funny as all heck . And if reliable coal power failed, I have to wonder what you Green Goblins did to cause it to fail . Did you have your buddies at the EPA bury them in new regulations, just to make your hot air machines look good ?

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Ed Darrell says:

September 27, 2011 at 4:29 am

Who in the world is Troymedia? Alan, you need some new, less-biased sources.

In any case, an interested and unbiased reader might recall the great blizzard that shook Texas last winter, and the rolling brownouts — prompted by the failure of coal-fired power plants. Wind farms kept the state running.

One need not be a historian to remember this summer’s record heat and drought across Texas. Once again, the wind pulled us through.

It doesn’t matter how “unbelievable” you find the facts, Alan. They remain the facts.

Alan said:

I am sure that the banks are backed up by the Bank of Obama.

Alan in Wonderland, working to break the record of believing six impossible things before breakfast? You’re sure of a total fiction?

I am also very sure that the moment the plug is pulled on government subsidies, all of those profits will vanish into the green air .

What subsidies? While I’m sure there are some paltry tax credits, you’ve offered absolutely no evidence that windfarms go up because of subsidies, and not because they take advantage of wind for fuel — and the wind is free.

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Pangolin says:

September 26, 2011 at 11:51 pm

The elephant in the china shop that Alan wants to ignore or deny is that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is very real, is accelerating, and is producing increasing damage to human economies.

At some point in the next few decades we will stop burning fossil fuels and we will do it because populations will understand at a very deep level that to continue means certain obliteration of what we know as “civilization.”

Right now the externalized costs of coal, oil and gas burning are so high that wind and solar power are a fraction of the cost for electric power. Simply because the electric company doesn’t charge you for mercury in every lake, river and ocean fishery doesn’t mean it’s free. Even the “cleanest” fossil fuel, natural gas, ultimately raises atmospheric CO2.

At some point the demographics will change. The deniers, mostly older, will die off and younger people more comfortable with science will win out. At that point we will need every bit of installed wind and solar power we can get our hands on at any price.

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Alan Scott says:

September 26, 2011 at 9:35 pm

Ed Darrell,

“In Texas, we plan for the same back up that we’d have for coal-fired power plants. In the past year, however, wind has been more reliable than coal.”

I find that statement to be totally unbelievable.

“Windmills are still going up. Banks are still loaning money, and in this environment, that means that the wind generating companies have the numbers that prove wind power to be a money-maker, at least to the satisfaction of chastened bankers. ”

I am sure they are going up. I am sure that the banks are backed up by the Bank of Obama. I am also very sure that the moment the plug is pulled on government subsidies, all of those profits will vanish into the green air .

“But none of the articles we’ve analyze here, nor anything you’ve pointed to suggests that Spain’s solar and windpower did anything other than generate profits. ”

One of us is totally nuts. I hope it ain’t me. I can find many articles that support what I say. Trying to find one you will believe is the problem.

Here is a typical article .

http://www.troymedia.com/2010/05/30/spanish-government-admits-its-green-strategy-economic-disaster/

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Pangolin says:

September 26, 2011 at 7:19 pm

The nice thing about being conservative in the U.S. is that you get to make up your mind before you even glance at the facts.

That does not mean they are making a profit. Also how much back up capacity is needed for when the wind does not blow or blows too hard._Alan Scott

Alan remains ignorant of the fact that every power source requires some backup capacity because all of them have downtime for maintenance or equipment failures. Just this year alone several nuclear reactors have been shut down due to weather events. The TVA Brown’s Ferry plant shut down due to the river being too hot to cool the reactor. Several nuclear power plants shut down due to hurricane Irene. The Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska was shut down due to Missouri River flooding. A nuclear power plant in Virginia was shut down due to a minor (for California) earthquake. That’s an incomplete list to say the least as shutdowns are ongoing.

I assure you that each of these plant shutdowns was far more inconvenient than having one sector of wind turbines in a region out due to quiet air. These are “normal” power outages the every regional grid operator deals with which is why we have a power grid in the first place.

You show me figures as if you were a salesman. Show me the subsidies and all of the other BS behind it . I bet you any amount of money that all of this is a ginormous money pit. Just like it was in Spain ._Alan

It’s already been noted that Alan is blind to all “ginourmous money pit(s)” except those that offend his conservative bias. The 3 billion/week Iraq/Afghanistan occupation started by the Bush administration being the primary example. Exactly how many Iraqis or Afghans were on the hijack teams that flew those planes into the WTC on Sept. 11th, 2001? I believe the official number is zero.

We could note that unlike many government programs wind and solar subsidies produce a palpable product: electrical power. A product that without a doubt reduces the coal and natural gas that would have otherwise been burned to produce that power. It produces it with no notable pollution after installation.

But that would be again; referencing facts. Published widely, freely available, largely ignored.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 26, 2011 at 6:49 pm

I bet you any amount of money that all of this is a ginormous money pit. Just like it was in Spain .

Feel free to make your case. But:

1. Windmills are still going up. Banks are still loaning money, and in this environment, that means that the wind generating companies have the numbers that prove wind power to be a money-maker, at least to the satisfaction of chastened bankers.

2. There is no subsidy that makes wind generators pay off. Subsidies go to smaller producers, and people who use windpower at their homes, farms and businesses.

3. Spains wind generators were not a money pit. The windpower helped offset oil imports, saving big money, and the Spanish windmill builders were able to contribute to the balance of payments by exporting windmills and construction prowess. The money pit, housing, scotched the government’s plan to expand wind and solar. But none of the articles we’ve analyze here, nor anything you’ve pointed to suggests that Spain’s solar and windpower did anything other than generate profits.

But, by all means, feel free to make a case to the contrary — with evidence.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 26, 2011 at 6:45 pm

Also how much back up capacity is needed for when the wind does not blow or blows too hard.

In Texas, we plan for the same back up that we’d have for coal-fired power plants. In the past year, however, wind has been more reliable than coal.

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Alan Scott says:

September 26, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Ed Darrell,

” You should get out and look at them sometime. 22,000 homes in Scranton get their power from windmills. $11 million in revenues monthly, from that one wind farm alone. ”

That does not mean they are making a profit. Also how much back up capacity is needed for when the wind does not blow or blows too hard.

You show me figures as if you were a salesman. Show me the subsidies and all of the other BS behind it . I bet you any amount of money that all of this is a ginormous money pit. Just like it was in Spain .

” There is no study that shows natural gas extraction from the shales being fracked can be boosted for much longer than about 90 days, though gas companies and drilling companies have failed to account for dramatic decreases in gas yield in their annual reports. Marcellus Shales, in your neck of the woods, are proving no better than other formations.”

Well then, me and a lot of other people are being duped by the biggest fraud in the history of the country.

I don’t feel like going through the rest of your points. Time will tell which of us is right and which one is a moron . Having lived through the 1970s and seen solar and wind fall on their faces, I am not betting that you are right.

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Pangolin says:

September 25, 2011 at 5:49 pm

Nice work there Ed. Here’s a fun link showing the current California Independent System Operator status for power generation and use. This is a daily report with regular updates during the day.

As I’m writing this today’s wind output is 1760.99 MW and Solar power output is 343.65 MW on an overcast day with light winds. That’s a gigawatt of output with virtually no fuel inputs. (obviously fossil fuels were used for construction and maintenance)

So as I’m sitting here wind and solar are providing 8% of California’s electrical power. We also have ample hydropower and geothermal power plants too.

Also looking at today’s power schedule there is a clear showing of a nice overlap where the wind produces more power at night and declines as solar power comes online in the morning. Pretty much destroying the intermittency argument. It’s very rare when there is no wind blowing or sunlight.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 25, 2011 at 1:49 pm

I noted that the economics of renewables are undeniably in favor of doing as much as we can, especially when it’s cheaper than other energy sources; wind, for example, has provided reliable power for more than 1,000 years: “Wind is free — ask Columbus, a

Mr Scott responded:

You are as good as your hero President Obama at misstating reality. He is dishonest. You are merely misguided . I know all about plains farmers using windmills to pumsk the farmers who have used it for 150 years to pump water in the U.S.”p water for livestock. Even here in Pennsylvania we have some quaint old windmills rotting away at a few farms.

Here in Texas we have a lot of new windmills cranking out water for thousands of farms. Same in the rest of the nation. I’ll wager that if you’d bother to check, you’d find new windmills in Pennsylvania, too.

Plus, there are serious commercial developments of wind farms to produce serious electricity in Pennsylvania. You should get out and look at them sometime. 22,000 homes in Scranton get their power from windmills. $11 million in revenues monthly, from that one wind farm alone.

Those windmills were fine for pumping water for cows.

High reliability, low transmission cost (no wires), critical function in the U.S. food supply — fine for cows, and important to the economy.

Economics almost dictates the use of wind power.

It does not mean they are efficient enough to economically make electricity for 300 million people.

66,000 people in the Scranton area now — sounds like a good first step, and that makes your argument look and sound rather silly.

If I applied your logic ,,, lets see. Since we are running out of oil for diesel and gasoline, how about we use the wind for all of our ocean going freight?

No, if you used my logic, you’d use wind where it makes economic sense, you’d pay attention to reality (wind is already working where you say it can’t), and we’d incrementally reduce dependence on foreign oil, and oil altogether in time.

Once upon a time, wind did power all ocean-going freight. We didn’t abandon it because it didn’t work, but because coal was cheap, and steam was faster. Then we replaced coal with oil. At no time was wind thought to be unfeasible, and never was wind thought to be undesirable.

Don’t talk about logic while you’re auditioning to replace Eugene Ionesco (and while he’s dead, you’re not coming close to replacing him).

The wind is free, ask the sailors who shipped freight on sailing ships for thousands of years. Until about the 1850s just about all sea freight was shipped by wind . The Clipper ships were marvels of engineering for their time.

Those monster container ships, bringing in goods across the Pacific , soon will have nothing to power them. Mandating that cargo be shipped by sailing ships actually makes a lot more sense than building wind farms that are Cuisinarts for Bald Eagles and other raptors .

If you wish to make a case that windfarms kill a lot of bald eagles, make the case based on facts. You may have some difficulty, though. Bald eagles typically eat fish, close to shore. That’s not prime territory for eagles.

Yes, I’m aware there is concern for bird being blindsided by the blades of the turbine. No, I’m not aware of any good study that makes a good case that it’s a problem serious enough to make us rethink using wind.

Plus, vertical fans obviate the issue.

Think of all the green house gases, one giant freighter emits. And sailing ships are labor intensive, so it will create all kinds of green jobs.

Of course, no one has suggested forcing ships to use wind only. You’re making stuff up.

However, you should be aware that there is much new development in wind power and solar power for ocean-going, commercial ships.

I pointed out problems Texas discovered this year: “Fracking wastes billions of gallons of water, pollutes billions of gallons more, is not yet a technology proven to be feasible in a term longer than three months. Seriously, Alan, you need to get a newspaper.”

Alan said:

You need to read more than the NY Times. Fracking was used in the 1940s. Modern fracking has been successfully used since the 1990s in Canada. The environmental problems are solvable, unlike the economic problems with Solar and Wind.

Fracturing shales in the 1940s was done on a much smaller scale, for oil rather than gas, in unpopulated areas, and without the use of toxic chemicals. Modern fracking as used in Canada is water intensive, competing for drinking water here in Texas — and we are short of drinking water to begin with. I repeat, fracking sucks abusive amounts of water, and it leaves a putrid, stinking mess. There is no study that shows natural gas extraction from the shales being fracked can be boosted for much longer than about 90 days, though gas companies and drilling companies have failed to account for dramatic decreases in gas yield in their annual reports. Marcellus Shales, in your neck of the woods, are proving no better than other formations.

And I trust private industry which invests it’s own money in a technology like hydraulic fracturing, a lot more than I trust idiots in the Obama Administration that invests somebody else’s money in worthless companies like Solyndra.

Yeah, because your drinking water doesn’t come from above a fracked hole. If you trust the companies so much, you don’t mind if they dump the fracking water in your drinking water reservoir, do you? They won’t reveal what is in the water, but that doesn’t worry you, right?

When private risk capital will only put money into a technology the government subsidizes, and then only if it gets put ahead of the taxpayer when that technology causes a bankruptcy, it tells you that the technology is crap.

That’s right. The ideas of a transcontinental railroad, or a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, were silly pipe dreams, and it’s a good thing the governments allowed them to stay in bankruptcy.

(Did you ever study history, Alan?)

I noted the great and continuing investments of noted oilmen in wind and solar: ” . . . ask T. Boone Pickens, a guy who knows a bit more about oil, gas and wind than either you or I.”

I like what Mr. Pickens says about natural gas. The wind part of his plans is hot air. He wants all kinds of Government handouts for that part.

Cherry picking, eh? Still, he’s put millions where you claim no investors have, on technologies you claim no investor will touch — and he’s not asking for handouts from the government.

I noted the long history of natural gas powering truck and cars: “Not to mention the fact that our leaders have been pushing natural gas conversions, as official policy (with incentives) for three decades. I suppose that just proves that our leaders are not stupid, in your parlance.”

Since I have not heard of that, it cannot be that big of a push. Plus it has only been in the last 5 years that fracking has brought the promise of large amounts gas. Promoting conversions before that would have been really stupid.

Double standard based on your ignorance of the issues and the facts. About a third of farm vehicles in Idaho are natural gas powered since about 1960. Gas incentives were put into law in the Nixon administration — Dallas has a few dozen buses powered by natural gas, and last time I was there the entire bus fleet of Sacramento was gas powered. That you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it is not a big item — we keep discovering huge gaps in your knowledge of energy use and generation, even in your own backyard.

But then, without appearing to note the irony, you claim fracking, which was pioneered a half-century ago, is safe and clean, based on . . . well, you’re not sure.

Solar and wind are free. No miners have to die to pull it out of the ground. If we can harness it, it’s a boon to economies and to our efforts to curtail pollution.

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Alan Scott says:

September 24, 2011 at 6:31 pm

Ed Darrell,

” Wind is free — ask Columbus, ask the farmers who have used it for 150 years to pump water in the U.S. ”

You are as good as your hero President Obama at misstating reality. He is dishonest. You are merely misguided . I know all about plains farmers using windmills to pump water for livestock. Even here in Pennsylvania we have some quaint old windmills rotting away at a few farms.

Those windmills were fine for pumping water for cows. It does not mean they are efficient enough to economically make electricity for 300 million people . If I applied your logic ,,, lets see. Since we are running out of oil for diesel and gasoline, how about we use the wind for all of our ocean going freight ?

The wind is free, ask the sailors who shipped freight on sailing ships for thousands of years. Until about the 1850s just about all sea freight was shipped by wind . The Clipper ships were marvels of engineering for their time.

Those monster container ships, bringing in goods across the Pacific , soon will have nothing to power them. Mandating that cargo be shipped by sailing ships actually makes a lot more sense than building wind farms that are Cuisinarts for Bald Eagles and other raptors . Think of all the green house gases, one giant freighter emits. And sailing ships are labor intensive, so it will create all kinds of green jobs .

” Fracking wastes billions of gallons of water, pollutes billions of gallons more, is not yet a technology proven to be feasible in a term longer than three months. Seriously, Alan, you need to get a newspaper. ”

You need to read more than the NY Times. Fracking was used in the 1940s. Modern fracking has been successfully used since the 1990s in Canada. The environmental problems are solvable, unlike the economic problems with Solar and Wind .

And I trust private industry which invests it’s own money in a technology like hydraulic fracturing , a lot more than I trust idiots in the Obama Administration that invests somebody else’s money in worthless companies like Solyndra .

When private risk capital will only put money into a technology the government subsidizes , and then only if it gets put ahead of the taxpayer when that technology causes a bankruptcy, it tells you that the technology is crap .

” ask T. Boone Pickens, a guy who knows a bit more about oil, gas and wind than either you or I. ”

I like what Mr. Pickens says about natural gas. The wind part of his plans is hot air. He wants all kinds of Government handouts for that part.

” Not to mention the fact that our leaders have been pushing natural gas conversions, as official policy (with incentives) for three decades. I suppose that just proves that our leaders are not stupid, in your parlance. ”

Since I have not heard of that, it cannot be that big of a push . Plus it has only been in the last 5 years that fracking has brought the promise of large amounts gas. Promoting conversions before that would have been really stupid .

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Ed Darrell says:

September 21, 2011 at 6:23 am

You guys are way too focused on your green only solutions.

No one has yet suggested “green only.” You’re so twisted up in your promotion of anti-clean, polluting energy sources that you can’t see the air for the smog.

Water fracturing natural gas production is the next big thing.

Fracking wastes billions of gallons of water, pollutes billions of gallons more, is not yet a technology proven to be feasible in a term longer than three months. Seriously, Alan, you need to get a newspaper.

If our leaders were not thoroughly stupid they would be pushing converting portions of our cars, trucks, and trains to run on compressed natural gas. We really are going to have that much natural gas. Even with you green guys sabotaging it every step of the way.

That’s funny. I’ve been advocating natural gas (and hydrogen) as an adjunct alternative for decades. You probably don’t even remember Roger Billingsly. Not to mention the fact that our leaders have been pushing natural gas conversions, as official policy (with incentives) for three decades. I suppose that just proves that our leaders are not stupid, in your parlance.

” Also, we know the price of oil and coal – even without issues of geopolitical instability – the prices of fossil fuels are just going up, whereas sunlight is free today and it’s going to be free forever. The wind is free today and it’s going to be free forever. ”

You have totally misstated the facts . First from a practical viewpoint the wind is not free. The costs of wind far exceed the costs of fossil fuel. When you figure in the costs of the equipment plus the costs of variability and unreliability of wind power, you cannot say the wind is free. Sun is not much better.

No, the facts remain as Dr. Dessler stated them. Wind is free — ask Columbus, ask the farmers who have used it for 150 years to pump water in the U.S. Wind is quite viable — ask T. Boone Pickens, a guy who knows a bit more about oil, gas and wind than either you or I. Notice I’ve cited the article that says Pickens is pulling back on his plan to build giant wind farms — not because it’s not viable or profitable, but because of the financial crunch. It’s not the viability that doesn’t work.

You are wedded to an idea that doesn’t work. It might one day, but not in our lifetimes. Not in our kids lifetimes .

Heaven knows wind failed Magellen, and those gold-seekers and religious nuts trying to leave Plymouth, England, in 1620. And solar, it failed in Babylon 5,000 years ago, requiring the abandoning of the city, and it failed in Phoenicia, which is why Lebanon is covered in cedars today instead of a desert. And it failed in France and Italy, which is why neither is known for wines today. And Kansas? Well, that plan to raise wheat certainly went nowhere, right?

Alan, if you’d been around 600 years ago and people had listened to you, the American plains might still be populated with bison, and the Mandans would still rule the Missouri. Not to mention the benefits to the city of Tenochtitlan.

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Alan Scott says:

September 20, 2011 at 5:59 pm

You guys are way too focused on your green only solutions. Water fracturing natural gas production is the next big thing. If our leaders were not thoroughly stupid they would be pushing converting portions of our cars, trucks, and trains to run on compressed natural gas. We really are going to have that much natural gas. Even with you green guys sabotaging it every step of the way .

” Also, we know the price of oil and coal – even without issues of geopolitical instability – the prices of fossil fuels are just going up, whereas sunlight is free today and it’s going to be free forever. The wind is free today and it’s going to be free forever. ”

You have totally misstated the facts . First from a practical viewpoint the wind is not free. The costs of wind far exceed the costs of fossil fuel. When you figure in the costs of the equipment plus the costs of variability and unreliability of wind power, you cannot say the wind is free. Sun is not much better.

You are wedded to an idea that doesn’t work. It might one day, but not in our lifetimes. Not in our kids lifetimes .

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Ed Darrell says:

September 20, 2011 at 3:49 am

“Oil only” is just not a good alternative, especially without continuing work on promising renewable fuels.

Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M, puts it this way:

As far as the debate – now I’m stepping away from being a scientist, and this is my personal opinion as a citizen. That is that while I don’t like to say the science is settled, I do think we know enough that we should be talking about what we want to do to address the risk. And I think it’s important for your readers to realize that there are policies we can embark on which [don’t] just address climate change but also solve other problems. For example, right now oil is $110 a barrel. That’s not good for us. And we know that relying on imported oil really exposes us to a lot of economic risk. And so, for example, transitioning to renewable energy, which would not only help the climate problem, [it] would also provide us with energy security and other things like that.

Also, we know the price of oil and coal – even without issues of geopolitical instability – the prices of fossil fuels are just going up, whereas sunlight is free today and it’s going to be free forever. The wind is free today and it’s going to be free forever. So there are lots of reasons we should switch to renewables. Climate is one of the most important but by no means the only one. Even if you don’t believe in climate change, there are strong reasons to support policies that would switch us away from fossil fuels into renewables.

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Alan Scott says:

September 19, 2011 at 9:54 pm

James Kessler,

I am used to dealing with Liberals who have zero sense of reality, so I should have no problem with you.

“Alan, is that the oil companies were, and pay attention here: NOT VIABLE AT THE START EITHER.”

Why don’t you try reading just a little bit of history before you embarrass yourself further. Oil companies started long before the automobile. In the 1800s the big need was for lamp oil. A lot of that was whale oil. Think of the book ‘ Moby Dick ‘ .

In the middle of the 1800s scientists discovered first how to make kerosene from coal and then crude oil . Kerosene lanterns were the main source of night time light from then until electricity came into common use. In fact, it can be said that the evil oil industry did more to save the whales than every green hippie ever born .

Oil companies did fine making kerosene. They discarded gasoline because no one knew how to use it’s explosive qualities until engines for it were invented.

You do not know what you are talking about. The oil business was not government dependent as your green BS is now. It was a real cut throat capitalist business until John D. Rockefeller came in and put all of his competitors out of business.

” It takes time, Alan. Tell me..how long did it take to go from man developing a way to fly to man being able to fly at supersonic speeds? How long did it take man to develop the means to cross the ocean in a week from the point that man was first able to cross the ocean at all? ”

YEA ! So what? In all of those cases it was private businesses who took the airplane from kitty hawk to commercial air travel. Granted the military broke the sound barrier, but we are speaking of economics. And private companies more than governments were responsible for commercial ocean travel, but ok technically Columbus was a government financed private contractor.

” As for that Soylyndra loan..yeah that originated under Bush. Would you like me to fetch the time line for you on that? ”

Why don’t you at least try to tell the truth just once? Just because they were in the running for a loan during Bush does not mean Bush had anything at all to do with it. Bush’s people were in the process of denying Solyndra their loan request, when they left. The Obamanuts came in and approved it . Those are the facts!!!!

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James Kessler says:

September 19, 2011 at 7:11 pm

It’s curious isn’t it, Pan, that Alan is not demanding that the banking, the oil, the PMC’s and more or less every other industry on the planet be held to the same standard that he’s demanding of green tech?

I’m so sick of the conservative’s desire to hold everything in stasis and revert us to the 1950’s or the Gilded Age that I could barf.

We either take the lead, Alan, and reap the rewards or we’ll get left behind by a world that will eventually not give a damn about us. To be blunt….we evolve…or we die.

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Pangolin says:

September 19, 2011 at 3:06 pm

Can we quit with the pretense that the Solyndra attacks are about fiscal responsibility or the viability of solar power. They aren’t and everybody knows it.

After several trillions in bailout monies handed to the banking and real estate industries, many billions to bail out the automobile industry, the ongoing trillion dollar a year Pentagon budget with massive waste. It’s not about the money.

We know solar power works. It creates more energy than it takes to make the panels and the energy comes as nice, clean, electricity.

So what we have is a neatly packaged propaganda attack by the Murdoch holdings and conservative sockpuppets on Obama and solar power. It has all the moral legitimacy of Newt Gingrich talking about the sanctity of marriage and no grounding in fact.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 19, 2011 at 11:40 am

Mr. Scott said:

The Bush Administration after looking at Solyndra had recommended not going forward with loan guarantees. The geniuses in the new Administration only had to hear solar and they did not care that Solyndra would never be a viable business. Just shovel taxpayer money out the door to whatever worthless green company had access to the President. It is documented that Solyndra people visited the White House.

That’s not accurate. It was the same bureaucrats in Energy in both cases — career, civil service employees.

Rep. Upton confessed to CNN that, after seven months of intense digging, he could find not an iota of evidence of wrongdoing by anyone in the Obama administration.

There were e-mails produced at the hearing. Energy bureaucrats said ‘we feel we’re being pressured to act without due diligence,‘ and Biden’s office responding ‘do the due diligence — let us know as soon as you decide.’

It is documented that Solyndra had no idea the White House had any interest. It is documented that the White House was simply looking for an early grant.

The claim is that taxpayers lost $535 million, though the paper doesn’t show that yet.

But let’s put this in context: That’s less than 5% of the cost of the cleanup from BP’s Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — and probably significantly less than what the federal government had to spend on that same spill. It’s a fraction of the cost of the Valdez oil spill. It’s a fraction of the cost of health care for pollution effects from burning oil in the U.S.

In short, it’s cheap, and we should expect a few failures along the road in venture capitalizing. Heck, the Credit Mobilier railroad crash makes this look like peanuts.

So: No wrongdoing. Not clear what the loss is, but the loss is much less than the annual losses to oil use.

There is no indication that Solyndra was not trying very hard to make a go of manufacturing, but there is the reality that their Chinese competition had much greater subsidies — handouts, not loans — from the government of China, who is trying to corner the market on this stuff. And there is no disagreement that the Republicans, supporting Communist China, have slashed even loan guarantees for renewable energy work, giving China a free shot at capturing an industry that the U.S. invented. And they are making money at it.

What was your point, again? You’re saying we should fund more Solyndras?

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James Kessler says:

September 19, 2011 at 11:26 am

The point you’re continuing to blithely ignore, Alan, is that the oil companies were, and pay attention here: NOT VIABLE AT THE START EITHER.

You are expecting green technology/industry to perform at the level that the oil companies do…now.

When the oil industry and technology that runs off oil, such as cars, were in their infancy like green tech is now…they weren’t all that economically viable using your standard at the time either.

You are expecting green technology/industry to hold to a standard that you claim is set by the oil industry now but you’re forgetting that it took quite a while for the oil industry to get to the point that it is now. You’d be more honest to hold green tech to the standard that the oil industry was in it’s infancy since green tech is really just getting off the ground in the last couple decades. It takes time, Alan. Tell me..how long did it take to go from man developing a way to fly to man being able to fly at supersonic speeds? How long did it take man to develop the means to cross the ocean in a week from the point that man was first able to cross the ocean at all?

To hell with your standard..you’re not the judge. You got such a bug up your ass about green tech that makes you believe that no matter what happens from here until doomsday that green technology will be an absolute failure. A company that started making solar panels 3 years ago that just this year made a profit would be a failure in your eyes simply because it didn’t make a profit 3 years ago or that it simply doesnt make a elebenty billion dollar profit like Exxon. You’re incredibly biased and in no way shape or form are in an honest position to judge.

As for the economy..yeah don’t go blaming that solely on Obama. FIrst off the economy crashed under Bush and I haven’t seen the Republicans do a damn thing to fix it yet. In fact in my lifetime the US economy has always done better under a Democrat President then a Republican one. Bush had the lowest job creation rate of any President in the last 100 years. In fact…more jobs got destroyed in this country under Bush then were created. You are in no position whatsoever to run around claiming that Obama is bad for the economy when it was your party that crashed the economy in the damn first place.

As for that Soylyndra loan..yeah that originated under Bush. Would you like me to fetch the time line for you on that?

Here I’ll buy you a clue. This is what the San Jose Mercury News reported in October of 2008: In late 2007, Solyndra was one of 16 clean-tech companies deemed eligible for $4 billion worth of loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy. Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley electric carmaker, and Okland’s BrightSource Energy, a builder of solar-thermal plants, also made that list.

Tell me, Alan, exactly who was President in 2007 and what party was he?

What happens, Alan, when the oil runs out? We go back to living in caves?

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Alan Scott says:

September 19, 2011 at 11:24 am

Pangolin,

” It’s been already established elsewhere that the Solyndra loan originated during the Bush administration and was well through the pipeline in Jan. 2009. Nobody knew whether Solyndra was financially non-viable because it’s competition had not started producing and therefore had no hard production cost or unit sales pricing was available.”

This is what I truly love about my discussions with Liberals. You guys never let the truth intrude on your view of the universe . The Bush Administration after looking at Solyndra had recommended not going forward with loan guarantees. The geniuses in the new Administration only had to hear solar and they did not care that Solyndra would never be a viable business. Just shovel taxpayer money out the door to whatever worthless green company had access to the President. It is documented that Solyndra people visited the White House.

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Pangolin says:

September 19, 2011 at 1:37 am

This last statement by Alan Scott requires fisking it’s such a hash of unsupported talking points. Quoted statements are those of Alan Scott in this thread unless specifically referenced otherwise.

Hey guys, if you want me to respond do not overwhelm me with too many points. To get back to Solyndra. There were people in government who knew they were not a viable company, but the President pushed this crap through anyway to get a photo op.

It’s been already established elsewhere that the Solyndra loan originated during the Bush administration and was well through the pipeline in Jan. 2009. Nobody knew whether Solyndra was financially non-viable because it’s competition had not started producing and therefore had no hard production cost or unit sales pricing was available. It was a bet on a developing technology in a competitive field that cost us less than three days of the Iraq/Afghan wars presuming it was a total loss; which it isn’t.
See:http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/

Just how important is global warming to you guys anyway? The Chinese have under priced the Europeans, who thought like you guys do, that this would produce jobs . They have also under priced every American manufacturer. So do you still want to save the planet, even if every subsidized job is to a Chinese citizen and not an American ?

Global warming is not as important in D.C. as it is to the rank and file Democrats likely due to the inertia of entrenched interests putting their financial weight behind delay on action. It appears the second half of the paragraph is a statement that solar should be subsidized defeating the bulk of your argument.

Economics is always your weak suit. Which is why Obama is incapable of turning around the economy..

The Bush years were an unmitigated economic disaster for the majority of the american populace. Wages were flat or declining. Benefits were cut. Retirement funds were raided by Wall Street. There was ZERO job growth in eight years with a growing population. Seriously, could you make a more unfounded statement. Obama is incapable of turning a train wreck back into a train in the face of the total opposition of the Republican Congress and DINO, “blue-dog” democrats such as Joe Lieberman. Obama≠God; no surprise there.

James Kessler, I agree with you these corporations need to pay taxes. But even with out the tax loopholes, they are viable businesses. Green business is not, and never has been . If they were some entrepreneur would have made an Apple or a Google out of them

This strawman argument conflates Apples and oranges. Apple and Google produce high intellectual value products with low structural cost. The bulk of the consumer cost, and profit, to these companies is the result of infinitely reproducible software. Green tech is durable goods. A wind turbine is functionally half aircraft half bridge pylon. A solar panels gets it’s entire cost structure and retail price as a function of the production cost of the physical panel per Kwh of output.

Let’s get back to the earth running out of energy . The only viable non carbon emitting energy source is nuclear and we all know you green guys hate that also. And thanks to American private enterprise , natural gas and also oil is being produced in greater quantity . But yes some day it will run out. My guess is science will again find an answer and it will not be wind or solar. There are immense amounts of gas hydrate on the ocean floor that someday someone, probably an American will figure out how to exploit.

Total reality fail here. Nuclear power is by no means carbon free as fossil fuel inputs are required for plant construction, mining and refining fuels, plant decommissioning and fuel storage. Natural gas is being produced in greater quantity but is nevertheless a fossil fuel and methane leaks into the atmosphere are a significant GHG source. North American oil production is declining and will never return the U.S. to the petroleum production of 1970. Disturbing gas hydrates on ocean is a very bad idea for a number of reasons having to do with something called the clathrate-gun hypothesis. In any case all fossil fuel burning must stop if we are to have a planet that supports higher life forms. Already coral reefs are dying after tens of millions of years of evolutionary success. This should be a red flag warning to the human race.

Then there is the energy in the center of the earth. After the gas hydrates are gone, we will find a way to get that energy . And the guy who does it will make a profit. All the while wind and solar companies will come and go as government hand outs come and go .

This is techno-cornucopian thinking that deserves no respect. Human energy harvest only exists in terms of a functional biosphere that supports agriculture. Poisoning the atmosphere with excess greenhouse gases and then claiming we’ll just keep on rolling is in flat denial of the reports of every national science academy in the world. We deal with global warming or the human race is done. It was a nice way to finish though as it was in complete agreement with the various fictions asserted prior to this. It presents an image of a world where everything will be ok as long as we let the fossil fuel companies off leash. A flat lie.

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Alan Scott says:

September 18, 2011 at 10:17 pm

Hey guys, if you want me to respond do not overwhelm me with too many points. To get back to Solyndra. There were people in government who knew they were not a viable company, but the President pushed this crap through anyway to get a photo op.

Just how important is global warming to you guys anyway? The Chinese have under priced the Europeans, who thought like you guys do, that this would produce jobs . They have also under priced every American manufacturer. So do you still want to save the planet, even if every subsidized job is to a Chinese citizen and not an American ?

Economics is always your weak suit. Which is why Obama is incapable of turning around the economy..

James Kessler, I agree with you these corporations need to pay taxes. But even with out the tax loopholes, they are viable businesses. Green business is not, and never has been . If they were some entrepreneur would have made an Apple or a Google out of them .

Let’s get back to the earth running out of energy . The only viable non carbon emitting energy source is nuclear and we all know you green guys hate that also. And thanks to American private enterprise , natural gas and also oil is being produced in greater quantity . But yes some day it will run out. My guess is science will again find an answer and it will not be wind or solar. There are immense amounts of gas hydrate on the ocean floor that someday someone, probably an American will figure out how to exploit.

Then there is the energy in the center of the earth. After the gas hydrates are gone, we will find a way to get that energy . And the guy who does it will make a profit. All the while wind and solar companies will come and go as government hand outs come and go .

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James Kessler says:

September 18, 2011 at 7:24 pm

Why thank you, Pan. I do appreciate it. Though I more aspire to Lionel Tribbey in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t44eGxGBrNE&feature=related

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James Kessler says:

September 18, 2011 at 7:20 pm

Alan writes:
They make huge profits which tells me they are economically viable

They make huge profits while we subsidize them to the tune of $40 billion dollars a year. If they’re making such huge profits then surely they don’t need the subsidies right? If you’re going to bitch about the subsidies that solar power gets then you probably should be honest enough to bitch about the subsidies that oil companies get else you’re really just making yourself out to be a dishonest fool. And the reaosn they got those subsidies in the first place? Because they weren’t economically viable for a very long time.

My only problem with the oil companies, other then their propensity to pollute without taking responsibility for it, is the fact that they don’t really pay taxes and then they act as if they’re owed the subsidies they get despite the fact that they’re generally the most profitable companies on the planet. Not to mention their supporting a party, the Republicans, that seems to think that Big Oil shouldn’t have to give up its subsidies in the name of “shared sacrifice” but that I should give up my medicare and social security. If they gave up the subsidies, paid a fair share of taxes and acted like responsibile members of society when it comes to their pollution and cleanup I’d really have no problem with them.

And as for your other claim…we had something like a half trillion dollar budget surplus when Bill Clinton left office and George W Bush took over. What did he immediately do with it? Wasted it by launching two wars which he refused to pay for and giving huge tax cuts to the rich and businesses. Not to mention the “Lets give oodles of money to Big Pharma” via the boondoggle of Medicare part D.

That is fact. And nothing you say disputes that fact.

As for your stupid “antibusiness” claim..yeah don’t go there. You can be labled with that charge far more easily.

And the end fact still is at some point the oil will run out. And the sooner we get off it the better off and the safer we will be. It’s not my and Ed’s fault that that you’re such a short sighted and greedy ass goof that you’re incapable of looking down the road much less caring about those who come after us will have to deal with. The Leave it to Beaverland that you and your side want to live in, Allen, is not and was never all it was cracked up to be.

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Pangolin says:

September 18, 2011 at 7:12 pm

James and Ed, I dub thee honorable “Knights of Reality” in honor of your solid, fact-based, smack down of yet another reality-challenged conservative.

Your prize: A fish slapping video.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 18, 2011 at 6:49 pm

I said: “In fact, the earlier subsidizing of these non-fossil-fuel sources contribute every day to keeping Spain out of default.”

This is simple logic, common sense, based on the realization that every watt generated by solar power cells doesn’t have to be generated by imported coal or imported oil.

Mr. Scott won’t let go of his wild, unevidenced assertion that the solar industry somehow crashed the economy of Spain.

I dispute the accuracy of that statement. If solar was making a profit and paying taxes, I’d be the biggest green idiot on the planet. The facts are just the opposite. Spain committed to huge unsustainable subsidies as the world economy tanked. That is why Spain is in trouble. I don’t care what Wikipedia says on the topic.

Subsidies were generous — but “unsustainable” only in the sense that the rest of the economy brought it down. Any claim that the solar power subsidies alone are responsible for Spain’s debt crisis is, itself, unsustainable.

Here in two minutes is the BBC explanation of the Euro crisis — note the role of Greece, Ireland and other nations, and note the complete absence of any discussion of solar power subsidies:

Spain’s economy is much larger than to go down for paying out $2 billion in subsidies to solar power that work — and if you had bothered to read the stories I linked to, you’d have seen that the solar panel industry provided Spain with exports to diminish debt and make a favorable balance of payments.

You ignore Spain’s own property bubble. You pretend that the crisis isn’t caused in large part by rising oil prices, which the solar panels work to mitigate, and ultimately, to ameliorate. You fail to note that the crisis is actually caused by the oil prices, not solar prices. You fail to note the jobs and employment crisis in Spain, which was only mitigated by solar subsidies, not made worse by them.

In short, your claim against Spain’s solar industry is short on logic and evidence. It makes no sense, and you haven’t provided a lick of support for the claim. In contrast, every article I can find says the government’s financial condition ended a program that had stimulated benefits, and still provides benefits.

I noted that the U.S. is a net oil exporter, too.

Mr. Allen said:

I ask you to please back up this statement. My figures are that the US imports 51to 60% of it’s oil use.

How quickly they forget! Daniel Yergin, among others, calls World War II our first “oil war,” because one of the chief causes of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was the U.S.’s cutting off the oil spigot of the Japanese. In 1941 the U.S. was the world’s #1 oil producing and #1 oil exporting nation. Historically, we have been exporters of oil, not importers.

But, earlier in 2011 the U.S. again became a net oil-exporting nation. Read it and reap knowledge and wisdom.

Also, you should reread your statistics. The Energy Information Agency (EIA) notes that the U.S. imports about 49% of the oil consumed in the U.S. Of course, that completely ignores oil exported from the U.S., which is not consumed in the U.S.

I said: “Obviously, exporting oil and paying down debts isn’t enough to avoid economic woes.”

Allen:

We’ve never done either of those.

We had a balanced budget with minimal debt early in the Kennedy administration (Those liberals! What won’t they do to make it look like government works?), and we had several years of balanced budgets and deficit reduction, with surplus years, aiming toward a massive surplus as Clinton handed the economy to Bush in 2001.

So, yes, we have reduced spending (or at least balanced the budget and paid off debts), and we have exported oil. Republicans screwed up both happy reports before, and they’re trying to screw it up more as we speak.

I said: “Do you think, maybe, that these issues are a bit more complex than ‘oil good, solar bad?'”

No that about covers it. You and Obama hate anything that actually works. Oil works or oil companies would not be so hated. They make huge profits which tells me they are economically viable . While they get some tax breaks, they do not exist solely on subsidies. No solar company that I know of makes a profit unless the government props it up. That tells me that it is economically asinine.

No oil company could make it without government supports for the first 100 years of oil mining in the U.S. There was the massive prop of the “oil depletion” allowance, which allowed oil companies to deduct the depreciation of the oil reserves owned by the U.S. public and private citizens as the oil companies depleted them! It was a credit for taking the oil.

Solar has functioned for most of the past 40 years wholly without significant government support, and often without any government support at all — and still it clings on.

U.S. companies are competing against Chines and German companies in solar cells — and they compete well, except for the fact that the Chinese government provides more than double the aid the U.S. government ever has, and Germany also provides munificent subsidies. They think that the subsidies are necessary to ensure that their industries can stay competitive to get ready for the future. Very few industries have ever been created without massive government support — farming, railroads, automobiles, electronics, broadcasting, etc., etc., in the U.S.

You would do well to study the economics and history of energy development and extraction, and the development of innovative technologies. Your arguments, uninformed by history, technology or science, and economics, trend to the absurd.

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James Kessler says:

September 18, 2011 at 2:04 pm

The company list comes from: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/bernie-sanders-top-10-tax-avoiders

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James Kessler says:

September 18, 2011 at 2:03 pm

From:

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

Oh look..5 of the 10 are energy companies with 4 of those 5 being oil companies. And the subsidies that oil companies get yearly total somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 billion dollars. One of those oil companies getting subsidies is Exxon…the most profitable company on the planet. Indeed if you buy a stamp you have paid more then what Exxon paid in taxes in the entirety of 2009.

So you’re willing to kvetch about those companies not paying taxes right, Alan? And you’re willing to kvetch about all the subsidies those companies get, right?

In fact when the Democrats tried to slash the oil companies subsidies earlier this year the defense that the oil companies came up with was “If you do that we’ll have to fire people.”

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James Kessler says:

September 18, 2011 at 1:50 pm

To quote:

If solar was making a profit and paying taxes, I’d be the biggest green idiot on the planet.

Think he realizes that quite a lot of US companies don’t pay taxes, Ed?

Yeah, Alan, let us know when you’re going to apply the standards you want to apply to solar power to…well…every other company/industry. Then you might have a point. Until then you’re just being a silly hypocrite.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 18, 2011 at 1:31 pm

If solar was making a profit and paying taxes, I’d be the biggest green idiot on the planet.

Glad to see you have change of heart based on the evidence.

What? You didn’t mean it?

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James Kessler says:

September 17, 2011 at 10:10 pm

Oh and we’d also have to shut down the entire banking industry because of the actions of Lehman Bros and Bear Stern…

Tell me, alan, do you even think through your positions to consider how they can be used against you? Or have you been so thoroughly brainwashed that you can’t even consider the possibility that you’re amazingly wrong?

One bad apple does not necessarily make the entire barrel bad.

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James Kessler says:

September 17, 2011 at 10:01 pm

Alan writes:
I can’t believe you have the guts to even ask me that. Under the best of circumstances solar is strictly a government subsidized make work program. Like paying people to dig holes and fill them in. But these are the worst of circumstances. One word Solyndra. Another word, Evergreen Solar Inc._Alan

And only an idiot uses one or two examples in an industry to write off completely the entire industry.

Using your logic, Alan, we should shut down all oil companies. Why? Exxon and BP.

Then we should shut down Halliburton, Blackwater not only because of their shenanigans but also of the shenanigans of Custer Battles.

You have such a bug up your ass that says no matter what solar power doesn’t work you’re not even dealing with the God damn real world anymore.

As for “government subsidized make work program” well congratulations…that describes pretty much the entire oil industry and do bother to remember who it was that built the highway system in this country. There isn’t an industry on the planet, Alan, that doesn’t get government subsidies of one sort or another.

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Pangolin says:

September 17, 2011 at 9:36 pm

Responding to Alan Scott…(who could really use to review the html page for wordpress)

For staters, I have to support his statement on oil imports. The U.S. imports a solid majority of crude oil used for all purposes and exports some oil, and oil products to nations that either have the refining capacity to deal with Alaskan heavy crude or have limited or no refinery capacity. The US Energy Information Administration lists U.S net petroleum imports at 9,440,000 barrels/day. It’s his point, he could have googled the figures.

Then he goes off on several random tangents and emerges here:

I can’t believe you have the guts to even ask me that. Under the best of circumstances solar is strictly a government subsidized make work program. Like paying people to dig holes and fill them in. But these are the worst of circumstances. One word Solyndra. Another word, Evergreen Solar Inc._Alan

This is just garbage. Solyndra was an investment in what was, and still is, a viable technology. They were undercut on price by a) cheap, subsidized, chinese manufacturing and b) unprecedented and unforeseeable advances in crystalline silicon technology. Market forces and competing research and development advances doomed Solyndra.

The truth though? If we produced Solyndra’s product in a government run facility and placed it on the rooftops of local, state and federal government buildings the savings would far exceed our investment. Because no matter what you believe solar panels produce more 12.5 times more energy than it takes to make them. That is flat profit in the world of physics which is the only world that matters and it would produce needed jobs. Lord only knows there are enough boondoggles in the Pentagon that produce nothing of any use whatsoever.

Finally the trump card is climate change. At 392 ppm atmospheric CO2 we are well above the atmospheric conditions (280 ppm) that humans, or anything in the biosphere has seen for millions of years. Extreme weather events are now happening to such an extent that every few days in the US another disaster happens to add to the already climbing total. Fossil fuel burning has to stop; completely, no excuses. Any actual scientist, as vs. oil-funded deniers, will tell you that we are already, irreversibly, headed into a very, very, bad future. Every gram of fossil fuel we burn makes that future worse.

Which means solar, and wind, in massive quantities, must be produced and installed on a crash program basis. Or else nature bats last harder.

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Alan Scott says:

September 17, 2011 at 7:43 pm

Ed Darrell,

” In fact, the earlier subsidizing of these non-fossil-fuel sources contribute every day to keeping Spain out of default. ”

I dispute the accuracy of that statement. If solar was making a profit and paying taxes, I’d be the biggest green idiot on the planet. The facts are just the opposite. Spain committed to huge unsustainable subsidies as the world economy tanked. That is why Spain is in trouble. I don’t care what Wikipedia says on the topic.

” The U.S. is a net oil exporter, too. ”

I ask you to please back up this statement. My figures are that the US imports 51to 60% of it’s oil use.

” Obviously, exporting oil and paying down debts isn’t enough to avoid economic woes. ”

We’ve never done either of those.

” Do you think, maybe, that these issues are a bit more complex than “oil good, solar bad?” ”

No that about covers it. You and Obama hate anything that actually works. Oil works or oil companies would not be so hated. They make huge profits which tells me they are economically viable . While they get some tax breaks, they do not exist solely on subsidies. No solar company that I know of makes a profit unless the government props it up. That tells me that it is economically asinine.

James Kessler ,

” By that same token, if oil, coal and natural gas was really what your side makes of it then the United States would have ridden out the economic storms. Oh wait…we didn’t. Why? Because none of those things was the root cause of the economic problems. So therefor blaming solar power for not “saving” Spain is equally stupid.

But apparently you don’t know what Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is. ”

You are right, Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc was never taught to me. I dispute your theory. Energy , though secondary to the housing bubble collapse, was very important. Gasoline and heating oil reached record price levels world wide in 2007 and 2008. That certainly greatly added to the downturn. When you import more than half your oil at sky high prices that is a lot of money going out the door .

If we were exporting oil that would have been money coming in, kinda like what Canada has.

” Which is why you’re stupid in saying that Spain’s move towards solar power is to blame for Spain’s economic troubles. You might want to bother to be honest enough to admit that the variables causing the world wide economic troubles was quite a bit more then what you want to pretend. ”

You are right, solar did not cause all of Spain’s problems . It aggravated them to no end . It sure did not live up to the pie in the sky promises people like you made.

” But since you want to talk about economics I got a question for you. Which would you rather have? Solar panels being built in the United States and creating jobs here? Or solar panels being built in China and the jobs being there? ”

I can’t believe you have the guts to even ask me that. Under the best of circumstances solar is strictly a government subsidized make work program. Like paying people to dig holes and fill them in. But these are the worst of circumstances. One word Solyndra. Another word, Evergreen Solar Inc.

” At some point, Alan, the oil will run out. At some point the coal will run out and the natural gas will run out. It may not be in your lifetime…but it sure as hell will be in the lifetime of my 10 year old cousins. And when that happens if we’re not off oil then this country will die a very quick death. I’d just as soon not have that happen and it is far cheaper to develop alternative energy means now then wait til it’s a full on emergency. ”

Putting money into deadend technologies like solar, why penalizing viable energy sources like fossil fuels will do nothing to solve peak oil. I am being kicked offline now by a higher power, my wife. Get back to you later .

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Pangolin says:

September 17, 2011 at 6:21 pm

I forgot about Sierra Nevada Brewery’s solar system that has produced 1.5 megawatt hours of power today.

Of course there’s also local businesses and government agencies that have installed solar power systems. None of these places can afford to take a loss on these very expensive systems. They’re installed because they provide a substantial financial benefit in terms of costs saving and long-term budget stability. Their electric bills will be a hookup fee, the loan payments for the system and minor maintenance.

In a few years when the loan is repaid the solar panels turn into a substantial financial asset and source of income.

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Pangolin says:

September 17, 2011 at 6:07 pm

Here’s a spit-in-yer-eye fun little snippet to drive the conservative crazy.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/08/11/solar-project-to-make-butte-college-first-grid-positive-school-in-the-u-s/
and
http://www.buttecollege.com/departments/fpm/sustainabilityinFPM.html

Butte College is set to become the first grid positive college in the U.S. with the recent approval to complete phase III of its solar project, which will produce more electricity than it needs to meet 100 percent of the Northern California’s school’s electricity requirements. The college will generate more than 6.381 million kW hours per year.

The college recently received approval from its Board of Trustees to complete its Phase III solar project, which adds approximately 15,000 solar photovoltaic panels or 2.7 megawatts (MW) DC to its current 1.85 MW or 10,000 solar panels. The college says this will make it the largest solar producing college in the world.

This is my local community college and it already produces about half it’s electricity from solar power. It sells this at a premium during the day when air conditioning loads are highest and buys back power in the evening when wind power in the delta produces a surplus.

This isn’t about some kind of green wishful thinking. This is planned out, and proves to be, a major source of cash savings for the college from day one.

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James Kessler says:

September 17, 2011 at 1:04 pm

Alan writes:
If solar was really what it’s cracked up to be, Spain would have ridden out the economic storms.

By that same token, if oil, coal and natural gas was really what your side makes of it then the United States would have ridden out the economic storms. Oh wait…we didn’t. Why? Because none of those things was the root cause of the economic problems. So therefor blaming solar power for not “saving” Spain is equally stupid.

But apparently you don’t know what Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc is.

I’ll give you a clue…its the logical fallacy that says: Because Event B happens after Event A then A is the cause of B. An example would be since indoor plumbing was created before World War 1 then indoor plumbing caused World War 1.

Except that’s only true some of the time…namely when event A actually does cause B. Which is why you’re stupid in saying that Spain’s move towards solar power is to blame for Spain’s economic troubles. You might want to bother to be honest enough to admit that the variables causing the world wide economic troubles was quite a bit more then what you want to pretend.

But since you want to talk about economics I got a question for you. Which would you rather have? Solar panels being built in the United States and creating jobs here? Or solar panels being built in China and the jobs being there?

As for what you said about Canada:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Canada

Canada has plentiful solar energy resources, with the most extensive resources being found in southern Ontario, Quebec and the Prairies. The territories have a smaller potential, and less direct sunlight, because of their higher latitude.[1]

Historically, the main applications of solar energy technologies in Canada have been for non-electric active solar system applications for space heating, water heating and drying crops and lumber. In 2001, there were more than 12,000 residential solar water heating systems and 300 commercial/ industrial solar hot water systems in use. These systems presently comprise a small fraction of Canada’s energy use, but some government studies suggest they could make up as much as five per cent of the country’s energy needs by the year 2025.[1]

Canada has many regions that are sparsely populated and difficult to access. Photovoltaic (PV) cells are increasingly used as standalone units, mostly as off-grid distributed electricity generation to power remote homes, telecommunications equipment, oil and pipeline monitoring stations and navigational devices. The Canadian PV market has grown quickly and Canadian companies make solar modules, controls, specialized water pumps, high efficiency refrigerators and solar lighting systems.[1]

One of the most important uses for PV cells is in northern communities, many of which depend on high-cost diesel fuel to generate electricity. Since the 1970s, the federal government and industry has encouraged the development of solar technologies for these communities. Some of these efforts have focused on the use of hybrid systems that provide power 24 hours a day, using solar power when sunlight is available, in combination with another energy source.[1]

[edit] Ontario

In October 2009, the Ontario government launched the feed-in tariff (FIT) and microFIT programs. This program is the first of its kind in North America[citation needed] to encourage the development of clean renewable energy. The FIT program is intended for installations over 10 kW, while the microFIT program is to encourage the development of micro-scale renewable energy projects, such as residential solar photovoltaic (PV) installations. The microFIT program provides a rate of $0.802/kWh for rooftop mounted solar panels. [2] On July 2nd, 2010 the microFIT’s program rate was lowered to $0.588/kWh by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). [3] This new rate means consumers investing in solar energy through the Ontario MicroFit Program will experience a drop in profit margin from a 25% range to 10%. [4]

Thanks to the Ontario FIT program, Canada is the home of the largest solar farm in the world (as of October 2010). Located in Sarnia, Ontario, the 80 megawatt Sarnia Photovoltaic Power Plant can power more than 12,000 homes.[5]

Ontario may become the leading market for solar PV in North America in 2011, installing more than 400 MW of solar power. This would be nearly double that installed by California in 2010. With contracts on the books, Ontario is expected to reach 2,650 MW of solar PV by 2015.[6]

As for this “I plead guilty. The ideas I disagree with are those I have fought for years . I believe them to be dangerous lies.”

Funny, Alan, I can say the exact same thing about what you say.
Does that mean I have your permission to blatantly insult you now? What you say is lies and dangerous ones at that.

At some point, Alan, the oil will run out. At some point the coal will run out and the natural gas will run out. It may not be in your lifetime…but it sure as hell will be in the lifetime of my 10 year old cousins. And when that happens if we’re not off oil then this country will die a very quick death. I’d just as soon not have that happen and it is far cheaper to develop alternative energy means now then wait til it’s a full on emergency. Especially since we still have the oil, the coal and the natural gas to provide the cushion needed to give us time to develop the alternative energy means. And despite whatever delusion you’re on there is not enough oil in the United States to last real long.

And considering what those energy sources do to the environment and our people’s health it would also be a very good idea to start getting off those energy sources for that reason too.

But since you’re so gung-ho about fracking…you don’t mind if we run the line straight through your backyard right?

Oh and please don’t speak about the deficit. I’m assuming you’re a Republican/conservative. Assuming I’m right there…it would be a good idea if you bothered to remember that it was your God damn side that ran up the deficit. In fact not only did your side run up the deficit it was your side that recreated it.

As for your insults…as a couple conservatives here can attest I’m quite capable of returning that favor. So I would suggest that you keep your disagreements on the civil side.

Oh and just so you know..since you like throwing around the term “hippy.” You might want to keep that in mind when you answer this question: Care to guess what George W Bush had reinstalled on the White House?

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Ed Darrell says:

September 16, 2011 at 6:03 am

If solar was really what it’s cracked up to be, Spain would have ridden out the economic storms.

If the current crisis had been related solely to imported oil costs, perhaps. There is no significant connection between Spain’s economic woes and Spain’s support of solar and wind power. In fact, the earlier subsidizing of these non-fossil-fuel sources contribute every day to keeping Spain out of default. See the simple facts at Wikipedia:

Spain is one of the most advanced countries in the development of solar energy, since it is one of the countries of Europe with more hours of sunshine. The Spanish government committed to achieving a target of 12 percent of primary energy from renewable energy by 2010 with an installed solar generating capacity of 3000 megawatts (MW).[1] Spain is the fourth largest manufacturer in the world of solar power technology and exports 80 percent of this output to Germany.[2] Spain added a record 2.6 GW of solar power in 2008,[3] increasing capacity to 3.5 GW.[4] Total solar power in Spain was 4 GW by the end of 2010 and solar energy produced 6.9 terawatt-hours (TW·h), covering 2.7% of the electricity demand in 2010.

Through a ministerial ruling in March 2004, the Spanish government removed economic barriers to the connection of renewable energy technologies to the electricity grid. The Royal Decree 436/2004 equalized conditions for large-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic plants and guaranteed feed-in tariffs.[5] In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Spanish government drastically cut its subsidies for solar power and capped future increases in capacity at 500 MW per year, with effects upon the industry worldwide.[6]

Spain’s economic crisis is in no significant or rational way connected to Spain’s solar power troubles at the moment. Even critics of solar power, like The Australian, note that solar power provided needed exports for Spain, and that programs structured differently in other European nations work well. Spain’s reducing of solar subsidies is a result of its economic woes, not the cause of them.

Look at Canada. They rode out those same storms very well for two reasons . First they paid down their terrible debt years ago, so they are not Greece. Second they are not stupid like we are. They extract their oil and sell it at outrageous prices to us . They are an oil economy and not a solar economy like Spain.

The U.S. is a net oil exporter, too. We also took steps to pay down our debt (before Bush gave it away). Obviously, exporting oil and paying down debts isn’t enough to avoid economic woes. (Neither of those actions could possibly have altered the housing bubble.) Do you think, maybe, that these issues are a bit more complex than “oil good, solar bad?”

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Alan Scott says:

September 15, 2011 at 9:26 pm

James Kessler,

” And yet at every turn you go out of your way to insult those you disagree with. ”

I plead guilty. The ideas I disagree with are those I have fought for years . I believe them to be dangerous lies. I lived through the late 1970s. I remember solar panels going up on roofs then . I remember those solar panels being torn off those houses in the 80s and 90s . 3 decades later the technology has improved, but they are still a scam. It’s one thing to subsidize an industry that will stand on it’s own in the future. For as long as it has been alive, the solar industry lives and dies on subsidies , Every single time subsidies are withdrawn the whole industry collapses, along with wind power.

Yet the solar boosters always come back. They convince each new generation that solar is viable. Each generation must find out again that solar and wind do not work .

” The question there is would Spain and Greece be in such financial trouble if a certain political party here in the United States hadn’t let their rich fat cat bankers and other allies crash first the economy of the United States and then the economy of the rest of the world. ”

So Bush protected Fannie and Freddie and Countrywide Financial from Federal regulators ? Look it up and call me when you find a clue.

If solar was really what it’s cracked up to be, Spain would have ridden out the economic storms. Look at Canada. They rode out those same storms very well for two reasons . First they paid down their terrible debt years ago, so they are not Greece. Second they are not stupid like we are. They extract their oil and sell it at outrageous prices to us . They are an oil economy and not a solar economy like Spain.

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Alan Scott says:

September 15, 2011 at 8:57 pm

Ed Darrell,

Thank you for putting up with me. First I need to go off topic to back up what I said on Mr. Hoffman’s blog, that the Obama Administration is filled with anti gun zealots. Two names . Kenneth Melson was the appointed head of the ATF. Then there is Andrew Traver who the President nominated to head the ATF. Both of these guys are hard core anti gun .

Back to topic,

” Unrelated to solar power savings. Not relevant. ”

Spain is extremely relevant. My contention is that green economics do not work. Spain went whole heartedly into solar and wind power .

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-19/spanish-sunburn.html

” It’s an economic science to balance out grid use — it’s difficult using any fuel, hydro, coal, nuclear, gas, geothermal or solar. The “capacity to back up solar cells” is greatly, greatly reduced (solar works even when clouds pass by). The grid managers sometimes turn off the input from windmills in Texas when they don’t need the power and can’t use it — but every watt from wind or solar reduces a utility’s costs for fuel. Even if there were a coal-fired powerplant on standby to make up for “clouds,” those plants burn a fraction of the fuel to stay warm that they burn to generate electricity — so there is savings with almost every watt, and savings net on every operation. ”

I do not believe this .Coal fired plants cannot be fired up and shutdown with ease, but they are the cheapest way to make power. A power company might have coal capacity for most of it’s needs and then have oil and gas fired generators in reserve to handle peaks because oil and gas can be fired up and shutdown quickly .

In Hawaii they have set the limit for solar hook ups to the grid at 15%. If you go above that the power company has too many problems managing the fluctuating supply and demand.

” Benefits to the taxpayer are greater than the cost to the taxpayer, I’ll wager — especially if you got a thousand or more homes in an area to add solar.”

After reading about Hawaii I would take your wager.

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James Kessler says:

September 15, 2011 at 6:20 pm

To quote:
You did invite me here so I will try not to be too obnoxious right off the bat.

And yet at every turn you go out of your way to insult those you disagree with.

I have a question for you. So George W Bush was a hippie?

As for: Finally, Spain. More than any other country Spain bought into this BS. They are the most green electric country I know of and they are one step above Greece in the race to bankruptcy.

I’m going to assume you know what post hoc ergo propter hoc means. The question there is would Spain and Greece be in such financial trouble if a certain political party here in the United States hadn’t let their rich fat cat bankers and other allies crash first the economy of the United States and then the economy of the rest of the world.

As for smug…look in the mirror there, boy.

Whether or not small scale solar power is the answer or not I really don’t care. But I do know for a fact that at some point in the near future the oil and the coal is going to run out.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 15, 2011 at 1:39 pm

Also see: Wall Street Journal article on Spain’s solar power industry ascent and stall; and a later, more circumspect article from the New York Times.

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Ed Darrell says:

September 15, 2011 at 12:21 am

Mr. Scott continues a conversation we started at Ben Hoffman’s place.

He wrote:

These people with the solar panels on their roof, I flat out do not believe these supply their total energy needs. But that really is not my biggest problem. What was the cost of these panels and all of the associated equipment ? They kinda left all of that out . I have no idea what their electric and other energy costs were per year. I want to know what the pay back is to recoup the total costs of going green.

Solar panels ain’t cheap, and the payback is long by my standards. I understand the average installation for the average-sized U.S. house runs about $30,000 to $35,000 to cover all electrical needs, and amortization runs over about 30 years saving about $1,000 a year in electrical bills — mileage may vary depending on amount of sunlight and cost of local electricity.

In the last year, the Orange County (California) Register ran a graphic on how to go solar, and the costs. This paper is rather notoriously leaning on the anti-green side.

Here are the figures that ran in the graphic:

Total cost of system: $32,000
Federal tax savings: -$8,400
(California) state tax savings: -$3,700
Net cost after rebates and credits: $19,900
“Assuming the annual cost for electricity pre-solar was $2,400 and that the solar system produces 60% of the power you use, then the annual saving with solar system is $1,440.
Savings would pay for buying solar in: 14 years

“This example is for a four-kilowatt syste. Savings would be greater assuming an increase in electrical rates. it s possible a solar system will add value to your home if sold.”

With those figures, in a state that does not offer tax savings, the amortization would run about 18 years.

If enough homes go solar, the cost savings in not having to build coal-fired power plants would be enormous.

Mr. Scott said:

I also want to know who paid for it . If these hippies are rich and want to waste their money on this BS, more power to them . I know others who have done similar things and have gotten large tax breaks and credits or even outright grants. Which means that I , John Q Taxpayer really paid for this.

Tax credits don’t cover even close to half the cost.

Benefits to the taxpayer are greater than the cost to the taxpayer, I’ll wager — especially if you got a thousand or more homes in an area to add solar.

Another point, they are so damn smug about selling their excess power back to the electric company. Saving the freakin planet. Again I do not know their arrangement, but I know how it is done overseas. Some places the electric company is forced to buy power at higher than market rates from green customers. What is worse, this forces higher costs on all of the other non green customers because all kinds of expensive equipment is needed to balance this new energy onto the power grid.

In Texas it’s a credit at the rate the homeowner pays — so every watt sent to the grid saves the homeowner that price, but it can be resold by the utility. In Texas, that’s big stuff. I’ve never seen an arrangement in the U.S. where the buy-back was at higher-than-market rates. Most utilities have better lobbyists in the state legislatures than that.

I don’t believe you guys have a clue about this stuff. When demand goes up the power company brings more capacity on line. They have peaks and lulls they must balance out . Now who is to say that Mr. and Mrs. Green Hippie’s solar panels are putting out excess power when the grid does not want it and when they need it, a cloud casts a shadow over their house and the hippies start using power from the grid . The power company still has to pay for capacity to back up these solar cells. That is a lot of their fixed costs.

It’s an economic science to balance out grid use — it’s difficult using any fuel, hydro, coal, nuclear, gas, geothermal or solar. The “capacity to back up solar cells” is greatly, greatly reduced (solar works even when clouds pass by). The grid managers sometimes turn off the input from windmills in Texas when they don’t need the power and can’t use it — but every watt from wind or solar reduces a utility’s costs for fuel. Even if there were a coal-fired powerplant on standby to make up for “clouds,” those plants burn a fraction of the fuel to stay warm that they burn to generate electricity — so there is savings with almost every watt, and savings net on every operation.

Finally, Spain. More than any other country Spain bought into this BS. They are the most green electric country I know of and they are one step above Greece in the race to bankruptcy.

Unrelated to solar power savings. Not relevant.

Forbes’s columnists say solar is getting cheaper, and can work:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/04/06/the-cost-of-solar-power-is-expected-to-decline-50-over-the-next-decade/

You may want to look at this paper from a Berkeley prof, who sounds awfully skeptical to me:

Click to access csemwp176.pdf

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Alan Scott says:

September 14, 2011 at 7:32 pm

Ed Darrell,

You did invite me here so I will try not to be too obnoxious right off the bat. Those people they talk about. The deniers. That is me in spades .

To me, and I do not work for an evil oil company, this video is a total piece of crap. I’m sorry, I got carried away. You want specific points, okay.

These people with the solar panels on their roof, I flat out do not believe these supply their total energy needs. But that really is not my biggest problem. What was the cost of these panels and all of the associated equipment ? They kinda left all of that out . I have no idea what their electric and other energy costs were per year. I want to know what the pay back is to recoup the total costs of going green.

I also want to know who paid for it . If these hippies are rich and want to waste their money on this BS, more power to them . I know others who have done similar things and have gotten large tax breaks and credits or even outright grants. Which means that I , John Q Taxpayer really paid for this.

Another point, they are so damn smug about selling their excess power back to the electric company. Saving the freakin planet. Again I do not know their arrangement, but I know how it is done overseas. Some places the electric company is forced to buy power at higher than market rates from green customers. What is worse, this forces higher costs on all of the other non green customers because all kinds of expensive equipment is needed to balance this new energy onto the power grid.

I don’t believe you guys have a clue about this stuff. When demand goes up the power company brings more capacity on line. They have peaks and lulls they must balance out . Now who is to say that Mr. and Mrs. Green Hippie’s solar panels are putting out excess power when the grid does not want it and when they need it, a cloud casts a shadow over their house and the hippies start using power from the grid . The power company still has to pay for capacity to back up these solar cells. That is a lot of their fixed costs.

Finally, Spain. More than any other country Spain bought into this BS. They are the most green electric country I know of and they are one step above Greece in the race to bankruptcy.

Oh, and I love the scenes from those old movies. I saw them as a kid at the drive in. Quite a nice propaganda piece this guy put together. Just filled to the brim with straw men.

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