One of the most difficult things in writing a blog post is to do research. So often it feels like finding a string, following it and pulling on it and then discovering the ball of yarn. And you just can’t stop.
Global warming is a scam. ( What a treat to have someone like Alec Rawls posting here.) The scam has earned such bad publicity that the phrase “climate change” was substituted for “global warming.”
Barack Obama wanted desperately to impose a Cap and Trade system upon this country. It would have been one of the worst things that could have happened to us. It would little to nothing at a gigantic cost. The underpinning of the system is carbon trading, or carbon offsets or carbon credits.
But let’s look at just how much of a farce this is. From the Times-News Magic Valley (H/T IOTW)
One Idaho wind company has a plan to get more green for each gust.
Idaho Winds LLC, representing eight local wind farms, has petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve its unconventional plan to sell renewable energy credits in California.
In its Dec. 15 request, Idaho Winds proposed to sell wind energy and related renewable energy credits to a third party. The catch was Idaho Winds would instantly buy the power back, leaving just the credits, which the third party would sell to a California utility.
In essence, no energy would be sold — just California credits for wind power sold in another state.
The looney bin that is California has its own Cap and Trade system and a specific law which says:
California, along with most Western states, has a law requiring that renewable sources provide a certain percentage of the state’s energy needs. With every unit of renewable energy it buys or produces, a utility receives a renewable energy credit. At least 20 percent of California’s energy needed to come from renewable sources this year, with that percentage jumping to a full third by 2020.
As it stands, California utilities buy the energy and energy credits together. But after the initial purchase, the credits can be “unbundled” from the energy so utilities can just buy the credit. That’s the loophole Idaho Winds hopes to use.
So Idaho fabricates energy credits out of thin clean air and sells them to California utilities which pass those costs on to consumers.
And the air doesn’t get one carbon molecule cleaner.
And this is just a small piece of the overall scam.
At WIRED, Spencer Reiss notes this about carbon offsets:
A few fun facts: All the so-called clean development mechanisms authorized by the Kyoto Protocol, designed to keep 175 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere by 2012, will slow the rise of carbon emissions by … 6.5 days. (That’s according to Roger Pielke at the University of Colorado.) Depressed yet? Kyoto also forces companies in developed countries to pay China for destroying HFC-23 gas, even though Western manufacturers have been scrubbing this industrial byproduct for years without compensation. And where’s the guarantee that the tree planted in Bolivia to offset $10 worth of air travel, for instance, won’t be chopped down long before it absorbs the requisite carbon?
Abd guess who stands to become the first “Green Billionaire” ?
None other than Al Gore.
Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.
From Dan Riehl
Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can’t afford to play on Gore’s terms. And the US portion is headed up by a former Gore staffer and fund raiser who previously ran afoul of both the FEC and the DOJ, before Janet Reno jumped in and shut down an investigation during the Clinton years.
As Bill Hobbs first pointed out, Gore supposedly pays for his extra-large carbon footprint through Generation Investment Management (GIM) – and if you’re looking to go green, and have your wallet go along with Gore, think again – average people are too insignificant to play – verifiable from this pdf.
Generation is based in London, with its U.S. offices in Washington, DC. The firm will manage the assets of institutional investors such as pension funds, foundations and endowments, as well as those of select high net worth individuals.* Generation expects to make extensive use of long-term performance based fees. Generation will begin its investment management business in early 2005.
So playing in this carbon trading sandbox is limited to the astronomically rich, and not you and me or even those awful people making $250,000 a year.
Riehl lists a number of companies who have invested large sums of money in Al Gore’s control. One of them is General Electric. Jeffrey Immelt is the CEO of GE.
In early 2009 Jeffrey Immelt was appointed to Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Board. About the same time Immelt chewed out NBC reporters for negative stories about Barack Obama. In April of 2009 Immelt was identified as one of the few Fortune 500 CEO’s who supported Obama.
In 2007 the Climate Action Partnership was formed by several corporations to come up with a solution to curbing greenhouse gases, aka CAP. One of the largest corporations that is part of this organization is GE. GE currently is also the largest manufacturer of clean energy equipment such as windmills, natural gas and nuclear power. Since GE already has the technology that will be required for other companies to purchase, with the sales of its products alone in order for companies to abide by any Cap & Trade laws, GE stands to make billions. GE has spent a cool million dollars the past year alone touting their green energy initiatives in a marketing blitz, as if their corporate policy is ‘caring about the environment.’ Immelt is quoted as saying “I didn’t come to this as an environmentalist, I come to it as an industrialist,” “I’m a capitalist, plain and simple.” While I totally agree with capitalism and think it’s great he wants to earn cash for GE, I don’t agree that it should be on the backs of the American people who will truly pay the price for Cap & Trade.
The trade part of Cap & Trade is where companies like Goldman Sachs come into play. You see, those companies that do not use their entire allotment of emissions, can sell them to other companies who may need more. Yes, Wall Street is also in on Cap & Trade. Wall Street will be trading these ‘excess allotments’ as commodities. The very Wall Street companies that Obama constantly derides and claims consist of greedy people who hurt Americans will be earning billions thanks to his plan. One industry analyst believes that this Cap & Trade trading on Wall Street could turn into a $2 trillion business within five years.
Goldman Sachs. I’ll be getting back to them in a couple of days.
Joe Weisenthal says Obama’s Climate change policy is a gift for GE :
GE needs all the help it can get right now, with its stock hurtling closer towards $0 on a daily basis. The company obviously stands to benefit from infrastructure buildout, and from capturing its share of green (energy) dollars. The more wind-turbines we erect, the better for GE.
But there’s a nexus between its green ambitions and its finance unit in the form of a new venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which will facilitate the trade of carbon tax credits.
Thus as Tim Carney* notes, GE has been lobbying heavily for a cap-and-trade system, rather than a straight tax system which wouldn’t require a market. And of course they got their wish:
GE — a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which advocates cap and trade — leads the push for greenhouse gas restrictions.
In the fourth quarter of 2008 as the company’s stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.
Reviewing their lobbying filings, you might think you were looking at Al Gore’s agenda. GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.”
GE contributed over half a million dollars to Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign.
And that new entity, Greenhouse Gas Services? Guess who else is part of that?
Google to Use Greenhouse Gas Services’ Standard of Practice for Emissions Reduction Project
ARLINGTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Greenhouse Gas Services LLC (GHGS), a venture between GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE (NYSE:GE), and The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES), announced today that it has signed a master agreement with Google to co-develop projects that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and produce GHG credits. The initial project will capture methane gas at the Mount Herman landfill in Caldwell County, North Carolina.
“We’re working with Google at the site level to create GHG credits that are certified to our Standard of Practice, ensuring they represent a real and permanent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions”
.As one of the first emissions reduction co-development projects in the US, Greenhouse Gas Services (GHGS) will design, build and operate the facility that will capture more than 120,000 tons of landfill gas over ten years. The project will use the GHGS Standard of Practice to govern the creation, management and retirement of the credits. Google will add these offsets to its carbon portfolio to advance its goal of company-wide carbon neutrality.“We’re working with Google at the site level to create GHG credits that are certified to our Standard of Practice, ensuring they represent a real and permanent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mauricio Vargas, CEO of GHGS.
GE and Google will be seeking control of Renewable Energy Credits market.
Eric Schmidt of Google supported the Presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Google contributed $800,000 to Obama’s campaign. Google pays 2.4% in taxes.
And now you know the rest of the story. The biggest screwing of your life is coming to a town near you. This has nothing to do with the environment. It’s all about making the very most wealthy even more wealthy with the money of those with less.
Much less.
Welcome to what we already exposed in Maine. Our last two Governors are leading the destruction of our forest to propel this same scam.
However, unlike Idaho, we here in Maine are willing to destroy the turbines in return.
Oh, and don’t forget the scam 30% federal cash rebate available and the federal 2.1 cents per KwH also available.
This has become one giant, obscene, “green- sustainable” circle jerk for Gore, Immelt, Soros, et al-
I think Al Gore is still so pissed about losing in 2000, that he concocted this to really take the American people to the cleaners. All this will do, if put into place, will be to bring our economy down to that of Zaire, or Somalia. “Our energy prices would necessarily skyrocket,” then candidate Barak Obama said, in a rare moment of either candor, or hubris- it is hard to tell with him.
What the enviro-whackjobs won’t tell you is how far we have come in cleaning up the environment, all without the government putting insane regs in place.
Co2 is a “poison”- yea, right- tell that to the plants that convert it into oxygen, so we can breathe.
Are there problems in our environment ? Yes, but they ARE NOT THOSE THAT THE GREEN WHACKOS STATE- they are fixes we as a people can affect WITHOUT a government regulation- they are common sense things, like planting more trees, not cutting them down. Ethanol from sugar cane or beets would be better than from corn, etc.
It’s really just common sense- too bad it is so UN- common in the liberal circles.
actually global climate change and global warming are 2 different things please try and use them correctly to avoid confusion. Virtually every country China Israel the Vatican Germany Switzerland, believe that the Earth is warming because of man and that the climate is changing because of this warming. The only countries that do not that I know of are Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In December, when unelected bureaucrats at the EPA attempted to usurp the 10th Amendment and place job killing restrictions on 11 states through new regulations now even approved by Congress, all but one state rolled over and played dead, bowing to the whims of the EPA and the socialist Barack Obama.
“Texas Challenges EPA’s Unlawful Attempt To Take Over State Air Permitting Program
Dec. 30, 2010
AUSTIN — The State of Texas today filled a legal action challenging the federal government’s attempt to take over Texas’ air permitting program. Court documents filed by the State explain that the U.S. Environmental Protecction Agency’s improper overreach violates the Clean Air Act, which mandates a cooperative relationship between the federal government and the states.
The State’s legal action involves the EPA’s unprecedented effort to regulate so-called greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Like many other states, Texas law does not currently deem greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide to be pollutants. However, unlike every other similarly suitated state, Texas – and only Texas – was singled out by the EPA, which is attempting to take over the State’s air permitting program effective Jan. 2, 2011. The State’s petition for review and request for emergency stay were filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and ask the federal court ot immediately halt the EPA’s improper attempt to commandeer Texas’ air permitting program.”
Read it all at:
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=3591
A stay was granted by the Court of Appeals with the Court requiring the EPA to show authority to impose such a rule and a complete commandeering of state authority.
Some of us are not going down without a fight. And the selection of Texas, and Texas only, to comply with the EPAs overreaching regulations by Jan. 2, 2011, while the other 10 states were given until Jan., 2012, is nothing more than the Obama administrations attempt to punish a state that will fight his attempt at imposing his socialist views while violating the 10th Amendment. Our governor, Rick Perry, is very, VERY verbal in his intent to thwart the Obama takeover of state’s rights.
It is also my impression that Jeffery Immelt (who is on Obama’s Ecomonic Recovery Committee but has contracted to send billions of $$ and jobs to China) is the primary stockholder of Greenhouse Gas Services, consequently, as the majority stock holder, Immelt, along with his buddy, Al Gore, stand to profit BILLIONS from faulty science that has been such a job killer in Spain.
It is also my understanding that our fine AG, Greg Abbott, intends to present the case not only on 10th Amendment issues, the Clean Air Act, but the faulty science that “global warming” is based on. This is a case all of you need to watch.
@John ryan: “Virtually every country China Israel the Vatican Germany Switzerland, believe that the Earth is warming because of man and that the climate is changing because of this warming.”
Got any more patently false statements to make?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. John feels entitled to his own facts as well.
Subsidies were what kept things like wind turbines and solar farms going.
They can’t make it on their own, as we all know.
They simply do not generate enough power to do so.
So, subsidies will end when carbon trading of emissions takes its place.
One wind producer pointed out that he’d need a single carbon credit to sell for $40 if he was going to be able to stay in business without subsidies.
BUT he also noted that he couldn’t get more than $0.50 for each of his carbon credits he tried to sell!
THAT CAN’T WORK!
And who was buying his too cheap to work carbon credits?
Oil companies who then print up brochures claiming their gas stations are ”cleanly run by wind power.”
(Like one I go to has.)
But is the gas station one whit ”cleaner?”
No.
It still used SCE for its electricity, same as me.
But the bottom line is that the wind farmer cannot stay in business for fifty cents a credit.
To what extent is our petroleum addiction being subsidized with taxpayer dollars? What’s the true cost of a gallon of gas, when you factor in all of the defense costs directly related to protecting our foreign suppliers and transportation routes?
If you were charged those costs at the pump, you’d currently be paying over $5 per gallon.
The tax dollars spent each year subsidizing our renewable energy future don’t come anywhere close to the hidden subsidies we’ve provided to the oil industry for decades.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O76GO02LtlU&feature=player_embedded
Just in case you would like some real science on the matter.
Nan, it’s all a ruse, a scam to make some rich, and to reduce the power of the United States. It is a gimmic to get the U.S. to give more of its wealth to third world nations, even more than we do now. But Americans can be fooled just so long (being sensible people) and the whole “global warming” scam is rapidly going down the toilet. There is a reason that the New York Times has no problem releasing Wikileaks documents that put others in harm’s way, but refused to release the documents from East Anglica that had to do with ClimateGate.
In Austin, Texas, the city offered companies, and some residences, the choice of “clean” energy produced by wind power. The Lower Colorado Valley Authority is our chief generator of power. How did that work out? The “clean” energy was so cost prohibitive that no one wanted it, LCRA sold its wind farms to Florida Light and Power and now the city is struggling to pay for the faulty science they bought into by upping EVERYONE’s utility bills.
Add to that the EPA power grab of Texas regulations, and you have a perscription for disaster and utility bills that average Texans cannot afford. Not that this is not all planned by a socialist president who was endorsed by The New Party (socialist) and the Democratic Socialists of America (a Marxist group).
And while we know the problems, we have to find the solutions. And that solution is to stay on top of our elected officials and make sure they damn well know that if they act in a way that goes against the interest of “the people” they are looking and standing in the unemployment lines. The days of not following legislation and who votes yea and nay on that legislation is over.
@Greg:
Bull. Where were all these mythical “subsidies” when crude was selling for $8/barrel in Texas in the ’80′s? And exactly where do you think we get the bulk of our crude from? If you say the Middle East, you are painfully uninformed. What do you think happens when we stop buying crude from Canada and Mexico? Enhanced foreign relationships?
Great article, proves the old saying, “follow the money”. I’m a little surprised AARP wasn’t involved, oh never-mind they were schilling the health reform scam.
@Greg: who has forced America to purchase oil elsewhere? Hmmm?
If I’m be chastised for not being clear when discussing global warming or climate change, maybe just maybe some of the confusion and blame should be placed on the morons who have perpetrated this fraud. Don’t blame me if they have to give their snake oil a new name every time the rubes (us) figure out they’re grifters. Don’t blame the little old ladies who stop sending the environmentalnuts money because they are torn between saving the drowning polar bears due to global warming or the cute Manatees who are freezing due to climate change. Note to progs, pick an apocalypse and stick with it.
Greg
Would you mind listing all those subsidies? TIA!
@DrJohn:
For an estimate of the amount by which defense spending is inflated to protect foreign oil supplies, there’s this website, belonging to The The National Defense Council Foundation. Try the link labeled “The Hidden Cost of Oil–An Update”.
They raised their original annual estimate from $49.1 billion to $137.8 billion in 2007, to factor in the cost of Iraq.
I suppose one might always argue that defense costs relating to the Middle East and Persian Gulf region have nothing whatsoever to do with oil supplies. I figure oil supplies have everything to do with it.
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It is worse than you describe. The way cap & trade is devised an urban polluter in, say, Los Angeles will tend to buy a pollution credit from a rural or remote wind or solar farm in the Mojave Desert. So the air will be cleaned in the desert not in the urban smog traps of California.
@Nick Machiavelli:
Nick,
The LA Basin is a natural smoke/smog trap.
The Chemoch Indians named this place ”valley of smoke” long before cars.
But I was out a couple days ago, on the Vincent Thomas Bridge between the Los Angeles and Long Beach Ports.
You could see all of Santa Catalina Island, 26+ miles away.
So clear you could see the building near the top of the island.
Looking inland you could see all of the Angeles Crest Mountains, all the way south of Saddleback and around to the Griffith Park Observatory as well as the HOLLYWOOD sign.
Most days you can see the mountains, but just not that much detail.
That’s over 50 miles of visibility.
Some days you cannot.
Guess what?
Usually when you can’t it has nothing to do with ”smog” and everything to do with moisture in the air.
Once in a while we get doldrums when no wind happens for days.
That’s when a bit of smog piles up.
Then you can’t see the mountains.
I was a teenager here in the 1960′s when lead-filled gasoline made real purple smog that hurt your chest and blanketed the basin.
We don’t have that anymore.
Good observation Nan.
Here’s more: Green Power is supposed to clean up the air in Los Angeles but replacing dirty coal power from Utah, Nevada, and Arizona with wind and solar power generated in the California deserts and mountain ridge tops. So the air will be cleaner in Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California deserts and mountains where there is no pollution problem. The solution to pollution is dilution. Conversely, production of pollution is due to its concentration.
But, of course, it get even more complicated. Since wind and solar power is intermittent when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun is covered with clouds or solar panels with desert dust storms, the dirty coal power plants have to keep running 24/7 for reliable backup power. This is called a spinning reserve. So states with Green Power mandates will be paying for redundant power produced in two power plants with double the overhead and manpower cost .
It gets better (or I should say worse again). Because the wind may not blow in the wind farms in Tehachapi in Kern County but they are concurrently blowing in, say, Oregon or Arizona, the energy grid needs to be regionalized for wind power to work. Wind farms are only generating at best about 20% of the time. So the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is mandating that an expensive new Green Grid be built and that the costs be socialized. Previously, transmission lines were paid for by direct customers. Now even if you’re not a customer of wind power in Los Angeles and you live in rural Northern California or Nevada or Utah, your electricity rates will be increased to pay for power for Los Angeles’ new Green Grid. FERC has already approved socialization of the Midwestern energy grid.
This socialization of the cost of the new Green Grid has been resisted by Gov. Schwarzenegger and the governors in other states because it opens up the grid and busts up the Green Energy cartel they had hoped for to raise electricity bills and thus reduced the state budgets deficits. Higher electricity prices get infused into everything – food, transportation, heating and cooling, etc. So more expensive Green Power is a way for state’s to inflate their way out of their debts and deficits. And in California we have Utility User’s Taxes up to 10% tacked on to our electricity bills by cities, which is siphoned off into city General Funds to pay for insolvent public pension funds.
I’m paraphrasing from the UK Guardian. The BBC which is overstaffed with bureaucrats and employees has plowed most of their pension funds into the European Carbon Credit Exchange and have seen their pensions become worthless. We’re talking billions of pounds. Telley rates will necessarily skyrocket.
Here in Calgary, the light rail system bragged world wide about its system being completely green ( wind power). With the 2 billion $ expansion, they have to rehook into the electrical grid powered by evil coal and natural gas. So much for bragging rights, lol.
Landed once at LAX and experienced the smog from your famous inversions. It was disgusting. It was like Mexico City.
I quit using Google a long time ago. Now, there is another good reason never to use it again.
I just left a company selling Solar PV and if the government did not pay for the thing (and then of the amount the government paid for, they only had to reduce the depreciable basis by 15%. So basically on a a 87,480 kW system the invoice would be $605,687.84 or about $6.92 per.
Heres what the buyer gets back from the gummit or uses it to pay the seller.
Utility Company Rebate $101,476.80
Federal Cash Grant (Section 1603)-30% of invoice or $181,706.35
USDA Rural Development Grant $146,128.39
Bonus Depreciation, which after 9/8/2010 thru 12/31/2011 is 100% less half the 1603 Grant
$514,834.66. Total incentives 429,311.54 for a net cost of $176,376.39, but wait,,,,,,,
They also have the energy that it is producing once it is in service and can also sell the SREC, the commodity that on this system would about 216 SREC’s since Solar PV gets two SRECS for each REC of wind. The RECS were recently selling in NJ for over $800 and they vary but the cost is driven by how much the utility company is not meeting green energy quota, so you will soon have nationwide market for this and depends on how far off the mark your state is to determine the SREC Value, you get 3 years to sell it..
Let’s just say you were ignoring the actually energy, alhtough it determines your number of SREC’s pure year and they were 200 and your state price was only $300. $60k year every year or the amount of the spot or futures price when you happen to unload them. The energy I did not even factor in that will be generating for supposedly about 25 years.
@Greg
Great point! So how much oil are we getting from Iraq today?
And here I thought Saudi bought things like jet fighters and military equipment from us, which would mean US jobs (assuming they actually bought such things).
My numbers did not tie out. I guess I forgot to add the depreciation back in but I hope the point was somewhat clear. Heck I had a bad week.
geothermal is a profitable type of clean energy. it’s literally gathering steam.
@geo:
GEO, that’s very true ….where geothermal comes out of itself, like in iceland.
But we, here in CA, have tried it several times (at TREMENDOUS expense) only to learn that it is not easily brought up from deep and earthquakes increase when it is drilled for.
The data suggests that drilling into faults, sending down water (which CA is short of) then capturing the steam is all tied to increases in earthquakes.
As soon as the drilling and water is stopped, so are the earthquake swarms.
Yes. But geothermal fields eventually cool down and diminish. You might want to read what I wrote about California Gov. Jerry Brown’s previous attempt in 1979 at building a green legacy with a geothermal power plant – read here: http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/07/08/new-ghost-plants-to-haunt-brown/
@Nan. Let’s not hold any double standard here, many human activities increase quakes including oil and gas development, mining, dam construction and testing of nuclear weapons. Most of the quakes associates with it are in the 2 pointer range.
@Nick. Oil and gas wells also eventually diminish. Again lets not hold any double standard here.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-03-11-quakes11_ST_N.htm
http://pesn.com/2005/01/12/6900060_Oil_Earthquakes_and_Tsunamis/earlier_draft.htm
Again. Lets not hold any double standard.
How about holding you to a higher standard?
@Nick why do I need to be held to a higher standard? I am just being fair here. All the human activities I listed above cause quakes. Why should we hold a double standard against geothermal?
Let me also add that a lot has changed since 1979.
Look, the geothermal energy industry may have changed. But I would avoid using straw man arguments. It undermines your case.
Why don’t you explain to me how this is a straw man argument?
Why should we hold a double standard against geothermal development if it triggers a few small quakes when other human activities like oil and natural gas drilling, mining, and dam construction also cause quakes. Why should it be okay for those to cause quakes but not geothermal?
Check the links I posted.
EXCERPT
December 12, 2009
Geothermal Project in California Is Shut Down
By JAMES GLANZ – New York Times
The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.
The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels and the project was being financed with federal Department of Energy money at a site about 100 miles north of San Francisco called the Geysers.
But on Friday, the Energy Department said that AltaRock had given notice this week that “it will not be continuing work at the Geysers” as part of the agency’s geothermal development program.
The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source. In addition to a $6 million grant from the Energy Department, AltaRock had attracted some $30 million in venture capital from high-profile investors like Google, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
“Some of these startup companies got out in front and convinced some venture capitalists that they were very close to commercial deployment,” said Daniel P. Schrag, a professor of geology and director of the Center for the Environment at Harvard University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/science/earth/12quake.html
Okay, and I acknowledged that. But the articles I posted above prove that other activities can also cause quakes. So lets not hold any double standard. But let me also point out that in the case of Switzerland they drilled on a major faultline. HUGE MISTAKE. Never drill on major faultlines, and keep the plants in fairly isolated locations. My research indicates that most of the quakes caused by these activities, and by these activities I mean all of the above oil, gas, mining, geothermal, etc have been in the 2 pointer range which is not strong enough to cause serious damage.
Since all these activities are vital to the economy it would make much more sense to make our infrastructure more able to withstand quakes than to just halt them altogether. This is what they have done in Chile. And look how little press attention their quake received last year. It was much stronger than Haiti’s but it didn’t get even a 5th of the press attention. Now why do you suppose that is?
Green Power and cap and trade will work in California under a double standard of protectionism from market forces. Green Power gets a “lock” on 30% of California’s power no matter the price. I assume it is the same for geothermal which qualifies as renewable power. Accusing conventional sources of power of also having such a double standard is a straw man argument. Green Power is protectionism under the guise of being sustainable.
Moreover, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act – Assembly Bill 32 – is designed to “embargo” the cheapest and allegedly the “dirtiest” sources of energy – coal and even clean hydropower – so that it can not compete with green power. If I were able to use laws to block Walmart from coming into my community so that local stores can keep their prices high all in the name of environmentalism that would be a double standard. This is what green power does.
Also, green power in California is held to a fictional standard of being clean. Wind, solar, and geothermal power plants are invariably located in remote deserts, mountain ridgetops, or volcanic mountainous areas (Lake County) where the wind blows and there are no air basin traps. Where California has air pollution is in densely populated air basin traps along its coast. What makes for air pollution is stagnant air trapped in an air basin. The solution to pollution is dilution and vice versa. So shifting to green power will do next to nothing to reduce air pollution in, say, Los Angeles. But the already clean air in Palm Springs will be “cleaner.”
Moreover, under cap and trade there will be a tendency for an urban polluter, in say Los Angeles, to buy pollution credits from a green power plant located in some remote desert or mountain location. Once again, pollution is reduced in Tehachapi, Palm Springs, Lake County or near the Salton Sea, but not in the critical polluted air basins.
Worse, green power is supposed to lessen California’s dependence on imported but cheap power from Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. But it won’t because the wind doesn’t blow but 20% of the time and unpredictably, the sun doesn’t shine because of cloud cover or desert dust storms, etc. So backup conventional power needs to keep “spinning reserves” 24/7 due to the variability of green power. Geothermal power has an advantage here because it is 24/7 and doesn’t have the downtime for maintenance that conventional power has. So a niche market for geothermal would be as the backup for intermittent solar and wind power, assuming there is a sufficient supply.
Where green power is designed to compete is not for base load power demands but for peak power where the prices are higher and they have a better chance of competing due to their high generation price and costly new grid systems. But because green power can trump gas fired peaker plants at will once California’s Green Power Law is implemented, those power plants may become stranded assets and electricity rates will have to be raised to pay off the bonds and mortgages on these plants. This is a zero sum game.
Wind power can not work on an intra-state basis only. If wind is not blowing in Tehachapi but is blowing in Oregon then electricity will be purchased from that source and vice versa through the Pacific Intertie. But the grid has to be regionalized to the entire southwest for wind to work to increase its availability during peak load times and seasons. The Obama Administration is going to “socialize” the cost of new regional green grid systems rather than relying on the conventional policy of “user pays.” This will open up the grid to the entire Southwest region and bust up California’s plan to create a green energy cartel to keep all sources of power within the state and thus help reduce its structural state budget deficit. But it will also mean that electricity rate payers in rural areas of New Mexico, Nevada or Utah will be subsidizing Los Angeles’s grid system.
All this green power is being rolled out as natural gas prices have dropped. Green power can’t compete against low natural gas prices. So we’re going to end up with the worst for both the economy and the environment – much higher electricity rates with no real reduction in air pollution except symbolically. But Green Power will create redundant jobs – 1.3 power plant operators will be needed for every one today. And that extra power plant operator will be a union job. So this is like General Motors being able to use environmental laws to rig the job market so its Volt car will be produced and keep union jobs for a car with a limited driving range that has a limited market in car-dependent California. But the jobs buy votes. Welcome to California’s political economy.
Nick. Keep in mind that I am not necessarily referring to California here, I agree that the political climate in that state is a bit wack. My bottom line point is that all these quake causing activities are of great economic importance so it makes more sense to build our infrastructure to be able to withstand stronger quakes.
As for clean air, I am from Atlanta, and ever since we switched our buses from diesel to natural gas the air has gotten a lot cleaner. Natural gas can definately play a role in cleaner air. I won’t argue with that for a second.
And i am for more dams too, despite all the bad environmental heap China’s 3 gorges Dam received, that dam produces enough clean power to light up Boston, Washington DC, and New York City combined.
Ok, fair enough. We agree on some things. You don’t want geothermal energy implicated in all the green power protectionism in California. But the State of California does.
But you should have disclosed that you are from Atlanta and looking at Google maps that is where the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium is located along with the Association of Energy Engineers.
Really? I was not aware. May I ask where you are from?
Didn’t you know that Californians are from Mars and everyone else from Pluto?
Geo – I’m not trying to win an argument with you but have a discussion. I wrote that geothermal has a niche market as not only baseload power but peak power backup. You don’t want geothermal typecast with wind and solar power – good enough. But the geothermal industry I presume has lobbied to embargo cheap and clean hydropower out of competition in California so that geothermal doesn’t have to compete with it.
But if you are a spokesperson for the geothermal energy industry fine and dandy – but you ought to disclose that you have a vested interest. And you ought to divulge your name. I have provided a link where you can find my name. I have no conflict of interest. I do not work for an energy company. I once worked for a government water utility.
As a native Californian I also happen to go to the hot springs about once or twice a month.
I travel past many of the wind turbines between here and there.
Did you all know that almost all of those turbines are inoperative?
Many of them are spinning but only to produce a PR effect.
It is sad.
But a lot of Palm Springs, Palm Desert and Desert Hot Springs friends of mine say that for years they paid an extra premium to use some % of their power from the turbines and all are glad they are dead.
Don’t forget, you need 24-7 air conditioning in some desert homes during parts of the year.
Nick. I don’t. It’s just an interest of mine. I am just a data entry clerk in a courthouse. Exciting huh?
Nan
I propose marriage after reading your stuff online here (only kidding)! I do some appraisals of wind farm land and ridgetops. Many wind farms have been de facto abandoned due to the greater efficiency of the newer more monstrous machines. Some of these wind farms just existed to milk tax credits and other bennies and then have operated only to keep the credits or depreciation and others have abandoned them. Many of the newer proposed wind farms are just waiting to Feed-In Tariffs (subsidies) so they can cash in but FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) denied California Attorney General Jerry Brown (now new governor) the Feed-In-Tariffs on the grounds that by doing so California would control both the wholesale and retail prices of electricity and thus could game the system. FERC said tax credits, loans or grants could be used to incentivize green power but not tariffs added to customers electricity bills. Also, if you begin subsidizing green power through premiums on electricity rates what would end up is that green power providers would jack up their costs resulting in an unending upward spiral of energy prices. Green power system designers forget that without competitive markets prices can’t be held down. And California’s Green Power Law shields green power from competition from coal and hydropower, the two cheapest sources. Now the Green Power lobbyists want to get rid of natural gas power competition by claiming that fracking and slant drilling in rock formations in Texas to mine for natural gas is environmentally damaging. Environmental lawsuit serve as a cover for all sorts of protectionism.
Most of the wind farms are inoperable because of the eco- weenies afraid to harm the environment of some lizard by laying transmission lines.
There are also unintended consequences of these monsters, including bird strikes and the slowing of the wind, which heats up the environment “downstream” of the wind farm.
There will be NOTHING that gives the “bang for the buck” that fossil fuels do, until they finally harness hydrogen.
Electric cars are a joke- you still need to feed them from coal- fired electric plants, so the fossil footprint is still large.
Until nuclear power is WIDELY harnessed, we are still going to be energy starved, because sometimes the wind don’t blow, nor the sun shine.
Wind and solar power are popular for countercultural reasons not economic reasons. Wind mills and solar magnifying glasses are medieval technologies that appeal to those who knowledge class elites who are alienated with capitalism. Long forgotten is the lesson of history that the world’s standard of living was close to Bangladesh’s until the steam engine (and eventually steam power plants) and capitalism in the mid 1800′s. Distributed generation (local or home power generation) has long been a dream of alternative energy advocates. But they have no interest in seeing new, safe mini-nuke plants by Hyperion (the size of a large room in your house) installed in their community that would be non-polluting, eliminate long distance transmission costs, and are have low environmental impacts. A city of 100,000 might only need two or three of them in underground vaults with no smokestacks, no noisy and ugly windmills, and no use of large swaths of pristine desert and mountain tops. They are very safe. But forget trying to sell women on the idea as they see only something that is a symbolic threat to their children. And of course this hysteria is stoked by both the conventional and alternative power industries. This sounds a bit like those conspiracy theory nuts who say that there is a clean, affordable source of power that the evil energy companies and government are blocking. But I have no conspiratorial views as to why small nukes aren’t being used. Look up mini nukes yourself. If our energy grid is ever hit with an electromagnetic attack or terrorism mini nukes might be taken more seriously.
@Nick Machiavelli: #47
The biggest problem with nuclear power is the waste. Where are we going to store it? Nobody wants it near them. We don’t even know how long it will have to be stored. We know that it will take thousands of years for it to decay. We don’t know if it is thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of years. It could even be millions of years.
Even if we find a SAFE place to store it, over that long of time the area could change. Oceans have turned to desert. Prairie has turned to mountains. We don’t have any material that we can encase the nuclear waste in that will last that long. What is dry land now could be a lake in the future. A lake that used to be a nuclear waste dump.
Your idea of using small nuclear generators all over would be just what the terrorists want. They can’t be protected and they would be easy targets to blow up.
Before we think about expanding nuclear power, let’s get the problem with the waste product solved.
Dear Smorgasbord
My respectful challenge to you sir is that you want utopia – a world with no trade offs. There is no such world or technology or probably ever will be. Most of us are not naive as to risks of nuclear. When mini-nukes start being installed in remote locations and for spot industries it will force competition in energy markets and cities and states will be compelled to gravitate to adopt them. Here is what the Guardian newspaper wrote about mini-nukes – here
- Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.
The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.
The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. ‘Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,’ said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. ‘They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.’
Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. ‘It’s leapfrog technology,’ he said.
The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. ‘We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.’
The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. ‘They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,’ said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. ‘We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.’
The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.
‘You could never have a Chernobyl-type event – there are no moving parts,’ said Deal. ‘You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it’s too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.’
Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen…ors-los-alamos
@Nick Machiavelli:
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is one of CA’s two nuclear plants still running.
It sits on 750 acres.
It produces 18,000 GW·h of electricity annually.
(That’s enough for 2.2 million households plus businesses.)
Our other is San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
It sits on only 84-acres.
It produces 2,350MWe (megawatt electrical) annually.
(A lot less.)
But look at the land use for far less reward in energy with either wind or solar:
Copper Mountain Solar Facility, Nevada.
380 acres.
48 MWe
Nellis Solar Power Plant, Nevada.
140 acres.
~25% of the needs of the Nellis Air Force Base.
Mojave Solar Park, CA.
(Not in operation yet)
6,000 acres.
553 megawatts, enough for 400,000 homes.
Wind:
AES Daggett Ridge Wind Energy Project
1,577 acres
82.5 megawatts
Granite Mountain Wind Energy Project
1,968 acres
54 megawatts
Tule Wind Energy Project
15,493 acres
200 megawatts
Land is precious, even desert land.
My landscaping is all desert and scrub brush.
It attracts rare butterflies, humming birds, lizards and more.
These solar and wind facilities run roughshod over rare plants and animals and niches.
Some of these things take decades to become mature.
Some sit as seeds and wait decades for everything to be right to even germinate.
I’m amazed when anyone with a whit of ”green” in them thinks wind or solar are superior to nuclear.
And Obama destroyed the funding for the nuclear waste storage that had been planned before he took office.
@Nick Machiavelli: #49
I first have to ask you if you own stock, or have anything to do with any of the companies that would profit from such devices? So many times we find out this is the driving force: Global warming and Al Gore’s carbon credits, GE’s wind generators, etc. Then we find out that it was all faked to make money.
Many years ago each house was going to have their own hydrogen powered electricity. Many other devices have been proposed. Before we get too hopeful on any new products, lets first make sure it isn’t a ripoff scheme or a way for somebody to get Federal development money and then use it on themselves. I will wait and see. When you are as old as I am and have seen things like this come and go, that is the best policy.
Will you let them store the nuclear waste near your house? You haven’t answered that question yet. I think every person who wants nuclear power expanded should sign a contract stating that they will allow the waste to be within a certain distance from them.
Even if it is stored far away from populated areas, 10,000 years from now that area might be a lake, or lave could have crept upward and it became a volcano. Earthquakes happen in unexpected places. One could easily open up a storage area no matter how deep we bury it. Let’s find a way to get rid of the waste before we make any more of it.
This means that there will be thousands of vehicles all over the USA and other countries with nuclear fuel to deliver. If you don’t see the problem with this, I ain’t going to try to explain it.
I’m done talking about this subject.
Home basement mini-power plants.
LichtBlick AG has been promising the Germans that for years now.
Their latest promise is that folks keep a VW natural gas motor in the basement to heat and light their home.
Unfortunately they keep taking the money and making the promises, but never deliver a thing.
2009:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/sep2009/gb2009099_395466.htm
Last week:
http://energyforthetaking.com/general/mini-power-plants-run-on-vw-natural-gas-motors-made-in-germany/
Obama told Sen. Reid he intended to kill Yucca Mountain, so why did he propose to spend nearly $200 million on it in his 2010 budget?
Why did he work with Congress in February to agree to spend $288 million this year?
He has no alternative.
And unless he keeps it open the federal gov’t must send money to every nuclear power plant in the USA, money for defaulting on the gov’t's promise to dispose of the waste.
Research has already been done, for decades, at a cost of billions.
Yucca Mountain can safely hold our nation’s nuclear waste.
Obama used to promise he wanted science back in gov’t.
Wha happened?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70G0VB20110117?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true
) is suing the feds (including, but not limited to: U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service) for racing to license a solar power plant in a CA desert where our migratory birds, desert tortoise, desert bighorn sheep, rare plants and other stuff will all be negatively impacted.
Reuters is reporting ……….
that a conservation group (no, not me!
This is not one of the other 6 solar plants Obama is rushing into that are being sued by Native American groups….for pretty much the same reasons.
Seems Obama is throwing environmental groups under the bus for his Soros/Gore/carbon trading buddies with the deep pockets.
With ANYTHING there are ALWAYS trade-offs- there is a negative for every positive, you get nothing for nothing.
Nuclear power means that there is waste to dispose of- that is a given- what is not seems to be whether anyone would want it dumped into a hole near them.
Solar is a pipe dream, at least until they get a cost efficient solar “film” developed that you could “Wrap” your ride in, or coat on a metal roof on your house.
Wind? Fuggidaboutit- Just the bird strikes alone have the eco- nuts biting their behinds like rabid curs, and even I am not too crazy about a power source that is sometimes not there, and sometimes too much for the turbines to take.
Hydrogen would be good, but that is the future- that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work on it until we have run out of fossil fuel, but we should be researching it ALONGSIDE existing drilling technologies, all done domestically.
Most people are too young to remember how dirty our environment USED to be- we had rivers that you could set on fire, and the smog was FAR worse than it is now- we have done much, and we need to keep it up, but not with stifling regulations.
Co2 a poison? I bet our plant life would respectfuly disagree.
@Blake: Blake, I live between the Kaw and the Missoura River at the break between our states. I’ve had to endure the spill-over from urban debauchery. You would be outraged to see their behavior. I pray you are either “ignorant” or “clueless”.
@KansasGirl: Ignorant or clueless regarding just what, exactly? The amount of trash that others throw away carelessly? I know about THAT- human behavior is the same the world over, and we, as people, treat virtually everything like dixie cups, all disposable.
But what I was relating to is the fact that I was raised in Houston, where, on certain days, you could TASTE the air from the refineries. I grew up on Buffalo Bayou, which was an untreated storm sewer outlet, rather than the creek it used to be, and now is again.
So we have come a long ways- and the purpose of my previous post was just to point out that, contrary to many a liberal, we have not sat idle, but then we have not needed the govt.’s “boot on our throats” to get the job done, either.
@Blake: sounds to me like you are allowing the government to put a “boot on your throat”. That is your choice, not mine.
No, I have no boot on my throat, but the govt. wants to do this to you, me, and everyone else, by declaring Co2 a poison gas- that is just ridiculous, and only a simpleton with NO botany or biology understanding would think that way.
You see, that is the major trouble with progressive liberals- they believe that they, and ONLY they, know what is best for us, and the rest of us should sit down and shut up.
There are many ways that man screws up the environment, and many ways we could begin to “fix” the problems, but none of THESE ways are of financial benefit to these progressive elites, and don’t lead to control of the mob (us) by nudging us to where they, the elite snobs, want us to go.
Now, if you believe I am “clueless”, then that is your opinion- just remember, everyone has one.
Danny: There is another more stelthy level at which Green Power operates to transfer wealth as well as inflate prices of good and commodities. If electricity prices are raised, money is siphoned out of people’s bank accounts to pay for high priced green power. Not only goes the cost of Green Power inflate nearly everything but the price of energy from conventional oil and natural gas power plants also increases. In California for example, Tom Steyer put $5 million to defeat the opposition to Green Power on the ballot in November 2010 (Prop 23). Stevyer is the external fund manager for Cal_PERS pension fund that lost 25% of its portfolio value in 2008. By using California’s Green Power Law to blockade the cheapest forms of power – coal and hydropower – there is no competition for high priced conventional and green power and their price will thus inflate. By arbitraging in the stock market Stever aims to reap a windfall from Green Power through the stock market and plug the deficit in the Cal-PERS pension fund. This is called “rent seeking” in economics, which means parasitism. Without going to electric ratepayers, the Public Utilities Commission or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Green Power can plunder everyone’s pocketbook with a rate increase that will backfill the Cal-PERS pension fund through stock arbitraging. One could say this is all for the good because taxpayers didn’t have to increase taxes to pay for California’s lucrative pensions. But taxpayers are also utility ratepayers. So without a public vote, with public notice, or public hearings, Green Power is a tool for “rent seeking” and picking of everyone’s pocketbook. This is how we got into the meltdown of the financial system in 2008 when the scheme to suck money from pensions and savings of the elderly into mortgages to encourage affordable housing and family formations to prop up Social Security failed. Green Power in California will likely have the same consequence as sub prime loans for affordable housing.
wow, you tinfoil hat wearing wingnuts are a hoot.
if you think that oil and nuke power and natural gas are not MASSIVE receivers of corporate welfare, I have a half finished bridge in Alaska to sell you.
@Sean Tq: I notice you didn’t provide any evidence for your assertions. But even if what you allege was true, does it make proper to repeat it with a newer scam? Is that what you’re saying?
Dr John
Be cautious my friend. That is the path to madness, to attempt to discern rationality or logic in the rantings of a liberal hack. If you are really intent on jumping down that rabbit hole, tie a climbing rope to your ankle first so we can pull you back.
@TSgt Ciz: Point taken.