In 1949 nearly 91% of America's total primary energy came from coal, oil, and natural gas. The balance came from renewables, with hydropower being a dominant contributor. By 2008 the market share for coal, oil and natural gas, along with nuclear, had grown to 92.5% of total primary energy in the U.S. with the remainder coming from renewables.How is this possible considering the hundreds of billions of dollars we (that would be electricity rate payers and US taxpayers) have been shelling out for green power in the last two decades? Well, some things make it a little less shocking: 1949 was probably about the end of the massive hydroelectric dam construction projects that were built during Roosevelt's New Deal, and also, our total energy use was far lower than it is today (just owing to the fact that we had so many fewer people). The green energy in 1949 was probably close to 100% hydro, and as was seen in the Energy Tribune article, hydro is the best-performing of the green power sources. Also, nuclear power came on line after 1949, so it helps inflate the amount of 'non-renewable' sources. Still, there has been little or no nuclear construction since the early '80's. We've spent billions in taxes, had our electricity rates jacked up, and have pretty much nothing to show for it. Sort of like an Obama Stimulus program - hey! If the money we spent had been spent in increasing our 'non-renewable' (scare-quotes because I don't know how you call nuclear energy non-renewable) power sources, we would be sitting very pretty from a power resource point of view. So, basically the only conceivable benefit of all this effort is at least we are doing something to prevent global warming (see other RTP&GG posts in November & December), and what about all those green jobs we were promised! Well, that brings me to the next links:
Via Hot Air: Reality (not theory) blows serious holes in liberals' dreams of a green paradise in Spain, Germany, & Denmark, where everywhere it's tried, shovelling taxpayer money into green industry ends up costing the overall economy jobs and digging each country deeper into debt. Oh, and not changing their dependence on 'non-renewable' fuels.
From the Spanish report:
“The premiums paid for solar, biomass, wave and wind power – - which are charged to consumers in their bills — translated into a $774,000 cost for each Spanish “green job” created since 2000, said Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at the university and author of the report.From the German report:
‘The loss of jobs could be greater if you account for the amount of lost industry that moves out of the country due to higher energy prices,’ he said in an interview.”
“While employment projections in the renewable sector convey seemingly impressive prospects for gross job growth, they typically obscure the broader implications for economic welfare by omitting any accounting of off-setting impacts. These impacts include, but are not limited to, job losses from crowding out of cheaper forms of conventional energy generation, indirect impacts on upstream industries, additional job losses from the drain on economic activity precipitated by higher electricity prices, private consumers’ overall loss of purchasing power due to higher electricity prices, and diverting funds from other, possibly more beneficial investment.”
As I keep saying, if you're not promoting nuclear energy, you're not serious about green power, you're just pushing some other agenda, which I believe our own Jeff could explain well.
This is a pertinent article as there is a new push for cap and trade and the Senate just voted against a motion that would strip "unelected EPA bureaucrats of the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant". Scott Brown supported this motion.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at cap and trade and the green movement with the goal of creating new green energy that will help our economy and save the environment, then their goals do not make any sense. But if you look at it with the goal of pursuing some other agenda then it does make perfect sense.
The whole notion of believing that green energy can meet all of our energy needs reminds me of a story I read in world literature class called "Don Quixote". He was a crazy man that thought that he was a knight and ran around doing crazy things like jousting at windmills believing they were monsters. The green movement believing that green energy can solve all of our energy needs is just as delusional as Don Quixote--I am sure somebody has made this comparison before. Note that windmills have been around for hundreds of years and is nothing new.
There undeniable proof that trying to make a country's economy "green" does far more harm than it does good as illustrated above. Why then would our President continue pushing for the very same thing here with current in other countries proving that it does not work? Are his state goals his real goal? Why would he disallow off shore drilling here while giving 2 billion to Brazil so they can do the very same thing over there? If you look at his and the people he has surrounded himself with and their views on America, it is not hard to see that he is using the EM and cap and trade just like everything else to fundamentally transform America. He is willing to pass his agenda of fundamentally transforming America ahead of what is best for the economy. Health care looked like it was dead many times so cap and trade passing can't be ruled out completely. It would destroy our all ready fragil economy.
The whole environmental movement is not about the environment, see my 1st post. http://robinsontalkingpoints.blogspot.com/2009/05/environmentalism-as-vehicle-to-carry.html
The communist took over the green movement after the fall of the Soviet Union and the peace movement lost its purpose and had to find a new way to push their agenda. See Patrick Moore's statements in the link above. The EM movement is about the redistribution of wealth the world over and creating some type of global governance, see what Al Gore says and other people http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6q18kaTS4
The EM and cap and trade has to be seen with this fact in mind.
Here are some good links on the economy. http://article.nationalreview.com/436123/the-other-national-debt/kevin-williamson?page=1
ReplyDeleteIf the government followed GAAP the real national debt would be 130 T
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264513748386610.html
Taxes rates going up in 2011 is causing business and individuals to shift their income in the 2010 tax year to avoid the tax increases. This inflates the GDP and will be followed by a double dip recession in 2011.
People are warning that America will be in the same shape as Greece http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/67183
Europe faces a recession http://www.cnbc.com/id/37723118
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think in order for America to take care of its environment we need to shut down the border. Population growth creates more consumption of all resources. Shut down the border.
The real problem with energy is oil. And I dont mean this in a hippy,liberal lets all go fuck some trees kinda way. I mean this in a common sense WTF kinda way.
ReplyDeleteWe have already reached peak oil, this means that half of all oil has been used. Evidence of this is the Saudi's have 25% of the worlds oil yet they are scrambling to find offshore wells. Even if we drill alaska, that would only give the United States about 6 months of its total oil needs. The Canadian oilsands are pretty much useless and require a ton of work to produce even just a few million barrels.
Look at it this way. it takes 7 gallons of oil to make 1 car tire, oil is heavily used in the construction of our roads, all our plastics, processed foods vehicles, building construction, electric wires, needless to say oil is all around us. Yet its disapearing.
What happens when the oil goes? Factories that make plastics shut down. This means No computers, no printers, no cell phone production, no plastic furniture, no road improvements or creations, no light switches, coffee makers, shampoos, toothpastes, commercial fertilizers, the list is almost endless. Jobs are going to be lost left and right. Transportation is going to cease period. No more avacados from California or Oranges from Florida, cheeses from France, Wines from Italy and yes even Budweiser and Pabst wont we shipping in either :(
Oil is directly responsible for our human growth explosion. Oil made possible large scale commercial farming that allowed the worlds population to live far away from sources of food such as Las Vegas, Southern California, Arizona and so on, but thats going too. To say we are addicted to oil is almost an understatement. Yet no new oil is being created. We have a very finite resource that we have exploited for our own comfort. This isnt a bad thing. Its just a fact.
Yet the days of oil are numbered. And we have nothing that can remotely replace it. It is the source that made modern civilization possible. Oil made Nuclear energy possible as well as all other forms of energy. Its going to be hard to build large powerplants of any kind when you dont have the trucks, plastics, special metals, and all the other wonderful things oil provides to build.
Its quite possible that in the next 10-100 years we might revert back to an 1800's style existence simply because we have used up all the black stuff that made the wonders of the 21st century possible.
In a way I find it oddly comforting. Its hard to have large scale governments when they have no way to transport things. The economy will go from being global to local as will food production.
Maybe this is the answer to all our problems of big government, immigration, unsustainable living, rising taxes, socialist style federal governments and many other problems that living globally has created.
So I say dig, dig away, get this shit outa the ground and go back to living naturally, where the only things that matter are family, friends, culture and belief.
Environmentalism is evil and has literally lead to the deaths of millions of human beings: it is anti man and anti life. Plan and simple. Read the work below to see why and to save yourself from being confused. It does sound good and make you feel warm and cozy, but environmentalism is not the answer to live in our dream world.
ReplyDeleteYou do sound like a hippy-north-westerner. I agree that eventually oil will run out, the question is when. I have heard that America has more oil than the Middle East. There is a difference between the KNOWN reserves and the ACTUAL reserves. The quote is from _Basic Economics_ by Sowell pg 275. "There may be enough oil underground to last for centuries, but its present value determines how much oil will repay what it cost anyone to discover it at any given time--and that may be no more than enough oil to last for a dozen or so years."[...] In 1960, a best-selling book said that the U.S. had only a 13-year supply of domestic oil at the existing rate of usage. At that time, the known oil reserves of the U.S. were not quite 32 billion barrels. At the end of the 13 years, the known oil reserves of the U.S. were more than 36 billion barrels.[..] How much of any given natural resource is known to exist depends on how much it costs to know". Read the whole section for more information.
On doomsday predictions of 'running out of oil', "In 1908 the U.S. Geological Survey state that the maximum future supply of crude oil in the U.S. was 22.5 billion barrels; later there were over 22 billion barrels just in unused, proven reserves. In 1914 the U.S. Bureau of Mines said that future American production of oil could total no more than 5.7 billion barrels; in the following 80 year, over 160 billion barrels were produced...." _Return of the Primitive_ "The philosophy of Privation, by Peter Schwartz. This book will make you rethink your environmental-shaped thinking.
The other question to answer is can the free market deal with a finite supply of natural resources? As the oil reserves get lower, the price goes up thus the market will force people to conserve it and at the same time the increase in prices will give enough incentive for an alternative source of energy to be made. There is already enough incentive for the creation of alternative resources of energy out there without a government mandate--who ever invents this will be very powerful and rich. The gov can not just demand that a new technology be created, if it could then why aren't we living in a far more advance society? The gov is not the solution to this problem.
This is a good link and the 2nd book above is also http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_topic_science
Wow...in your face cyclist. If that is even your real name.
ReplyDeleteHumans will adapt and overcome. We wont go back to the 1800's. Let capitalism do its work. When oil is approaching its exhausted point then capitalism will force new resources to be used. Fuck oil. We can start enslaving people to get shit done if we have to. JK JK. I dont really mean that...or do I?
Its not a doomsday scenario. Its a given fact that oil will not last. I also agree that the government is never the answer and I wouldnt call myself and environmentalist just a realist. We are biological creatures living on a biological planet. We have finite resources. As of yet we do not have anything that can even remotely replace oil either in the government or the private sectors. As far as an advanced society goes we have to ask the question what is advanced? If its living outside of biological limits such as creating growth explosions and social ill's is it really advanced?
ReplyDeleteCyclist, if you send your e-mail address to Melkor, he can send it to me and I'll get you set up as a contributor.
ReplyDeleteI think an advanced industrial society involves technology and the sometimes negative pollution that comes along with it. The alternative to our modern society looks a lot less attractive to me. The social ills have been present all throughout history. This is a problem in human nature and it can't be changed, so we have to work around it and deal with it. Your ideal of a sounds good, but we live in a real world where we have to choose between alternatives that are sometimes not that perfect.
ReplyDelete