Monday, September 26, 2011

 

Pretentious, Moi?

A wannabe in the Matt Taibbi criticize-whatever-you-don't-understand school of political writing at the prestigious political commentary magazine Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell, has a rare form article online entitled: How the GOP is Using Solyndra to Kill Clean Energy. No paranoia in that headline.

Money quotes:

House Republicans have already got what they want – video images of the clean-tech entrepreneurs looking like crooks.

They know that most Americans are far too stupid about how Silicon Valley-style capitalism really works – that companies on the cutting edge of innovative new industries like solar (or, a generation ago, PCs or the internet) fail all the time.
For lefty elites, most Americans are stupid, except for the small percentage who reads Rolling Stone, of course. It's a telling attitude, but not the best way to convince your readers, who may not know how Silicon Valley-style capitalism really works. There's more:

More importantly, Solyndra didn’t fail because they are crooks, or because they were grossly incompetent. They failed because they bet on a business model that was dependent upon silicon prices remaining high.
Not incompetent to bet on silicon prices to remain high? Any guesses to how much of the Earth's crust is silicone? It is the second most abundant element of the Earth's core, comprising just over
28% of the reachable part of our planet. Who wouldn't bet against something as common as sand being a high priced commodity in perpetuity? Supply and demand? What's that?

There's even more:

In the coming weeks, you will hear a lot about how government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers, and about how Solyndra was a prime example of the federal government pouring your hard-earned dollars into a half-assed technology that will never amount to more than a cute way for rich liberals to charge their iPads.

Of course, the truth is the clean tech industry gets a fraction of the federal subsidies that the fat cats in the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have enjoyed over the years.

Not my truth. Mr. Goodell bases his subsidy numbers on percentage of the federal budget. Here is a chart of subsidies based on megawatt hour of power produced.


Because the 'no energy economy/pixie dust energy' of the solar and wind generation ilk are such a tiny percentage of the energy we produce as a nation, their substantial subsidies are a tiny part of the budget; while the coal and nuclear power plants, which actually make the lights go on when you flip the switch, provide so much energy, the majority, in fact, that their tiny per watt subsidy is a big actual number. No, duh. I guess I'm too stupid to understand the proper perspective for viewing energy production vis a vis government subsidies.

But he's not finished:

In fact, what’s criminal is not starting a solar company and losing hundreds of millions of dollars. What's criminal is using that failure as an excuse to kill the promise of new jobs and cook the planet.
That's the Warmie true believer view. A half billion wasted is good, if the intent, but not the result, was to protect us from this decade's scientific alarmist fraud, while actually providing a kilowatt hour for about a nickle is bad.

We're not ready for wind and photovoltaics. They are horrible wastes of money (and the wind turbines kill birds and bats--federally protected birds and bats). What pitiful little electricity they produce is already being provided by coal, nuclear and hydroelectric outfits, which produce what they produce without any consideration of the feeble, intermittent power of wind and ray. Alternative energy now is merely make believe, feel good, kabuki theater for liberals. We can no longer afford make believe, feel good, kabuki theater for anyone.

Unless we have a stunning breakthrough in electrical storage (and none is on the horizon) wind and ray will always be half-assed technology that will never amount to more than a cute way for rich liberals to charge their iPads.

(h/t John Hinderaker for the graph)

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Comments:
"A wannabe in the Matt Taibbi ..." -someone who's only read 1/3 of a Matt Taibbi article ever.

How ironic.
 
Irony is my specialty and detecting irony is what I've spent years training to do. I'm an English major.
 
Congrats, dude.
 
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