XDA

Regarding outflow of revenue by the government, I make a distinction between revenue foregone (tax breaks) and direct payment (actual check from the government). I'm almost always for revenue foregone because I'd almost always rather people keep and spend their own money instead of sending it to the government to spend it, sometimes wastefully, indeed often wastefully. These two are very different things vis a vis actual outflow of revenue. For example, by static analysis, a cut in the tax rates would seem to "cost" the government the revenue it would have received were the tax rates left where they had been. People and economies are not static, however, and react to stimuli with different behavior. As such, most tax rate cuts (by Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and Bush (son), for example) have actually resulted in more revenue to the government, not less.

So I discount talk of a tax break being a cost to the government. Maybe it is, but maybe it isn't. I also think that clearly it is not spending. Writing a check from the treasury is spending. Not collecting taxes one theoretically might receive is not spending. We generally create a tax break to encourage behavior the majority feels creates a civic good.

Sorry for the preamble.

Here is a Boston Globe editorial from yesterday entitled: Clean-energy policies create jobs, and Congress should take note. (Yeah, they help the bankruptcy attorneys expand their staffs).

Most of the stimulus money spent on "green" energy has been a total waste. Solar and wind energy are worthless. But that's not what the editors of Boston's moribund daily paper think. They think we should send more.

And here is one of the things they use to justify it. Fossil fuel, they claim, is subsidized too. They write:

Between 2002 and 2008, the Environmental Law Institute has estimated, the US government spent $70 billion to subsidize traditional energy sources and $17 billion to subsidize corn ethanol.

Actually the Environmental Law Institute says it's $70.2 Billion to coal, oil and gas, $16.8 Billion to ethanol, and $12.2 Billion to "green" energy. I'll stipulate ethanol from corn for fuel is a big waste and we should stop that nonsense; but let's look closer at the numbers in this report from the ELI.

Forget the tax breaks. I'm only interested in the direct spending, the checks from the government.

For the "green" energy, they really don't account for the numbers they use in the website's graphic, but we know, independently, about the direct payments, the loan guarantees and the like, that have been expended (and, starting recently, that have been lost, wasted). Think Solyndra, Evergreen Energy and the dozens to come.

Here's what the ELI ilk call direct payments to the big oil, coal and gas, which they say totals over $18 Billion:

1) The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (which accounts for over a third of the so called direct payments--over $6 Billion). What? They admit that: "The purpose of LIHEAP is to prevent home energy shut-offs, rather than to intervene in energy markets." Let me translate that. This government program is not a direct payment to big oil, coal and gas but direct payments to state governments who in turn give it to poor people who can't pay the heat bill during winter and might well freeze to death without this help. This is charity to poor people, not a direct payment to big oil, coal and gas. Without these charity payments, the utilities would either cut off the deadbeats (and risk hypothermia for those in the cold household) or eat the deadbeats' unpaid bills and spread the loss around as much as they could to the paying customers. Under no rational structure of thought could this be called support for energy producers by the government, like the direct payments to wind and solar, etc. They must think we're morons.

2) The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (which accounts for another third, again more than $6 Billion). What? The idea is to have enough oil on hand to weather a cut off by the Middle East producers like what happened in the 70s. This is not support of big oil. It's just what it says it is, a storage of oil for a "rainy day."It is worse than a childlike pretending to say this storage of reserves is the same as the direct payment to Solyndra, etc. to keep the "green" producer in business. It gets worse.

3) The Black Lung Disability Trust Fund ($1. Billion). Oh, come on now. This is a fund for miners who have developed a disability; it is not in any way a payment to big coal. It is like the fund for asbestos related illnesses and is really just a specialized workers' compensation program. Only if the workers' compensation programs, which are mainly funded by the employers, are counted as a subsidy for each employer's field of endeavor, which no one ever does, could you count this as a subsidy for big coal. The miners got an extra largess from the feds for the disability above and beyond the state workers' compensation benefits, but it is again just charity from the government and there is no way the miners could have sued their employers successfully for their black lung (I'm from Appalachia and you'd be surprised by the number of people who have never been down a mine yet who claim to be suffering from black lung--but that's a different posting). The government is not paying off the sick miners as a way of shielding the coal companies from having to do so. The coal companies don't have to do so beyond getting workers' compensation insurance.

And then it just gets silly.

Not a single one of these so-called subsidies was even remotely a government payoff to the big oil, coal or gas companies. They are government programs to do other than pay money to big oil, coal or gas. At best, this is a through the looking glass sort of delusion to compare them to the $ Billions in direct payments to "green" energy. At worst, it is a knowing lie.

So there appears to be even less a reason to spend taxpayer and borrowed money of worthless wind turbines and solar panels because the actual energy producers in this country don't get a dime from the feds, not a dime!

Labels: No Energy Economy, Subsidies

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)

Labels: No Energy Economy

Here is what the boy reporter/pundit Ezra Klein says about the coming EPA regulations which will shut down a fifth of the currently operating coal fired plants here in America over the next 6 years. That means about 1/3 of the coal power now supplied will be lost. Because coal fired plants are 45% of our electricity production, reducing 45% by a third is a pretty big hit on the nation's power production. Klein thinks it's a good thing, and that we'll be able to quickly and easily make up their loss with cleaner gas fired plants. And it will only cost us all an additional $2.8 Billion/yr. Almost nothing.

When there were blackouts in California because of the lack of power plants a decade ago, the political powers that be blamed the evil speculators including Enron of conspiring to cause the rolling brownouts and blackouts. In the next few years, if we start to have blackouts in certain states where the EPA regulations shut down power plants, who will the left blame?


Here is the lefty ideal of power production.
















I meant the top half of Korea.

Labels: Government Control of Power Production, No Energy Economy

I haven't written about left wing columnist and local radio host David Sirota for perhaps a year, because his columns in the Denver Post have been like Gertrude Stein's opinion of Oakland, CA. However, here is a bold, totally illogical, half-truth propaganda piece by Mr. Sirota worth examining.

David wants us to adapt the Hippocratic "First, do no harm" ethos to energy policy. It doesn't really fit, because supplying energy to the masses is actually nothing like trying to help a sick or injured patient recover; but despite the square peg in round hole start, Mr. Sirota strikes out further.

The examples of energy production he starts with are nuclear (Fukushima reactor meltdown after huge earthquake and tsunami) and natural gas production through hydraulic fracturing of the formation containing the gas ('fracking'). You might think that the first is actually an example of the rare and extreme rather than the day to day normal, but it is the second choice which is really underhanded, as I hope to show.

In the wake of the damage to energy infrastructure by the 9.o earthquake, etc. he says Japan has "canceled plans to build 14 new nuclear plants and [is] now moving to pursue solar rather than atomic energy." Good luck with that, Japan; of course, with one of the lowest birth rates in the world, in 50 years maybe solar could produce enough power for the 2/3 fewer Japanese citizens than exist now. There's no way even a crash program in solar could light the Ginza much less the needs of the current 127 million inhabitants.

Funny that he doesn't mention the 40 odd coal fired plants Germany is building to replace the on-again-off-again canceled nukes. Some of these plants are coming on line soon. Nor does he mention French electrical production, which is wholly reliant on nuclear power (77%) and which sensibly reprocesses its fuel (we don't) so that nuclear waste there is a tiny fraction of ours and no problem. Moving on.

Sirota writes about natural gas:

Over the last few years, more evidence has surfaced that suggests drinking water may be getting contaminated by fracking — a drilling technique that involves injecting toxic chemicals into the earth. This evidence runs the gamut from a New York Times report on fracking wastewater being dumped into rivers, to Pennsylvania gas companies acknowledging that fracking is contaminating drinking water, to those now-famous YouTube videos of combustible tap water.

Where to start? Actually there is no evidence of drinking water contamination from fracking. The EPA chief has admitted this. There are allegations but very weak, and few, actually. Allegations are not evidence. Oh, and fracking is achieved by using 98% sand and water and 2% chemicals, most of which are totally harmless. There have been spills and one casing failure, but no Pennsylvania gas companies (notice the plural) have acknowledged that fracking is contaminating drinking water. He just made that up. Notice the lack of links in that paragraph. Here is one link. Here's another. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Now let's get to Gaslands. That's where the footage of combustible tap water comes from, this Oscar nominated propaganda film which has been debunked and debunked. The flaming water is, in fact, just less than 70 miles north of where I sit (in my basement, in my pajamas), up in Weld County. Colorado's Oil and Gas Commission investigated the flaming water and determined that its origins were organic CH4--something's being eaten by bacteria in the aquifer, and the gas in the water is the byproduct--which has nothing at all to do with gas produced from drilling. Nothing. Indeed, the flaming water predated gas drilling, as Gaslands' less than honest director admits here.

Funny that Sirota doesn't mention the truth.

For me, however, this is the telling part:

Meanwhile, the White House's one seeming tilt toward caution — its panel to study fracking — ended up being a sham, as six of the administration's seven appointments have direct ties to the energy industry.

So the people who know the most about the exploration and production of gas are suspect, and people with, say, a BA from Northwestern in poli sci and journalism, and absolutely no real knowledge or expertise in the area, are the go to guys for energy policy. Yeah, right.

If these guys really cared about CO2 production from electrical generation (which I don't--we're at near saturation for the ever decreasing effect of CO2 in the atmosphere so that even a doubling now will have merely a minor, difficult to measure, effect) they would know that nuclear produces none and natural gas produces half that of coal. While the lefty power generators of choice, solar and wind, don't produce CO2, they also don't produce any electricity either, less than 1% here in America, nowhere more than 3%. If you want to end up cold and hungry in the dark, regulate coal to death, ban new gas production and close all the operating nuke plants. President Obama is only beating up on coal, so far, which tells you just how out there Mr. Sirota is. Way out there.

I'll just state for the record that an organic farm in Lower Saxony* Germany has recently killed more people than died in the BP gulf oil platform blowout and the Fukushima meltdown combined. Mr. Sirota should consider who, in fact, is doing the harm, and who is bringing literal light to the darkness.

UPDATE: *Corrected from "southern" Germany. Thanks, Freefall.

Labels: No Energy Economy

Went to hear David Brooks, who passes for a conservative on the NYT editorial pages. It was to support creation of the Tim Wirth chair at some sort of lefty training ground at UCD.

The mayor spoke first and for a long time as Governor Bill Ritter was delayed "putting out a fire" on the last day of the legislative session. (Indeed the Governor never showed.) I can't shake the feeling that Hickenlooper will be difficult to beat in November, more difficult than Ritter, a feeling apparently shared by Ritter himself.

Then Tim Wirth spoke, and all I can remember is his effusive praise of the totally unrealistic, diminished carbon emission goals the Democrats have set for the state as part of the "No Energy Economy" which will apparently rely on expensive, intermittent sources like wind generators and photovoltaic arrays. Oh, along with greater use of natural gas, which is good. How long was Wirth our Senator? Just one term apparently, before he moved on to Global Affairs in the Clinton administration and some good work with the UN since. He's a big Warmie True Believer and thus wasting tons of money and driving off jobs in support of inadequate and unnecessary alternative energy is seen as good by him.


Brooks is a very pleasant fellow who can flat out tell a humorous story and he has the same sort of ability to see the core of some human truths that Jerry Seinfeld has. But he really thought, thinks, that Barack Obama is cool and so it is a series of painfully pulled punches he now throws at the current administration. I usually praise those who can actually see and articulate the bleeding obvious but it's as if Brooks knows that continued effusive praise will just alienate his audience (at the NYT--his audience at the dinner last week was very much in full Obama support mode).
He just can't seem to make the adjustment in his head (scales falling from eyes?) to walk back the position he took during the election when he was, in my view, totally duped.

But that's not the weird part. There was a guy there, I think I recognize him as a fellow lawyer, who still had the store security tab on his jacket. What's up with that?

Labels: David Brooks, Mayor HIckenlooper, No Energy Economy, shop security, Tim Wirth