More government subsidy
kswildcat
Posts: 1,490 ✭✭✭✭✭
kswildcat
Posts: 1,490 ✭✭✭✭✭
kswildcat
Posts: 1,490 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
is that a UFO?!???!???
let's take a closer look......
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
How exactly can one dislike their government supporting the establishment of sustainable and renewable energy sources?
And American manufacturing... "As of April 2009, over 100 companies are producing components for wind turbines, employing thousands of workers in the manufacture of parts as varied as towers, composite blades, bearings and gears. Many existing companies in traditional manufacturing states have retooled to enter the wind industry. Their manufacturing facilities are spread across 40 states, employing workers from the Southeast to the Steel Belt, to the Great Plains and on to the Pacific Northwest."
"American wind power supported a record 88,000 jobs at the start of 2016."
"Recent U.S. policy has generally been to provide an inflation-adjusted federal production tax credit (PTC) of $15 per MW·h (in 1995 dollars) generated for the first ten years of operation for wind energy sold. As of 2015, the credit was $23 per MW·h. Renewable portfolio standards mandating a certain percentage of electricity sales come from renewable energy sources, which are in place in about half of the states, also have boosted the development of the wind industry.
Each time Congress has allowed the production tax credit to expire, wind power development has slowed as investors wait for the credit to be restored. Each year it is renewed development has expanded. The tax credit expired at the end of 2012, bringing wind power development activity to a near halt. A short term, one year policy was enacted at the beginning of 2013 which provides a tax credit to projects under construction by the end of 2013 and completed before the end of 2014. The PTC was first introduced in 1992. When it was allowed to expire, development dropped 93%, 73%, and 77% the following year."-- Winston Churchill
"LET'S GO FRANCIS" Peter
http://www.misi-net.com/publications/NEI-1011.pdf
http://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/eli-pubs/d19_07.pdf
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
I'm sure you can find plenty of wasted money in this https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/
I would argue that it isn't being wasted on wind and solar.
Meanwhile, Shell dumps 90,000 gallons of crude in the gulf and no one bats an eye.
Priorities gentlemen.
I have a problem with government picking winners and losers. Those turbines don't and will never produce enough energy to pay for themselves, the people who put them up and maintain them or the land lease payments.
Anything dealing with federal government using tax payers money involves massive waste. When I set on the city council we had to put in a water treatment plant. $2million install going it alone thru bank loan. If we had went the federal government grant route, city's portion alone would have been $4.5million. Although this may not sound like a lot of money to most cities, it was huge for a rural Kansas town of 500 people. By going it alone and having our city employee doing most of the work we saved $2.5million city tax payer dollars alone, even after a nice bonus to our employee. Had we took the grant route or city employee would have had to watch crews come in and do all the work.
You may not have a problem with government wasting your tax dollar, but I damn sure have a problem with them wasting mine.
Of the nine economic sectors, health and housing programs were, by far, the largest beneficiaries of federal subsidies at $743.5 billion (yes, with a "B") and $227.2 billion respectively.
Next on the list were education at $129.2 billion & transportation at $55.6 billion.
The energy sector came in at #5 (and remember this is out of 9) at $34.5 billion.
More info here: http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/ninesubsidyscopechartspdf.pdf
* I have a new address as of 3/24/18 *
The manufacture, construction, maintenance, and operation of these turbines create American jobs and generate tax revenue via income tax. That is a good thing.
The energy produced by these turbines is clean. These turbines could run for thousands of years and never generate the kind of pollution a fossil fuel power plant will in one day. That is a good thing.
A wind turbine generates the amount of energy used to manufacture the turbine itself in one year and and over 20 times that amount in it's lifetime. This is three times better energy return on investment than a coal power plant. That is a good thing.
"For calendar year 2014, the electricity produced from wind power in the United States amounted to 181.79 terawatt-hours, or 4.44% of all generated electrical energy."
At least they are way more efficient than this one on the side of I-40 in Groom, TX. This thing doesn't generate any power... silly!
Keep telling yourself the government doesn't give billions to green energy projects annually. And by what I've read wind energy has yet to topple a measly 2% of total energy produced nation wide.
That post was a joke. You're* silly for not getting that that was a joke. I'm well aware that a 190 foot tall cross in the panhandle of Texas wasn't meant to generate power.
Also, you clearly didn't read my previous post stating that in 2014 4.44% of electrical energy generated in the US came from wind.
"The cost of wind energy has fallen by 43 percent in just four years, due to investments in technolgoical advancements and stable policy."
"U.S. manufacturing production capacity has ramped up dramatically, and the largest turbine order in history of the U.S. wind industry was placed in the Fourth Quarter."
“In many parts of the country today, including the impact of the PTC, wind is the most economic form of new energy generation.” - Moray P. Dewhurst, Vice Chairman, Chief Financial Officer and Excecutive Vice President of NextEra Energy on January 28, 2014 Earnings Call
I think that pretty well concludes today's discussion.
One simple question for all you who believe Government is the answer.
Name one fu ckin g thing they have done right and paid for ?? They pay for nothing... WE DO !
Enough said.
Lastly, both the left, right, progressive, and now f ucki ng socialist.
You don't think for me ! That you can't take away from me.
Back to the program.
And learn to have a discussion without insulting people. You might get listened to.
But hey, as long as those silly government bureaucrats aren't throwing money away on developing energy sources that are renewable and make us less dependent on other countries, I'll be happy.
(That was sarcasm)
From US Energy Information Administration.
Major energy sources and percent share of total U.S. electricity generation in 2015
- Coal = 33%
- Natural gas = 33%
- Nuclear = 20%
- Hydropower = 6%
- Other renewables = 7%
- Biomass = 1.6%
- Geothermal = 0.4%
- Solar = 0.6%
- Wind = 4.7%
- Petroleum = 1%
- Other gases = <1%
Just under 5% and increasing its share every year while becoming more cost efficient at the same time. I call that a viable source of energy and something we should be investing in.I thought this discussion was about whether or not the feds should be investing in wind energy? I am arguing that they should be.
I'm all for change when change makes sense, but throwing billions into something to only get 4.44% ( I have yet to find anything claiming that figure) does not make sense. If it's so grand why isn't all the the green peace billionaires funding it?
I believe in climate change, there is a book that proves it, it's called the Almanac. Climate has changed well before man started using fossil fuels and coal. I do agree we should stride to use cleaner energy, and we have cleaned it up. Advancements should be made thru the private sector and if they fail they fail. You brag how many jobs where created due to green energy, why don't you try going to coal country and tell the folks who are now unemployed about how great of a job the government is doing.
So say your car gets 35mpg on regular and 30mpg on ethanol, your actually burning 5% more regular gas to go the same distance using ethanol. Not to mention the diesel to work the ground, plant the crop, fertilize and spray the crop, water the crop (in some cases), harvest the crop and haul it to town then haul it to the ethanol plant.. You do all this to burn 5% more fossil fuel to go the same distance in your car. That is just the affects on the environment. Then add in the consumer's cost of having to buy more fuel to go the same distance, fuel additives to TRY to help the damage ethanol does to an engine fuel system, and in small engines case actually be able to run on it, then repair costs due to the harm it causes to fuel system..
Makes a lot of sense doesn't it?
To be honest I don't believe we should be fighting any wars until the powers that be figure out war is ugly and if you must fight, fight to win. Also do not go into battle without providing our military the tools they need to achieve victory. Both sides guilty.
So, yeah, money does not grow on trees, these things don't pay for themselves, politicians are great at swindling and conniving. That's what they do. They get rich at it. Power corrupts.
Oh, and ... Both trucks still take both trash can contents separately to the same dump and dump them together.
Read an article about the windmills off Block Island just this morning. Similar swindle. They originally wanted to set these windmills off Martha's Island or some such, but the millionaires went to court, not wanting the ugly things obstructing their expensive view, so, they're off Block Island. Lawmakers required the utility to pay 24 cents a kwh for any power the windmills produce. National average for juice is 10 cents. Average in New England is 17 cents. Yes, they promised the people these windmills would make their rates go down. How's that work out at a higher price? Worse yet, it's a 20 year contract, so the rate the utility pays for wind juice automatically goes up every year. Twenty years from now it will cost 50 cents a kwh. On top of the tax breaks you taunt us as being conservative.
But at least nobody gave away tax money, did they, Peli? So, what the hell, it must be a free lunch. Right?
Wrong. There is no free lunch. A truth which you yoiurself tacitly admit when you say you believe the feds should invest in wind energy. If it did not cost there would be no investment.
I don't see where we ever get anywhere with these discussions, though, Peli. I can give you facts and history, past and present, and you will just come back with something so off the wall that it makes me want to ask what color is the moon on your planet. Endless straw men, irrelevancies about who else we subsidize, cherry picked facts. I prolly sound the same to you. Why?
Cause we are coming from opposite poles. You're a statist. I'm a humanist.
The statist believes government is smarter and more capable and more benevolent than people. The statist believes in people of, by, and for the government.
The humanist believes that what we have seen over all the millennia remains true: government is stupider, more corrupt, and more inept than people. The humanist believes in government of, by, and for the people.
Which of these two describes the American experiment in Liberty?
My bottom line is always this: Nothing I propose begins with taking your money nor ends with telling you how to live. That's my definition of liberty. Everything you propose does. Cause liberty is for brainwashed right wing reactionary tea bagger nut jobs. Innit? Worst of all, you think anyone who resents you taking their money and pushing them around, if they get angry, they are not civil.
If you want to pay more tilting at windmills, do it. I'm not stopping you. If I don't, don't make me. Stop it.
Now I gotta stop editing this and go smoke on the porch. Thanks for listening.