Tag Archives: Renewable energy

The Agenda Behind The Myth Of Global Warming

Posted on by

Today’s Washington Examiner posted a story about the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio next week.

The article reports on one agenda item at the conference:

“We recognize that subsidies for non-renewable energy development should be eliminated and replaced with a global tax on the production of energy from non-renewable energy sources,” the UN draft agenda, amended by non-governmental organizations at the invitation of the UN, says. “The income of this tax should be allocated to renewable energy development.” The draft agenda was obtained by the Center for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a group skeptical of the UN’s position on global warming.

There is no proof of global warming or that man contributes to it. This is simply a way to redistribute the weath of countries that have prospered to countries that have not prospered. Generally speaking, countries that have prospered are countries with private property rights, freedom, and free economies not controlled by their governments. If the UN really wanted to bring prosperity to the poorer nations of the world, shouldn’t they be working toward establishing freedom in the countries where poverty is rampant?

The article further reports:

CFACT reported in December that negotiators at the UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, discussed the future implementation of “a new tax on every foreign currency transaction in the world,” that would disproportionately fall on the United States because “transactions within the Eurozone won’t have to pay this new tax.”

It really is time for the United States to get out of the United Nations.

Enhanced by Zemanta

The Politics Of American Energy Independence

Posted on by
English: Cropped portion of image from USGS re...

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday’s Washington Times posted a story about a Marcellus Shale gas-drilling study released earlier this month by the State University of New York at Buffalo’s Shale Resources and Society Institute. 

The article reports:

Released earlier this month, the report concludes that Pennsylvania regulators have done an effective job cutting down on environmental incidents within the state’s burgeoning natural-gas industry, a sector driven almost entirelyby hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the controversial practice of using water, sand and chemicals to crack deep underground rock and release huge quantities of natural gas.

Its authors, including SUNY-Buffalo employee and institute Director John P. Martin, have come under increasing fire from critics who say they’ve spun figures from Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection in order to cast a favorable light on fracking and the companies that employ it.

Fracking is the technique that will give America access to its vast natural gas resources, which could easily lead to energy independence for America. It is opposed by radical environmentalists who want to turn to renewable sources of energy rather than carbon based sources. Unfortunately, our current economy is based on carbon sources and barring some miracle fuel invented in the private sector (where free market forces can allow the competition to determine the best product), an abrupt transition to green energy would be very cumbersome and painful for all Americans.

The article further reports:

Only 25 of the 845 environmental events in Pennsylvania from 2008 through August 2011 were considered “major” incidents. They included land spills, site-restoration failures and well blowouts.

Critics contend that the study glosses over the fact that the number of major events shot up from one in 2008 to 10 in 2011. As a percentage of wells drilled, that equates to 0.6 events per 1,000 wells in 2008, and 0.8 events per 1,000 wells drilled in 2011.

All forms of energy have risks and downsides–I reported on April 30 that a recent study showed that windmills cause global warming (rightwinggranny.com). We know that windmills are a danger to certain birds. Man has been looking for the perpetual motion machine for a long time. It doesn’t exist–either in machine form or in energy form. Energy independence is a national security issue as well as an environmental issue. It’s time to grow up, face the facts, and get on with making America energy independent.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Exposing The Lies In The President’s Energy Speech

Posted on by

Yesterday Investors.com posted its fact check on President Obama’s recent energy speech. They noted five lies and posted the relevant facts.

Here is the summary:

1. The President claimed that he was focused on production. Actually, the current increase in production is due to the actions of the Bush Administration before President Obama took office. President Obama has closed down exploration and slowed down the issuing of permits for offshore drilling.

2. The President stated that America has 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, but consumes more that one fifth of the world’s oil. Actually, the U.S. has a mind-boggling 1.4 trillion barrels of oil, enough to “fuel the present needs in the U.S. for around 250 years,” according to the Institute for Energy Research. The problem is the government has put most of this supply off limits.

3. The President stated, “Because of the investments we’ve made, the use of clean, renewable energy in this country has nearly doubled.” According to the Federal Energy Information Administration (EIA), production of renewable energy increased 12% between 2008 and 2011.

4. The President stated, “We need to double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.” According to the EIA, renewable energy will account for just 13% of U.S. energy production by 2035.

5. The President stated, “There are no short-term silver bullets when it comes to gas prices.”

The article reminds us:

Obama could drive down oil prices right now simply by announcing a more aggressive effort to boost domestic supplies. When President Bush lifted a moratorium in 2008, oil prices immediately fell $9 a barrel.

President Obama’s nose is growing.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

It May Be Part Of Our Future, But It Is Not Part Of Our Present

Posted on by
 Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line about some recent events in the quest for green energy. On Friday, the Huffington Post reported that the lithium-ion batteries in the Chevy Volt have caught fire after being involved in crash tests. The fires did not occur immediately–in one instance the car was being stored in a parking lot of a test facility in Burlington, Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, Google has abandoned its quest for running its data center entirely on green energy.

The article reports:

Meanwhile, Google has quietly abandoned an alternative energy program that it launched with great fanfare just two years ago.  Google’s “Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal” project featured all the hallmarks of the pie-in-the-sky energy mongers, especially the “it’s-just-around-the-corner” trope.  Google’s green energy czar at the launch, Bill Weihl, predicted that renewable electricity cheaper than coal would be achieved quickly: “In three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there.”

The article also reports on Google’s other investments in green energy:

“Google’s stakes in the wind farms are ‘tax equity’ investments, in which investors buy into a project and use federal tax credits granted to the project to offset their own taxes.”

Remember all the uproar from Occupy Wall Street about corporate welfare? This is what corporate welfare actually is–the government granting a tax break to a company that funds the government’s pet project. This is what crony capitalism is about. Taxes and government are being used to control the behavior of corporations. When you consider that many of the major investors in green energy companies are key players in Congress, this begins to look really ugly.

Green energy is a wonderful idea. I suspect we will see it actually work sometime in the near future. However, pouring government money into a technology before it is ready for prime time is not a wise move.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta