Tag Archives: Spain

With Friends Like These…

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It has long been understood that the purpose of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was to bring American military might into the picture if Europe was attacked. There really wasn’t much point in bringing European military might into the picture if America was attacked because Europe doesn’t have a lot of military might. So America was the big brother ready to fight off the bully. Under President Trump, European nations have done better at paying their share of their defense, but generally America has footed the bill. You would think that they might appreciate the protection. Obviously, they do not.

On March 6th, Red State reported:

Does being an European “ally” of America even mean anything anymore? That’s a valid question after several NATO nations not only initially denied the use of their military bases during Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing attack on Iran, but also offered tacit support for the Islamic regime.

The article includes an X post that includes a statement from Spain’s Prime Minister:

Spain’s far-left Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on the US and Israel military operation in Iran: “Today more than ever, it is essential to remember that one can be against a hateful regime and at the same time be against an unjustified, dangerous military intervention outside of international law. […] That is where Spain will be, and that is where I believe the whole of the European Union should be.”

The article notes:

Given Spain’s history over the last century or so, it wasn’t exactly surprising that they’d take the side of Islamic fascists over the country that pays for their defense. The Western European country once again fell woefully short of its NATO spending requirements in 2025 while continuing to expand its welfare state, a dynamic that has been allowed to exist for far too long.

You’d expect better from the United Kingdom, though. Well, at least up until fairly recently. After all, the Brits are supposedly America’s closest, most reliable ally. Yet, in a stunning move, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer denied the use of his country’s military bases for logistical support. Further, he refused to mobilize any forces for defensive operations in the weeks before Iran’s missile and drone barrages began.

That proved disastrous, with several Gulf allies lambasting Starmer for hanging them out to dry, even as hundreds of thousands of British nationals were coming under attack.

The article concludes:

I’m going to be frank. The United States can not have a “closest ally” that can’t even be counted on to provide defensive support from ballistic missiles because they are too busy arguing over the finer points of something as irrelevant as “international law.” At no point did the Trump administration ask Starmer to participate in the offensive attacks on Iran. All that was requested was help in suppressing the Islamic regime’s attacks on civilians. That the UK didn’t immediately oblige and instead spent days playing politics, even as the missiles fell, is a damning indictment of a once special relationship. 

Never mind that the Brits have allowed their once world-leading navy to waste away into a mostly dry-docked, ineffectual fleet. To the extent that they could even launch defensive assets, such as destroyers with anti-ballistic missile systems, that ability remains severely restricted. 

This isn’t complicated, in my view. If you’re a NATO nation that suckles at the teat of the American taxpayer for your defense needs while you blow all your money on social programs, there should be an expectation that you do the bare minimum when we ask for assistance. If that’s not going to happen, then it’s time to start reassessing some of these alliances. 

Western civilization is on its deathbed in Europe and England.

Placing The Blame On The Wrong People

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Those who are protesting the Israeli incursion into Gaza need to remember the events of October 7, 2023. Up until that point, Israel was existing peacefully next to Gaza,  providing jobs for residents of Gaza who couldn’t find work in Gaza. On October 7th, many of those workers killed and tortured the people who were helping them feed their families. What kind of mindset does that? On October 7th, the paradigm changed–it became obvious that a two-state solution was not possible. You can’t live peacefully next door to people who want to kill you and steal your land. Unfortunately, there is a propaganda war that Hamas has been waging since that day that has been way too successful.

On Monday, The Associated Press reported the following:

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday called for Israel to be banned from sports events after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the end of the Spanish Vuelta cycling race in chaotic scenes in Madrid.

Israel’s foreign minister responded by calling Sánchez an “antisemite and a liar.”

Tensions between the countries have escalated in recent weeks as Spain’s left-wing government expressed support for protesters who interrupted several stages of the Vuelta, including Sunday’s final stage in Madrid, because an Israeli team was taking part.

Speaking to members of his Socialist Party, Sánchez said Israel, just like Russia, should not be allowed to compete in international sports because of its military campaign in Gaza.

“The sports organizations should consider whether it’s ethical for Israel to keep participating in international competitions. Why expel Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and not expel Israel after the invasion of Gaza?” Sanchez said. “Until the barbarity ends, neither Russia nor Israel should be in any international competition.”

Notice that the pro-Palestinian activists disrupted things–not the Israelis. But in condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza, Sanchez says nothing about the people who baked babies in ovens, raped women, and celebrated murder on October 7. I have a problem with his double standard.

The article notes:

The Spanish government had already expressed sympathy with the protesters and suggested the Israel Premier Tech team should have withdrawn from the three-week-long race that became a diplomatic battleground.

Just for the record, Spain was one of the countries that voted to support a sovereign State of Palestine in a recent United Nations vote. These countries have bought into the Hamas propaganda. There will never be a peaceful Palestinian state–the goal of a Palestinian state is a one-state solution–no Israel. There will not be peace in the Middle East until the countries of the world figure that out.

Actions Have Consequences

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The idea of renewable energy sounds wonderful–sunlight should be endless, and wind should be endless. Unfortunately, the sun does not shine all of the time, and the wind does not blow all of the time. That could (and did) create a problem.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported the following:

Spain’s power network has remained silent on the actual cause of Europe’s worst power blackout in a generation, but has acknowledged that it is “very possible” that a problem with solar power systems may have contributed to the failure.

A freak weather incident was blamed on Monday for a massive power cut that affected the entire Iberian Peninsula, depriving Spain and Portugal of electricity. However, this narrative was quickly questioned by energy industry insiders, and Spain’s national energy company now acknowledges that renewable power failure may have been a contributing factor.

Red Eléctrica (RE), the national energy grid firm, has stated that it has ruled out a cyberattack and insists, “We were able to conclude that there was indeed no intrusion into Red Eléctrica’s control system,” despite the national counter-terrorism prosecutor ordering an inquiry. Judge José Luis Calama has given RE and the national cyber-security centre ten days to compile initial reports into the sabotage hypothesis, reports El País.

While the Spanish media is today full of the effects of yesterday’s total blackout, with 150,000 having to be rescued from underground trains trapped in tunnels and whole areas, including hospitals, left without water as the electric-powered pumps fell silent, the public unable to buy food and drink unless they had ready cash to hand, and telephone and internet networks being rendered non-functional, less is being said about how the crisis began.

The article notes:

A report on the importance of inertia in a functioning power grid cited by Porter in turn quoted the United Kingdom’s National Grid Electricity System Operator, who explained in 2022: “Operating the system with low inertia will continue to represent a key operational challenge into the future and we will need to ensure we improve our understanding of the challenges this will bring”.

That report, published by a supplier of clutches for power stations, noted: “Renewable generation is increasingly displacing conventional generation in the generation mix, reducing the amount of heavy, rotating turbines on the grid and therefore the amount of inertia they provide.”

These fragilities are not unknown to the electricity industry, and much has been written on the challenges of transition to renewable power. Yet Bloomberg’s Blas wrote just last week that it has only been comparatively recently that the green energy lobby has even acknowledged such problems, having taken the position in the past that any criticism of green energy systems was motivated by cynicism and ideological opposition, rather than what he called “electricity realism” and real concern about grid resilience.

…Naturally, political attention throughout Europe has turned to the Iberian blackout, particularly as left-leaning governments strive to catch up with Spain in what they call decarbonising their own energy grids. In the United Kingdom, where the government says it wants to reach “Net Zero carbon emissions” by 2050 and wants to achieve this without importing slave-labour-linked solar panels from China, Green Great Reset sceptics have spoken out on the need for a pause and rethink in the light of this week’s events.

Brexit’s Nigel Farage, who is already styling himself as a Prime Minister in waiting and who is cruising towards what pollsters say may be a convincing election victory in nationwide local government contests this week, said on Tuesday morning that “the power outage in Spain is a warning”. The United Kingdom is dangerously reliant on foreign energy imports, he said, stating: “This net zero madness must end”.

Things that work in theory don’t always work in practice.

I Guess That Didn’t Go As Planned

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On Wednesday, Just the News posted the following headline:

Massive offshore wind project that was to be operational in 2023 gets a single turbine running

At some point, I believe that we are going to discover that wind and solar may not be the future of energy–they may be a supplement, but they can never replace fossil fuel to handle the energy needs of a growing world population.

In 2019, I reported the following:

In August 2014 The Daily Caller posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert to green energy:

According to a new report by the free-market Institute for Energy Research, Spain’s green energy policies have resulted in skyrocketing electricity prices, billions of euros in debt and rising carbon dioxide emissions.

“For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow,” said IER in a statement on their new study. “However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.”

Spain began heavily subsidizing green energy sources, like wind and solar, in the early 2000s with its“Promotion Plan for Renewable Energies. The country used a combination of generous feed-in tariffs, green energy generation quotas and green power subsidies to boost renewable energy development in the country and lower its carbon dioxide emissions.

…But what seemed like a booming green energy economy on the surface was really becoming a costly way to help drive Spain into economic recession. By 2011, Spain’s electricity prices stood at 29.46 U.S. ¢/kilowatt-hour — two and a half times what electricity cost in the U.S. at the time.

The Just the News article reports:

Vineyard Wind, a massive offshore wind project 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, failed to deliver electricity in 2023 as its developers had pledged to do, but they announced Wednesday that one of the project’s 62 turbines was running.

The project’s developers had for years been selling the project as the first utility-scale offshore wind project in the country, based on the 2023 timeline, according to Statehouse News. In December, New York’s South Fork Wind became the nation’s first.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid, Inc. announced Wednesday that it had managed to get one of the project’s 62 turbines operational, supplying 5 of its 800 megawatts to the grid.

The Commonwealth Beacon reported Tuesday that the developers had missed its 2023 pledge, which they were promising to meet late last week.

Two days into the new year, the Beacon reported, the developers of the $4 billion project still had not made good on the promise.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the story. At what point are we going to admit that no matter how much money the government gives solar and wind energy, the disadvantages outweigh the benefits?

Ignoring The Solution To High Energy Prices

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On February 28th, BizPacReview posted an article illustrating the Biden administration’s plan to deal with the current high energy prices.

The article reports:

White House press secretary Jen Psaki called for furthering green energy initiatives in the face of foreign oil dependence that could see Americans burdened by $150/barrel prices.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Psaki dismissed calls for President Biden to restart the Keystone XL oil pipeline and instead harkened back to the executive order that canceled the project which stated, the U.S. “must prioritize the development of a clean energy economy.”

“What this actually justifies in President Biden’s view is the fact that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general,” Psaki claimed, “and we need to look at other ways of having energy in our country and others.

In 1948, Winston Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons in which he said, “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” The actual quote is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana-1905). Regardless of the origin or the wording, the concept is valid. Unfortunately we have an administration in Washington that is ignoring those words.

In September 2014, I posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert from fossil fuel to green energy. I quoted a Daily Caller article detailing the results:

The IER study also notes that Spain’s green agenda was not able to keep its carbon footprint from rising. Between 1994 and 2011, Spain’s carbon dioxide emissions grew 34.5 percent, despite the country’s green push which began in the 1990s.

“While the renewable policies themselves were likely not the cause of the emissions increase, the upward trend does prove that renewable energy policies were insufficient to reduce CO2 emissions over a roughly twenty-year period,” according to IER.

“is anything but the model for American energy policy,” reads the IER study. “The country’s expensive feed-in tariff system, subsidies, and renewable energy quotas have plunged a sizable portion of Spaniards into fuel poverty, raised electricity bills, all while having almost no meaningful impact on curtailing carbon dioxide emissions.”

The article at BizPacReview states:

Contrary to Psaki, Bartiromo pointed out, “The only move for the United States at this point to protect itself is to become energy independent again.”

Bartiromo (Maria Bartiromo) further stated that Biden is partially responsible for the looming energy crisis as he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and all drilling on federal land on his first day in office. Biden continued the assault on domestic energy production last week when the administration delayed decisions on permitting new oil and gas leases, Fox Business reported.

The delay is in direct response to an injunction that prevents these new leases from paying more than $50/ton on their carbon emissions that Biden also demanded on his first day in office. The judge’s temporary injunction allows the rate to remain at the $7/ton that President Trump had instituted following the initial $50+/ton under President Obama.

Biden had also proposed banning all crude oil exports from the United States in December, a consideration which was highly panned amidst an already suffering economy. Republican pushback against such devastating measures was led in part by Rep. August Pfluger (TX) who has once again stepped up to promote American energy security.

The war over Ukraine has further proven that America needs to be not only energy independent, but a major exporter of fossil fuel. That is the only way to remain a world power. If the Biden administration continues its race toward green energy, we can count on being a third-world country by the end of the Biden administration.

Bowing To Reality

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On Sunday, The Epoch Times posted an article that might indicate that Europe is waking up the pitfalls of ‘green energy.’

The article reports:

The European Union has drafted a proposal that allows consideration for natural gas and nuclear energy to be included within the scope of “green” investments as countries and environmentalists battle over the complicated classification system.

Later this month, the European Commission is expected to suggest recommendations on the environmental criteria needed in order to classify an energy source as “green” and whether projects can be included within the EU’s “sustainable finance taxonomy.” According to draft conclusions viewed by multiple media outlets, the commission has suggested adding gas and nuclear energy to the green mix, resulting in immediate criticism from some governing political parties and environmental activists.

Gas projects would be temporarily labeled green if they were utilized in place of coal and emitted less than 270 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour (e/kWh), receive a construction permit before the end of 2030, and plan to switch to a renewable energy source by 2035.

There are a lot of problems with ‘green energy.’ Although solar energy and wind energy seem like a wonderful idea, the chemicals that go into making solar panels and the problem of disposing of wind turbine blades after they are no longer useful need to be considered. Natural gas is extremely clean burning and abundant. Nuclear energy with good safety measures is also reliable and safe. At some point we are going to have to admit that green energy alone will not provide the power needed to run our civilization.

The article concludes:

“Taking account of scientific advice and current technological progress as well as varying transition challenges across member states, the Commission considers there is a role for natural gas and nuclear as a means to facilitate the transition toward a predominantly renewable-based future,” the European Commission said in a Jan. 1 statement.

EU advisers have contended that gas projects shouldn’t be given green labels unless the amount of emitted carbon dioxide is less than 100 grams per e/kWh, failing which there could be disastrous consequences for the climate. Nuclear power, likewise, can have adverse effects on the environment, especially when it comes to the disposal of radioactive waste.

“By including them … the commission risks jeopardizing the credibility of the EU’s role as a leading marketplace for sustainable finance,” European Greens President Philippe Lamberts said, Reuters reported.

Several European countries that operate nuclear plants, such as France, want the bloc to consider the nuclear option to be included in the so-called taxonomy to make it eligible for green financing.

In September 2014, I posted an article detailing what happened when Spain decided to  convert to green energy. What happened in Spain should have been enough to encourage the EU to include natural gas and nuclear energy in their future energy plans.

The Dangers Of Moving To Green Energy Before The Technology Is Perfected

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On February 10th, The John Locke Foundation posted an article about the proposed energy policies of North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.

The article reports:

  • Last summer California suffered two days of rolling blackouts
  • California’s Utility Commission recently published their findings of what happened to cause the massive loss in power
  • Years of misguided policies led to a shortage of dispatchable energy — the same policies Gov. Roy Cooper is advocating for North Carolina

Last summer California suffered two days of rolling blackouts because the customers’ needs for electricity exceeded the California power system’s ability to generate electricity. Such a thing should never happen. The California Utilities Commission recently published a report explaining what happened and why.

North Carolinians should know that many of the energy policies Gov. Roy Cooper has advocated for here in North Carolina follow the mistakes identified as the cause of California’s blackouts. As in California, these missteps will leave North Carolina unprepared for our energy future and will ultimately lead to blackouts here. North Carolina should not repeat California’s mistakes.

The job of providing stable electricity to the consumer can be complicated, but this much is pretty simple: enough electricity must always be generated to meet the demand. The United States has developed one of the world’s finest electricity systems. Its costs are among the lowest, and its reliability is among the highest. What happened to California? What bad energy decisions were made over the years in California resulting in rolling blackouts?

According to the “Root Cause Analysis” published by California Independent System Operator, the California Public Utilities Commission, and the California Energy Commission, here are the factors that led to the outages:

  1. Climate change–induced extreme weather caused the demand to exceed the generating capability of the California system.
  2. In transitioning to “clean” energy, the State’s dispatchable generating capacity had “not kept pace” with the state’s needs.
  3. The State’s “Resource Adequacy” program failed to predict the needs of the heat wave.

The article concludes:

Cooper is steering North Carolina in the same direction. He opposes building new natural gas pipelines while pushing for more solar plants, which need natural gas backup. Is this where we want North Carolina to go? Do we want more poverty? Do we want the poorest having to pay more of their monthly income for electricity? Do we want rolling blackouts?

Shouldn’t we learn from California’s mistakes instead and keep natural gas plants supplied with gas while we build more nuclear power?

There are a few things those promoting green energy (including electric cars) fail to mention when promoting their agenda. The disposal of the blades on windmills and the disposal of solar panels are creating an environmental hazard. The mining of lithium for electric car batteries involves the use of slave labor in Africa. (articles here, here, here, and here). Rolling blackouts are not acceptable in a country as prosperous as America. We have cut our carbon footprint significantly with the use of natural gas. It is folly to believe we can run a successful economy without the careful use of fossil fuel to keep the economy going. Spain learned that lesson in the early 2000’s (article here).

Hopefully the legislature can put Governor Cooper on the right track.

 

At Least Someone Is Fighting This Policy

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On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the Western Energy Alliance. This group sued the Biden administration Wednesday alleging that the pause on oil and gas leases on federal land and waters exceeds presidential authority.

The article reports:

As part of President Biden’s ultimate goal of eliminating fossil fuel as a power source by 2035, and from the entire U.S. economy entirely by 2050, Wednesday’s executive orders direct agencies to end federal subsidies for fossil fuels, to pause new oil and gas leases on federal lands and water. It aims to conserve 30% of the country’s lands and ocean waters in the next 10 years and requires federal agencies to move to all-electric vehicle fleets.

It carries significant risks and opposition.

Michael Shellenberger, the author of Apocalypse Never, said: “Climate change is not the most important environmental problem. Most of the trends are going in the right direction: Deaths from natural disasters are at an all-time low. Carbon emissions in the United States peaked over a decade ago; they’ve been going down ever since. They’ve been going down in wealthy countries for almost 40 years. We should continue to do what’s been working, replacing coal with natural gas and nuclear, but this is not the apocalyptic trend that people have been led to believe it is.”

Shellenberger, an environmentalist, a Democrat, and Biden voter, maintains that wind and solar produce their own environmental damage, adding, “They just gave permission, the federal government, to industrial wind farms to kill condors. This is, for people that are environmentalists, true conservationists — that’s bonkers.”

The article concludes:

Republicans will no doubt attack what they see as Democratic hypocrisy on the issue. Climate czar Kerry is known to fly on the Heinz Family Foundation’s private Gulfstream jet. Private jets consume roughly 40 times the carbon per passenger as commercial jets.

I support using the cleanest energy possible. However, the idea of running an economy entirely on green energy reminds me of the search for the perpetual motion machine. There are laws of physics that come into play when you are dealing with energy, the creation of energy, and motion.

We need to learn from the experience of Spain, as detailed in The Daily Caller on August 28, 2014.

Please follow the link to read the entire article in The Daily Caller, but this is the bottom line:

Spain has actually been scaling back its costly green energy agenda the past year or two in the face of high debt and unemployment. The country cut wind subsidies to major wind farms back in February and, in June, Spanish officials announced a new electricity rate schedule that effectively ended green energy feed-in tariffs.

The IER study also notes that Spain’s green agenda was not able to keep its carbon footprint from rising. Between 1994 and 2011, Spain’s carbon dioxide emissions grew 34.5 percent, despite the country’s green push which began in the 1990s.

“While the renewable policies themselves were likely not the cause of the emissions increase, the upward trend does prove that renewable energy policies were insufficient to reduce CO2 emissions over a roughly twenty-year period,” according to IER.

“is anything but the model for American energy policy,” reads the IER study. “The country’s expensive feed-in tariff system, subsidies, and renewable energy quotas have plunged a sizable portion of Spaniards into fuel poverty, raised electricity bills, all while having almost no meaningful impact on curtailing carbon dioxide emissions.”

We shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel. We need to learn the lessons of those who already reinvented the wheel and discovered it needed to be round. To attempt to go down the same road as Spain, ignoring the lessons they learned, is folly.

Defective Test Kits Really Didn’t Help Anyone

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One America News is reporting today that Spain has returned the coronavirus test kits supplied to the country by China because they are defective.

The article reports:

According to Spain’s prime minister, coronavirus test kits supplied by a Chinese company have been sent back after being deemed to be inaccurate. Pedro Sánchez made the announcement on Saturday and confirmed that the kits would be replaced.

The Spanish government faced immense criticism following the purchase of more than half a million kits, 60,000 of which were found to be only 30 percent effective. This prompted critics to question the process the government followed when it purchased the kits.

…The Chinese company that supplied the kits claimed the incorrect results may be due to a failure to collect samples or use the tests correctly. The Czech Republic also reported a similar situation this week, saying around 80 percent of the 150,000 kits delivered from China were faulty.

There will always be a risk in buying something from a country that employs slave labor and does not allow freedom of information. It is quite possible that the defective kits were sent hoping that no one would notice that they didn’t work. Note that the Chinese company is blaming the user–not the test kits. That lack of taking responsibility has been part of China’s handling of the coronavirus since the virus was first known–probably in November of last year.

The Need For A Reality Check

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Green energy is a wonderful concept. Energy in Iceland is almost entirely green because the country sits on a number of volcanoes that supply it with thermal energy. I’m not sure that I am willing to live on a volcano to get thermal energy, but that is one way to go green. However, the quest for green energy where there is not such an obvious energy source has not been particularly successful.

CNS News posted an article yesterday about the statement put out by Speaker Pelosi to recognize Black History Month.

The article has the entire statement, but I think the focus is interesting:

Democrats will be pushing a “For the People” agenda that will include raising wages by building green infrastructure.

“And we are pushing forward a bold, ambitious agenda For The People to make good on the promise of the American Dream for everyone by lowering the cost of health care and prescription drugs, raising wages by rebuilding America with green, modern infrastructure, and strengthening our democracy by ensuring that our government works for the public interest, not the special interests,” Pelosi said.

Let’s talk about rebuilding America with green, modern infrastructure. Green energy is one of the major special interest groups in America.

In 2015, The Washington Times reported:

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion in expected costs from the federal government’s energy loan guarantee programs, according to a new audit Monday that suggests the controversial projects may not pay for themselves, as officials had promised.

Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit.

The hefty $2.2 billion price tag is actually an improvement over initial estimates, which found the government was poised to face $4 billion in losses from the loan guarantees. But as the projects have come to fruition, they’ve performed better, leaving taxpayers with a shrinking — though still sizable — liability.

It’s a good thing Speaker Pelosi didn’t say anything about lowering taxes–maybe the increased wages with increased taxes will pay for the green energy.

This green energy idea has not been successful when tried before.

In August 2014 The Daily Caller posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert to green energy:

According to a new report by the free-market Institute for Energy Research, Spain’s green energy policies have resulted in skyrocketing electricity prices, billions of euros in debt and rising carbon dioxide emissions.

“For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow,” said IER in a statement on their new study. “However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.”

Spain began heavily subsidizing green energy sources, like wind and solar, in the early 2000s with its“Promotion Plan for Renewable Energies. The country used a combination of generous feed-in tariffs, green energy generation quotas and green power subsidies to boost renewable energy development in the country and lower its carbon dioxide emissions.

…But what seemed like a booming green energy economy on the surface was really becoming a costly way to help drive Spain into economic recession. By 2011, Spain’s electricity prices stood at 29.46 U.S. ¢/kilowatt-hour — two and a half times what electricity cost in the U.S. at the time.

President Trump has helped all Americans. We have the lowest unemployment among minorities that we have had in a very long time. Wages are going up, taxes are going down, and the workforce participation rate is climbing. I suggest that if Speaker Pelosi truly wants to help minorities during Black History Month she should support President Trump’s economic agenda.

Note The Lack Of Women And Children

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Yesterday Breitbart posted a picture of a group of illegal immigrants headed for Spain.

This is the picture:

At first glance, these seem to be all young men who should be capable of working to change things in their home countries. They do not look like starving, desperate immigrants.

The article reports:

Footage shared by Diario de Cádiz on Twitter shows an entire boatload of migrants landing in the middle of the packed tourist beach of Zahora on Saturday, July 28th, and disgorging onto the sand, before scattering into the interior unregistered and unvetted.

…Moroccan-dominated gangs running arms, drugs, and unlicensed tobacco products between North Africa and Spain have long been an issue for the Southern European country’s authorities, who recently told the El Pais newspaper: “We are in a state of war… And we are losing.”

The recent installation of a new Socialist government, which has made a show of being in favour of more open borders at a time when Italy’s new populist coalition is cracking down on illegal sea crossings, appears to have left them having to cope with an increased number of migrants as well as conventional criminals.

European security services are concerned that travel of this kind could be used to execute a deadly terror attack, with armed jihadists landing on a beach like the one at Zahora and opening fire on sunbathers in a seaborne version of the Tunisia attack which left 38 mostly British tourists dead in 2017.

A country without secured borders is not a country. Europe is rapidly learning that lesson the hard way. Hopefully America will learn from their example.

Ruled By The Dollar

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It seems as if any attempt at honesty in the energy field is met with lots of dollars being donated to oppose it. We know that the Saudis have funded a large portion of the anti-fracking movement in America because they don’t want to lose their monopoly on oil. Well, that is not the only place money is fighting science.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about pushback from the wind industry’s lobbying arm.

The article reports:

Not long after Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced a 60-day review of green energy policies’ impact on electric grid reliability, the wind industry’s lobbying arm devised a strategy to push back against the study, according to a leaked memo.

Perry’s April announcement worried the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and others that the requested study could be used to bash subsidies and policies that allowed wind energy production to rapidly grow in recent years.

AWEA laid out a plan to engage with federal lawmakers, regulators and the media to push back against a study they saw as “supporting baseload sources such as coal and nuclear,” according to a leaked memo obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In March 2011 I posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert to green energy. The attempt was a total failure–green energy is not reliable–the wind does not blow consistently 24/7 and the sun does not shine every day. The blades of windmills and the pressure around the blades kills birds, and the air above a solar farm can literally fry birds flying by. The attempt to convert to green energy caused energy prices to skyrocket and almost tanked the Spanish economy.

The green energy lobby is already taking aim at the review of green energy policies:

Green energy supporters and environmentalists interpreted the department’s study as a lifeline to coal and nuclear power plants, many of which have been slated for closure in the coming years. The Trump administration may be more focused on promoting coal and nuclear, green energy advocates fear.

AWEA quickly circulated a memo with other green advocates to push back against Perry’s study. The group planned a media and advocacy blitz in preparation for a study critical of wind power.

AWEA personnel would discuss the study with “contacts” at the Energy Department and present their own research to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the electric grid, according to the memo sent out by AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan on April 17.

Kiernan also wanted AWEA to “pursue late April meeting with Secretary Perry and wind CEOs” and to lock down a meeting with Perry in Dallas, Texas.

The memo mentions teaming up with the Solar Energy Industries of America and the pro-green energy Advanced Energy Economy to issue a “joint response” to the study. Kiernan also suggested working with allies in Congress and the media, including The New York Times.

It’s really about the money–not the environment–the green energy industry is worried about losing its government subsidies. My feeling on that is if you can’t make green energy economically feasible without government money, then it isn’t really economically feasible and you need to go back to the drawing board and invent something better!

It Sounds Good, But It Doesn’t Work

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Spain went ‘green’ a few years ago. They began heavily subsidizing solar and wind energy projects in the early 2000’s. Last Thursday, the Daily Caller posted an article updating us on the results of this program.

The article reports:

“For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow,” said IER (Institute for Energy Research) in a statement on their new study. “However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.”

This really does not sound like an example we want to follow.

Not only did Spain’s green energy program hurt the Spanish economy, it didn’t help with the carbon footprint.

The article reports:

The IER study also notes that Spain’s green agenda was not able to keep its carbon footprint from rising. Between 1994 and 2011, Spain’s carbon dioxide emissions grew 34.5 percent, despite the country’s green push which began in the 1990s.

“While the renewable policies themselves were likely not the cause of the emissions increase, the upward trend does prove that renewable energy policies were insufficient to reduce CO2 emissions over a roughly twenty-year period,” according to IER.

“is anything but the model for American energy policy,” reads the IER study. “The country’s expensive feed-in tariff system, subsidies, and renewable energy quotas have plunged a sizable portion of Spaniards into fuel poverty, raised electricity bills, all while having almost no meaningful impact on curtailing carbon dioxide emissions.”

Green energy may eventually provide better ways to fuel the world’s economy, but we are not there yet. We need to allow the free market to determine our steps forward. Government subsidies are obviously not the answer.

Haven’t These People Ever Heard Of Motel 6 ?

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The Daily Caller reported today that Michelle Obama‘s trip to Spain in 2010 cost the American taxpayers an estimated $467,585. Let’s take a minute and talk about some of the places we could easily cut federal spending. I don’t begrudge the First Lady a vacation–she deserves time off. But it does seem a little insensitive that when many Americans are putting aside their vacation plans in a tight economy with rising gasoline costs, Michelle Obama is living like a queen.

The article reports:

The New York Times reported that those on the trip included the first lady, one of her daughters and “two friends and four of their daughters, as well as a couple of aides and a couple of advance staff members.”

Fitton’s group has previously disclosed the cost of sending the first family on overseas trips. Its analysis indicated that it cost $424,142 to fly the first family to South Africa and Botswana in 2011.

That’s nearly one millions dollars on trips in two years. It seems a little high. I would think that the First Family would be willing to set an example for the rest of the country in cutting back their spending.

In February 2010, as quoted in an article in The U. K. Telegraph, the President told Americans:

Speaking about the economy at an event in New Hampshire, Mr Obama told Americans: “When times are tough, you tighten your belts.

“You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college. You prioritise. You make tough choices.”

The President should start listening to his own speeches.

 

 

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The Secret Service Were Not The Only People Caught With Their Pants Down In Columbia

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily reported on a major event at the Colombian summit that seems to have been overlooked in the reporting.

The article reports:

Never was a response to a global outrage more mealy-mouthed than the one from the U.S. after Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, standing under a portrait of Evita Peron, announced a brazen grab for YPF, the Argentine oil company that’s 57% owned by Spain’s Repsol.

Markets fell, world leaders denounced the violation of contracts and economically battered Spain rallied European Union support.

But the U.S.? “We are following developments on this issue. We are not currently aware of any WTO complaints related to this issue,” the State Department said.

The article points out that Argentina is in financial trouble because of overspending. If Argentina defaults or Spain defaults, the IMF will be called in to do a bailout. That will directly impact the pockets of American taxpayers.

The article reminds us:

Meanwhile, U.S. investors own about 5% of Repsol. Its takeover hurts U.S. investors and our tax base. This should concern the indebted U.S., which if it did what other countries do, would defend its investors.

The U.S. buys 29,000 barrels a day from Argentina, a third of its output, and will need to find a new supplier as that collapses. Worse still, Argentina will lose investment in its vast shale reserves, the world’s third-largest at 22%. As that goes, prices will rise.

Worst of all, the expropriated assets may now go to China, significantly raising its influence in the region.

It sounds as if our State Department was not paying attention to the events around them.

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Why We All Need To Pay Attention Before The Next Election

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Yesterday Investors.com posted an article about a campaign ad the Obama campaign has created. The ad is total fiction, and the article explains why.

One of the claims in the ad is that the Obama Administration has decreased America’s dependence on foreign oil. The ad fails to mention that during a recession American oil consumption decreases and thus the amount of oil we import decreases. The article also fails to mention that gasoline consumption is down because the price of a gallon of gas has almost doubled under President Obama. The article includes a chart:

The article also deals with some of the other claims in the ad. President Obama claims that according to the Brookings Institution his administration has created 2.7 million clean energy jobs and is expanding rapidly. Again, that doesn’t line up with the facts. The article reports:

“Overall, today’s clean economy establishments added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, expanding at an annual rate of 3.4 %” — a half-million over eight years being a tiny gain. And that “this performance lagged the growth in the national economy, which grew by 4.2% annually over the period.”

We need to remember that Spain ended its government sponsored green energy program because for every job they created, two jobs were lost. We need to learn from the Spanish experience.

Overall the ad is a very nice-sounding group of lies. I am sure it is the first of many such ads. As voters, we need to learn to fact check all political ads from all candidates. Statistics can be twisted to say anything the person citing them wants them to say. Polls can be skewed according to who is polled. As voters, we really need to pay attention to what is said during the campaign and how much of what is said is actually true.

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The Problem With Green Energy

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A wind turbine at Greenpark, Reading, England,...

Image via Wikipedia

Green energy is a great idea. Unfortunately, we haven’t reached the point where it makes economic sense. I suspect we will get there in the near future, but we are not there yet. When the United States or other governments try to force the issue, they run into problems. (See rightwinggranny.com from March 8, 2011, which explains what has happened with green energy in Spain). Now it’s the Netherlands’ turn.

On Wednesday, November 16, Reuters reported that the Dutch government is preparing to end its subsidies of offshore wind power. There are 36 turbines in the North Sea that produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 100,000 households each year. Because of the need to cut its budget deficit, the Dutch government says it can no longer afford to subsidize the entire cost of offshore wind power (18 cents per kilowatt hour–4.5 billion euros last year).

The article reports:

The government now plans to transfer the financial burden to households and industrial consumers in order to secure the funds for wind power and try to attract private sector investment.

It will start billing consumers and companies in January 2013 and simultaneously launch a system under which investors will be able to apply to participate in renewable energy projects.

But the new billing system will reap only a third of what was previously available to the industry in subsidies — the government forecasts 1.5 billion euros every year — while the pricing scale of the investment plan makes it more likely that interested parties will choose less expensive technologies than wind.

The outlook for Dutch wind projects seems bleak.

There will come a day when green energy is practical. Today is not it. When the government interferes with the free market, bad things happen.

 

 

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