When Sustainable Energy Isn’t Sustainable

On January 20th. a website at Substack called Energy Bad Boys posted an article about the Nobles wind farm in Minnesota.

The article reports:

In 2007, Minnesota began its quest to power the state with wind turbines and solar panels when the Next Generation Energy Act (NGEA) was signed into law. This legislation mandated that 25 percent of the state’s electricity come from “renewable” energy sources by 2025.

These mandates, along with generous federal tax subsidies and monopoly utilities seeking to maximize their government-approved profits by building new infrastructure, led to a building boom in wind turbines and solar panels.

From 2007 through 2022, Minnesota built thousands of wind turbines totaling 3,690 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity and 1,143 MW of solar capacity en route to meeting the mandates in 2020, five years ahead of schedule.

However, many of the turbines built to comply with the 25 percent mandate are already being refurbished or “repowered” long before the end of their supposed 25-year useful lives. In fact, one of these wind facilities, the Nobles wind farm, has already been repowered after just 12 years in service.

But why was Nobles refurbished more than a decade before the end of its useful life at a cost of $240 million? The official reason provided by Xcel Energy for repowering Nobles was to spur economic activity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and extend the retirement date of the facility from the year 2035 to 2045.

This story makes for a good newspaper headline, but the data tell a very different story. Digging deeper into the reasons surrounding Xcel’s decision to repower the Nobles facility illustrates how our state and federal energy policies are causing America’s energy decisions to grow increasingly irrational.

The article also notes:

Currently, there aren’t enough transmission lines to move the power generated from these wind facilities to other areas of the 15-state regional grid that could use it. This is because the existing transmission lines can only transport so much power at a time, similar to how water flowing down a sink is governed by the width of the drainpipe. As a result, the oversupply of electricity frequently causes power prices to go negative, which sends a signal to wind turbine operators to scale back supply, at least it works that way in theory.

In reality, the PTC pays wind projects $26 for each MWh of electricity the facility produces, whether or not that electricity is needed. The subsidies mean that electricity generated from wind farms could potentially be sold into the market at a price of negative $25 per MWh and still turn a profit for their owners. This is why the areas with the most wind turbines see the most negative prices, which you can see in the map below.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is only one of many illustrations of the fact that the government is subsidizing the quest for a perpetual motion machine that will never exist.

 

The Cost Of ‘Free’ Energy

Green energy is a wonderful thing–the wind and the sun are free and they create electricity without pollution. If you believe that, I have a bridge in New York I would like to sell you. Some of the components in the batteries in wind and solar energy have a bigger environmental footprint than natural gas. Anyway, so far green energy has not lived up to its expectations.

John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article today about the use of wind power in Minnesota. Obviously solar power in Minnesota would not work, but wind power sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately for the consumer and the environment, it wasn’t.

The article reports:

…can green energy fulfill the extravagant promises made by its backers?

The answer is a resounding No, according to a blockbuster paper by our own Steve Hayward and Center of the American Experiment’s Peter Nelson. The paper, titled “Energy Policy in Minnesota: the High Cost of Failure,” can be read or downloaded at the Center’s web site.

Minnesota is a poor place for solar power, so its renewable policies have focused on wind. Minnesota has gone whole hog for wind energy, to the tune of–the Hayward/Nelson paper reveals, for the first time–approximately $15 billion. It is noteworthy that demand for electricity in Minnesota has been flat for quite a few years, so that $15 billion wasn’t spent to meet demand. Rather, it replaced electricity that already was being produced by coal, nuclear and natural gas plants.

Wind energy is intermittent and unreliable; it can only be produced when the wind is blowing within certain parameters, and cannot be stored at scale. It is expensive and inefficient, and therefore patently inferior to nuclear, coal and natural gas-powered electricity, except in one respect–its “greenness.” That greenness consists of not emitting carbon dioxide. So, for $15 billion, Minnesota must have bought a dramatic reduction in the state’s CO2 emissions, right?

The article explains that Minnesota’s use of wind energy has reduced CO2 emissions slightly, but because the backup to wind energy is coal-fired electric plants, the reduction has not been significant. The state would have gotten better (and cheaper) results by replacing the coal plants with natural gas. The article also points out that the state’s investment in green energy has resulted in significantly higher energy costs for the residents. Considering what residents of Minnesota spend to keep their homes warm in winter, this is not good news.

The article concludes:

The sad story of Minnesota’s green energy failure is one that no doubt is being replicated around the country. And one of the ironies of green energy is that it is terrible for the environment. Both wind and solar energy require enormous amounts of land compared with conventional, reliable energy sources. Minnesota has scarred its landscape with endless acres of giant windmills and, to a lesser degree, solar panels. When those windmills begin to rust and fall still, the environmental damage will be even greater. And the green cronies who are now making millions through their political connections will be long gone.

When the government interferes in the free market, bad things happen for the consumer and the taxpayer.

Speaking The Truth By Accident

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article yesterday about statements made by Lena Moffitt, who runs the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. The Sierra Club has been very active in ‘the war on coal,’ causing thousands of middle-class Americans to lose their jobs.

The article reports:

Here is what Lena Moffitt, who runs the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, says: “‎We have moved to a very clear and firm and vehement position of opposing gas. Our board recently passed a policy that we oppose any new gas-fired power plants. We also have a policy opposing fracking on our books.”

The article points out:

natural gas is a clean-burning fuel that is reducing greenhouse gas emissions and real pollutants, too. There have been no reported cases of water contamination from fracking technology, as even the Obama administration has admitted. But facts don’t matter much in this debate.

…In the same interview with S&P Global Market Intelligence, she admitted: “We are doing everything we can to bring the same expertise that we brought to taking down the coal industry and coal-fired power in this country to taking on gas in the same way.”

‎”I look forward to seeing the same success brought to taking down gas plants to ensure that we’re actually moving to a 100% clean energy future,” she continued. “That is the one Sierra Club policy that we are all working toward: getting us to 100% clean energy, which, of course, would include no new gas.”

It would be interesting to know exactly who funds the Sierra Club. Their war on American energy is not helpful either to the American economy or the American national security. Although the idea of sustainable green energy is attractive, it is not yet commercially (or governmentally) feasible. When we discover a perpetual motion machine, we may find the green energy solution for power right next to it. I’m not holding my breath.

Spain attempted a number of years ago to switch from carbon fuel to green energy. The policy nearly bankrupted the country, and Spain was forced to go back to fossil fuels. As of right now, green energy is not reliable twenty-four hours a day–it has to be supplemented. Therefore, you still have to have fossil-fueled energy plants. The war on American energy is a really destructive idea–it hurts the middle-class Americans that politicians keep saying they want to help.

The Political Left Has Finally Found A War It Wants To Fight–And Even Include A Draft

Yes, it has happened. The political left has finally found a war it is wholeheartedly willing to fight–no holds barred–they even want to draft Americans to fight it. So what is that war?

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article today about a war the political left wants to fight.

The article reports:

The political left is ready to go to war, but not against any real threat. It wants to fight global warming — and of course that will require Americans to make sacrifices that just happen to align with the left’s objectives.

Al Gore popularized the phrase “fighting global warming” to underscore what he thinks is the seriousness of the matter. Though profoundly childish, the expression caught on and apparently inspired a Seattle-based writer to lay out in the Atlantic a plan for war.

According to Venkatesh Rao, “solving global warming” is going to be “like mobilizing for war.” And of course, war requires us to give up some things in the name of the effort.

…Rao says that “for ordinary Americans, austerities might include an end to expansive suburban lifestyles and budget air travel, and an accelerated return to high-density urban living and train travel.”

At the same time, businesses might need to rethink “entire supply chains, as high-emissions sectors become unviable under new emissions regimes.”

In this wartime, Rao is also demanding trust in “academic and energy-sector public institutions” as well as in “the integrity and declared intentions of institutions” that understand “the intricacies” of climate science.

Nevermind the false data that has been used to show climate change, never mind the growing ice caps that contradict the panicked claims of global warming. We have become so arrogant that we believe that we can control the climate outside and inside. Wow.

I would like to point out at this point that I support efforts made to make air and water cleaner. I support efforts to maintain the earth and correct previous mistakes made that had a negative impact on the environment,. However, I also believe that crippling the free market system (or what is left of it) in the world will simply cause more poverty, more pollution, and more misery. That is something I simply cannot support.

It Sounds Good, But It Doesn’t Work

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.

Federal Stimulus Funds At Work

Breitbart.com posted an article today about a windmill at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The windmill was constructed with $2.3 million in federal stimulus funds and has been “inoperable” for one and half years.

The article reports:

In the December 2009 buildup to the allotment of stimulus money for the construction of the St. Cloud turbine, an “administration document” outlined how “agencies… throughout the federal government… [were] already leading by example toward building a clean energy economy.” 

Three and a half years later, St. Cloud-based VA public affairs officer Barry Venable said, “The St. Cloud VA is a hospital, and our focus in on [the] patients and we like to think we treat them our veterans very well here. We are embarrassed that this turbine does not operate as advertised.”

The article also notes that no one has even attempted to fix the windmill.

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Wind and…

English: A barn and wind turbines in rural Ill...

English: A barn and wind turbines in rural Illinois Deutsch: Eine Scheune und Windturbinen im ländlichen Illinois Français : Une Grange et des éoliennes dans la campagne de l’Illinois Português: Um celeiro e turbinas de vento na Illinois rural. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night I had the privilege of hearing John Droz, Jr., speak on the topic of alternative energy. Mr. Droz is part of the Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED). an informal group of PhD‘s and other individuals involved in energy and environmental matters. As a physicist, Mr. Droz approaches the concept of green energy from a scientific perspective. Unfortunately, because the issue of green energy has become politicized, that approach is not generally heard. The group maintains the website WiseEnergy.org.

The issue last night was windmills–are they truly green energy and do they make sense scientifically? Recently Carteret County prevented the construction of a wind farm in their county, and there is now a company that may want to place a wind farm in Craven County. The discussion was a scientific approach to wind energy.

Mr. Droz explained that because a constant wind could not be depended upon, wind power alone cannot deliver electricity around the clock unless it is backed up by a conventional electrical source–coal, gas, wood, etc. So when you are talking about wind power, you are automatically talking about wind and.. That is something I have not often heard mentioned by the advocates of wind power.

There is also the issue of the impact of large wind turbines on residents nearby. In February of 2013, I posted an article (rightwinggranny.com) about wind power in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Falmouth is a town on the western end of Cape Cod, and theoretically would be a wonderful place to harness wind power–there is almost always wind. However, after the windmills began turning, residents complained of headaches, interrupted sleep, vertigo, and other symptoms. The Board of Selectmen voted to remove the turbines, but the town voted not to remove them (the removal might cost as much as $18 million). The town was examining other solutions–buying more property around the windmills (not cheap–property in Falmouth is expensive and there would also be the loss of real estate taxes paid to the town) and curtailing the hours the windmills operate. Obviously, neither solution is perfect.

The bottom line here is simple–from a scientific perspective wind power is not practical. There may come a time in the future when the technology advances to the point where wind energy does not need a fossil fuel back-up and the impact on people living near the turbines can be minimized, but we are not there yet.

The most important thing I learned last night was that if Craven County wants to protect itself from the damage wind mills would do to the county, there are some very basic things that can be done. First of all, the public needs to become aware of the facts about wind energy. Second of all, Craven County residents need to make sure that the Board of Commissioners is aware of the facts about wind energy. At that point, it is a matter of drafting basic legislation that will protect the country from the environmental damage that a wind farm would do to the community.

This is the link to the slideshow used in the presentation last night.

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Would You Trust These People With Your Investment Portfolio ?

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article about the investments the Obama Administration has made in alternative energy companies.

The article reports:

The Romney campaign later clarified that he was talking about the DOE’s 1705 loan program which doled out $16.1 billion to green energy companies, accordingto the Washington Post. Of the 33 companies that received 1705 loan guarantees, only three have declared bankruptcy.

The article further reports:

The blog Green Corruption’s “Obama green-energy failure” list contains 23 bankrupt and 27 troubled green energy companies which were backed by the federal government. This list uses data compiled by the Heritage Foundation, but also includes some things the conservative think tank doesn’t.

According to the Heritage Foundation, $80 billion was set aside in the 2009 stimulus package for clean energy loans, grants, and tax credits, and 10 percent of these funds have gone to companies that have filed for bankruptcy or are in dire straits.

As I have said before, I believe there will come a day when green energy makes sense. I also believe that day will come after the free market has culled out the technologies that do not work and the technologies that do work have naturally risen to the top of the pile. Government subsidies interfere with that process and actually slow down the successful development of green energy–not to mention the amount of money the government has lost in picking winners and losers (mostly losers).

As taxpayers, we have the right to invest our money where we chose to invest it. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the government the right to make investments in green energy for us.

 

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Where Did The Money Go ?

We all understand that federal spending has increased under President Obama. We also know that the economy is limping along rather than following the path of a traditional recovery. We have had stimulus packages and Quantitative easing (QE), and we are still struggling.

Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about the money invested in green energy.

The article reports:

Only 38 percent of those who have completed training got jobs based on it, and only 16 percent kept jobs for at least six months — the key measure of success for the program.

“Outcomes for participants were far less than originally proposed,” the auditors said.

The government earmarked more than $400 million for green jobs training programs, and $328.5 million has been spent so far.

About half were already working in the energy sector and wanted retraining, and half were potential new energy workers.

Of those workers who already had energy-sector jobs, the auditors said they were retrained, even though they didn’t need it.

A 16 percent success rate is nothing to brag about. So what was the stimulus to green energy about?  The truth comes out in the last paragraph of the article:

Mr. Issa [Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)]said in addition to poor performance records, the green jobs money “served as a slush fund” for the Obama administration to dole out payments to allies “like the National Council of La Raza, the Blue Green alliance and the U.S. Steelworkers Union.”

This is one example of many reasons taxes on working Americans can easily be cut.

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Another Taxpayer Subsidized Solar Energy Company Goes Under

Today’s Daily Caller posted an article about Abound Solar, a Colorado green-energy firm that has filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.

The article reports:

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Abound Solar a $400 million loan guarantee in December 2010, funds that the then-three-year-old startup said it would use to compete with solar panel industry leader First Solar.

The company spent $535 million in loans guaranteed by the federal government before it failed. The article goes on to explain that Abound Solar was technically behind its competitors in the solar industry. Subsidizing inferior technology does not improve its quality, and it interferes with the ability of the free market to let the best technology prevail.

The best stimulus program would have been to give all taxpayers half of their income tax back! That would have stimulated the economy.

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Why We All Need To Pay Attention Before The Next Election

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

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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