As the “clean energy” scam collapses around the world, our Great Leader plans a comeback.
President Obama’s business tax reform plan released today says:
Finally, this Framework recognizes that, as we expand manufacturing in the United States, the tax code should encourage doing so in way that is sustainable and that puts the United States in the lead in manufacturing the clean energy technologies of the future. This will create jobs here at home and can also have important spillover benefits. Moving toward a clean energy economy will reduce air and water pollution and enhance our national security by reducing dependence on oil. Cleaner energy will play a crucial role in slowing global climate change, meeting the President’s goal of producing 80 percent of our nation’s electricity from clean sources by 2035…
Obama plans to accomplish this goal as follows:
Extend, consolidate, and enhance key tax incentives to encourage investment in clean energy. The President’s Framework would make permanent the tax credit for the production of renewable electricity, in order to provide a strong, consistent incentive to encourage investments in renewable energy technologies like wind and solar. As with the R&E Tax Credit, the United States has to date provided only a temporary production tax credit for renewable electricity generation. This approach has created an uncertain investment climate, undermined the effectiveness of our tax expenditures, and hindered the development of a clean energy sector in the United States. In addition, the structure of renewable production and investment tax credits has required many firms to invest in inefficient tax planning through tax equity structures so that they can benefit even when they do not have tax liability in a given year because of a lack of taxable income. The President’s Framework would address this issue by making the permanent production tax credit refundable.
Here’s where our energy comes from today:
If AGW is real then why are we wasting time on half measures and not using CLEAN, ZERO CO2, Nuclear Power? Would you throw a bottle of alcohol on a fire (it is only half as flammable as gas.) What is slowing down the generation of CO2 going to do (by using WIND and GAS) if, as the Left-Wing-Nut CAGW group claim that we actually need negative CO2 production to prevent CAGW? Somebody is full of cow fertilizer.
How are you going to charge up that Chevy Volt (Nissan Leaf) at work? Do they have a windmill there? A solar Panel? You, and most others that have one or get one, will be charging it at night, at home, when it is dark and the wind is not blowing (usually) form a GAS powered turbine (since they are shutting down all of the coal plants), which will generate as much CO2 as a 40MPG Honda Civic gasoline powered car to charge your battery. How much CO2 have we prevented – ZERO. But you can tell people that your care doesnot emit any CO2 (just the power plant that makes the electricity makes CO2 and they are going to double the cost of the electricity because of that fact.) Only if it is charged by a CLEAN, ZERO CO2, Nuclear Power generator, will it reduce CO2.
Use Your Brain! if CLEAN, ZERO CO2, Nuclear Power is not the answer, then it is a SCAM.
Oh, you are afraid of Nuclear power – well, more people were killed just last year by DIRTY Natural Gas, remember the gas explosion in CA, (or Wind turbines for that matter, about one death a month in the erection/maintenance process) than during the entire history of commercial nuclear power in the USA.
You forgot to mention that Wind Turbines use power even when they are NOT running. Oil pumps, heaters, de-icing heaters on the blades, lights (have you ever seen a power plant with it’s lights OFF?) All total, these “hotel loads” as thaey are called in the industry, waste another 5 to 10 percent (depends on the size of the beast, the bigger the worse) of the RATED not delivered output 24/7 x 365, Where are those savings. To top it off, the wind farms sell you the expensive “Wind Generated” at maximum profit. with subsidy (about $0.25 to $0.50 per kWh), and buy back the power used by the turbine at whoesale industral prices (at about $0.03 per kWh).
Then why not just build a dam in the first place and forget the wasted unreliable wind turbine?
The suggesting to store energy in man-made lakes is interesting in that the effeciency is very high. However, wind is found on large flat areas and mountain tops which are not suitable for situating lakes with different altitudes. The former because there is no natural altitude difference and the latter because there is no natural accumlation of a large amount of water. Deserts, the best place for wind, tend to not have either. So you are looking at transmission losses to move the power to a pair of lakes somewhere. Oops, there goes the efficiency. Still just don’t get how those big bird-whackers are going to save the world. Thankfully, large numbers of them seem to be not working whenever I drive by. Entropy has won many arguments.
I’m surprised that no one has looked at a low-tech solution to the variability of wind power — you build a pair of dams to create reservoirs at different elevations, with a mechanism for pumping water from the lower reservoir to the upper, and a turbine to generate power from water released from the upper reservoir to the lower. The size of the reservoirs would need to be determined by the required storage capacity of the system. The output of the windfarms is used to pump water into the upper reservoir, and the flow of water through the turbine is controlled in response to demand. This lets you damp the variability of power delivery from the windfarm, and gives you enough time to bring up a conventional power plant from cold shutdown if you have a prolonged lack of wind. It’s not particularly space-efficient, but it’s all reliable mature technology.
The graphs above lack clarity because fuel used to generate electricity and to power transportation are not interchangeable.
I suggest that the graphical representation of Obama’s follies will be better if energy used for transportation and electricity production are displayed separately. Transportation is fueled almost exclusively from crude oil derivatives. Conversely, electricity is generated from numerous sources other than crude oil derivatives. Virtually none of them can be used to power planes, trains, ships and trucks and cars.
Election Day 2008: The Day America Died.
Our tax code was never meant to be a sculpting tool of our economy or our lives. Making taxes punitive against the energy sources he does not like and favor those he does is simply illegal. This represent social engineering that simply pursues a political agenda and does not have the good of the people or the country in ming.
Maybe instead of the public being charged taxes for the tonnage of CO2 emissions (corporations only collect taxes) the warmists should be charged a fee (let’s call it the Carbon Economic Enhancement license fee) since the warmists love taxes. This fee is the licence fee to participate in all of the subsequent economic activity that occurs as the result of fossil fuel utilization. These fees would by-pass the govt and go directly to the fossil fuel industry. 20% of a warmists’ gross income seems more than fare for the CEE for an average Joe. Of course, a guy like AlGore, who profits enormously without actually doing any work, should have a fee based on 75% of his gross income.
If the warmists have difficulty figuring out the amount of subsidation that the fossil fuel industry supplies to their worthless lives in therms of figuring out their tax burden it’s basically the entire Global GDP so get out your check books.
These reports are so valuable, hey take so long to write that they publish every 5 yrs… a lot happens in 5 yrs.
For instance: of the $37,160,000,000- “value of subsidies,” $14,838,000,000- went to CONSERVATION!
ROTFLMFAO! Are you kidding, we subsidize CONSERVATION!!!???
It was also found that this peak output only coincided with peak demand three times per year.
Useless! Windmills are so last millennium.
How could “wood” be a renewable resource if you can’t cut trees down? And, “hydropower” has the same problem… how do you get a turbine behind a dam if you can’t build a dam? I woodn’t dam believe it!
“Charge $20 per ton for producing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and you have $560 billion”
Charge nothing per ton for producing harmless carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and you have nothing.
Or at least you have a “savings” (metaphorically, since nothing from nothing is nothing) to assist in humanitarian efforts like food, shelter, medical care, education, and even to help the poor with their heating and electric bills.
IIRC, there was a Brit study not too long ago that found usable wind generation was around 20 percent, much lower than anticipated, and much lower than repeatedly stated by the Brit government. Not to mention the subsidies paid when wind turbines were unable to supply power to the grid, in other words they were paid for *not* running. Then the Spanish study that found “green” jobs – and in particular wind jobs – removed two jobs from the private sector for every one created.
All around the world and time after time, anecdotal evidence and empirical analysis all confirm that wind power is an economic disaster. More than that, it’s a scam industry that’s ridden with corruption.
It is very easy to see the subsidy given the fossil fuel industry. The world produced 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2010. Two billion tons came from people breathing. Another 2 billion tons came from other animals breating. This leaves 28 billion tons of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Charge $20 per ton for producing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and you have $560 billion that was not paid by the consumers of fossil fuels. This is fake money.
However, I think the U. S. spent $100 billion subsidizing renewable energy in 2011 when you factor in all sources of expenditures such as propaganda from EPA and other government agencies. This is real money that was added to the $1.3 trillion U. S. national debt for 2011. Factor in the waste of money in the EU and other countries and you probably have several hundred billion dollars wasted on renewable energy subsidies. This is real money lost forever.
James H. Rust
Oh . . . wait a minute . . . I think they have, much of Europe depends on it . . . its called Nuclear ! ! !
100% clean, environmental friendly, reliable, economical energy would be great . . . .
SURE HOPE SOMEONE INVENTS THIS SOON ! ! !
Did I notice a reference earlier in the comments to “BS”??? how much more tax equity, liability and poor planning can the country endure before we kick this punk-ass out of power??.. …. and to the above referenced statement, I reiterate…. HUH????
God, YES!!!!!!!!
Sure would be nice to see a link to that bit on info seeing as the EIA is a department of the US federal government and doesn’t have anything to do with “global” fossil fuel “subsidies”. Also would be interesting to see how the worlds most lucrative product needs to be subsidized.
Please review the EIA’s Direct Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy in Fiscal Year 2010. You’ll find that so-called renewables are subsidized at an absolutely ungodly level higher than any so-called fossill fuels subsidation here in the US of A.
http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/pdf/subsidy.pdf
Last time I worked at a public utility planning new capacity cinstruction, about 30 years ago, only 50 homes could be powered by one megawatt. 13892 megawatts leads to the conclusion that roughly 700,000 homes could be powered IF the wind generators were 100% available at 100% capacity. The article overstates the benefits of the wind generators by half an order of magnitude!
The trouble with wind generators then and now, is that the wind doesn’t blow full strength 24/7 and the generators break down more often than conventional (fossil) fired power plants. Maintenance then, and now, is a nightmare requiring all work to be done hundreds of feet up, or disassembly and lowering the generator and blades to the ground for every outage. The most dangerous work at a power company is bucket truck (high off the ground) work. How many technicians shall we kill to chase the fantasy of cheap renewable power?
Wind power has been in use by humans for over 10,000 years. It has had time to find its niche and pefect the technology. Bulk power generation is not the niche it found.
“In addition, the structure of renewable production and investment tax credits has required many firms to invest in inefficient tax planning through tax equity structures so that they can benefit even when they do not have tax liability in a given year because of a lack of taxable income.” HUH!
to understand the President, you must understand Marx. The purpose of business is to provide jobs, not products. Therefore, supplying electricity by having the entire population pedal stationary bikes to generate it would be the PERFECT solution since they could never produce enough energy to provide even one tenth of their own needs — let alone any for general use or industry. Natural gas on the other hand, once drilled supplies enough power to create millions of kilowatts while employing only a few dozen people to watch the generators run etc. This is a TERRIBLE solution by the way Obama and Marx reckon.
“In June 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said $557 billion was spent to subsidize fossil fuels globally in 2008, compared to $43 billion in support of renewable energy.”
Sounds like some more BS.
Vote this dreamer OUT!
Hi neighbor.
Nothing else to say, You already said it all.
I want to hear mo from Mo2Tex.
The best case design capacity is 13,842 MW, but what will they actually deliver?
They can supply power to 3.3 million homes from the “free” wind, but they need massive corporate welfare to survive another year. Sounds like some BS.
Oops, I forgot to mention that, even with the taxpayer subsidy, wind energy is more expensive. The higher electricity rates caused by wind power will kill a lot more than 37,000 jobs. Plus, for those of you who have been fooled by global warming alarmism, because wind power is erratic, conventional power plants must be kept running to pick up the load when the wind drops off. These power plants waste fuel running in spinning reserve (wasted fuel means higher costs and higher CO2 emissions). To balance the erratic wind power, these power plants have to power up and power down constantly. It’s like driving your car in the city versus on the highway. Again, the wind power is causing them to waste a lot of fuel “driving in the city.” Your expensive, eagle-killing, unreliable, job-destroying wind farms are saving very little, if any, CO2 emissions.
Ralph,
13,892 megawatts is enough to reliably power zero homes, not 3.3 million homes. That is because you cannot count on the wind to be blowing when you need it. In Texas, the grid manager counts on 8.7% on wind capacity to be available at times of high demand. That estimate has been overly optimistic — less than 8.7% is sometimes available. At typical wind power capacity factors, 13,892 megawatts can power on average about 500,000 homes not 3.3 million. But when you need it, you’d be best advised to count on zero homes. As far as the jobs go, the money being wasted building wind farms would create far more jobs if it were allowed to be invested elsewhere. Those wind projects are not creating 37,000 jobs, they are destroying at least 81,000 economically sustainable jobs. That is, jobs that do not rely on massive government (tax payer) subsidies. And, if you care, your unsustainable, taxpayer funded wind farms will probably kill a lot of eagles.
Regards,
Mo2Tex
By 2035 what Obama wants will be a relevent as what Jimmy Carter wants.
And I’d like to have an Obama free government by November 2012!
It appears Mr Obama is sufering fron masturbatury haluncinations.
Link to above article.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0217-wind-ptc–20120217,0,3705651,full.story
End of tax credit a blow for wind power industry
Up to 37,000 jobs, many in Illinois, could be lost as projects are halted or abandoned
February 17, 2012
The wind power industry is predicting massive layoffs and stalled or abandoned projects after a deal to renew a tax credit failed Thursday in Washington.
The move is expected to have major ramifications in states such as Illinois, where 13,892 megawatts of planned wind projects — enough to power 3.3 million homes per year — are seeking to be connected to the electric grid. Many of those projects will be abandoned or significantly delayed without federal subsidies.
The state is home to more than 150 companies that support the wind industry. At least 67 of those make turbines or components for wind farms. Chicago is the U.S. headquarters to more than a dozen major wind companies that wanted to take advantage of powerful Midwestern winds.
Wind proponents tried to tuck the tax credit extension, which provides an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for the production of electricity from wind turbines, in legislation aimed at extending payroll tax cuts. But congressional leaders did not include it in that bill.
There is still a possibility the wind power tax credits could come through as a stand-alone bill or tied to other legislation. But Washington insiders say that is unlikely to happen before the election in November.
By then, the wind industry says, it will be too late to avoid massive layoffs and project delays, because wind projects slated for 2013 should already be far along.
I suppose Obama can beg China to supply the wind turbines.
Renewable energy producers that make no money pay no taxes. Mission accomplished.