How Green Was My Jobs Program?

Obama is going to bail out the economy by spending on a combination of public infrastructure and alternative energy and I am all in favor of it.  We need a new bubble to bail us out of the housing bubble which bailed us out of the tech bubble and the great thing about infrastructure spending is that there is a very limited after-market.  Right now people are looking at what were once $500,000 homes and re-valuing them at $300,000, just as a few years ago they looked at ditches fiiled with fiber-optic cable operating at 1% utilization and re-valued them.  It is harder for such skeptics, cranks and non-believers to revalue a waste treatment plant, a bridge, or a better road.  I hope.

On the green side I have noproblem with subsidizing alternative energy ideas.  My one plea - Congress should toss in subsidies for ground source heat pump systems.  This is a proven, energy saving technology with a useful conumption pattern - without getting into details, electricity usage is higher in the winter and lower in the summer (when the system is useful as an air conditioner), which would be a helpful switch for the electric utilities in the Notheast.

As with other green systems, the objections seems to be that builders prefer not to trade a higher upfront cost for lower operating costs.

Comments

[kim]

It only works well if you get into the water table and cool it artificially. It's still robbing Peter to pay Paul, which is also what promoting uneconomic schemes with subsidies is. What next? Mandates?
==============================

[kim]

Tangentially on topic, well-known climate alarm true believer, Danny Bloom, is suing nations not moving forward on CO2 abatement for a billion dollars in the International Criminal Court. He readily admits it is 'guerilla theater'. Details at Watts Up.

Previously, Danny has been best known for his drive to create 'Polar Cities' to house the remnant of human civilization decimated from global warming and unable to live anywhere near the equator. Seems strange, but believe me, he's not the looniest of the true believers.
====================================

[larry]

Ground water at about 65 deg constant should aid both heating and cooling. As Kim says, the cost of pumping the water can make it uneconomic. Shallow wells seem to work around here. (Fl panhandle)

[TCO]

You are such a socialist. Suck down the intervention. You've killed the Republican free market brand. Now you can kill the economy. You little Libby liar turd.

[clarice]

PUK,Rick, Put on your scamarama ding dong caps--time's a wasting and there's more pelth to be garnered.

[larry]

TCO, even if you had valid points, you wouldn't belong in polite company.

[hrtshpdbox]

"You are such a socialist."

That should make you happy, but you're still complaining.

[kim]

Naw, TCO, Fitz suborned Russert's testimony. Libby neither lied nor obstructed justice. The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Joe Wilson Straight were the last to figure out what was going on with Plame. Joe Wilson, see Armitage, gave his wife's game away and you are just a fool. Like most everyone else in this case, I might add.
===========================

[mefolkes]

It works best if you get into the water table, but it still works if you don't. I'm fortunate. My place is on a lake, and the surface of my lot is only about fifteen feet above the water table, in a glacial deposit of sand, ideal for a ground source heat pump. If I were staying, I would install such a system next year. I also happen to be lucky to be in a place that is an exception to the decline in property values. I just found out that because of the general value of our premium lakeshore, and specific attributes of my property, I can expect to list my place for a hundred thousand more than the appraisal done two years ago. I'm solving my personal energy crisis by moving to the south end of the Alaska panhandle, where the record low is forty-three degrees warmer than the record low in my part of southwestern Minnesota, and the record high is twenty-one degrees cooler. Early retirement is sweet.

[billadams]

Ground water is a great source of heating and cooling. But, since it works, it's not encouraged.
As catholicfundamentalism.com points out frequently, our government will only subsidize things that do not work.
While criticizing their affinity for incompetence, we should also pray that their souls move away from so many, many lies.

[kim]

Well, yeah, but aren't the mosquitoes the size of buzzards rather than songbirds?
================================

[Pofarmer]

Unfortunately, all that infrastructure is gonna have to be paid for, with tax dollars, when we already have deficit spending and multi-billion dollar bailouts.

Mother of all inflationary events?

At any rate, Japan already tried it in the 90's and, didn't work.

[Pofarmer]

But, since it works, it's not encouraged.

Well, if something works, it doesn't need to be subsidized, ya know?

[PeterUK]

Clarice,
Yes "Spreading the pelf".

[reliapundit]

obama's green boondoggle.

i posted on it on 11/15 - here:

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/11/next-humongous-liberal-boondoggle.html

just in time for the coldest winter in a century...

[reliapundit]

link split to fit

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/11/
next-humongous-liberal-boondoggle.html

[kim]

You know, reliaP, carbon markets have already crashed in Europe. Venture fund money for green schemes is drying up. The Lehman Brothers were at the forefront of carbon trading schemes. Obama is pushing a string here, and I expect him to figure out that it is a political loser before too much damage is done.
==================================

[Rick Ballard]

"Unfortunately, all that infrastructure is gonna have to be paid for, with tax dollars"

Pofarmer,

This one is a simple scam involving acceleration of existing projects already covered by existing taxes. It's worthless in terms of job "creation" because the nonresidential building sector is currently the brightest spot in the economy (8% YoY growth at the moment). The program's inflationary impact upon building costs will be the area of highest negative impact.

Obama's "promise" to "create" 2.5 million "new" jobs over two years in an economy that is quite capable of generating 3 million jobs in the same time period is risible on its face. He has promised to make the sun rise tomorrow morning.

TM,

Your statement that "the objections seems to be that builders prefer not to trade a higher upfront cost for lower operating costs." is poppycock. Builders will supply granite counter tops and marble floors without hesitation - if the customer wishes to pay for them. Why, they'll build an in ground pool that costs double what an in ground system costs and not blink an eye. If the customer can and will pay for it.

Laying off the markets refusal to touch systems with payoffs which cannot be recovered at resale upon builders is creating your own personal nasty boogeyman upon whom you choose to place undeserved blame.

May your in ground system spring numerous leaks. Hopefully you built your house right on top of it so that repair requires a complete tear down.

[clarice]

Spread that David Bacon pelf about--drive up wages as the economy tanks. That's the ticket.

[mefolkes]

Kim, if you're trying to rain on my parade because you envy my early retirement plans, the parcels we are looking at are on islands with good slope and very little wetland. As a consequence, there are very few mosquitoes and gnats. Not a single tick, as well. It does rain a lot, and with most parcels, we will have to install our own alternative energy system and rainwater harvesting system, but the negatives are pretty minor. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention having to suffer meals including the abundant Dungeness, Tanner and king crabs, salmon, halibut, cod, lingcod, trout, grayling, clams and abelone. Imagine the suffering we are about to endure. Clarice and her husband would be welcome at our new place and she and my gal can try to figure out some way of coping with that disgusting seafood. You will have to wait for posts. Hey, I almost forgot another negative. We won't ever have the joy of Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on our door again. Sob!

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

I want to see how he intends to get laid off "information workers" (classic do nothing paper pushers) up on D-9s pushing dirt. Carpe Diem has a decent post up, highlighting the fact that unemployment problems are endemic in the nice blue zones (CA, MI, IL) where the big hog unions already gobble taxes to the point of bankrupting entire states.

[PeterUK]

Bringing home the Bacon?

[clarice]

Oh, yes, indeed, Rick..the thought of the NYT and AP reporters on giant Cats pushing another kind of dirt warms the cickles of my cold heart.

Here's a must read from Conrad Black written from prison where he was IMO unjustly imprisoned by we all know whom.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5213243.ece>A prosecutocracy but still the economic engine it was

[clarice]

mefolkes, thanks for the invite. Sounds delicious.

[clarice]

**cOckles of my heart****

[clarice]

mefolkes, years ago we had a leasehold near there--Dutch Harbor-- which we gave up .Never visited it though.

[PeterUK]

"the thought of the NYT and AP reporters on giant Cats pushing another kind of dirt warms the cockles of my cold heart."

Sorry,hand trowels only.

[syn]

I doubt the Green people will be able to convince the people who will be freezing this winter that Going Green technology will be good for their health.

That said; instead of creating 2.5 million jobs why not keep one campaign promise by spreading around the wealth of rich 5%ers such as Oprah Winfrey.

Take Oprah's $2.7 billion divide by 2.5 million people then there will be 2.5 million millionaires who can be taxed while afforded the opportunity to sit around all day watching Oprah Winfrey's advice for personal well-being.

It's a win-win for the incoming president, Oprah Winfrey and 2.5 million people.

[Pofarmer]

the objections seems to be that builders prefer not to trade a higher upfront cost for lower operating costs.

so, somebody show me where an alternative energy sytstem, let's say solar or wind, has an ACTUAL lower operating cost. So far I've seen projections, but no actual projects that live up to the hype. Kind of like how MO customers are gonna save 331 million over 10 years by buying 30 million worth of REC's a year. And, BTW, the way that Ameren is trying to get around the 1% rate increase BS, is by selling the REC's to customers that want them at a rate of $25 per 1000KWH. That way they don'thave to hike rates.

[DrJ]

Syn, you may want to try that math again.

[syn]

"Syn, you may want to try that math again."

I was in the drama department so I admit my stupid, am I over or under?

[clarice]

Po, My son lives in L.A. I am sure his solar water heater (which also heats the house) saves a lot on his annual energy costs, but I'd be astonished if it's enough over the life of the system to make up the cost difference even without the federal and state subsidies (which may not have been available because of over subscription or something).

[Rick Ballard]

"so, somebody show me where an alternative energy sytstem, let's say solar or wind, has an ACTUAL lower operating cost."

Pofarmer,

Just because you suffer from a lack of imagination in dealing with hypotheticals doesn't mean everyone does. Zero and the Greenies understand the depth of ignorance ensconced within the Muddle and are quite facile manipulators. Surely that must count for something.

BTW - the actual lower operating cost does exist. Nukes generate a kWh for about 1/2 of a cent. All you have to do is relieve the ignorance of the Muddle concerning the "danger" of nukes and we can all spend considerably less on energy and pretend that we give a damn about saving dear Gaia. Building a bunch of nukes might actually productively employ people as well.

Won't happen of course - instead we will get to watch Zero scatter Magic Job Beans as he gallops across the fruited plain, mounted on his favorite unicorn.

[DrJ]

Syn, Here's a hint. Dividing a billion by a million gives you a thousand (10^9 / 10^6 = 10^3).

[JM Hanes]

When even folks like Tom Maguire have "no problem with subsidizing alternative energy ideas" the fight against a government owned and operated economy is well and truly lost. The rest is just bickering over priorities and distributions.

Even stipulating to general concensus that government has an active role to play, things like McCain's concept of offering prizes, not subsidies, could have been the starting point of a compelling argument for cost effective stimulation of innovative problem solving. Since neither McCain nor anyone else seems prepared to plead the cause of market based solutions in anything other than the most abstract, least compelling terms, we're just left deciding where to pour all the money on the basis of existing technology. We might as well be pouring cement on the market place of ideas, technology and production.

Obama has just proclaimed (on YouTube!) that Obama-Biden will subsidize 2.5 million jobs, foot the bill for the entirely new auto industry/government partnership soon to be regulated into existence, rescind capital gains taxes completely for government approved investments, reset the terms of everything from IRA's and 401k's to existing mortagages, not to mention defraying "painful property tax increases" -- compared to which subsidizing home heating oil(!) in cold places looks like peanuts. Obama's government will fix NAFTA to protect American workers, use trade agreements to "spread good labor and environmental standards around the world," promote unionization here at home and penalize companies for doing business abroad. Banking reforms will keep the money flowing to anybody who can't afford a loan. And that's just the startup plan for the economy, stupid.

Gee, I sure hope they don't leave ground source heat pump systems out of the mix.

[clarice]

For some time now, in smaller increments the govt has been subsidizing or penalizing energy options--tax rebates for hybrid autos, some tax breaks for solar heating systems,taxes on gas etc--and we can see how well that's played out, can't we?

[Accounts]

The alternative energy, America's infrastructure, is University professors doing research. It's like Edwards ONE corps for national security, poverty wages with promises of eduction at Universities or Clinton's free school for future dem executive federal employees; University professors jobs and bureaucracy.

The job plan is no plan.

Subsidies? Everyone forgot the 100s of billions in free money and 'grant loans' foreign aid that was voted on by Congress before the US government budget and just before the presidential election on a five year entitlement basis(the same as US gov leases). 'existing projects already covered by existing taxes.' Decelerate? The Philippines asked, but they're more free trade than anything else and Nancy still hasn't figured out that's needed to pay everyone. The coup is supposed to happen again this week.

Joe was probably a spy like his dad. Plame was probably shopping for another CIA employee as is custom. She would have to know that though. Plame has an new friend at CIA, I mean State, and Commerce. Since the president was always the target, she couldn't have done better with Clinton's choice. Maybe she should run the 'dating' game for those CIA agents, I mean diplomats, who need to marry CIA. She did real well in DC.

[narciso]

" I was informed there would be no math involved" That sounds really bad, back to the tequila, ASAP. Where are the rest of those flicker pictures, Jim. Did he take any macro or even microeconomics, back at either Occidental or Columbia. Well like Cpl Hicks, would say 'it's over man"

[JM Hanes]

narciso:

Well, I did manage to post the Conservative Ship of State late last night, but developing the narrative framework keeps getting derailed by turkeys, whether feathered, green or trollish. So many distractions! Such an attention deficit chez moi!

[jimmyk]

The problem is that even if TM were correct about the desirability or need for subsidies, in the hands of Congress it becomes yet another corrupt cesspool like low-income mortgages and farm program. In any case, I share Rick's and JMH's skepticism that there's this big pot of money in the form of some energy saving technology that everyone is ignoring. There's a stronger case to be made for subsidizing pure R&D, but without (and let me emphasize without) trying to pick the winners. In other words, you don't subsidize R&D on solar panels or heat pumps, but let the scientists and engineers figure out what seems most promising. Once you start letting the government pick winners, it devolves back into special interest lobbying-based giveaways.

[sbw]

Ooh! Book Title:

"Eco-Obamanomics: Mining the depths of ignorance"

[matt]

re: solar subsidies

We have a major customer; one of the top solar module manufacturers in the US. Unfortunately, their factory is in the Philippines. Another major "US" manufacturer has their factories in China....an American green industry, huh?

[sbw]

Ooh! Book Title:

"Who owns the businesses of government?"

[clarice]

I'm holding out for those backyard nuclear reactors.

Actually, we see this happening over and over..a meme is developed by the bien pensants, flogged uncritically by the media, becomes a muddle core belief and pols feel they must act on it even as the evidence mounts that it's a crock (in this case, peak oil and global warming).

Maybe it just would be easier to never be less ignorant than the mass, because otherwise it's damned frustrating.

[sbw]

Clarice, you are on a roll today. First, pelf, incidentally tweaked by Puk.

Then a sweet thwacking of bien pensants, the media,and the pols, all in one swipe!

[Pofarmer]

I made the mistake of going to the Obama/biden economic link above. Man, man, man. Talk about hot air and unicorn farts. He wants the U.S. to be 25% renewable energy by 2025. Now, considering that they won't let us build any new dams, use regenerative hydro, or anything else that actually works, that's gonna be a tough order. My reccomendation would be to get yourself the most efficient generator possible for those days when you don'thave any electricity.

[clarice]

Thank you,SBW --Puk can turn a typo into poetry, can't he, the little darling?(I must be very tired, Herb Meyer pointed out a big boo boo of mine on a blog about Conrad Black at AT which both Thom and I missed.URGH. I seem so tired for no reason.)

[E. Nigma]

Bicycles driving generators, in your basement.
We all get exercise and lose weight, and it's a "green" way of generating organic electricity. Except when all those bicyclers exhale carbon dioxide. Gotta fix that one.
Along with all the other nonsense, I'm waiting for Obama and new Democratic congress to start the repeal of the Laws of Thermodynamics, because they are not green-friendly and were made by the patriarchy.

[JM Hanes]

sbw:

"Who owns the businesses of government?"

And the inevitable sequel:

"What business is it of yours?"

[Wn]

Who owns the businesses of government?

Harvard. Government money is theirs. Isn't the new Economy guy the president there and worked for the imf and wants to form a commission?

He should investigate the foreign aid five year 100s of billions scam. He can't because it was Obama using Congress and America to pave the way for himself. Foreign aid has been paid for five years and he doesn't have to worry until the next presidential election.

Commerce should do real well with State and Plame's pal there. She should work with the commerce people too. Ohhh matriarchies. A cult is a cult is a cult.

[JM Hanes]

sbw:

Betcha can't say "sweet thwacking" a speedy 3 times without tongue tripping torsion, which you can't say without....

[kim]

-- It's all the fault of the Jews, and the bicycle riders.
-- Why is it the fault of the bicycle riders?
-- Why is it the fault of the Jews?

H/t EM Remarque.
========================

[WYSteven]

/me в шоке

[bad]

Obama's Saturday radio address:

Right now, there are millions of mothers and fathers who are lying awake at night wondering if next week's paycheck will cover next month's bills.

Let's get petty! I wouldn't mind if one week's pay covered a month of bills.

[PeterUK]

"There's no business like show business
If you tell me it's so
Traveling through the country is so thrilling
Standing out in front on opening nights
Smiling as you watch the benches filling
And see your billing up there in lights

There's no people like show people
They smile when they are low
Even with a turkey that you know will fold
You may be stranded out in the cold
Still you wouldn't trade it for a sack o' gold
Let's go on with the show
Let's go on with the show!
The show!
The show!

[Rick Ballard]

"He wants the U.S. to be 25% renewable energy by 2025."

If we had actual journalists involved in the media rather than Brainless Butt Kissers the lede on the story reporting this would be "President Elect Obama today revealed an unparalleled depth of ignorance with regard to energy issues..." followed by a reference to the EIA 2008 Reference Case to explain that "Other Renewables" (SoLunar Windmills) now account for less than 1% of national energy consumption and that total renewables account for 5.81% of current consumption. Current projections show total renewable growing to 9.3% of consumption, based primarily on increased biomass (ethanol) usage by 2025. No growth whatsoever is projected for hydro which would mean that the 25% hookah dream of the President Elect would have to be derived by increasing solar and wind from .67 quads today to 18 quads in 2025. That would require an increase of 21% per year for 17 years. Very easy to achieve in the first 2-5 years off of a tiny base but physically impossible to sustain over 17 years.

Is it true ignorance on the part of the President Elect? It may be. He possesses no background suggesting that he has a clue concerning most practical matters - ignorance about energy would be unsurprising. The alternative is that he is a liar. It's a real 'upickem'.

I know that he has a habit of lying commensurate with his absolute lack of character so my choice is "liar".

[bad]

More from the radio address:

It is time to act. As the next President of the United States, I will.

So what actor will he most resemble?

[PeterUK]

"I wouldn't mind if one month's pay covered a week of bills."

Fixed.

[PeterUK]

"So what actor will he most resemble?"

Keanu Reeves.

[JM Hanes]

bad:

I could swear Obama stole your first quote from John Edwards' stump speech and the second one from a GWB convention address. How does someone get through nearly half a century without having a single original thought of his own? I hate to think how much effort it must take to avoid having at least a couple of ideas.

[matt]

from now on, Peter, your secret Delta (see Animal House) name is Ethel Merman.....

[matt]

I know how we can get to 25% renewable energy...reclassify hydroelectric dams......or at least count them as renewable.....see, we will become the most green country in the world almost overnight.....since so much of Obama's worldview seems to be semantic, he shouldn't have a problem with this.

[davod]

"It only works well if you get into the water table and cool it artificially. It's still robbing Peter to pay Paul, which is also what promoting uneconomic schemes with subsidies is. What next? Mandates?"

If you are talking about geo thermal, then water is not an issue. As with normal heat pumps, geo-thermal relies upon temperature differences. Geo thermal is more efficient than normal heat pumps because the temperature below the ground is more stable.

In the Fairfax County Virginia area the addditional cost of geo thermal, over the cost of the heat pump and inside unit, starts at around $20,000.00. My air conditioning guy says that for this you get a power bill for heating and cooling that stays the same year round.

[clarice]

Reclassify nuclear as renewable AND say voila the storage problem's been solved.(It has but the media won't say it is unless he says it is).

[bgates]

Obama could sell the country on a combination of solar/geothermal/biofuel, to wit:
1) An increase in substrates for plant growth leads to a broad diversity of plants and animals to consume them,
2) leading to a tremendous amount of biomass,
3) which can be stored deep underground where the heat and pressure of the earth converts the biomass into a more energy-dense form.
4) Best of all, utilization of the energy-dense material results in a greater availability of the plant substrate to be taken up into biomass.

Obama could suggest that the storage mentioned in step 3 be centered in economically depressed areas to generate jobs in PA, WV, and KY.

Of course, it would be easier to foster plant growth if the irresponsible policies of the outgoing administration hadn't led to the Bush Ice Age now underway.

[Pofarmer]

O.K.

Somebody help me out here. Let's say we add 1 quad a year for 17 years starting in 2009. At 20% efficiency, how many 2.1 MW windmills per year is that?(Yes, I'm being lazy.) I'm assuming solar ain't gonna happen, and they specifically prohibit any new or existing hydro over 10MW.

[Pofarmer]

davod

You must be pricing a really BIG system. Are you talking verticle wells or horizontal loop?

[Rick Ballard]

Pofarmer,

Wouldn't you start with the 17 quads worth of gas turbine backup necessary to assure a functioning grid? Then you would have to add the loss factor due to the wind power not being located particularly close to where the power was being used. Then the cost of the new grid lines and connections themselves.

Then you could start on the 85 quads of capacity necessary to assure intermittent delivery of the 17 quads of windpower.

1 kWh = 3042 Btu for the elementary part.

Call it 100 quads of windpower capacity to deliver 17 quads of energy. Lessee - 3042 X 100 quadrillion... Lots and lots? Is DrJ around?

[Rick Ballard]

Pofarmer,

139,563 2.1MW windmills per quad? What's the proper spacing on those gems? We may need to invade Canada and Mexico.

[PeterUK]

It might be worthwhile starting with the impedance of the grid.Whilst the ecoloons say the wind is always blowing somewhere,it is going to be a hell of a job synchronising it so the grid doesn't blow when the wind does.

[Pofarmer]

About an acre a windmill. A 200 ft windmill needs minimum 200x200 clear area.

[Pofarmer]

It could be worse, I suppose. That's only about 4 midwestern counties worth of windmills a year.

[sbw]

JMH, I like your sequel!

[kim]

Don't forget everyone downwind has been damaged by microclimate changes. How to value their damages? Why, one could start with the value of the energy taken out of the wind.
===============================

[Pofarmer]

O.K. at 3.5 million per windmill (not factoring in shortages and runups due to scarcity) figuring 140,000 windmills, that would be roughly $490000000000 per year just for windmills and no infrastructure improvements. That's 490 billion?? Right? My eyes kinda glazed over. No problems there, whatsoever.

[DrJ]

Just got back, Rick, but these units are not that familiar to me. What's a quad?

While I understand the backup concern, it should be possible to store the wind energy in some other form so that it can be used at off-peak times. There was an article mentioned here a while ago that diverted some of the energy into some other form (hydrogen/oxygen by electrolysis? I don't remember). But if you do that, of course you can't use the peak electricity production numbers from the windmill -- some of it is reserved for "non-producing" times. You have to consider the output integrated over time, and then divided by that time to get a proper average output. And that varies from day to day.

There have been quite a number of reversible reactions that have been studied over the years for this sort of thing. Alas, I don't keep up with the field much.

The transmission line issues are real, though.

Personally I'm not a big fan of wind power. I often drive through the Altamont (CA) pass (I-580, for those out here). That is loaded with windmills, and as often as not they are not moving at all. You really do need better energy availability than that.

[Pofarmer]

Oh, yeah, thats without the backup power for the wind power.

[PaulL]

Trillion is the new billion.

[Pofarmer]

There was one where they were making hydrogen and storing it and then burning the hydrogen or some such nonsense. Comes out at a net negative energy balance, if I remember correctly.

[DrJ]

Po, even if it is running the "storage reaction" is not perfectly efficient, it still can smooth out the peaks and valleys.

If they generated hydrogen by electrolysis (which is the obvious way to do it) you also generate oxygen. If you recombine them to get water, you get the electricity back. It is at a low voltage (1.5V? I'd have to look it up) but the reaction is very efficient. That is one of the cool aspects of electrochemistry -- you are not limited to Carnot (i.e., thermal) efficiencies. Electrochemical transduction efficiencies can be very high (like 90% and better).

There has been quite a lot of work done over the years to transport energy over long distances using chemical transformations to avoid the resistive loss of power transmission lines. I've not kept up with the field, I'm afraid, but there are alternatives to generating electricity and then distributing it by transmission lines.

[Rick Ballard]

DrJ,

A quad is a quadrillion Btu. It's the standard EIA measure of energy consumption. (See the 2008 Reference Case linked above.) When Zero babbles about 25% of energy consumption coming from renewables, it's the measure of the depth of his ignorance (or dishonesty).

I'm familiar with the Altamont and would concur vociferously with your observation.

[DrJ]

When Zero babbles about 25% of energy consumption coming from renewables, it's the measure of the depth of his ignorance (or dishonesty).

Indeed. The amount of energy we, and the rest of the world, use simply is stunning. There was an article in Chemical and Engineering News a while ago (I think I mentioned it) that was eye-opening. Transferring all of this to renewables may be possible, but it really is hard. Really hard.

Personally I would support short-term drilling, a strong (and lawsuit-free) pursuit of nuclear energy (with reprocessing) to buy ten or twenty years while all the alternatives are looked at in more detail. Support the research through SBIR and directed government grants. But my goodness, it is way too soon to choose anything new at the moment.

A quadrillion BTUs, huh? My units conversion program does not know that unit. That is ten raised to what exponent?

[sbw]

I think it is time to unleash the power of the JOM research team and collective memory.

I just read the Eric Holder Op Ed in the New York Times. It appears Holder pulled an egregious abuse of power unmatched in the annals of Presidential Pardon History.

In fact, it appears as if almost everyone Obama has tapped for a position of power has managed to bend to political expedience.

It would be telling to accumulate a summary of the principal players and their major glossed over flaw. Everyone seems to have something on somebody to make them comliant.

[sbw]

When O posts his energy policy, can we insist he not get credit unless he shows his work?

[Rick Ballard]

1E+015 AKA 'lots and lots'

[clarice]

Good one, sbw..make him show his work, indeed.

Eric hHolder's hearings may well come first and they have the most on him--the pardons, Elian Gonzales, etc. It'll remind everyone why we breathed a sign of relief when the Clintons rolled those trucks up to the WH and cleaned it out.And then left.

[Rick Ballard]

DrJ,

These are my favorite solution. Simple, clean, cheap and no brainers to run.

Totally unsuitable for "government work", of course.

[DrJ]

A quadillion is a million billion, then. OK!

Yes, that's large, but Avagadro's number (the number of molecules per mole or "standard combining volume") is 10^23 so it is certainly not unknown in any way.

[RichatUF]

What's a quad?

Quadrillion of Btu's

Wiki image of US power sources and usage.

[RichatUF]

Oops see that it was answered.

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

I really like that chart. It demonstrates the "system energy loss" very effectively.

[clarice]

Let's hope there's the same expiration date on this promise as there's been on all his other ones---weeks from the date of purchase.

[Daddy]

OT

My wife just came in from downtown Anchorage bringing home the 12 year old from Nutcracker Practice. She had stopped at a downtown candy/coffee shop she likes and had to park and walk a few blocks as construction there has been going on so long it makes it difficult to get to. After a brisk, snowy walk she was inside chatting with a casual lady friend in the store about what a pain it was to get there and park.

"Tell it to him," said her friend, pointing to the guy standing 2 feet away, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Without missing a beat, my wife quips, "What should he care, it's not his problem anymore," which supposedly got them all laughing, and Senator Elect Begich humerously responding to the joke saying something back like, "Yeah, I guess not."

Here's to hoping he stays a normal, human being once he gets to D.C.

[clarice]

The Nutcracker, Daddy? You mean you don't all just hop in the pickup and drive out to watch turkeys being slaughtered for the holidays?

[Rick Ballard]

Not to worry, Clarice. If we play "Name the Scam", this one is "Wall Street Payoff". The numbers won't be one-tenth the amount that Pofarmer came up with. This is all about generating BS for the Wall Street thieves to use to peddle wind to suckers too dumb to do the math.

Find the 'Masters of the Universe' houses peddling Alternative Energy who funneled dough to Zero and viola!, puzzle solved.

[sbw]

Rich, I just emailed your chart to my wife at her school email address where she teaches journalism. For subject I put:

Presentation turns information into news

[RichatUF]

sbw-

Wow. Glad I could be helpful.

Rick-

Which Wall Street house wasn't a major contributor? I'm less worried about the great wind scam (the gov't has been subsidising it for 30 years) than I am about any sort of Masters of the Universe creativity regarding an Air Tax and carbon trading.

[clarice]

Rick, you'll be happy to learn the very latest news on Citi is that the govt has developed cold feet on bailing it out.

As for the scam--here's the way it still costs us even if it's dropped. There is enormous pressure brought to bear on any company producing energey and on all big consumers of it (including municipalities and states) to show they are on the green bandwagaon. So they alter their behavior to conform to those demands and we all pay for those changes whether or not they are needed or particularly useful .

[clarice]

Every large corporation has hired lawyers and energy specialists to help it on "climate change " issues. The more this D.C. fattens up the thinner you in the hustings get. Ka-Ching.

[clarice]

**energy**