In Germany the country is setting records in its reliance on alternative energy sources like solar power and record wind power installations. Japan is now building the country’s biggest solar park which make it one of the world’s largest markets for solar power (Newscientist). Here in the United States, of course, we continue to let the world take the lead in such efforts. Mitt Romney’s campaign has announced that he intends not only to reject calls for greater investment in our wind power industry but to actually kill federal support for wind power.
Romney wants to end long-standing tax credits for wind farm projects. This would result in the death of the production tax credits (PTCs). Shawn McCoy, a spokesman for Romney’s Iowa campaign, says killing PTCs is merely creating “a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.” That would be good news for our oil and coal industries.
I understand (and generally agree with) the preference to rely on the market to favor the most efficient industries. However, our reliance on oil and coal has produced continuing environmental harm and oil imports fund some countries with extreme policies on civil liberties as well as terrorism ties. Our European allies have seen the value to investing heavily in these alternative and clean energy sources. Cost/benefit analysis is only as accurate as the underlying data. When the myriad of benefits are considered, these credits are highly efficient. Indeed, the ability to maximize our use of alternative and clean energy is both a public health and national security priority.
With the world rushing forward, we appear to be rushing back (lead by an army of lobbyists).
Source: Newscientist
My human Pal (none dare call a dog’s Pal an owner) lives in a small farm house and has a wind generator and solar panels on the roof. Four big marine deep cycle batteries power all of the needs of the house except the refrigerator. Stove is propane. The power company has to pay him a credit. Same thing on the sailboat except the power company does not have to pay him a credit because he has no power company hooked to the boat. LED lighting is the wave of the future. Romney’s glib little wave and his preppy attire is the wave of the past. The Willard. RepubliCons really screwed up this time around. Bring back Palin. Anybody but The Willard.
Did you know that he was conceived in the Willard Hotel and that is how he got the name Willard. Mitt means My in Swedish and he was given that appellation by the Kock Brothers. Ask for his birth certificate when you request his ten years tax return. I think he has a wind generator credit in 2009.
My human Pal (none dare call a dog’s Pal and owner) lives in a small farm house and has a wind generator and solar panels on the roof. Four big marine deep cycle batteries power all of the needs of the house except the refrigerator. Stove is propane. The power company has to pay him a credit. Same thing on the sailboat except the power company does not have to pay him a credit because he has no power company hooked to the boat. LED lighting is the wave of the future. Romney’s glib little wave and his preppy attire is the wave of the past. The Willard. RepubliCons really screwed up this time around. Bring back Palin. Anybody but The Willard.
Did you know that he was conceived in the Willard Hotel and that is how he got the name Willard. Mitt means My in Swedish and he was given that appellation by the Kock Brothers. Ask for his birth certificate when you request his ten years tax return. I think he has a wind generator credit in 2009.
That’s hilarious. Germany as a model for electricity. Their average cost per kw/h is 27.81 cents. The US? around 11.0 for domestic users, a little lower or higher depending on locale. So, who wants electricity prices in the US to double? Maybe triple? Anyone? Buler? Buler? Oh, that’s right, Obama does. A rather famous quote of his, I believe. “Under my plan, energy prices will necessarily skyrocket.” There goes the liberal arguments that they’re the party for the poor. I agree with Romney on ending federal aid for clean energy, though I would also end federal aid to the oil industry (except general tax incentives that apply to heavy industry generally, instead of a single industry specificallly).
You’re all still forgetting about clean coal. Dirty water. Dirty air. There’s more fossil fuel energy in the form of coal in the continental United States than all the known oil reserves on the planet.
There has to be a gap. Wind and solar. What is the gap?
The upshot of this news is that Ohio, a battle state in the presidential elections, will lose (or stand to lose) many jobs associated with this. It may earn Pres. Obama some more votes or is anyone employed in alternative energy a liberal to begin with?
Elaine, sorry about the misunderstanding. Previous article is excellent.
bron
the problem is what migrates on the outside of the well casing, not what passes through the pipe itself.
I wrote a post about fracking last year for the Turley blog:
Fracking USA: A Post about the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, Governor Tom Corbett, C. Alan Walker, the Marcellus Shale, Polluted Drinking Water, and the Movie Gasland
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/10/fracking-usa-a-post-about-the-pennsylvania-department-of-community-and-economic-development-governor-tom-corbett-c-alan-walker-the-marcellus-shale-polluted-drinking-water-and-the-movie-gasland/
bettykath & chimene,
I’m well aware of the use of windmills in the past for grinding grain, pumping water, etc. I’d say that is quite different from building large wind farms to generate electricity. Evidently, people missed my point.
Back in the 1980s, my husband worked for a windmill company (US Windpower) that actually installed the world’s first wind farm on Crotched Mountain in southern New Hampshire.The company also built a large wind farm in Altamont Pass in california.
http://www.umass.edu/windenergy/about.history.alumni.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Pass_Wind_Farm
*****
Darren,
“Let us not forget, Ted Kennedy of Mass. also declared some opposition to a wind farm project.”
John Kerry did too.
“But the boom — brought on by an advanced drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking — has brought problems too. While the gas companies have created numerous high-paying drilling jobs, many residents lack the skills for them. Some people’s drinking water has been contaminated. Narrow country roads are crumbling under the weight of heavy trucks. With housing scarce and expensive, more residents are becoming homeless. Local services and infrastructure are strained”http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/hydraulic-fracturing-brings-money-and-problems-to-pennsylvania.html?pagewanted=all
Does it cause earthquakes? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-12/earthquake-outbreak-in-central-u-s-tied-to-drilling-wastewater.html
All I need to know who is behind it, people like Gov. Corbett, to know it is a bad idea, but the truth of it, damage to environment and drinking water for a start gives it the thumbs down.
oil companies have been using hydraulic fracturing of wells since the 1940’s and quite successfully. It is nothing new.
Most oil bearing strata are 1,000’s of feet deep [below aquifers] and wells are cased with steel pipe to help prevent contamination of ground water and loss of product.
Nothing is perfect, windmills use hundreds of pounds of copper wire to produce electricity and thousands of pounds of coal to produce the steel. Both copper and coal come from mines which produce true havoc on the environment.
Plus windmills have been known to kill raptors. It is my understanding they also produce some sort of sound frequency that is quite annoying to certain people.
Nick? I can do without a lot of the things that fracked natural gas energy might provide. I won’t be able to LIVE, however, with NO CLEAN WATER TO DRINK! Fracking’s “collateral damage” to the potable water supply is just too great. As bad as processing tar sands sludge.
Yes, Elaine M. Bron is referring to the wind power that has been used for hundreds of years DIRECTLY to do needed work. Long before electricity was in the picture, the Dutch used wind-mills to pump the sea water out of their re-claimed land and Spain used windmills to grind their grain because they didn’t have lots of fast-flowing water for water-mills. The ROMANS used water and wind mills in mining and metal refining operations!
The first windmills were developed to automate the tasks of grain-grinding and water-pumping and the earliest-known design is the vertical axis system developed in Persia about 500-900 A.D. The first use was apparently water pumping, but the exact method of water transport is not known because no drawings or designs — only verbal accounts — are available. The first known documented design is also of a Persian windmill, this one with vertical sails made of bundles of reeds or wood which were attached to the central vertical shaft by horizontal struts (see Figure 1a). A 19th Century American approximation of this panemone device is shown at the left (Figure 1b).
http://telosnet.com/wind/early.html
oops, Don Quixote was tilting at windmills in the early 17th century.
Elaine, Wind mills have been used for centuries as a power source. Grinding grain for flour is one use.
nick, Fracking is a disaster. The only folks telling us how great it is are all being paid off by the gas companies. It will make us on a par with OPEC nations? You must be breathing or drinking the stuff. The reality is an industry willing to destroy the countryside and the people living there for the $$$$$$$$$$. The money is much better off going into solar.
One of the most under reported stories is the amount of energy we will derive from fracking. Even people who are in favor of green energy realize this potentially makes us on a par w/ most OPEC nations. We will change our fuels when it is economically feasible. As long as there is cheap oil and natural gas[relatively] the “green revolution” simply will be on hold. That’s the reality, don’t attack me for simply stating what even green engineers are saying. I don’t expect “greeners” to like this new reality, but you fail to understand it @ your own peril.
Bron,
“Now that is just funny since wind power has been used for hundreds of years.”
Silly me! For sure, there were huge wind farms that produced electricity way way back during Medieval times.
😉
”
The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.
Brooks Atkinson (1894 – 1984), Once Around the Sun, 1951″