Our Wrong-Headed Approach to Utilizing Alternative Energy Sources

Pajamas Media ^ | Feb. 7 | John Droz Jr.

[AJKauf]

I just had an interesting correspondence with the editor of an energy publication. Here’s a story that should put it into perspective. Tell me if I’m crazy.

Let’s say some investors and developers step forward with a reportedly new type of commercial grade electrical power. They named it “Zephyr Integrated Power” (ZIP). Since these people are clever types, they spent a lot of time and money on the marketing aspect of ZIP. (They knew that this was necessary to be able to break into the system — and they want on the grid in a big way.)

So they tell us that ZIP is “free, clean, and green.” Sounds good!

Oh yes, for good measure they also add that implementing ZIP will create oodles of jobs.

So the basic question is this: exactly what do we do before we allow these people and their new product on the electric grid?

We wouldn’t be so gullible to just take their word for ZIP’s purported benefits, would we?

At the current time, the disturbing answer is yes, that is exactly what we do!...

[AZLiberty]

The solution is as wrong-headed as the problem that the author correctly perceives.

Better: let the market decide, not Federal bureaucrats.

[USNBandit]

This is already happening in Oregon and is helping to break the state's already shaky financial situation.

State politicians allowed energy lobbyists to write a bill chocked full of incentives for "clean" power. Surprisingly, the bill is chocked full of huge loopholes allowing companies to snag large sums of taxpayer money with no production requirement. Companies that have yet to produce one watt for public use have gotten many times the incentives of companies that are actually producing energy.

[Sparky1776]

Pro / Con Renewable Energy Ping

[etcetera]

Hawaii once tried to get ethanol production going in the state when we still had sugar plantations. The problem was disribution of the ethanol, not because of the nature of ethanol (corrosive, hydroscopic, etc), but because the gasoline companies (Chevron, Texaco, Shell, Union 76) wouldn’t let the state use their gas stations to distribute a fuel that the gas companies didn’t own. The gas companies had no stake in the ethanol market, wouldn’t profit from it, and so had no interest in it.

[jnsun]

This is already happening in Oregon and is helping to break the state's already shaky financial situation. State politicians allowed energy lobbyists to write a bill chocked full of incentives for "clean" power. Surprisingly, the bill is chocked full of huge loopholes allowing companies to snag large sums of taxpayer money with no production requirement.

We are in favor of clean alternative energy in the US on a competitive basis. We believe there is a place for government incentives, because the whole energy industry is so bogged down in government mandate anyway that any move one way or the other is a relative incentive or penalty regardless.

We are not familiar with the OR legislation. But we are familiar with the voters in OR being so self-satisfied, naive, and out of touch, that emotional leftist imbalances are fully understandable.

[USNBandit]

I don't think it was done by the voters, just the idiots they voted in.

Here's a link

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=122955487327869100

And an interesting quote

Wiser complains that windmill developers are milking the state by increasingly splitting their projects into multiple phases to collect $11 million in energy tax credits for each phase.

[mosesdapoet]

That’s also happening in Wisconsin but in Wisconsin here is the difference
http://www.theusmat.com/lakebea.htm