Posted on 03/17/2012 5:29:10 PM PDT by Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri
Reefer and ecstasy.
Solar and wind have huge potential. They just need to be developed in the free market without government intervention.
The amount of energy that can potentially be tapped from the sun is astronomical. The issues of cost and efficiency are constantly improving. Government subsidy hinders progress because it props up failure and inefficiency like the way the current admin bailed out the auto unions, robbing investors of their legal rights.
Wind energy has much less potential at the ground level, but higher in the atmosphere there is a pretty powerful and constant supply of wind energy. We just need innovation and creativity to tap into it.
The way congress and government in general (as specified by the constitutionally enumerated powers) can further this progress is to provide fair and equitable protection of intellectual property rights for inventors. The move to first-to-file was a move in the wrong direction in my opinion, but the current admin may have actually accomplished some improvements as to the speed at which patents are awarded. Time will tell.
Your statement doesn’t stand; Denmark has the largest government effort and we’re talking decades, not centuries. We have shown that despite this it only meets 5 to 10 percent of their energy needs and Danes have the highest utilities cost in the world. It makes no economic sense. Please explain why we need wind, which cannot function without the government. There are 400 anti-wind organizations in Europe, 250 in Britain, and 50 in Canada.
I don’t see potential in wind turbines; the fact is wind isn’t attractive to investors. Building a wind farm the size of the state of Connecticut to power New York City is a horrible waste of real estate and makes no sense. As for the potential of solar, we’re looking at it the wrong way..you don’t need a nuclear reactor 93 million miles away, you need one right here on earth. The government isn’t hampering these two..I remember T. Boone Pickens pushing wind and building that massive wind farm out in Texas..oh, it won’t cost us taxpayers, but then he calls for the government to mandate it’s purchase forcing us to pay through our utility bill and of the 103,000 megawatt summer capacity needed, wind only provided 1.3 percent..880 megawatts out of a capacity of over 10,000 megawatts..Rick Perry doesn’t mind touting Texas as the largest wind state, three times as many turbines as any other state. This crony capitalism or worse
No, I am not.
If privately purchased as an adjunct, they are not scams. When presents as a total replacement for fossil fuels, then they are.
T.Boone Pickens was ultimately purchasing the rights-of-way for his plan of piping waster from the Oglalla Aquifer to Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin.
There’s absolutely no need for “wind power” beyond Obama’s “green jobs” that cost taxpayers $350,000 each and the whole “reducing your carbon foot print” fad that’s as big as wearing a Che tee shirt. Natural gas is really inexpensive and plentiful while a single nuclear power plant confined to four miles could readily provide the power of a 2,100+ mile row wind turbines. The incentive comes from government subsidies, government mandates, and praise for being “green.” Give me one percent of the resources of the radical environmental groups and I could break this “green” nonsense into pieces. Let me tell you something, people don’t want want high gas prices, high utility bills, or a whole economy ruined for the sake of Al Gore.
See my post 34...Wind power by itself is virtually worthless as a salable commodity since the requirement for electricity has to dictate what is actually purchased, not what is available at any given point in time. Try running anything on the basis that it will only work when the wind blows. Thus wind MUST be coupled with a stable generation source to allow instantaneous demand be met and in Ontario (as well as other areas), that something is gas. As wind goes up and down, gas has to go down and up so that the grid is appropriately supplied. Here’s the problem...The cycles happen so fast that the type of gas generators that can accommodate this type of load on the grid are what is referred to as ‘simple cycle’ design. These are in the 30% efficiency range. If the gas generators weren’t trying to respond to such horrendous cycles, the gas generators could be ‘combined cycle’ design which is in the 50% efficiency range. If the higher efficiency gas turbines were used, you would get the same amount of electrical supply without any wind turbines AND with no increase in burning gas! This is why wind is a scam.
That is my point. Drop the subsidies and silly mandates. If Joe Shmoe wants a wind generator to recharge batteries or provide power to a small of-the-grid hooch out of his own pocket, I have no problem with it. It is, after all, a fad.
I agree that ground-level wind turbines lack potential compared to other energy sources. If I owned a big piece of desert land in the Palm Springs area, I might see some value for personal energy independence. For investing, not so much.
The best potential for wind energy is not at the ground level. Check out this company as an example:
You said the “government isn’t hampering” solar and wind. What I was referring to is that government subsidies hamper progress because this practice picks the winners rather than letting the market pick them.
I’m not against limited funding of research and development of these technologies, but giving subsidies, loan guarantees or awarding contracts where private entities reap the reward while taxpayers carry the risk are ways to move our nation further toward bankruptcy.
On the other hand we should try to keep our technological edge. Businesses and universities doing research that leads to patenting of new technologies should get some share of the profits from licensing the technology, but whatever proportion of funding comes from the government should also be the proportion of licensing fees that are paid back to the tax payers.
Once the technology exists private funding should be sufficient to capitalize on what then becomes proven technology.
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