Posted on 05/16/2008 9:16:43 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Watermelons — people who are "green on the outside and Red on the inside" — refuse to believe renewable-energy technologies may never be capable of replacing oil and natural gas, but it doesn't stop them from sowing their fantasy seeds.
Their latest loopiness was an Energy Department study this week that claimed windmills could generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030. All that's required is "more improvements in turbine technology, cost reductions, new transmission lines, an expansion of the wind industry and a fivefold increase in the pace of wind-turbine installation," The Associated Press reported.
"Hand me that piano" is how the British comedy troupe Monty Python used to deride such easier-said-than-done assertions. Wind technology is not ready for prime time; even if it was, NIMBYs won't allow windmills where the wind blows reliably.
But America wouldn't be having this discussion if green energy wasn't so heavily subsidized by taxpayers. According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says federal largess per megawatt hour is $24.34 for solar and $23.37 for wind. Coal, by contrast, gets 44 cents, natural gas 25 cents, hydroelectric 67 cents and nuclear $1.59. (The EIA said federal largess for ethanol and biofuels is $5.72 per British thermal unit of energy produced and $2.82 for solar and wind, while natural gas, oil and gasoline get just 3 cents each.)
Even with massive subsidies, renewables can't come close to competing with oil and gas; without them, they'd be dead in the water. Though wind and solar have been on the "subsidy take" for decades, the Journal notes, they produce less than 1 percent of America's electricity; nuclear, meanwhile, generates 20 percent but is subsidized 15 times less.
Believing all renewables, let alone just wind, will produce 20 percent of America's power anytime soon requires a leap of faith only fools would attempt. Speaking of which: Connecticut and other New England states have imposed "20 by '20" mandates — 20 percent renewable-energy generation by 2020 — on their electricity producers.
Northeast Utilities already faces stiff fines for failing to meet its meager 2 percent requirement in 2006 because green-power capacity simply isn't there. Getting to 20 percent, NU says, will require 2,200 new windmills or 8.2 million new solar panels. It also would mean surmounting the aversion of NIMBYs, BANANAs and watermelons to turbines, dams, biomass boilers and fuel-cell farms.
Hand us that piano factory.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
This aught to get a response from the “savior”.
Windmills, I love windmills, but not in my back yard, (Ted Kennedy)...
This can't be right.
A BTU is approximately the energy required to raise a pint of water one degree Farenheit.
I'd put one in my back yard - regulations forbid it and It would take about 6 years at current utility rates to pay off, not a great investment!
Try dropping a watermelon from a windmill sometime — they make a neat splatter. Hmmm.....
I assert that,
if windmills or solar were a viable energy source capable of maintaining or advancing our current Western/American lifestyle,
the left would find some way to oppose it (like nuclear).
You know this from personal experience?
This wonderful phrase (which I use often to describe my neighbors) was coined by Roberto D'Aubboissin when he was running for President of El Salvador back in the 1980s. In a rather famous TV ad he sliced opened a watermelon and compared it to Jose Napoleon Duarte's Christian Democrats, green on the outside (Green being the party's color) and red on the inside.
I got my jollies as a kid by dropping things from high places to see what happened. Spontaneous disassembly, I called it. Strange, but true.
I'll take that offer with much thanks. Although I'm now in Utah I grew up in CT, and always enjoy the WRA eds.
FMCDH(BITS)
You’ve been added.
I understand NIMBYs, but have forgotten what BANANA stands for. Please enlighten, if you don't mind...
I don’t know either, maybe someone else will answer.
As I recall, it stands for: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.
BANANA Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything
Or, maybe could it be, "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside"?
Huh?????
They already burn so much wood chips in the north East that the price of pulp wood tracks with the price of coal. Mix the wood chips with crusher run coal and the only problem the power plant has is a slightly lower combustion temp.
There is also a problem in siting new users of wood chips, how much of the current supply is already spoken for in the radius where it would be cost effective to haul.
ping
There is some very cool stuff out there. Where I’m building a home there is 300+ days a year with trade winds that blow up-slope from off the ocean. We’re at 1000’ elevation and get a venturi effect as the wind comes up the mountain. With the wind blowing day and night the meter will run slowly forward during the day and backwards at night, and it’s possible we can generate all the KWH we need.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/vertical_axis_wind_turbines.htm
http://www.skystreamenergy.com/skystream/
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