Posted on 07/31/2012 4:00:09 PM PDT by jazusamo
Well, I really have to hand it to the Obama Administration and General Motors when it comes to promoting green energy initiatives and the Chevy Volt; if nothing else, they are persistent. Unfortunately, that persistence continues to come at the expense of US taxpayers. The latest folly, as reported by Edmunds Inside Line , involves a $10.4 million grant from the Energy Department to create what Edmunds calls "Chevrolet Volt-ville."
GM and OnStar have joined a partnership (which includes GE Energy, of course) that had been formed to create a community in Texas called Pecan Street Inc. GM says the community will be home to "the greatest concentration of Chevrolet Volts in the world." In addition to the tax credits already available to Volt buyers, residents receive another $7,500 rebate for purchasing a Volt or $3,000 for leasing one.
Goals of Pecan Street include delivering "reliable and affordable energy to a growing population" and "possibly eliminate the need to construct polluting power plants." Really? I don't think that giving taxpayer money away to lower the cost of Volts makes them "affordable." And any claim that this community can "eliminate the need to construct polluting power plants" is highly dubious. But when it comes to green energy initiatives and the Chevy Volt, it seems like over-promising and under-delivering is the norm.
GM has been falling well short of reaching sales goals for the Volt, despite loads of subsidies. I can see no benefit being derived from giving more taxpayer money away to promote Volt sales. This car should be allowed to succeed or fail in the free markets without the politically motivated support that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The Obama Administration continues to freely spend taxpayer dollars to promote an ideology that has not benefited America by significantly creating jobs or lessening foreign oil dependence. The Department of Energy continues to throw good money away after bad as it doubles-down on failing causes under the guise of a green policy that supposedly will free America from oil dependence. It is time to consider whether or not the country can afford to keep throwing money at a green cause that promises much, but delivers little.
Mark Modica is an NLPC Associate Fellow.
Obama is outdoing himself for Government Motors.
FDR tried similar foolish ideas with his Commie buddies in the 30’s and 40’s.
Pecan Street...the street of nuts...
This 'electric' thing is a real sticker-shocker - it is in no way cheap and much less convenient - as you have to 'refuel' all too often, at ever steeper prices!
AND - don't EVER start driving one across the nation - you'll have a very hard time trying to find a place to 'plug it in' out there in much of the US 'outback.' LOL
Um, how can increasing the demand for electricity result in eliminating the need to construct "polluting" power plants?
Obama and the enviro-nazis have begun shutting down coal fired generating plants and now with the meltdown of the nuclear plants in Japan they'll be doomed by these same enviro-nazis.
The wind and solar generating will not come close to replacing our energy needs so it makes no sense whatsoever to go the electric route for autos.
I live in the 'Old Southwest' area of Roanoke, VA. It is inhabited by artsy, liberal, commie, gay, progressive, urban organic gardeners, and on and on and on. Dirty 'green' grocery bags and mountain bikes for everyone! 'you name it' It has the worlds highest concentration of freakin' Priuses ever. And the 'smug' factor here per capita rivals Fag Francisco or Suckeattle any day of the week.
And the ‘Grandin Village’ area of Roanoke, VA is even worse. They are closer to limosine liberals. Old Southwest is full of poor artists and waitresses but Grandin Village has the corporate yuppie types who ride their 3000 dollar bikes to work to save .50 on gas. Their smugness factor is even worse than Old S.W.
Wind and solar suffer an insurmountable obstacle before they even get started. Neither offers a stored energy option.
I can pump NG from the ground, store it, without using any energy, in a tank for an unlimited time and it still has the same potential as when it came from the ground.
Wind and solar share a similar problem: no economical way to store the generated energy until needed.
All this Green BS boils down to this simple truth: Until wind and solar can overcome the storage problem, neither will be economically feasible.
Here in the Northwest we get a lot of power from hydroelectric dams and it's the cheapest of any electrical energy.
There are some large wind farms and when power is not needed from them because of the hydroelectric they shut down the wind farms due to that power being much more expensive and it can't be stored. They scream bloody murder but that's tough, the sad thing is taxpayers subsidized the wind farms or they couldn't have been put in in the first place.
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