All "Environmentalists"....Read With Care

The following article accurately sums up the sad state of affairs surrounding the entire sordid man-caused global warming fiasco.  It has and is costing humanity dearly.  Let's hope we wake up in time to recover.  I have been preaching and pleading for people to listen to these truths for years.
Peter

The Greying of Green?

Posted By David Solway On May 16, 2012 @ 12:30 am In "Green" tech,economy,Elections 2012,Politics,Science & Technology,US News | 11 Comments

original here: http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-greying-of-green/

It has been reliably estimated by many researchers into the subject of “Global Warming” (or any of the other sobriquets by which it is known) that in fulfilling the draconian prescriptions of the Kyoto Accord or its successors, such as the United Nations IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, millions of jobs will be lost in the developed world, the quality of life in the industrialized nations will sink to substandard levels, and the inhabitants of the Third World will be deprived of the minimal immunities, comforts, and amenities to which they aspire.

Fiona Kobusingye, coordinator of the Congress of Racial Equality Uganda, has vehemently denounced the attempt to impose energy restrictions on African nations in the name of fighting global warming. “These policies kill,” she writes. As for the combustible Al Gore, he “uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year.” Her conclusion: “Telling Africans they can’t have electricity—except what can be produced with some wind turbines or little solar panels—is immoral. It is a crime against humanity” (Townhall.com., July 29, 2009). Her article is a must read. Graced with common sense and logical reasoning, it is one of the best puncturings of the hot air balloon in the relevant literature.

H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the nonprofit National Center for Policy Analysis, would clearly agree. He correctly argues that recommendations based on “flawed statistical analyses and procedures that violate general forecasting principles” should be taken “into account before enacting laws to counter global warming—which economists point out would have severe economic consequences.” Such consequences are already in evidence. Benny Peiser, editor of CCNet science network, speaking at the Heartland Institute’s 2009 climate conference in New York, sounded the death knell of the green movement in Europe owing to huge costs and minimal results (Climate Realists, March 11, 2009). Environmentalist Lawrence Solomon quotes Spanish economist Gabriel Calzada, whose studies show that “every green job created ploughs under 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy” and that green jobs are proving to be unsustainable since the creation of even one such job costs $1 million in government subsidies (National Post, March 31, 2009).

These are costs that may be suffered in other, frankly ludicrous, ways as well. The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in its 2008 Annual Report, published in 2009, jubilates over the replacement of motorized vehicles by “bicycle rickshaws”—which, it must be admitted, will certainly help to decongest metropolitan traffic. That it would reduce America and the West to Third World Status does not trouble UNEP overmuch. Perhaps that is the plan.

The much-ballyhooed T. Boone Pickens strategy of introducing large-scale windmill technology is now proving to be a similarly quixotic project, unsightly, land-consuming, bird-killing, neurosis-inducing, expensive and totally inadequate to its declared purpose of meeting even a fraction of our electricity needs. Alex Alexiev of the Hudson Institute has laid the cards on the table for all to read: green electricity bills are rising exponentially; Europe is gradually abandoning many of its green energy programs as cost-ineffective and injurious to both wildlife and human health; and, as of the end of 2008, American solar and wind-power stocks had lost 80% of their value (FrontPage Magazine, March 31, 2009). Rhode Island’s Public Utilities Commission has rejected a deal to build an offshore wind farm that would have entailed “hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs…” (The Providence Journal, March 31, 2010). New Zealand has repealed its carbon tax scheme and Australia’s opposition party is vowing to follow suit.

The writing is on the wall in majuscule ^[1]. The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has closed shop, putting an end to its estimated $10 trillion carbon trading scheme. In August 2011, President Obama’s pet green project, the California-based Solyndra solar plant, filed for bankruptcy, costing the U.S. $535 million in wasted stimulus funds and 1,100 jobs (NBC Bay Area, August 31, 2011). Other such futilities are impending. The Beacon Power Corp, recipient of a $43 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, has filed for bankruptcy after being delisted by the NASDAQ (Moneynews, October 31, 2011). The solar cell company Spectrawatt, recipient of a federal stimulus boost, and Nevada Geothermal, which profited from Federal DOE and Treasury Department subsidies, are on the brink of failure (FrontPage Magazine, January 26, 2012.) Ener 1, which received a $118 million stimulus grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop lithium storage batteries for electric cars, has filed for bankruptcy protection (Bloomberg Businessweek, February 2, 2012). This is bad news for the plug-in Chevy Volt, the president’s car of choice, which is beset with problems anyway; GM had to suspend production to cut inventory owing to anemic sales (Left Lane Online, March 2, 2012).

Abound Solar, which makes cadmium telluride solar modules to the tune of a $400 million federal loan guarantee, has laid off 300 workers, amounting to 70% of its workforce (New York Post, March 10, 2012). And now the electric vehicle battery company A123 Systems, beneficiary of $300 million in Obama’s Recovery Act funds and $135 million in state tax credits and subsidies, courtesy of Michigan’s former Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm, is about to go belly up—another instance, to use Michelle Malkin’s term, of a smart grid, crony-inspired “enviro-boodle” (National Review Online, March 30, 2012).

The reason for many of these failures in green energy-production companies is simple. As noted environmental consultant and author Rich Trzupek explains, the energy density of convertible wind and solar is risibly low and dispersed, which renders electricity-generating power plants, whether large or small, “the most inefficient, least reliable, and expensive form of power we have” (FrontPage Magazine, March 23, 2012). As happened in Spain, Europe’s bellwether country for climatophrenic ruination, Obama’s “solar alchemy,” which demonizes traditional forms of energy extraction and application, has become a recipe for an American economic debacle.

Finnish professor Jarl Ahlbeck, a former Greenpeace member and author of over 200 scientific publications, points out that “real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming.” Contrary to common belief, he continues, “there has been no or little global warming since 1995” (Facts and Arts, November 25, 2008). His findings have been supported by many other studies. To adduce just a few instances: geophysicist Phil Chapman, basing his results on careful analyses from major weather-tracking agencies, reports that global temperature is “falling precipitously” (The Australian, April 23, 2008); geologist Don Easterbrook, associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, Professor Emeritus at Western Washington University and former U.S. representative to UNESCO, is also convinced that recent solar changes suggest the advent of a new cooling cycle which could be “fairly severe” (GlobalResearch, November 2, 2008); and a new study conducted by three Norwegian scientists, Jan-Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl and Ole Humlum, indicates that the next solar cycle, which is imminent, will see a “significant temperature decrease” over and above the current decline (Climate Depot, March 7, 2012).

Moreover, as Robert Zubrin has decisively shown in his recent Merchants of Despair ^[2], there exists robust scientific proof derived from ice core data and isotopic ratios in marine organism remains that Earth’s climate is a stable system,   (I've been saying this for years now, Peter)  that CO₂ emissions create surplus plant growth that in turn absorbs atmospheric carbon dioxide, thus restoring climate equilibrium over the long haul, and that under cyclical conditions of global warming agricultural productivity naturally increases and human life immensely improves.

In a brilliant article for the Financial Post (April 21, 2012) analyzing the eleven logical fallacies on which the argument for man-made climate change rests, Lord Christopher Monckton, known for tracking and exposing scientific hoaxes, has effectively proven that the anthropogenic thesis has absolutely no basis, neither in fact nor in theory. So-called climate skeptics need nerves of steel to oppose the reigning ideology. It takes no less courage and perhaps even more for a climate “Warmist” to buck the trend, as culture-hero James Lovelock has recently done. Lovelock, who in his 2006 The Revenge of Gaia ^[3] prophesied the charring of the planet, now admits he had been “extrapolating too far.” Despite predictably hedging his bets and deferring catastrophe into the indefinite future, he avers that “we don’t know what the climate is doing” and disparages his previous work, including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth ^[4] and Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers ^[5], as “alarmist” (MSNBC.com, April 30, 2012).

Nevertheless, the Global Warming meme continues to circulate in defiance of the accumulating evidence, which leads one to wonder who the real “deniers” are. In my own country of Canada, “Warmist” foundations are determined to continue issuing environmental fatwas, in particular to tie up state-of-the-art, economically productive oil pipelines in endless litigation. That such a move would impact national revenues and cost thousands of potential jobs is a matter of no concern.

But the problem does not extend only to adversarial institutions and fellow-traveling NGOs. In other respects, Canadian governing parties, on both the federal and provincial levels, have not yet caught on to the perilous, impractical and pixilated nature of the Green crusade. Unsightly, government approved wind farms, for example, are literally driving people crazy and adding steeply to electricity bills.

Despite being hyped by the left-leaning CBC News (May 22, 2008), solar energy installations and SpongeBob-looking photovoltaic panels disfiguring the landscape do not seem like a reasonable prop
osition in a country already burdened by a dark, six month winter, as the Ontario Power Authority will shortly discover. Government and industry supporters, to cite the enthusiastic CBC report, base their projections on the presumed success of the German model. But there is a slight hitch, namely, the German solar experiment is a possible “government boondoggle,” is “cost-inefficient,” ^[6] will soon be obsolete, and has become “debatable” (MIT Technology Review, July/August, 2010). Indeed, it is now being phased out (Slate, February 18, 2010).

And then we have the soon-to-be-mandated mercury-laden CFLs, an undoubted domestic hazard, that are replacing standard light bulbs. Like many of my fellow citizens, I am assiduously hoarding incandescents in my basement, enough to see me through at least five years of environmental madness. Perhaps by that time, Green may have greyed sufficiently to be put out to pasture. One can hope.

The "Green Energy" Boondoggle

The facts elaborated on in the following article have been obvious, known, and discussed on this blog and elsewhere since its inception.  Maybe, finally, our current worldwide economic depression and enforced belt-tightening is bringing some common sense to our energy policies.  Let's hope so.  The public ought to be outraged at this waste; are you?

Let's hope this same common sense prevails this coming November and those pushing this "green energy boondoogle" find themselves out of office.
Peter 



Green Energy Is a Financial Parasite
source: Casey Research subscribers@caseyresearch.com


Any politician who talks of a green, utopian US - where wind and solar produce most of our energy, electric cars put power back into the grid, green fields of corn produce clean fuels, and millions of Americans work in green technology factories - is creating a fanciful vision so far detached from reality it should really be called a lie. Such tales are designed to encourage a public that is increasingly despondent about the future, but the policy moves that have been made in support of these fantasies have cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. Much of it is money that will not be repaid, because a whole whack of the companies and industries that accepted green grants, loan guarantees, and tax credits have turned out to be complete failures.  (e.g. Solyndra)

Two green subsidies expired with 2011, and not a moment too soon. In fact, we wish more of the US government's initiatives to support green energy had ended with the stroke of midnight, because the green energy industry has become completely dependent on a steady stream of government money. Protected by this "green gold," green technologies from corn ethanol to solar power have not had to compete against other power sectors based on their merits. If they had, many would have already failed.

Let's a take tour through some of the US's green subsidies and examine just how they have tipped the scales in favor of technologies that generally don't stand the test of economics, are often worse for the environment than conventional methods, and are costing taxpayers dearly.

There's nothing good about corn ethanol fuel

On New Year's Eve the corn ethanol subsidy quietly expired, 30 years after it was implemented. In those three decades ethanol became the US's top recipient of alternative-fuel funding, with corn ethanol in particular becoming the darling of the biofuels craze. As a darling should be, the industry was showered with money: Over the last 30 years the federal government has spent $45 billion supporting corn-ethanol producers. In 2011 alone the feds spent $6 billion on corn ethanol subsidies, equating to 45¢ for every gallon of ethanol. Even with that support, US corn ethanol was not able to compete with Brazilian ethanol, which is made from sugar cane. To rectify that, lawmakers instituted a 54¢-per-gallon tariff against the Brazilian product. Together, the 45¢ subsidy and the 54¢ tariff meant American-made corn ethanol was supported to the tune of almost $1 per gallon.

That would be great were ethanol a good way to reduce greenhouse gases, lower energy costs, or increase US energy independence. Unfortunately, it fails on all of those fronts. A growing left-right coalition has been speaking out against ethanol as a fuel for some time now; the latest voice to join the chorus is none other than the National Academy of Sciences. In October, NAS researchers concluded that grain ethanol "could not compete with fossil fuels in the U.S. marketplace without mandates, subsidies, tax exemptions, and tariffs... This lack of competitiveness raises questions about the use of government resources to support biofuels." The report went on to discuss how biofuels actually increase net carbon emissions: pumping energy-intensive row crops into gas tanks leads to land use changes that increase greenhouse gases.

Continuing down the list of ethanol-as-a-fuel failures, it turns out ethanol is very tough on vehicles - a bill to allow gasoline to contain 15% ethanol (compared to the max 10% now allowed) was shot down after every major automaker said that much ethanol would cause significant engine corrosion. Then there's the fact that corn ethanol subsidies also generated a host of painful side effects. One is literally making us fatter: widespread use of high fructose corn syrup. Starting in the mid-1980s farmers realized that, even when sale prices for corn were low, the government's largess meant it was still worthwhile to grow the stuff. More and more corn was grown, beyond what could be consumed by people or livestock or made into fuel. What were producers to do with the rest of it? Make high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that is now in hundreds of thousands of products and that contributes thousands of empty calories to the average American diet every week.

So ethanol is uneconomic unless the government spends billions of taxpayer dollars supporting it, worse for the atmosphere than fossil fuels, and really hard on engines, while the support system to encourage corn-based ethanol production is contributing to the US obesity epidemic. Why, then, is ethanol even used in fuel? Because of all those government subsidies and mandates. After major lobbying efforts from the agricultural and biofuels industries, Congress mandated annual increases in use of renewable fuels, including ethanol, starting with 15 billion gallons in 2007 and growing to 36 billion gallons in 2022.

So fuel makers have to include ethanol in their mixtures. Too bad that rule did not also expire.

Electric vehicles: expensive toys that basically burn coal instead of oil

Another lesser-known tax break also expired with 2011: the credit that gave electric car owners up to $1,000 to defray the cost of installing a 220-volt charging device in their homes, or up to $30,000 to install one in a commercial location. A related subsidy that did not end still gives $7,500 in tax credits to purchasers of electric vehicles. For a variety of reasons, like the ethanol subsidy none of these incentives should have existed in the first place.

Electric vehicles have failed on one front after another. To start, they are inordinately expensive - the much-lauded Chevy Volt costs $40,000, while the Karma from Fisker costs a whopping $100,000. This means electric vehicles are only affordable for the wealthy; it's pretty hard to understand why American taxpayers should subsidize cars for the wealthiest members of society. The subsidies go beyond direct tax credits and rebates - government loans and grants in support of the Volt alone total $3 billion, which means each car produced to date has been subsidized to the tune of $250,000. (Volt supporters contest this number, saying subsidies only total $30,000 per vehicle... still not an insignificant amount.)

Then, for all that money, you still can only drive short distances. The Volt's official range is 30 miles, but reports show it can actually travel only 25 miles before needing to either recharge or switch to gasoline. There's also the issue that electric vehicles still need power, and the electricity that charges their batteries comes primarily from the US power grid, to which the largest contributor is coal-fired power plants. As such, a Volt essentially burns coal instead of gasoline, at least for the 25 miles it can drive before switching to gas.

At least coal is a domestic resource, compared to gasoline derived from imported crude oil, right? Well, let's see just how much electric vehicles will reduce US oil consumption. Assuming there are 6 million of them on American roads in ten years, out of 300 million passenger vehicles, and assuming that passenger vehicles continue to account for 40 to 45% of total US oil consumption, in ten years these tens of billions of dollars spent to support electric vehicles will have reduced US oil consumption by less than 1%. When you add in the fact that lithium-ion batteries are pretty toxic items, and that coal- or natural-gas-derived electricity demands will go up with each electric vehicle, the case for electric vehicles becomes pretty darn weak.  (weak?  pathetic!)

Solar and wind power: a financial sinkhole

Electric vehicles and corn ethanol fuel are not the only green industries that have been producing pitiful returns on government investment: Solar and wind power are just as guilty of eating up huge subsidies and still failing to break even economically.

Let's start with an example - one that was highlighted in a recent New York Times article. NRG Energy is building a 250-MW solar project in San Luis Obispo Country (northwest of Los Angeles), known as California Valley Solar Ranch. The ranch's one million solar panels will provide enough energy for 100,000 homes, but it will cost $1.6 billion to build. Most of those dollars are coming from government subsidies or low-interest loans.

All told, NGR and its partners secured $5.2 billion in federal loan guarantees plus hundreds of millions in other subsidies for four large solar projects. The crazy thing is, the government is giving out these grants and loans despite information from its own researchers that solar power is uneconomic now and will remain so in the future. The US Energy Information Administration predicts that by 2016 the total cost of solar photovoltaic energy will be about $211 per megawatt-hour, compared to $63 for an advanced natural-gas combined-cycle power plant.

Just as with corn ethanol, it's the taxpayer who bears the brunt of this obsession with expensive solar power. The main federal subsidy currently covers 30% of the cost of a residential solar system. When other subsidies are added in, as much as 75% of the cost can be covered. Obama's administration has spent $9.6 billion on solar and wind power through the Section 1603 Treasury grant program over the last few years.

With that kind of support, it's no wonder America is in love with solar power. In 2011, solar installations skyrocketed, with 1,700 MW installed during the year, an 89% increase over 2010. Still, all of the panels now installed across the nation produce only about as much electricity as a single coal-fired plant. And even with demand growing rapidly, the industry is awash in debt and bankruptcy.

US solar manufacturers are being pushed out of the market by low-cost Chinese manufacturers, which get even more support from their government than Obama gives to American producers. In California, for example, Chinese producers held 29% of the market at the beginning of 2011; by the end of the third quarter they had grown their market share to 40%, while US manufacturers saw their share fall from 37% to 29%. And with the Chinese flooding the market with cheap solar panels, prices for solar panels fell by 40% in 2011.

Falling prices for solar panels and dwindling market shares forced three US solar companies into bankruptcy in 2011 and recently necessitated staff cutbacks at another two companies. This is all happening despite billions in loan guarantees to these companies. First Solar, for example, took $3 billion in loan guarantees from the federal government to develop three solar farms in Arizona and California. Now the company is cutting half of its staff, including 60 jobs in California where it received $3 million in state sales tax credits.

Of course, the most notable solar bankruptcy of 2011 was Solyndra, the California-based company that went bankrupt months after receiving a loan guarantee of $535 million from the US government and despite increased demand for solar panels in the country following implementation of state mandates for solar energy.

And things are about to get a lot tougher for struggling solar panel producers in the US, because the 1603 program expired on January 1. When you add up grants, subsidies, loans, and tax credits that have been helping the solar and wind industries along, then add in mandates that require utilities to buy renewable power at set prices from the alternative energy producers for decades, you are left with an industry that is wholly dependent on taxpayers, not on its own technology's capabilities. Forced to go it alone in the power industry, solar and wind producers are not going to survive.

Leveling the playing field

In chasing the green power dream, the US is not alone. In fact, it trails several European countries in the effort. Germany and Denmark have the largest installed bases of alternative energy in Europe and are often held aloft as examples of how to encourage wind and solar power. Proponents usually stay mum on the fact that retail customers in Germany and Denmark pay the highest electricity rates in the European Union.

It is true that progress is never easy and is often expensive. From that pulpit, advocates argue that continued investment in green technologies will drive prices down in the long run. However, this reasoning ignores the other side of the problem: solar and wind can never produce baseload energy. The average wind plant in the United States runs at about one-third of its rated capacity, while solar plants runs at about 25% of their nameplate capacity. Since there is no way to store large amounts of electricity, the variable outputs from solar and wind facilities will only ever be able to replace a modest amount of conventional baseload power.

When you look at green subsidies on an energy production basis, the disparity becomes pretty stunning. Wind's 5.6 cents per kilowatt hour is more than 85 times that of oil and gas. Solar power costs 13 times more than wind, making solar more than a thousand times more expensive than conventional fuels.

Wind and solar power, corn ethanol, and electric vehicles are not infant industries in need of support. They are perennially inferior industries that only still exist in their current forms because of a constant stream of "green gold."

That stream is slowly drying up, thankfully. The only way to achieve the very admirable goal of transforming society into an energy-efficient space is to eliminate all of the subsidies that are currently directed at green energy and clean technology while increasing taxes on the things we are trying to minimize, such as gasoline consumption and plastic bags. That would force everyone to innovate, compete, and win or lose according to merit.

Blowin' In The Wind.......The Slow Death Of Wind Energy

There is an old saying, "Money talks and bullshit walks". Few ideas deserve this criticism more than the concept that wind power or wind turbines can generate electricity as an economic alternative to oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy. About the only thing more stupid is the whole idea that carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming, or should I say "climate change". This grand hoax is coming to a pitiful end, investors are taking their money elsewhere, as documented in the following article. The "smart money" is fed up with the ridiculous alarmist lies of the environmentalists promoting wind energy as a solution to the world's energy needs. Al Gore ought to be hung in effigy from every windmill in the world by the millions of people who lost money and jobs because of his lies and deception. An inconveniet truth indeed!

Peter

Climate-change funds shift focus from wind, solar

12:01 am ET 12/10/2010- MarketWatch Databased News

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The poor performance of some sectors aiming to slow climate change is pushing money managers to cast further afield for investments that both carry green credentials and are likely to post better returns.

Some renewable-energy stocks, such as those in solar and wind industries, have fallen spectacularly in recent years, belying hopes that they were poised to break out.

Money managers say this poor performance is in part due to a lack of hoped-for policies to help these industries grow. As a result, say the managers, they are looking at other areas of the market that are part of the climate-change story, such as recycling and energy efficiency. Even eBay Inc , as a promoter of reusing goods, fits the bill.

"Nobody's questioning the long-term prospects, market share or gains of [renewable energy] sectors, but over the medium it's not been that good," said Vipin Ahuja, manager of Allianz RCM EcoTrends Fund . "So people are looking elsewhere for sustainable stories for the next couple of years."

Ahuja's fund, which he joined about one year ago, is down 19% a year in the past three years, according to data from Morningstar Inc.

The deteriorating prospect for new policies to combat climate change has been palpable at the recent U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, where delegates from nearly 200 countries met to hash out a possible extension of the Kyoto Protocol and other policies.

The more sober atmosphere this year, particularly compared to the gathering's predecessor in Copenhagen, reflected toned- down hopes the world's largest polluters would reach agreement on policies to combat global warming and promote renewable energy. Read MarketWatch's coverage of the Cancun climate talks.

Those downgraded expectations have left their mark on solar-panel stocks, once Wall Street darlings.

In mid-2008 First Solar Inc.'s stock trading at close to $300. Today, it's at about $132.

It's a similar story with many of First Solar's peers, including SunPower Corp. , whose stock has fallen from close to $100 to about $12 in the past 30 months. The MAC Solar Energy Index is down an annualized 27% in the past three years.

Others in the renewable energy space have also suffered, such as wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems , which has seen its stock price fall from more than $140 in 2008 to less than $30 a share this week.

One example of how politics has hurt the renewable sector is the failure to pass a federal renewable portfolio standards policy. The rule would have forced utility companies across the U.S. to supply a certain amount of their energy from renewable sources.

"That discouraged many utilities from signing, for example, agreements for wind [farm] installations," said Colm O'Connor, a portfolio manager at Kleinwort Benson Investors who is part of the management team on Calvert Global Alternative Energy Fund, which is down an annualized 26% over the past three years, according to Morningstar.

Looking elsewhere

"In the past year we've avoided wind and solar investments," said Richard Mercado, manager of London-based F&C Global Climate Opportunities Fund.

Merchado said the fund has been looking more at the natural gas sector, and -- in a theme several money managers repeated -- also at so-called mainstream companies with a climate-change slant. For example, eBay is one of the fund's investments as it "promotes re-using products and not throwing them out," said Merchado.

Merchado said the most represented sector in the fund is energy efficiency. This focus chimed with that of other managers, several of whom pointed to developments in LED technology as an example of the trend. As the costs come down, use of LEDs in anything from televisions to traffic lights increases, and lighting for commercial spaces becomes possible.

Another example of looking at efficient, rather than renewable, energy is demand-response technology. These services let utilities manage consumer demand more efficiently by relaying energy usage data back to providers.

O'Connor said he plays demand response by investing in meter makers such as EnerNOC Inc. and Comverge Inc. .

Ben Allen, director of research at Parnassus Investments, said that since 2007 his firm has invested in Waste Management Inc. , which he said has been focusing on energy efficiency by turning waste into electricity. Another company Parnassus likes is Cooper Industries PLC, in part because of the company's growing LED business.

Allianz RCM's Ahuja said his fund's holdings in LED-related companies went from zero to about 15% in the past year.

Sticking with it

But though solar and wind have suffered recently, that's not the whole tale. For example, while there's no federal renewable portfolio standard, O'Connor said that 29 states have their own standards. And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the stimulus bill -- created two programs of credits to promote renewable power projects.

What's more, Ahuja noted that global demand for solar energy grew 100% in 2009. And, he said, some solar companies have seen their share prices grow, or at least hold up better than others, in recent years, such as China's Trina Solar Ltd. and Yingli Green Energy Holdings .

Some sectors in the climate change theme, such as renewables, are subject to policy volatility, said Bruce Kahn, senior investment analyst at DB Climate Change Advisors, a unit of Deutsche Bank .

"I agree that the area is struggling in the short term, but we're investing in the long-term trend and trading around the volatility," he said. "It tells me that you can't pick sectors when dealing with this kind of volatility -- it's a stock-pickers universe."

T. Boone Pickens and His Cloak Of Green

The following is an article exposing the flaws and deception behind T. Boone Pickens' plan to produce large amounts of electricity from wind turbines. The physical difficulties and the cost of converting wind energy into electricity simply do not add up; they do not make economic sense. The public is being deceived by the cloak of "green" environmentalism. Beware.
Peter



T Boone Pickens’ cloak of green

By Dr. Tim Ball Wednesday, October 1, 2008

US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
Slim Pickens was a cowboy and actor, but a slim picking is not the adjectival phrase for T Boone Pickens and his wealth. One of his books is titled. “The First Billion is the Hardest: Reflections on the Life of Comebacks and America’s Energy Future.” He is busily making the second and likely the third billion much easier. His plan uses the combination of wind power with energy sufficiency and independence for the US.

Initially, his advertisements put wind power front and center. In doing so, he put on the cloak of green, a phrase I co-opted from Elaine Dewar’s wonderful book of the same name. I’ve used the phrase to describe what many politicians feel forced to do. They understand the real science of climate change, but dare not appear opposed to protecting the environment.

Pickens uses wind power as his cloak of green to buy credibility and time to make natural gas the primary power for vehicles and develop nuclear and coal sources. He throws in other alternative energies as a lining to the cloak. I’ve advocated natural gas for vehicles and nuclear and coal for electricity for many years. Oil will serve the petrochemical industry and produce aviation fuels. Reduced demand for oil means that even current reserves will last for a very long time.

So what concerns me about Pickens proposals? Initially it was the wind power proposal, which clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding of the severe limitations of that energy. More recently, it is the advertisement of a natural gas company spokesperson talking about his “good friend” Mr. Pickens. I am not opposed to capitalism or profit; however, I am opposed to achieving the latter with deception. Mr. Pickens folksy manner and financial success are used to convince people wind power can provide 20% of US energy. He appears on television programs selling his proposal to a public and political leaders desperate for solutions.

Pickens’ facade of being knowledgeable with a clear solution is quickly dispelled with a few facts about wind power. Like all alternate energies it is not a panacea. He needs to spend his money on accurate cost benefit analyses of all alternate energies. He should urge government to do the same thing before he takes a penny of the massive government subsidies that are seriously distorting analysis of alternative energies.

What are the problems with wind power?
Demand for electricity varies from hour to hour, but there is a basic demand all the time. Slow fire up time means conventional power stations can’t respond to fluctuating demands so must maintain a steady base load. Wind power is only produced when the wind blows in a relatively narrow range, therefore the availability to the electrical grid surges. Conventional power stations cannot respond to the surges and must produce to meet the demand whether the wind blows or not.

It is difficult to determine when wind speed is going to be strong enough to drive the turbine. It also takes considerable wind to start the turbine turning; so many are kept rotating by drawing power from the grid. A rapid wind speed increase causes a power surge and potential widespread damage to the grid. Conventional power stations maintain a level known as spinning standby to meet fluctuating demand. Most systems have other power stations operating on spinning standby to deal with a supply failure. Wind farms increase the risk of supply failures, which increases significantly with the percentage of power they contribute. Many countries limit the percentage of power from wind usually to about 12 to 14%.

Wind turbulence restricts the number of turbines to 5 to 8 turbines per square mile. 1700 600 KW turbines over 200 square miles are required to equal the output of a 1000 MW power station. The 600 KW output is with wind speeds between 30 and 40 mph. This reduces to 124 KW at 15 mph, which is below the average wind speed for the US. A wind speed of 15 mph would need 8,500 turbines covering 1000 square miles to produce the power of a 1000 MW conventional station. Source

Most wind turbines are only safely operated at low wind speed where they are inefficient. It is estimated an average wind speed of 14 mph is required to produce energy competitive with conventional sources. Average wind speed for the continental US is 10 mph. There are regions down the center of the country where the average is higher and where Pickens wants to place most of his turbines.

Birds and wind turbines are a lethal combination. European estimates claim losses up to 35 million birds a year. It’s reported that a wind farm at Altamont Pass, California kills thousands of birds a year, including an average of 1,000 raptors. Understandably, wind farm companies challenge the numbers and downplay the dangers. It’s a conflict for environmentalists who want wind power but don’t want to kill birds. However, there is no doubt they kill birds. Pickens’ main region for best wind speed potential coincides with the major flyway of migrating birds. Here are diagrams of the Mississippi and Central Flyways illustrating the problem. (see attached) It is a natural route for the birds, which my research shows fly 88% of the time with a tail wind. They migrate north with the southerly winds in spring and south with northerly winds in Fall.

Other environmental problems include noise pollution downwind and subsonic noise reportedly causing health problems in humans and other animals. Many consider them unsightly and even ardent environmentalist Robert Kennedy opposed tower construction near Cape Cod for that reason.

There are concerns about the tracts of land needed for extensive transmission lines over great distances, but there is a more important issue. Many potential power sites such as hydroelectric or tidal exist but they are unusable because they are remote. Line loss puts an economic limit to the distance you can transmit electricity. Loss is higher for alternating current (AC) then direct current (DC), so in some cases they produce AC, convert to DC for transmission and reconvert to AC for the grid. This is only possible with low production costs.

The need to maintain more conventional power plants for spinning standby coupled with the high construction, maintenance and operating costs of wind farms mean they do not save money or reduce conventional sources of pollution.

Richard Courtney has summarized wind power as follows; “ Wind farms are expensive, polluting, environmentally damaging bird swatters that produce negligible useful electricity but threaten electricity cuts.” Source

Even crude analysis of the costs of wind power shows it is an expensive and essentially useless alternative, incapable of producing 20% of US energy as Pickens claims. Rudimentary research reveals this information, which Pickens either ignored or did not do. Regardless, it must put his credibility and/or his real objective in question.

Others confirm the concerns about the Pickens plan beyond the wind power issues. Epstein and Ridenour title their paper “The Pickens Plan: Questions Unanswered.” Amy Ridenour, President of the National Center for Public Policy Research, says, “On the surface, Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens appears to be a man with all the energy answers” then asks, “But would the Pickens plan really work? What would it cost taxpayers? Do parts of it raise Constitutional questions? And would private parties-including Mr. Pickens himself - benefit financially?” As Ridenour notes, “The fine print must be examined. In this case, the fine print reveals the Pickens Plan requires billions in government subsidies and the widespread use of government eminent domain powers. It also would further enrich Mr. Pickens.” Source

Making money is fine and I generally agree with his proposals for natural gas, nuclear power and the need for US energy independence. What I object to is deception, especially using wind power as a cloak of green. Apparently Pickens doesn’t know or want to acknowledge the serious limitations of wind power. Finally, he wraps his cloak of green in the national flag. As Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” (Joe Biden says paying more taxes is "patriotic"?)

Pickens has committed $58 million to sell his plan, which is a bizarre mixture of hucksterism and advocacy that will enormously benefit Mr. Pickens. Haven’t we had enough of this kind of deception from Enron through the current financial crisis and many points in between? Pickens and the public should heed Milton Friedman’s observation, “There is only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits without deception or fraud.” Source

Dr. Tim Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Ball employs his extensive background in climatology and other fields as an advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition, Friends of Science and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.”

More On Boone Pickens Ideas To "Save" America

Yeah, right.....Boone Pickens has a bunch of ideas he claims will save America from its "addiction" to foreign oil. What he really wants is for us to become addicted to things he owns. He even has the audacity to ask the government (meaning taxpayers) to pay for his schemes. He wants to pick our pockets coming and going. But wait, let's take a close look at some facts and realities. See the following article. Peter


Blowing Hot Air Up Our Shorts
Paul Driessen Tuesday, July 22, 2008 (source)
T. Boone Pickens is being lionized for his “socially responsible” efforts to legislate national “clean” wind and solar energy mandates.
We’re “the Saudi Arabia of wind,” he argues. We need to “overcome our addiction to foreign oil,” by harnessing that wind to replace natural gas in electricity generation, and using that gas to power more cars and buses. If Congress would simply “mandate the formation of wind and solar transmission corridors, and renew the subsidies” for this renewable energy, America can achieve this transformation in ten years, he insists.

Pickens’ pitch makes good ad copy, especially in league with Senator Harry Reid’s bombast about oil, gas and coal “making us sick.” However, his policy prescriptions would impose vast new energy, economic and environmental problems.

Hydrocarbon fuels created America, gave us the technologies and living standards we enjoy today, enabled us to eradicate diseases that plagued earlier generations, and boosted our life expectancy from 50 in 1900 to nearly 80 today. They still provide 85% of our energy, and we could greatly reduce our reliance on oil imports if we would simply end the outrageous policies that keep our nation’s abundant energy resources locked up.

We have enough oil, natural gas, oil shale, coal and uranium to provide power for centuries. We have a growing consensus that we need to drill, onshore and off. But partisan intransigence and absurd environmental claims prevent us from utilizing them. Instead, we’re offered bromides like wind.

Wind contributes more every year to our energy mix. However, it still provides only 1% of our electricity – compared to 49% for coal, 22% for natural gas, 19% for nuclear and 7% for hydroelectric.

Wind power is intermittent, unreliable, noisy and expensive (even with subsidies). Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot-long, 7-ton blades that slice up raptors and other birds. They operate only 8 hours a day, on average, compared to 85% of the time for coal, gas and nuclear plants. They rarely provide power during peak summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but wind speed is low to nonexistent.

Using wind to replace all gas-fired power plants would require some 300,000 1.5-MW turbines, covering Midwestern “wind belt” acreage equivalent to South Carolina. The noise, scenic impacts and bird kills caused by such an “eco-friendly” energy source defy imagination.

Building and installing these turbines requires 5 to 10 times more steel and concrete than is needed to build far more reliable coal or nuclear plants to generate the same amount of electricity, says Berkeley engineer Per Peterson. Add in the financing, steel and cement needed to build transmission lines from distant wind farms to urban consumers, and the effects multiply.

That means vastly more quarries, mines, cement plants and steel mills to supply those raw materials. But radical greens oppose such facilities. So under the Pickens proposal, we would likely import more steel and cement, instead of oil.

Moreover, since adequate wind is available only a third of the time, we would also need expensive gas-fired generating plants that mostly sit idle, but kick in whenever the wind dies down. That means still more money, cement and steel – and still higher electricity prices.
A successful oilman, investor, deal-maker and speculator, Pickens’ large natural gas holdings position him to make billions from selling gas for backup electricity generation under his wind energy proposal – especially if drilling bans remain in effect, keeping gas prices in the stratosphere. Launching the enterprise with the backing of federal mandates and subsidies minimizes his financial risk and attracts “free market” investors, by putting the risks for this fanciful scheme on the backs of taxpayers.

In short, Pickens’ proposal is “true green” – in the financial and public relations arenas, though hardly in the ecological sphere.

Pickens says we can’t drill our way to freedom from foreign oil. But that’s true only if we keep our best prospects off limits to drilling. Open ANWR and the OCS, and the situation changes dramatically.

There are other viable, economically sound options, as well. Unfortunately, greens and Democrats have opposed them for decades and refuse to budge now – no matter how soaring energy prices batter poor families, workers, small businesses and countless industries: including automobiles, airlines, tourism, chemicals and manufacturing.

A single 1000-MW nuclear power plant would reliably generate more electricity than 2,800 1.5-MW intermittent wind turbines on 175,000 acres. Permitting more nukes would ensure that we can meet increasing electricity demand for a growing population and millions of plug-in hybrid cars.

Coal too offers centuries of affordable, reliable fuel for electricity and synthetic gas and oil, at lower cost than competing fuels, and with steadily diminishing emissions. With 27% of the world’s total coal, America is also the Saudi Arabia of this vital resource. America needs more coal-fired plants, to avoid the widespread brownouts that analyst Mark Mills says will be commonplace if we do not.

Between 1970 and 2006, coal-fired electricity generation nearly tripled – while NOX emissions remained at 1970 levels, sulfur dioxide pollution fell nearly 40% below 1970 emissions, and fine particulates declined to 90% below 1970 levels. In a few years, power plant stacks will emit only water and carbon dioxide, the two dominant greenhouse gases of Climate Armageddon hypotheses.

Al Gore, James Hansen and certain legislators may fervently believe fossil fuels are destroying the planet. But they are increasingly on the fringes, whereas countless others finally realize that we have vastly more important priorities, the economic costs of climate bills like Warner-Lieberman would be staggering, and the global CO2 and climate benefits of US economic suicide would be imperceptible.

Nearly 32,000 scientists have now signed the consensus-busting Oregon Petition, saying they see “no convincing scientific evidence” that humans are causing catastrophic climate change. They have now been joined by the American Physical Society, which recently announced that it was reassessing its prior position – that evidence for global warming was “incontrovertible” – because many of its 50,000 physicist members disagree strongly with climate chaos claims.
Halfway around the globe, China continues to build two new coal-fired power plants every month, to power its electricity-hungry homes and businesses. India too is charging ahead with hydrocarbon-based energy. Its new National Action Plan on Climate Change disputes manmade global warming fears and asserts that the nation is more concerned about saving its people from poverty than from climate change.

“Political leaders,” says journalist Barun Mitra, “can no longer afford to sacrifice the poor today for the sake of the rich tomorrow.” Neither in India, nor in the United States.

It’s increasingly obvious why Gore, Hansen and Reid are becoming more shrill and hysterical by the day. The hot air they are trying to blow up our shorts is no basis for economy-killing cap-and-trade rules or ecology-killing forests of wind turbines.

We need to safeguard access to the opportunities created by abundant, reliable, affordable energy – as a fundamental right of Americans and people the world over.