The Big Sunshiny Lie

By Larry Thornberry

The important thing to know about solar and wind power, and other so-called “renewable” sources of energy, is that they aren’t necessary. Au the contraire, their dominance of the energy mix would be a disaster for the republic. Solar and wind create trifling amounts of power at a multiple of the cost of power made available by fossil fuels.

Increased reliance on pricy power from wind and solar would drive up the overall cost of energy, which in turn would drive up the cost of everything. EVERYTHING! Not just individual power bills, which would be bad enough. It takes energy to produce, transport, and market all the goods Americans take for granted. Even our service economy is a heavy user of energy.
Wind and solar power are also unreliable. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. This isn’t going to change.

In a dystopian wind and solar economy, say goodbye to the supermarket, to pain-free dentistry, to air-conditioning, to the modern hospital, to night baseball. While you’re up, take the hood off your car and make it into a planter because you’ll no longer afford to drive it. A fossil-fuel-free America would become, in short order, a third-world country. Life would once again become nasty, brutish, and short. Or at least a damn sight more straitened than the prosperity contemporary Americans are used to and take as a given.

There is enough oil and gas underground in America to supply energy needs for centuries, if the Sierra Club and other Lexus Luddites would allow us to use it...

Most leftist politicians are another matter, less ignorant, more cynical and conniving. They cater to enviros and whoop us such frauds as global warming in order to increase their political power. The solution to global warming, and other environmental “problems,” is to tax and regulate, i.e. turn more political power over to government. Turn the decisions individuals and businesses have been making for centuries in the land of the free over to politicians and bureaucrats. Just what the Left has always wanted. Obama and his EPA are pushing this agenda at every level now, with very little resistance from Republicans, who, as usual, find themselves confused and cowed. In this instance by junk science that has proved popular with voters.

Right now, against all the available evidence and the urgings of good sense, the lefty alarmists hold the upper hand. A frightening number of Americans have been convinced that fossil fuels — the single thing most responsible for their long, healthy, prosperous, and easeful lives — are dirty, downright evil, and a danger to their very existence.

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

Solyndra Misrepresented Facts to Get Loan Guarantee

A four-year investigation has concluded that officials of the solar company Solyndra misrepresented facts and omitted key information in their efforts to get a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government. Solyndra was the first company to get federal loan guarantees under a program that was created in 2005 and expanded by President Barack Obama's 2009 economic stimulus package. The company's failure soon after receiving the loan guarantee likely will cost taxpayers more than $500 million. Republicans and other critics cite it as an example of wasteful spending under the stimulus program. The report by the Energy Department's inspector general was released Wednesday. It's designed to provide federal officials with lessons learned as it proceeds to grant billions of dollars in additional loan guarantees. The inspector general found fault with the department, describing its due diligence work as "less than fully effective." The report also said department employees felt tremendous pressure to process loan guarantee applications...more

Clinton Climate Plan Winners Include Supporters’ Clients, Employers

Hillary Clinton’s plan to dramatically boost U.S. solar power production and installation could benefit a number of companies that have paid or donated to various arms of the former secretary of state’s expansive political network. Leading solar panel manufactures and installers have donated to the Democratic presidential candidate’s family foundation, employed members of her inner circle, bankrolled a group providing policy advice to her campaign, and enlisted the services of lobbying and public relations firms run by her top supporters.  The solar industry will see a major boost if Clinton is elected and enacts her newly unveiled climate and energy policy plan. Released on Monday, the plan calls for a seven-fold increase in solar power capacity by 2020.  Internal discussions behind the Clinton campaign’s bullet-pointed policy outline are not known, but two senior officials at the left-wing Center for American Progress have been advising the campaign on its climate and energy platform. John Podesta, the center’s founder, is a long-time Clinton ally who is currently chairing her presidential campaign. William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, sees his hand in the campaign’s climate plan. “He’s a trusted advisor, and climate change/green energy is a major issue for him. So I think we’re seeing his influence here,” Yeatman said in an email. “And, given that it’s a loser issue and she’s normally very disciplined about following political winds, I think it perhaps demonstrates that Podesta’s influence is significant.” Clinton’s climate strategy would likely benefit solar companies such as First Solar, whose donations to the Center for American Progress came under scrutiny after the policy group actively promoted the company’s positions on key legislative issues...more

Interior Department Approves First Solar Energy Zone Projects

WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 2, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — As part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to cut carbon pollution and create clean energy jobs, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today announced the approval of the first three solar energy projects to benefit from the streamlined permitting process of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Western Solar Plan. When built, the three solar energy projects on public lands in Clark County, Nevada, will generate up to 440 megawatts of energy – enough electricity to power roughly 132,000 homes – and are expected to create up to 1,900 construction jobs. The Western Solar Plan allows for a more efficient and predictable permitting process by focusing development in solar energy zones with the highest resource potential and lowest conflicts. The expedited reviews of these three projects were completed in less than 10 months, or less than half the amount of time it took under the previous project-by-project system. These reviews also include consideration of the first regional mitigation strategy for solar energy zone projects...more

New solar power plant dedicated in northern NM

A new seven-acre, 1.3 megawatt solar-power generation facility capable of powering 400 homes is now online in New Mexico. The solar array, in the northeast New Mexico town of Springer and operated by Springer Electric Cooperative, was dedicated Tuesday by USDA Rural Development State Director Terry Brunner and U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, who were on hand to celebrate the completion of construction of a new solar-power generation facility. A $14.1 million loan provided by USDA Rural Development’s Rural Utility Service helped pay for the photovoltaic project, which also includes 74 miles of new electric line and updated smart-grid technology. Springer Electric Cooperative serves the New Mexico counties of Colfax, Harding, Mora, San Miguel and Union, including the communities of Cimarron, Maxwell, Roy, Wagon Mound, Mosquero and Folsom...more

Low-Income, Minority Households Bear Costs Of Solar Subsidies

by Peter Fricke

Government subsidies make residential solar panels more affordable, but also lead to higher electricity bills for non-solar customers, especially low-income families and minorities.

A policy called “net metering” acts as an implicit subsidy paid for by non-solar customers in the form of higher rates. This has drawn criticism from minority groups that say those costs are disproportionately borne by low-income families.

Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, claimed in a press release Tuesday that such economic distortions have a “socially regressive societal impact,” citing a recent study by utility regulators in Louisiana which found that solar customers “have incomes 35% higher than the median statewide income.”

“When we pay solar owners a higher-than-market rate for their power, we throw basic economics out of balance,” Alford argued. “Because of overly generous net metering payments, those with the means to install costly solar panels are shifting costs to other customers, including low-income families and those on fixed incomes.”

Hispanics are also “being hit with high electricity bills that they can’t afford, thanks to … net metering,” Jose Nino said in an article for Energy Biz Sunday. “It’s lower-income and minority communities, including Hispanics, who are forced to essentially subsidize these rooftop solar systems because they’re the ones who can’t afford to own them.”

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

I just love this...I'm joyful as can be.  Another great example of where the DC Deep Thinkers and their fellow travelers in the enviro community are doing harm to the poor and minorities.  Nice to see that some minority leaders are catching on.  The enviro groups and foundations are spending millions to get minorities, especially Hispanics, involved in enviro issues, while at the same time sticking it to those groups through their misguided policies.  Glad to see them getting called on this.

How a Solar Farm Set Hundreds of Birds Ablaze

It's no secret that solar power is hot right now, with innovators and big name companies alike putting a great deal of time, money, and effort into improving these amazing sources of renewable energy. Still, the last thing you'd likely expect is for a new experimental array to literally light nearly 130 birds in mid-flight on fire. And yet, that's exactly what happened near Tonopah, Nevada last month during tests of the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. According to Rudy Evenson, Deputy Chief of Communications for Nevada Bureau of Land Management (NBLM) in Reno, as reported by Re Wire, a third of the newly constructed plant was put into action on the morning of Jan. 14, redirecting concentrated solar energy to a point 1,200 feet above the ground. Unfortunately, about two hours into the test, engineers and biologists on site started noticing "streamers" - trails of smoke and steam caused by birds flying directly into the field of solar radiation. What moisture was on them instantly vaporized, and some instantly burst into flames - at least, until they began to frantically flap away. An estimated 130 birds were injured or killed during the test...more

Worry for Solar Projects After End of Tax Credits

For more than a year now, an enormous solar thermal power plant has been humming along in the Arizona desert, sending out power as needed, even well after sunset. The plant, called Solana, was developed by the Spanish energy and technology company Abengoa and has succeeded in meeting an elusive solar goal — producing electricity when the sun is not shining — and displacing fossil-fuel-based power in the grid. “With the sun going down at 6 or 7 o’clock at night, all the other forms of solar production are essentially going to zero,” said Brad Albert, general manager for resource management at Arizona Public Service, the state’s main utility, “while Solana is still producing at full power capability. It just adds a whole lot of value to us because our customer demand is so high even after the sun goes down.” Indeed, Abengoa opened another mammoth plant on Friday in the Mojave Desert in California that uses a similar approach. But despite the technology’s success, Abengoa and other developers say they do not have plans at the moment to build more such plants in the United States. And that is largely because of uncertainty surrounding an important tax credit worth 30 percent of a project’s cost. Although the subsidy, known as the Investment Tax Credit, is to remain in place until the end of 2016, when it will drop to 10 percent, that does not give developers enough time to get through the long process of securing land, permits, financing and power-purchase agreements, executives and analysts say...more

Tribes file suit to stop Blythe solar energy project

The Colorado River Indian Tribes have filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management in an effort to halt the development of a large-scale solar energy project near Blythe, Calif. In a complaint filed Dec. 4, in U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Eastern Division, the Tribes allege the BLM did not adequately consult with them over the cultural aspects of developing the land. They claim the development would cause irreparable harm to the culture of the Mohave people. CRIT further alleges that, in the approval process for the project, the BLM violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Kara Briggs of Pyramid Communications, a public relations firm hired by CRIT, said they are seeking an injunction to stop construction on the project. The case number is 5:14-cv-02504. The project, which is being built by NextEra Energy Resources on 4,000 acres of land held by the BLM, is one of several solar energy projects in the Blythe area that are being proposed, are in the approval process, or have been approved by the BLM in a 147,000-acre “Solar Energy Zone.” The proposed facility would be located 20 miles west of Blythe, Calif. on Interstate 10. It would create 47 jobs and generate enough electricity for 88,000 homes. Construction is scheduled to begin in January 2015. CRIT claims this land is part of their ancestral homelands that cover the Mohave Desert...more

Epic Drought Impacting California’s Clean Energy Goals

...Reduced rainfall means that California reservoirs are continuing to shrink, with water levels at just 52 percent of their historic average. That’s not just a problem for California’s $42.5 billion agricultural industry, which grows and produces much of the country’s fruits, nuts and vegetables. It is also is cutting into the state’s electricity generation. That’s because California sources a significant portion of its electricity generation from hydropower, so less precipitation means less electricity. Before the drought, California routinely generated about 20 percent of its electricity from hydropower during the period of January through June. But for the first six months of 2014, according to the U.S. Energy information Administration (EIA), that productivity has been slashed in half, to just 10 percent. To make up for the shortfall, California’s renewable energy industry has picked up some of the slack. Wind now accounts for more electricity generation than hydro – in part because of the drought, but also because of greater installed wind capacity. Solar, too, is making a big contribution. On clear sunny days, by midafternoon, solar can supply the state with 14 percent of its power needs. But California has also needed to rely much more heavily on natural gas to cover for lost hydro. From January through June of this year, natural gas power plants were generating 16 percent more electricity than average. This wouldn’t be necessarily be a problem if California didn’t have ambitious plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Replacing clean hydropower with more natural gas can lead to a spike in the wrong direction. Complicating matters further is the closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant. When the plant closed, California lost about 18 billion kilowatt-hours of carbon-free electricity. As Forbes notes, the electricity from that one plant is equal to all of the solar and wind in the state combined. With the plant offline, the state lost a lot of ground on its journey towards a low-carbon future...more

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Dark cloud over solar plans

The Obama administration’s push for big solar plants and other renewable energy projects on public lands has started to stall as developers question whether they can finish projects in time to qualify for key federal subsidies. Just days after U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell came to Palm Springs to trumpet the success of these projects in combating climate change, Oakland-based BrightSource Energy abruptly scrapped its plans to build a solar “power tower” project on about six square miles of desert between Indio and Blythe in eastern Riverside County. The company’s Sept. 26 decision was especially surprising because the project was expected to be approved next month by the California Energy Commission. Joe Desmond, a BrightSource vice president, acknowledged last week that he didn’t believe the Palen project, featuring a 750-foot boiler tower heated by mirrors, would be built in time to qualify for a subsidy that would have Uncle Sam pay nearly a third of the cost. Desmond was referring to a 30 percent tax credit for completed renewable energy projects that’s scheduled to drop to just 10 percent Jan. 1, 2017. Getting the tax credit essentially means getting the financing to build, said Mike Taylor, the research director for the Washington, D.C.-based Solar Electric Power Association. But now financiers “can’t assume the tax credit will be available when the project is done,” Taylor said. “They have to assume a worst-case scenario.” Too many things can go wrong for anyone to count on a large-scale solar tower project being built in two years, Taylor said. Officially, however, BrightSource officials did not blame the subsidy situation for its Palen retreat. The company’s official statement said the firm needed to bring forward a different project “that would better meet the needs of the market and energy consumers.” On Monday, company officials declined to discuss the decision...more

Pecan farm begins to save with sun

Sunshine is something New Mexico has plenty of and which offers residents an opportunity to harness low-cost, clean energy. The Four Daughters Land & Cattle Company, owned by the Mechenbier family, are taking advantage of the sun’s gifts, plus a hefty grant from the USDA Rural Energy for America Program. At the Mechenbier’s pecan farm south of Belen, a 564-panel solar system has been installed to provide the electricity needed to power irrigation pumps, making the farm more profitable and competitive. The total energy capabilities of the system is 147 kilowats and cost $428,402 to construct, but the family was able to offset the expense with $107,100 from a REAP grant. Annual farm savings on electricity costs are expected to be $25,000 at a minimum, but when the pecan processing plant is built within the next three years, savings will be at least $60,000 annually, said Harvey Crowely, the farm accountant. Crowley says the Mechenbiers will receive about $0.05 per kW production credit from PNM when the system exceeds its consumption and produces surplus energy. “The system will pay for itself in about 3 1/2 years,” said Mike Mechenbier, the patriarch of the family. “For an investment like this — for it to have a break-even in 3 1/2 years — is unbelievable. It makes extremely good financial sense for people to consider this as an alternative to other fuels.”...more

California solar power plant scorches birds in mid-air

Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant's concentrated sun rays — "streamers," for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one "streamer" every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator's application to build a still-bigger version. The deaths are "alarming. It's hard to say whether that's the location or the technology," said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. "There needs to be some caution."...more

We've finally found something the feds and enviros do well...killin' birds.  They either slice'em and dice'em with wind farms, nuke'em in midair with solar farms or deep fry'em in forest fires.  Meanwhile for us ordinary folks, projects are halted, jobs are lost, family businesses are destroyed, all because those same feds and enviros demand we...protect birds.  The "streamers" are us.

Environmental groups challenge Salazar's solar plans

A trio of environmental groups are challenging the Department of Interior's establishment of solar energy zones in six southwestern states, including Utah, asserting the federal government failed to contemplate permitting large-scale utlity projects on already developed lands. "We don't have to use pristine desert if there are sufficient (alternatives) that could achieve the same goals as these large projects proposed on public lands," said Chris Krupp, an attorney for Western Lands Project in Seattle. Krupp is representing that organization, as well as the Western Watersheds Project and the Desert Protective Council, in a suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in California. Initially, the Interior Department pursued the establishment of solar energy zones on 285,000 acres in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. In October, however, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed off on an expanded solar plan the groups contend keeps open 19 million acres for possible large-scale projects. "The administration is opting to needlessly turn multiple-use public lands into permanent industrial zones," said Janine Blaeloch, also with the Western Lands Project. "Solar development belongs on rooftops, parking lots, already-developed areas and on degraded sites, not our public lands."...more

Obama’s path toward energy poverty

by Tom Harris

In his inaugural address last week, President Obama demonstrated that he is putting people at risk with misguided climate and energy policies.

If there really were an increased threat from “raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms,” as the president indicated in his speech, then America would need more, not fewer sources of reliable and affordable energy to prepare for and cope with these hazards. More electricity would be needed to handle greater demands for air conditioning and heating. More power would be required to irrigate drought-ridden lands, build dikes, harden public infrastructure and relocate populations living on flood plains or in harm’s way due to tornadoes and hurricanes.

Yet instead of promoting the most reliable and least expensive energy technologies, such as coal-fired electricity generation, Mr. Obama encourages the least reliable and most expensive sources. It was certainly an understatement to say, as he did in the address, “The path toward sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.” He should have added, “and virtually useless,” because the sustainable energy sources he has most in mind are wind and solar power.

The president presents the transition to these technologies as an economic benefit. He asserted, “We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries — we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality.”

No, that is how you ruin a country’s economy.

Sustainable energy sources have had decades to mature. Energy from wind and solar power still costs between 3 and 10 times more than energy from conventional sources like coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear. The government had to funnel billions of dollars into subsidies for “green energy” technologies just to keep them afloat during Mr. Obama’s first term, and some failed even then. The Energy Information Administration shows that for 2010, non-hydroelectric renewable electricity generation was still only 3.6 percent of all generation, but it received 53.5 percent of all federal financial support for the electric power sector.

No country, the United States included, can afford to sustain this indefinitely.

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

Obama’s wishful thinking on green energy

by Paul Driessen   

    Wishful thinking guides today’s federal energy policymakers. The Obama administration is now exploring ways to exert control over hydraulic fracturing technology that has increased U.S. petroleum production — despite federal leasing and drilling delays and moratoriums — even though the states have successfully regulated the practice for decades.
    The administration lavishes billions of taxpayer dollars on sun, wind, wave, algae and cornfield energy that they hype and hope will replace fossil fuels. They ignore health and environmental laws in order to green-light these favored technologies, overlooking killed birds and bats, the impact to scenic and wildlife habitats, and harm to people’s well-being from wind turbines, rising energy costs and high unemployment resulting from their actions.
    Other policies tilt the playing field against sources they fear and loathe, especially hydrocarbons that provide 83 percent of all U.S. energy, versus 2 percent for biofuel and 1.4 percent for wind and solar.
    Whereas renewable energy schemes and scams require tens of billions in annual taxpayer and consumer subsidies, hydrocarbons generate millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars annually in royalties, taxes and economic activity. Yet the administration continues to throw senseless obstacles in the path of fossil fuel production and hinder proposals for a pipeline that would carry Canadian oil to American refineries.
    Innovative private companies perfected new fracking techniques in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana, where the federal government ownership of land varies from 2 percent to 5 percent. That would have been impossible in our 13 Western states, where the feds own 30 percent of Montana and 85 percent of Nevada.
    Fracking drove U.S. natural gas prices down to $3.20 per thousand cubic feet (or million Btu) today — versus a high of $14 in 2008, and more than $14 in Europe and Japan today. This has yielded cheaper electricity for homes, businesses and hospitals, fuel for natural gas-powered vehicles, and feed stocks for petrochemicals. It also translates into competitive advantages and more jobs, economic productivity and tax revenues.
    By raising interminable objections to safe, proven technologies, radical environmentalists and the Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency hope to raise production costs and prices of fossil fuels. This, they hope, will increase oil and gas prices, making wind, solar and biofuel energy more competitive — albeit at the expense of jobs, economic growth and tax revenues.
    Energy policy is about choosing among imperfect sources of power to support modern societies and living standards. No source of energy, anywhere, anytime, has zero environmental impacts or risks.

READ ENTIRE COLUMN

Southern NM missile range becomes home to military’s largest solar power system

The military dedicated its largest solar energy-producing system on Wednesday at White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. The $16.8 million array includes nearly 15,500 sun-tracking solar panels spread across 42 acres. It will be capable of producing 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year — enough to meet about 10 percent of the need of the missile range. With abundant sunshine, New Mexico made an ideal site for the project, said Garrison Commander Col. Leo Pullar, one of the officials who attended the ceremony. “This project illustrates the U.S. Army’s commitment to going green, our focus on operating on net zero energy, and doing what we can to help protect the environment,” Pullar said in a statement. Other electricity generating stations fueled by renewable resources have been developed on a handful of Army installations around the country. The projects included solar and wind systems at Arizona’s Fort Huachuca and biomass systems at Fort Stewart in Georgia and the Red River Army Depot in Texas. Federal law currently requires at least 7.5 percent of an installation’s total electricity consumption to include energy produced by renewable resources. The Defense Department has set a voluntary goal of 25 percent by 2025...more 

Another federal mandate to prop up renewable energy.   How many federal laws like this are there?