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Obama Awards Nearly $2 Billion For Solar Power
crimeandpunishment writes "President Obama says it's time to heat up solar power, and he's willing to spend a big chunk of federal money to do it. Saturday the president announced the government is giving nearly $2 billion to companies that are building new solar plants in Arizona, Colorado, and Indiana. The president says this will create thousands of jobs and increase our use of renewable energy."
Drunken sailor?
Obama funds massive solar powered money printing machine....
Abengoa Solar, a unit of the Seville, Spain-based engineering company, will receive a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to build a solar-power plant in Arizona that will create 1,600 construction jobs and 85 permanent jobs, according to White House documents released in conjunction with Obama’s address.
The power plant will be the first of its kind in the U.S. and generate enough energy to power 70,000 homes, Obama said.
1.45billion to power 70,000 homes.
That's $20,000 per home?
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
Good: I'm in favour of vastly increasing the proportion of solar in the energy mix.
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Wind power offered way more bang for the buck, in fact it was the only really contender with traditional energy sources. Has anything changed, or is the government still being stupid with our money?
What is the total cost of install and operation for 50 years for the solar project? What is it for a nuclear plant? A coal fired plant? The solar power plant likely has a higher construction and installation cost, but it likely has a lower operating cost.
I don't know the answers to the questions I'm raising -- but I do think that simply asking "That's $20,000 per home?" isn't the question which yields the most useful answer.
P.S. It's a loan guarantee. $1.45B is the upper limit on how much it will cost the taxpayers. The lower limit is $0.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
The 2 billion SHOULD HAVE GONE TO GEO-THERMAL AND SOLAR THERMAL. Look, one of the smartest things that Obama can do is to increase AE, as well as push for electric cars. That is good. The problem is that AE, in wind and solar PV, already has massive backing. OTH, Solar Thermal has some real potential. In particular, collectors should be added to thermal systems. That would allow these to be used 100% for dropping the use of coal/natural gas. OTH, when building a new solar thermal plant, half to 2/3 of the collectors are used for during none sun times. But that adds a lot of expense to solar thermal.
Likewise, Geothermal has minor amounts of funds. Yet, we are on the edge really getting it cheap. Why? Potter drilling and Foro Energy. Both are working on spallation approaches to drilling (hydro and laser). In addition, there is a REAL simple and relatively inexpensive way to get to geo-thermal. Basically create tax breaks, or even subsidies, to continue drilling down on dry wells. Many wells are exploratory and will be dry wells. These are typically at around 8-10K feet. But, we offer up breaks/subsidies to continue down to hot areas so that the well is not a total bust for the drilling company. Most of the Geo-thermal area is around 12-16K. That is expensive if you are starting from the surface. But if you are starting from a well at 5-10K, then it is relatively cheap. And from the drilling companies POV, they would very much like to make money in places that they drill. If they can not have oil/natural gas, they will be excited to have 10-50 MW geo-thermal power.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The unfortunate reality of this is that the "thousands of jobs created" is, at best, an overestimation and would really only open the opportunity to a small number of people. Jobs like these are very highly skilled and specialized which might re-employ about 2%-5% of the approximately 25 million unemployed. In the grand scheme of things, only a politican could celebrate this. Jobs need to be created across the socio-economic stratem in order for there to be meaningful economic recovery. Even if we looked at the rosiest side of this claim, the only people getting full time, permanent employment would be the solar engineers. The installers and the IT professionals would most likely be outsourced or hired as temporary, project labor. Thus, once the project is completed, we are only marginally better off economically. This is certainly not to say that we will being do our ailing planet a very large favor! But let's call a spade, a spade. We are not really helping our economy but helping the planet!
It really doesn't take a genius to accurately predict how much it is actually going to cost.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
These are loans, not give away money. I am fine with that. Obama's 1'st years and W' 8 years did trillions of give away dollars all based on deficits. This is the feds lending the money at a low rate. The 2 billion loan will probably cost us around 100 million long-term. In fact, the smartest thing that Obama/congress can do is to lend the money to state and local entities to build out projects. Had they done that originally, then we would have a pretty low debt down the road (though with the potential to have much higher).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I remember the good old days, when Congress would appropriate money for projects. When, exactly, did Presidents get signing authority on the national checkbook?
Nevermind that Spain's experiment with subsidizing solar power is one of the causes of their looming fiscal insolvency. Let's follow them down the path to ruin. Yay!
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
These are the same asshats (feds run by leftist expletives) that
pumped nearly half a billion dollars into Tesla, the electric car company.
According to Ed Wallace of http://www.insideautomotive.com/ (he has a radio program where he
went on at length about Tesla car company today)
This outfit is in over its head 300,000 dollars in per car for cars they expect to sell for some 120k or there abouts.
They claim to expect to sell 20,000 units per year. To date they have only sold some few 1000.
Bottom line according to MY reading of what Mr Wallace said is that this company is a shill and sham
that will accomplish taking money from foolish investors that came late to the game and US Taxpayers who
as we can all bear witness appear to be fools as well.
Further reading on the sham Tesla TSLA electric cars:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/01/behind-the-hype-on-tesla/
Expect no less from this expenditure of YOUR money.. (assuming you are a American taxpayer).
I recommend anyone take a listen to his show when it is on Saturday AM.
Great site for talk show junkies is http://streamingradioguide.com/radio-shows-on-air.php
Something between the lines jumps out and bites your arm off. Soltan Gris / London
Why not just build more nuclear plants? Nothing speculative about them at all.
1.45 billion is a LOAN. If the Spanish company takes the money and runs, the feds are on the hook for it. If they take the money and default after they complete the project, the feds are on the hook for the money, but we get the project. If they don't default, the feds are on the hook for $0.
The 1.45 billion is not part of the budget, it is not being paid by tax payers at this point, it is a loan from a bank (not the feds) that the feds are insuring.
Increased power consumption is a fact of life in the US today. You can either invest in Nuclear (assuming you could get it okayed) for $3-5 billion; a coal solar park for $1.45 billion; or a coal plant for about $1 billion even. In any case, the feds are going to have their ass on the line for the project, and IMO, increasing the risk by 450 million is well worth it for not having to deal with the ramifications of yet more coal plants.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
... but can we spare a couple hundred mil for a real alternative?
Shush. Don't rain on their parade. They want to believe it's a gross injustice. Logic just gets in the way.
Someone had to do it.
If they make it and produce electricity, then they will have to repay this loan over the years. So, unless the company screws up very badly or unless the the Sun turns off, in the end this will cost tax payers exactly $0.
One of the riskiest classes of loan guarantee made by the feds is for nuclear power plant construction.
Those loans are expected to have a 50% default rate.
Solar's a bit less risky than that -- far less likely to have cost overruns or construction problems. Generally the government does not price risk high enough, but that doesn't mean they lose every dollar they guarantee. Most of it gets payed back.
Someone had to do it.
It's a $1.45B LOAN GUARANTEE, not cash money. Unless they default on the loan it only costs imaginary money.
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Tesla is brought to you by the same people who brought us PayPal and SpaceX.
Except that they appear to have been subsidized with federal tax taxpayer money (something I despise) they could be good people doing a good/hard thing at the wrong time. I suspect that if the fed-govt wasn't so expensive these days that Tesla could stand on its own.
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
He's actually not spending any money. The companies building solar power are taking loans for $2B and probably expect to make a profit.
>> unless the the Sun turns off
I'm pretty sure this would be covered under a sunset clause in the loan documentation.
Folks are making points about the money spent, or loaned actually, but what is saved is just as valuable. Less $ on oil wars, oil cleanup, medical costs associated with pollution, retraining for lost jobs due to spills ruining livelihoods. And then there's the savings that are less about money but perhaps even more important. Like fewer fouled beaches, saved species, oh and that global climate change thing. The calculations for this kind of investment really need to be more wise and less driven by simpleminded ideology if you ask me.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.--Mark Twain
I'm always puzzled at this notion that if you allocate money to some project, and as a result that project hires somebody to do a job, then you've created a job. I suppose it is true if we compare what you've done to keeping that money in a mattress. However, if you put it in a bank then the bank is going to invest the money which will move that money into the hands of someone who is doing something with it. That "doing something" is likely going to entail hiring someone at some point. So it mostly doesn't matter how you allocate money: it's mostly always going to create jobs. The government is taking money from people through taxes, thereby preventing those people who originally held the money from putting that money somewhere where it could create jobs - like putting it in the bank, investing it or perhaps just buying sodas. So the government doesn't directly create jobs by allocating money to a project, since jobs would have been there anyway by not collecting that money through taxes in the first place.
Now the economy is not a zero sum game, so it may still sometimes be a good idea to have the government redistribute money to projects that will benefit the country or humankind in the long term, e.g. where those projects wouldn't obtain funding otherwise because the benefits of the project are external and won't be enjoyed directly by the person undertaking the project. Perhaps this project will do that, and perhaps in benefiting us all it will even indirectly create many more jobs than those that are directly necessary for carrying out the project. What I'm puzzled by is just the idea that the direct employees of the project represent "jobs created" when a similar number of jobs would likely exist anyway if the project never existed. I guess the most you can say is that jobs have been created in one state/town/place by removing a similar number of jobs from other states/towns/places, and that is a benefit to the place that is receiving those jobs. So a politician presenting such a project will want to focus on the benefit of jobs created in one place and downplay the harm of removing those jobs elsewhere.
There are plenty of ways to store the sun's energy overnight. One involves using the sun to heat molten saltpeter and then running a heat engine that slowly sucks up that heat, as AC suggested. Others include flywheels or just using the existing power grid for a lower nighttime load that doesn't have to cover air conditioners.
Subsidizing non-economical power generation is not money well spent.
That argument will hold no water until the oil industry stops getting their subsidies.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
That's because the collateral damage from Microsoft's war on skills has taken out just about all engineering and science, not just IT, in the universities. It's also crippled the ability of any private company to be efficient, nimble or even competitive. Microsoft's acting Political Action Committee, the Gates Foundation, is working hard to make sure that war on skills comes even to secondary school.
We're talking about a loan, anyway, to known viable companies making an in-demand product not more sub-prime lending bubble stuff. Even the word loan is in both the title and in the URL. Without science or industry and an academia that's being rubbed out, the hope has to come from other countries. What the Bush administration did to other countries with ammo, it did to the US with policies. Sadly while the Bush junta is out of office, they have not entirely left power. If the loan has to go to companies in Spain to allow the US to get back on its feet again sometime this next 20 years, then that's how it goes.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The green program in Spain (solar power, etc) costs more than the energy it produces.
The piggies will have to find some other government trough. So of course, off they go to Obama, where else!
For instance look at this article: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/13/spains-green-jobs-boondoggle/
IT claims that every green job "Every “green job” created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job, says a new study released this month. The study draws parallels with the green jobs programs of the Obama administration."
Please explain to us exactly how electricity from the sun replaces any oil right now.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When, exactly, did Presidents get signing authority on the national checkbook?
That was Bush's fault. All that Executive power that his administration grabbed is now in the hands of the other party. And yet, when folks complained about it when it was happening, they were "unAmerican" or "supported the terrorists"
What comes around goes around.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Money for the big corporations. Through the big financial system.
Not for the people and small businesses who might actually immediately benefit from it. Not for all the small community jobs installing, fixing, maintaining. Not for all the panel-makers, that could apppear given a lot of new and dispersed demand. Plus the logistics nets and matrixes that would be reinforced.
Who would want that? That might actually reinforce employment and diminish the general crisis.
Just another money-debt pipeline for the debt-serfs to be shackled and crushed by for the next few decades. Let's hope the money isn't reborrowed from the banking or reserve system - then the people will end up paying interest on money taken from them in the first place.
The more "financial hops" their are, the greater the accrued interest - but only the last one is counted. And solar "incentive" is used to pad big banks and companies' bonusses, and the gaping craters in their accounting, and finance a "vamipiric" system of lobbyists and "campaign" financing.
No. I'm not being cynical. Or incred... well, ok, maybe I'm not that credulous any longer. Evidence is howling against it. And active prudence would seem more than advisable.
Estimates vary widely, depending on who you ask and who is paying those people to give that answer. With nuclear it depends on if you count that you have to monitor the waste for 1 million years or if you just dump it in a hole and forget about it. Most people assume you can forget about it, or reprocess it later to recoup some of your costs.Here's one estimate:
The cheap price for coal and gas may or may not count the cost of dealing with they myriad environmental and health problems associated with them, such as acid rain, mercury contamination, coal miner occupational hazards (~120,000 coal miners have died on the job since 1850), global warming and associated climate change, water quality degradation due to mountaintop removal, wars in foreign countries to protect oil interests (Iraq, Niger delta), etc. etc. etc. Contrast that to solar power where the only point that real environmental degradation is being done is during the synthesis of the cells (and recycling at EOL) rather than over the entire lifespan as in coal.
The answer here seems to be that solar is more expensive up front, but should benefit society because of the lower environmental and health concerns associated with it. Note that this makes fiscal sense for the federal government to make these loans because more often than not, it is the taxpayer who pays for the clean up of environmental damage or health risks, not the power company.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Nevermind that Spain's experiment with subsidizing solar power is one of the causes of their looming fiscal insolvency. Let's follow them down the path to ruin. Yay!
Spain has a debt to GDP ratio of 50% as of 2009 - that's about what ours was. They just suffered a massive real estate bubble and suffered badly from the oil shock of 2008 since they have no fossil fuel resources. Do you really think even twenty billion euros is a drop in the bucket to the increased cost to their economy if oil prices skyrocket again?
You're penny wise and pound foolish. If your livelihood depends on a resource that can easily bankrupt you, then you should probably borrow every dime you can to get off of it. At lease they have the sense to invest in something that will actually reduce their dependency on the oil addiction instead of prolonging it with two intractable wars.
This conservative rhetoric has reached the point where investment in America is considered unpatriotic. Employment for Americans is somehow irresponsible. I guess when everyone is living in a trailer on a diet of beans and processed corn you'll be happy?
That should make for an excellent pitch for investors. Come build a business in America! We're all illiterate and we have no infrastructure!
The fact is, that we are in this situation because we became dependent on fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, coal). We need to have a diverse matrix of various energy. We DO need more nukes, but I would like to see it be limited to no more than 1/3 of your total energy. And once we are larger and more diverse, then I would like to see it limited further back to 25, or even the current 20%. THough to be fair, nukes are 20% of ELECTRICITY, not energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Solar power is promising in that it's abundant... however it's not efficient and it's not "clean".
The biggest problem is consistent production. You get less power when it's cloudy and none at night.
You can fix this by:
1. Building huge batteries which use all sorts of expensive (if you want efficiency) and toxic chemicals.
2. Putting in super conducting lines so power can be shared across regions (but this is expensive and can't scale to address the loss of power at night)
Right now the cleanest forms of consistent power are geothermal and (despite the stigma) nuclear. That's where we need to be investing our money.
The 1.45 billion is not part of the budget, it is not being paid by tax payers at this point, it is a loan from a bank (not the feds) that the feds are insuring.
And who gets to keep the interest on the loan? If the feds are guaranteeing the loan, shouldn't they get the interest too?
It's like the recent changes to student loans. For the last few decades, banks issued any student a loan. If they didn't pay up, they went and got their hunk of flesh from Uncle Sam. When the student did pay up, the banks kept 100% of the profit. This was recently changed so that the government is officially in the banking business (for students).
If "we the people" had a publicly-owned bank for energy development, $2 billion would generate $20 billion in new loans for clean energy projects. See SUSTAINABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT: HOW COSTS CAN BE CUT IN HALF and OUT OF THE ASHES OF GM: THE PHOENIX OF RENEWABLE ENERGY, for example.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Arizona - Obvious choice for solar.
Colorado - Ok.. I guess they get a lot of sun too.
Indiana - Huh?
Why not New Mexico? SoCal? Nevada? Is it politics? Distribution/distance (Indiana's proximity to the east coast)?
Wait... Michele Malkin is against industries that are demonstrably efficient in use and require fewer State funded employees? Perhaps she didn't understand the study.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What? Arizona? I thought they were 1000 * Nazi_Germany() and stopping all the Einstein clones from crossing the border to build steel mills? I'm so confused. What's our stance on Eurasia now?
It's not easy.. being green.
If the administration really wanted more people to go green, the first thing they should have done was to pay all the Florida residents that got screwed over when the state of FL reneged on rebates for people that invested in solar in 2009.
Lawmakers refused to refund the state solar rebate program, leaving aprox. 10,000 people without promised rebates.
Lawmakers objected to a $0.25 tax being added to power bills and ranted about keeping utilities cheep and "No More Taxes".
They then turned around and approved utilities requested price hikes well beyond what the solar rebate funding would have added.
If the administration is serious about green energy, they need to help little guy that's trying to go green at the home level too.
And the ideologies of Bin Laden are a reaction to the US military presence in Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere (like Afghanistan).
So if you're trying to make a point that the war in Afghanistan is not intrinsically liked to oil, you aren't doing a good job.
I'm very excited about this.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Read the article, it is about solar technology. There's your tie to technology.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Remember that whether its loans or grants that there are negative effects of this program.
A Government itself is not concerned with wealth generation, as such it can only supply capital for any purpose in only a few different ways:
1) It can redirect capital by taking it from those that are producers in society (taxes).
2) It can borrow capital from those that have it to lend.
3) In a fiat money system it can print it.
All three methods of government capital acquisition have negative impacts on the broader economy. In case 1 you reduce the money that individuals and business can spend on their own needs, in case 2 you do the same thing with the exception of delay the consequences of case 1 but at greater cost (an effective savings/investment penalty) and in case 3 you penalize spending and encourage consumption... which in turns leaves less money over time for investment into productive purposes.
You might object that the money is being paid back since these are government loans. But because that money was obtained in one of the ways listed above, there is real short term damage as described. So all that's happened is that the Government has substituted its investment priorities (which are not predicated on market needs) for those of the market and displacing market needs/wants in the process.
Since the expansion of productive capacity isn't even the goal, this (and other programs like it) will likely lead to a net loss of employment and personal wealth over what would have been without it.
Oops...
"and in case 3 you penalize spending and encourage consumption"
should read:
and in case 3 you penalize savings and encourage consumption
What is the time frame of use on these estimates (20 years, 50 years)? I've never seen a PV estimate as low as that (or any of the other technologies for that matter).
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Why not let homeowners to add the cost of buying and installing solar panels into their mortgages? The cost over 30 or so years would seem as shocking as it is now where you have to pay for the costs all up front.
Unless they default on the loan it only costs imaginary money.
I think you mean Reactive money.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Hah! Good one. Wish I was moderating.
Someone had to do it.
Solar PV and thermal *is* fusion power. It works today, and can only get better with more adoption and economies of scale. The original solar PV panels cost over ten grand apiece and weren't near as efficient as we have today! Now it is a few hundred, and they are better.
Solar PV is good for joe homeowner, solar thermal is good for making larger commercial generating plants. We have millions and millions of rooftops sitting baking in the hot sun that could be covered with panels, and millions of acres of desert that could have mirrors and towers.
You want fusion, let the engineers start building it,(I suggest 100% tax credits for actual deployment as opposed to a carbon tax to jumpstart cleaner power adoption better) the scientists can keep playing around with laser magnetic plasma bubbles at their leisure. If you want the power though, today, all we lack is building the stuff and getting it out there.
And no threats of war over who gets access to solar power, as opposed to oil or fission or man made fusion power. No embargoes, no acrimonious debate, no inspectors needed, nothing. It's the most peaceful energy source we have that actually works now, and it scales from running one small house to a whole city. This is stuff we have *now* that could be used a lot more.
Not sure if you can slap a dollar sign amount on what "peaceful" is worth, but you sure can see the external costs and threats with other sources of energy like oil and fission and coal and so on, along with the not barely hidden environmental costs. Fission power is the largest threat we have to global war today, because nations threaten each other with the weapons. If you can make fission power, it is a short step away from fission weapons, as such, too dang dangerous if you ask me. I don't care if a fission reactor can make a lot of "hot", because it is in the headlines daily that we could go to a larger war over who has access or "permission" to develop the tech.
This doesn't exist at all with solar fusion power. There should be a global trillion dollar massive push for solar, just to help eliminate the threats of war over fission power level tech. This is no joke, we are *this close* to a much larger major middle eastern war over fission tech, and that in turn WILL impact oil prices once it starts, and it looks worse and worse daily.
If we had gone heavily solar thirty years ago, on a massive scale, just done it, we could have nipped this in the bud, and helped avoid it.
All our forms of energy have costs, money, waste, etc, but eliminating wars and threats of wars, *those* costs in terms of money and human misery, should never be overlooked in the larger and more long range picture.
Don't forget the benefit of producing mutant super-heroes.
Table-ized A.I.
>will likely lead to a net loss of employment and personal wealth over what would have been without it.
Bullshit. This is being done because investors are wary about investing in that industry as its seen as being too risky. I'm so sick of these anti-government screeds and so glad people like you are marginalized internet weirdos no one takes seriously. If people like you were in charge we'd be living in an Ayn Rand dystopia and certainly wouldn't be posting on the government created internet.
You would be correct if everyone willing to work in these fields was presently employed. A number of those jobs will likely be taken by the skilled people who are currently employed as they will be willing to work for lower salaries and more willing to move to this location. Without this project, a small portion of these funds would also have to be spent to pay these people to do nothing.
Agree totally!
You're right, that's even better with an even brighter future if fusion ever (and it will!) pays off.
When fusion goes off it will be very bright, and rather brief.
oh. pays off? NM
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
I am really starting to think that a large percentage of my fellow humans are just insane. Do you guys really think that we will be burning toxic shit to get out power in the future? Is that the best we can do? For a bunch of technophiles, this is an awfully Luddite-like position.
The key is to get manufacturing to be completely off-planet. This nonsense of needing to get the energy down to the planetary surface to use it is nuts. Further, the waste products from manufacturing should not be left on the surface either. Turn the entire surface into a park and place to spend your weekends, and raise the kids and such.
Just thinkin.
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
Just saying... they better be.
Just think if we would have started our solar initiative while Carter was still in office. Thanks a lot corporate media for selling us Reagan/Bush all those years. You really helped us all out. Asshats!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I don't get why we aren't doing more with space-based solar. I'm no physicist, but it seems like you should be able to launch 4 or 6 fairly-equidistant satellites with solar collectors into orbit somewhere around the equator, and you have fully fault-tolerant/redundant 24 hour a day power that you can beam down to regional distribution points via microwave, which then uses the existing power grids to get it where it is needed. This provides a big enough chunk of the required energy for the planet, and OPEC countries become just competing providers, not a defacto energy monopoly bloc that they are.
Then we can move on to having wars over something else, like clean water, the next limited, mismanaged resource.
If you thought that solving the oil problem would stop wars, think again. We're human - we're really good at killing other humans. It's our thing, yo. In light of that, my dream is that one day, our wars, instead of being about tragic-yet-understandable resource management and distribution, are about utterly ridiculous things. I hope my kids or grandkids are around when Fox News is trying to pin the great Boxers vs Briefs vs Commando war (World War 6) on the Clinton Administration. Or maybe Al Jazeera reports that the Big Endians are regrouping after a deadly surprise attack by the Little Endians in the Where-to-break-open-your-eggs war that is now going into its third year in Southeast Asia.
Maybe, just maybe, in the year 3019, future generations will have a war over whether we should execute Dick Cheney with a firing squad or by hanging. Yes, he'll still be around then, causing mischief. If you don't like it, then YOU get off your ass and find the rest of the horcruxes.
But I digress - space-based solar beats the pants off terrestrial solar, what with no silly clouds and atmosphere to get in the way, not having to worry about a lack of sunny days, and a host of other reasons I can't think of right now.
Can some smart person of science who actually knows what they are talking about comment on whether this is a crazy argument?
[Coal] Power plant cost to top $1 billion Alliant seeks OK for power plant The cost to build a new coal-fired power plant in Cassville or Portage has soared because of higher construction prices, Alliant Energy Corp. said Friday. The 300-megawatt power plant, which would generate enough power to supply 150,000 homes, is now projected to cost $1.1 billion if it is built in southwestern Wisconsin and $1.2 billion if it is built in Portage, the utility said.
1.45 billion for a renewable, pollution-free energy source or $1.2 billion for billowing black clouds. It's really a no-brainer. A coal power plant costs nearly the same amount. Also, keep in mind the more we build solar power plants, like with anything, the cheaper and more efficient they will get.
Can we really afford not to build them?
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Arizona - Solar thermal generating plant.
Colorado - Solar panel manufacturing plant.
Indiana - Solar panel manufacturing plant.
I'm calling BS on this. Fuell cell is not an energy source and all other numbers seem that are off and hand-made to make alternatives look better.
Thirty year lifespan and it won't pay back cost of production? Where did you get that? Why do people keep repeating this? This has been debunked here on slashdot numerous times now in these discussions.
Here ya go, you offered no citation for your 30 year claim, but I have a counter with citation. Various types of PV panels and energy to build them payback period, goes from one for thin film bleeding edge to four years for more expensive crystalline types, after that, all the power they make is free. OK, double that for some place with crappy sun, 8 years, that leaves 22 years of free or real dang cheap power.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
The big energy companies really don't like solar all that much, because eventually your home power plant is paid off and no need to send them a check every month. They'll fool around with it, good for PR purposes, but they really don't push it that hard either.
As to government subsidies and whatnot, meh, I can't think of a single form of energy production that hasn't been subsidized one way or the other from government. Heck, centralized power absolutely depends on government subsidy in perpetuity, eminent domain seizure and use with no check cutting to the property owners for power poles and natgas lines. If they had to negotiate transit fees property owner by property owner, coal and nuke power and natgas would be as expensive a way to make power as you can think of. And there wouldn't be nuke one if the government didn't back them up as the insurer of last resort, not a private insurer out there would cover all the liability risks and costs. Now look at making sure foreign oil keeps flowing with our military presence for decades...
Any subsidies or tax breaks for solar are the proverbial drop in the bucket, compared to what the other energy sources have benefited and profited from over the generations now.
Well I am glad to see us spending the money in America and I am glad we are trying to save the planet.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Remember when most people thought throwing billions of dollars at NASA so that we could be first to the moon was "worth it"?
Space exploration hasn't got a lot cheaper (if any), but most of the other things we poured big money into initially are now cheap as water.
Computer and communications technology cost the early-adopters a fortune, but IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY.
Renewable energy systems, such as photovoltaics, may have a high startup cost initially, but like almost all things the so-called economy of scale as well as further progress in production methods will surely drive the costs down so far that people will wonder why it took us so fucking long to begin using the stuff.
Fuck the economic Ayn Randists and their fixation with shaving off every cent from every thing and keeping it for themselves.
LET'S JUST DO THIS: IT'S ALREADY PAST TIME!
As a libertarian (more l, than L these days), I mostly support what you say. The ISSUE is that the gov MUST DO WHAT IS IN THE NATION'S BEST INTEREST. And economics does not take into account national security or its interests. With that said, I prefer that the gov. does minimal amounts of choosing and minimal amounts of investments to change our directions. HOWEVER, the truth is, that much of our infrastructure was actually built via gov. interference and investments. The old phone system that was developed from 30's-50's counted on a great deal of gov. investment. Likewise, our roads, which were also once the envy of the world counted on large gov. investment. Our aircraft system depended on large gov. investment. Our one time large amounts of railroads depended on gov. investments. Finally, our nukes and coal plants were all via gov. investment. Our dams and water control were also the envy of the world. Basically, America was made great during the mid-late 1800's, and again from 1932-1970.
OTH, our crumbling infrastructure is what occurs when businesses are given monopolies and have no real requirement to invest, starting since 1980.
The problem is that if you are going to de-regulate, that is good. BUT, you have to remove the monopolies, and at times, the gov. STILL have to help push business to do what is national interests.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Non-economical is critical, but it is unfair to compare solar to existing forms of power.
Nuclear was mentioned. To determine its economic viability, we need to factor in the cost of government subsidies for guaranteed waste disposal/storage as well as the military costs to prevent other nations from achieving this ideal energy solution (yes, that was meant to be sarcastic).
For our main power source, coal, we should factor in the cost of retrofitting ALL plant to "clean coal" standards and/or the cost of building new ones. We need to consider the cost of feedstock extraction and the transportation of feedstock. We need to consider the social cost of where we site these plants - which, unfortunately, often wind up in poorer neighborhoods and harming the health of their youth. Then there are other often overlooked costs, like water resources.
So we need to decide if we wish do a full life cycle analysis of cost, or we wish to bias our judgments by not including all costs in some to make them sound more favorable.
One side note when considering economic viability. Which do you think is better for the health of a community and nation - distributed local power generation interlinked across the nation, or a few key locations and a centralized top-down authority removed from the community administrating it.
Oops... I opened up a can of worms. Just so people understand, I get that battery manufacturers pollute quite a lot too. I also understand their ranges are limited. However, there are companies out there (globally) working on projects like quick-change battery stations (I believe Israel is going to pilot their installation).
This is what I call a "2 standard deviation" solution. There are situations where alternative solutions would be needed for long-distance transport. I think returning to a rail system for cargo would be a good idea, and that could be based off of electricity vs fossil fuels. However, when the majority of manufacturers are making electric vehicles, I think we will see some good technological advancements and economies of scale kick in.
So rather than address the arguments I've raised you'd rather just spout dogma as the mainstream position?
Just how is it good that people raising, in calm voices might I add, serious objections to a point and then taking the time to explain those objections merits marginalization? Do you simply have no convincing answer?
Before I go on, I will address the only point of relevance that you made. Regarding the investments being discussed... are you conceding then than they are risky and will likely need on-going subsidies to keep viable? Seems if there was a clear market need and demand for this stuff that these loans, grants, etc wouldn't be needed. Investors take a risk every time they invest.... and in fact are subsidizing this very program through the purchase in Government bonds (as it stands now). And if fact this type of lending being so much 'safer' than, say, green tech is one of the leading reasons why green tech companies can't get investment any other way. Yes, government demand for capital from the market is using capital that would have otherwise been put into other projects.
The problem with the mob, of which you're evidently a part, is that so little of their position is laid out rationally. As for me, I prefer to look at the broader picture, including facts rather than biases and ideological bigotry, and draw my own conclusions.
I am not a Libertarian, though I do hold many similar political philosophical beliefs and have studied their philosophy as well as some of the others. I would urge you to not call yourself a libertarian at all... based on your message you're not one (big L or little l). I'm not saying that as an indictment, merely as an observation. I'll explain why, at risk of over generalizing... there are many flavors of 'Libertarian Philosophy' and they don't all agree, and there are many more philosophies that draw similar political conclusions but have differing roots.
The one thing that really all of the libertarian philosophies that I know tend to agree on is the right of the individual over collective rights. Under these philosophies, you are the only person with the right to determine how to live your life: whether that's to take drugs, to become a stock broker or to determine the disposition of the property. You have the right to Life, Liberty, and Property/Pursuit of Happiness (a la Locke/a la Jefferson). These rights are not grants from Government but irrevocable rights of natural law. The only limitations on your power of action is that you may not infringe on another's rights. With these rights do come responsibilities... you are solely responsible for making your living, for the consequences of your actions (i.e. take drugs and fry your brain: your problem). Etc.... there are no societal obligations to you.
Now consider the basic premise of your comment. You state that the Government must do what is best for the Nation... and imply that it can do so at the expense of individual choice in the matter. In essence your argument is that there are no natural rights as understood by the libertarian philosophers, but rather what they would call rights are really revocable privileges granted by Government. If you own property (cash/land/whatever) then the Government may morally revoke that privilege when it deems fit for a given purpose when it decides that "it's in the nation's best interest". Your position is a complete repudiation of libertarian philosophical ideals; you emphasize supremacy of collective rights over individual rights. Practical outcomes have no bearing on the philosophical conclusions: you either believe that collective rights outweigh individual rights or the other way around.
And by the way... the problem with collective rights is that they are always exercised by individuals on behalf of society... though these individuals have their own self-interests and motivations. I have never heard any tyrant saying what their actions are intended to harm their subjects... they all claim that what they do is in their nation's interest. You might claim democracy is a safeguard by allowing the majority to claim what is national self interest? Remember that lynchings back in the day had such a degree of popular support that fair juries could often times not be found to try the murderers... as such mobs, too, can have a funny sense of communal or national interest.
We did spend that money - we spent it on Second homes in the Hamptons, Ivy league tuition, yachts, etc. It did not result in more job creation - in fact, the economy cratered.
May I point out that homes and yachts are built by people who have jobs?
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
Stolen from http://chizumatic.mee.nu/ghosts_of_my_past/:
In order for "alternate energy" to become feasible, it has to satisfy all of the following criteria:
1. It has to be huge (in terms of both energy and power)
2. It has to be reliable (not intermittent or unschedulable)
3. It has to be concentrated (not diffuse)
4. It has to be possible to utilize it efficiently
5. The capital investment and operating cost to utilize it has to be comparable to existing energy sources (per gigawatt, and per terajoule).
If it fails to satisfy any of those, then it can't scale enough to make any difference. Solar power fails #3, and currently it also fails #5. (It also partially fails #2, but there are ways to work around that.)
The only sources of energy available to us now that satisfy all five are petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.
My rule of thumb is that I'm not interested in any "alternate energy" until someone shows me how to scale it to produce at least 1% of our current energy usage. America right now uses about 3.6 terawatts average, so 1% of that is about 36 gigawatts average.
Show me a plan to produce 36 gigawatts (average, not peak) using solar power, at a price no more than 30% greater than coal generation of comparable capacity, which can be implemented at that scale in 10-15 years. Then I'll pay attention.
Since solar power installations can only produce power for about 10 hours per day on average, that means that peak power production would need to be in the range of about 85 gigawatts to reach that 1%.
Without that, it's just religion, like all the people fascinated with wind and with biomass. And even if it did reach 1%, that still leaves the other 99% of our energy production to petroleum, coal, hydro, and nuclear.
The problems facing "alternate energy" are fundamental, deep, and are show-stoppers. They are not things that will be surmounted by one lone incremental improvement in one small area, announced breathlessly by a startup which is trying to drum up funding.
The way you can tell that a fan of "alternate energy" is a religious cultist is to ask them this question: If your preferred alternate source of energy is practical, why isn't it already in use?
Why not? Because of The Conspiracy(TM). The big oil companies don't want it to happen, and have been suppressing all this live-saving green people's energy all this time for their own nefarious purposes.
As soon as you hear any reference to The Conspiracy(TM), you know you're talking to someone who is living in a morality play. That isn't engineering any more, that's religion. And while religion is an important part of many people's lives, it has no place in engineering discussions.
I HAVE CUBIC WISDOM THAT TRANSCENDS AND CONTRADICTS ONE DAY GODS
are expensive. In China, a soldier's life is probably hundred times less expensive. I know that in Russia it is worth very little. Please consider this before making any comparisons.
BTW, congratulations - you rediscovered old "Pravda"'s arguments about "hawks in the Pentagon", which were similarly derived from military budget comparisons of the USSR (with a standing army of 4 million conscripted solders) and the US.
Subsidizing solar power is the wrong approach. The right approach is to start buying up lots of solar panels for installations on the tops of government buildings. That will increase demand and make it more more profitable to get into the business (provided the main criteria isn't cheapest solar panel our tax dollars can buy). More profit will drive more companies to open up solar manufacturing and R&D. Sowe get a double benefit. We get more solar power production and we get the added benefit of getting more solar power onto the grid right from the startnot X number of years down the R&D road.
Sumdumass is a just a second sockpuppet account that the above idiot gets on when you wants to have fun by making people angry. That is why he brought in irrelevant bullshit about Cray computers and bicycles and why it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't have to make sense - it's just a game.
I had that idiot spouting random bullshit over serious posts I made a while ago until I read his journal to find it's a fake, joke second persona where he pretends to be tinfoil hat crazy to stir people up. To paraphrase: "Slashdot is hacking me OMG" and similar stuff.
Remember that any sort of major electricity generation project lasts for two, three or possibly four decades so what looks like a huge price per home gets spread out over a very long time.
With solar the operating costs are very low, you can put it somewhere where the line losses will be very low but the capital costs are very high. The total cost over the lifetime are starting to get competitive especially in places a long way from the amount of water you need to run anything else.
I'll spell out the coal situation clearly - a huge capital cost although less than with solar, larger ongoing costs and typically larger line losses since you have more restrictions on where you can site it. At some distance from a lot of water even photovoltaics start to look good.
Nuclear is irrelevant to this since I'm comparing it to the current situation and whether nuclear fans like it or not nobody has been building the things in the USA lately - feel free to advocate on another thread but here I just want to compare solar and coal.
Isn't it incredibly funny that the US generated nuclear figures never come close to what people in the UK are paying on their bills, or in France, or Russia, or Japan, or China? The nuclear "debate" still remains as complete and utter fabricated bullshit versus mindless fear.
The answer as always is instead of accepting rubbery figures you ask an advocate to give you their best shot - pick the best performing plant on earth, name it, and give you the specific numbers for that. The answer to that is always attempted distraction and zero information that answers the question.
Nuclear is an alternative energy with a lot of promise and has been used effectively in specific situations (eg. submarines, partial energy independence for Japan in case of military blockade, etc), and has had the side benefit of producing weapon material. However it is still a very complex and expensive way to boil water so in the past has been a terrible way to generate electricity. That's my answer to the "nuclear now" idiots that think it's a solved problem - for everyone else there are promising options in nuclear that could be developed into something very useful, and some are even already at the prototype stage.
The answer, as with every alternative energy source, is to develop it to the point where the benefits make it worthwhile - and only then you start taking about building hundreds of the things.
Or you could just use different panels that work well in cloudy weather - which of course use far more toxic chemicals than the usual but the answer is not to lift the glass and lick the cadmium on the panel.
Nuclear of course uses far more toxic chemicals and it's very difficult to mine Uranium without creating serious heath risks for the people in that areas around the mine (eg. hospitalisations from drinking water contamination in a town near Ranger Uranium mine, Australia).
We need to stop pretending anything is "clean" because the reality behind the PR is always big, dirty industrial processes so the answer as always is to contain them in such a way that nobody gets hurt.
"Clean" is for selling washing detergent - any time a salesman for any type of energy uses it you know they are trying to sell you a huge lie. Even geothermal done badly has the potential to damage farmland with salt.
The media is getting obsessed with labelling all kinds of things as "toxic". We're supposed to apply the "toxic" argument to what people are exposed to or what is on the material safety data sheet and not arbitrarily. A spoonful of margarine won't kill you but the catalyst used to make it out of vegetable oil probably will. Thus the process is "toxic" but the end product is safe enough to eat.
There are photovoltaics that produce reasonable amounts of power without direct sunlight.
There's not much benefit if it costs more than it's counterparts. Now you have to make the decision what you won't spend your money on in order to have solar power. Perhaps you'll forgo that prius and keep your 1972 cadillac running, thereby offsetting your global warming win? or healthcare? Plumbing fixes creating waste and contamination. To say it's a win isn't that easy. Do you have any idea what's involved in manufacturing silicon solar cells?
One of the riskiest classes of loan guarantee made by the feds is for nuclear power plant construction.
Those loans are expected to have a 50% default rate.
Solar's a bit less risky than that -- far less likely to have cost overruns or construction problems. Generally the government does not price risk high enough, but that doesn't mean they lose every dollar they guarantee. Most of it gets payed back.
Not a SINGLE utility has ever defaulted on a loan-guarantee for a Nuclear Power Plant.
Of course, if you come out EVERY SINGLE DAY and declare "it will rain because I say so!", one day, it will probably rain.
Does that mean you can create rain?
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
When will US become net exporter of crude oil?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
The most effective solar and wind power device is drying clothing and linen outdoors, as opposite of drying in electrical dryers.
During drying water changes physical state, turning from liquid to vapor. Changing physical state means a lot of energy.
In some districts and even in entire cities drying outdoors is forbidden not to spoil views of nice houses. So in these districts and cities a huge amount of energy is being used in electrical driers.
But in other poorer districts and cities there will be installed immense wind mills and vast solar panel fields, even more reducing a value of housing in these areas.
Instead he had to ban forbidding outdoor drying and invest in development of outdoor driers. Outdoor drying not only saves energy, it cools down the planet, as billions of pieces of clothing and linen is being washed and dried every day around the globe.
Unfortunately, this fashion on vanilla fences and Barby-houses is spreading on such countries and India, China, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, etc., where the growing middle class is also moving into gated communities, where outdoor drying is forbidden.
So the social problem is to be solved, not a technical problem. A solar panel is weak and unreliable in comparison with an outdoor drier, which uses energy of sun and wind most effectively, without any loses, without expensive and polluting manufacturing.
You know, 20 years ago, when I joined the Libertarian party, I was fanatical. In 20 years of sucking hind teat to the likes of W, I have become a lot more pragmatic. My response was why it is better over the grants. Now, as to your judging my statement against your perception of the party, I have to laugh. So many ppl have this perception that Libertarian == anarchism. In addition, they seem to ignore what the party puts out, and just push points made by dems/pubs which really are false. Too bad.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Anytime my tax dollars are targeted like this, I get REALLY MAD.
We need an X-Prize for Solar power efficiencies that can also be mass produced, not this ... er ... graft for the good-ol-boy network.
Solar efficiencies are 20% on a good day. The X-Price should be for
a) 80+% efficient systems
b) that can be mass produced (millions of sq-meters a day)
c) 25 yr lifespan
d) available only to companies and research located AND headquartered inside the USA. It is our money after all.
Make the prize $100M and safe us all some cash too.
Informative? WTF?
First off it is rather typical for a peak to be followed by a drop. I personally know people who bought a car simply because of the CFC program! Furthermore, they picked a better car so it also influenced them to make a smarter choice. The purpose was to create a boost during a bad time AND get better cars on the roads. In fact, 1 person I know bought a new car for the 1st time and normally would never do so.
The idea behinds such things is rather complex-- the economy boosts people keep their jobs and can spend money that later on impacts you; then the better cars help move society a tiny bit forward from these clunkers - except new american cars suck so they let you get pretty low mpg cars.
Consistent production is not a problem when there are multiple sources of electricity. Natural gas powered plants can be run at night and on overcast days and throttled back when solar is producing. No serious person is saying that we should eliminate everything but solar.
The large amount of land needed is not a problem because the best land for solar is in the desert and this is some of the cheapest land available. Rooftops are also available.
The latest estimate for the Yucca waste storage project (currently cancelled) is $90b. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
Any accidents, such as oil spills, can make unexpected increases to the cost.
Then of course there's carbon credit cost for coal/oil.
The only coal power plant in NZ, Huntly is probably going to close. Carbon credits have just come in.
The NZ power companies have been investing in wind and geothermal in recent years instead.
"the costs are insane" is not a cost figure. 64MW plant $266mil. A nuclear power plant would cost..? Add up the cost of the fuel too, by the way...
How much of this 2B will actually end up spent in the US? Foreign companies installing Chinese solar panels - that's what - 1 hop, maybe 2 hops and its gone...
Funny you ask that now. I read this a few weeks ago on the Oildrum: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6640
Ya it's useful. I used to be in the biz and sold a ton of solar hot water heaters, and worked on several air heaters as well, residential and commercial. As to absorption cooling, correct again, that is how a lot of ammonia gas RV (or remote cabin, etc) refrigerators work, I have three of them (all small though).
I just think decentralized solar power, of any type, is just spiffy beyond belief. anything to get the homeowner away from the monthly "bill" that can never be paid off. That and superinsulation of the home are the best bets for personal alt energy independence. I work on this stuff a lot for myself, this is how I "invest", no wall street scam stocks or put your grandchildren into debt government paper for me, useful and practical tangibles only. Trying to get as independent as possible. We've made a huge hit on the grocery bill with extensive gardens, a greenhouse, etc. We switched to stored solar-wood-for heating and haven't used any propane for heating for three years now. I have some solar PV but not enough to replace everything, like a lot of folks waiting for it to drop a scosh more in price, that's all. Went mostly retired a few years back and my income dropped like down to 25% of what I was making, so everything I do has to be on the ultra cheap. I rotate around, this year will be lots more insulation, next year, something else.
I see a lot of greenies rag on suburbia, on the contrary, I think stand alone suburban homes with a decent yard (and a good internet connection so if possible telecommuting) are the best compromise for most people, has the most potential. You *can* do solar PV and thermal and have a decent garden etc, and eventually the solar PV carport or garage for the electric ride. Can't do any of that in town in some apartment, you stay tied to "the man" forever and ever. We live further out than suburbia on a big farm, yesterday we had the "all our own stuff" fourth of july cookout, our own beef, chicken and bass, veggies from the garden, etc. tres cool, good eats. Fresh picked watermelon and sweet corn and tomatoes just can't be beat.
Including that scam wall street cap and trade carbon tax. That is something they brainwashed the greenies into thinking is "the solution". Total mind fsck. On the other hand, I love the tax *credit*, the anti tax. If the government would just pass a 100% tax credit for people and businesses, say up to 25 grand for individuals amortized over 5-10 years, there would be zillions of PV panels and assorted whatnot up there within a short time. The carbon tax just goes to make the same fatcats richer, that's it. That money will leave your pocket anyway, so which would most folks like, get to have some decent solar installed, or read little blurbs in the paper about megacorp making record profits? I think most folks would opt for getting their own panels, etc. At commercial scales, if there was a full tax credit for some huge commercial solar installation (whatever, variations there), investors would look at that, as opposed to tradition burn fuel plants, which are still taxed, and go "this is a no brainer" and opt for cleaner and more sustainable and more profitable.
Government can either tax or not tax, all taxes do today is act as social engineering. With fiat currencies, there is no direct need to fund government with taxes, we the people could demand direct funding and get the new money into circulation that way, rather than "loaning into existence" through the banks. I just hates that con game they have pulled with the federal reserve and lesser banks , it's a pure scam.
If we switched to direct funding (with balanced budgets and no increases beyond proven productivity gains), it would do wonders for the economy of the 99% who aren't already fatcats out there, and really clean up the environment and spur better quality development and investments, etc.
Trillions to bailout the fatcats, put everyone else into generations long debt. seems rather ludicrous to me when we have decent alternatives out there that could be implemented. I'd like a more advanced variation on the "bancor" currency, I designed it some years back, using the top 100 traded commodities as our new currency backing and to set M3 rates of new currency creation existence. Etc. Another subject, but that's how to afford a lot of new spiffy things and stop ripping the "we the people" off. Of course those goons who control government through wall street investment banks would hate it, they'd have to go get real jobs. ;)
I'd advise you to move to the US south right now if it wasn't for the oil spill. See, I'm not that insensitive! hahaha! Not sure how that will shakeout. If they get it fixed though, hopefully, it is much nicer here than these urban yankee loons (I am a reformed yankee loon, heh) go on and on about. This is 2010 here, not 1950. Cheaper to live than most other areas of the US as well. Year round growing season here, etc, (just cabbages and carrots, etc in the winter though) even though we get a little winter and the occasional snow, it's nothing like "up north". Plenty of sunshine, and still jobs to be had. Not bad at all really. Plenty of recreation, including fishing, etc on open to the public areas, zillions of acres of that. I lived in many yankee states, but I like Georgia a whole lot bettah. Mountains, rolling hills, huge farmlands, lakes, streams and some beach action, big city life to as far in the sticks as you care to go. Got it all.
Ok, in a perfect world, but we all know that behind closed doors, there will always be things that can be done to get out of paying, whether one blows the other, rubs his back, greases his palm, I really gotta think that this is money we will never see again....for some reason (car industry anyone?)
Although if the outcome of this means everyone can go to your local walmart to buy solar panels and be able to install them like they do ikea shelving, then I would have to say, lets do this !
Fundamentalists would have nothing agains the US, and instead would concentrate on the infidels in CHina and India.
There are many countries that haven't got much oil, but that are not targets of the Islamists.
The meddling is what put the US in their demented cross hairs, not only the oil consumption.
No nuclear plant anywhere is profitable. They live from subsidies.
Spain's main problem was the collapse of the housing market.
SOlar power subsidies don't figure at all in the calculations of why Spain is into so much trouble.
Where does this guy come up with all this free money? He throws money around like a drunken sailor.
If we are going to devote $2B to solar growth (which is a laudable goal) it should come with a commensurate reduction of $2B somewhere else. Debt is debt and this is more of it.