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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."
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
Has anything changed, or is the government still being stupid with our money?
What do you mean "our money"? It's the government's money! Now STFU you right-wing, racist, Fox News watching, Glenn Beck worshiping fascist!
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 defence budget for the current war is around 480 billion dollars per year, so it's the equivalent of two day's budget for the war to be spent on something that may eventually reduce the number of wars.
Money well spent, all drunken sailors should be so wise.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I am too, but 70,000 homes is not "vastly increasing" anything.
And why isn't the government paying my electric bill? I don't live in any of those states.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
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.
It's folksy economic "wisdom" like that may yet lead us back into recession. Until jobs come back, we can either pay people to build things with long-term value, or we can pay them to sit at home.
And why isn't the government paying my electric bill? I don't live in any of those states.
Who did your state vote for in the 2008 election?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Yeah, because BP spending $27B for a one-time oil spill is money much better spent than $2B in a long term strategy which might prevent such future catastrophes... and even that pales in comparison to the loss of life and incredible expense of continued efforts to do whatever it is that the U.S. is doing deployed in oil-rich countries.
Don't blame the current administration. The previous administration takes a lot of blame, but going much further back there were errors all along the way which could be easily forseen. The truth is that there are a lot of people who simply don't give a F- as to what happens to the people who are going to be living with the results 20 years from now. The bad decisions which made people wealthy 20 years ago are being paid for by the people today. And the bad decisions of today won't be paid for another 20 years.
I swear that there are some people in this world who simply disagree with political policy because they didn't vote for it, and form their opinions about what affects their immediate well-being. Choosing not to see the problem doesn't make it go away, it just makes it all the harder to deal with for the generation which will inherit the problems 20 years from now.
If you think that $2B on solar is a waste, what do you think a better policy is for a sustainable future? Solar is not the answer... but it's part of the answer.
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
I heard laying one brick would not a house build, so I gave up.
After a week of binge drinking to drown my sorrows, I finally went home only to find my neighbor's brick house completed. To this day I couldn't figure out how he did it; magic faeries wished the house into existence perhaps?
- These characters were randomly selected.
Subsidizing non-economical power generation is not money well spent. If anything they should have given an extra 2 billion to NIF or the DOE's Gen IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative(which is only requesting 200 million for 2010).
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.
How exactly does subsidizing solar power prevent Muslims from crashing airliners into skyscrapers
But more importantly, subsidizing solar power research means people can import less energy. Reduced global demand for petroleum reduces the market power and therefore political power of countries that harbor Islamist crusaders like the ones who committed a mass murder-suicide in New York on 2001-09-11.
Okay, you started it:
How exactly does invading countries of mostly peaceful Muslum people make them less likely to do such things.
(with solar power... just to stay on topic)
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 MAY reduce the number of wars! This is the same sort of rationalization that addicts make. In this case it's a government that is addicted to spending money (on a foolish 'solution' in this case). It seems to be their answer to every problem.
I don't think we went to war over the bali incident, and they don't bomb your skyscrapers as much when you stop killing their families for oil.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Follow the money. From your wallet, into the gas pump, and from there onwards.
Eventually some of it ends up going to terrorists.
Someone had to do it.
America doesn't need so much oil so the US doesn't prop up pro-US tinpot dictators in oil rich countries.
The people in those countries then don't get shit on so much by the US and so are less likely to be pissed off and violent towards the US.
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.
Nevermind that Spain's experiment with subsidizing solar power is one of the causes of their looming fiscal insolvency.
And now to break out that classic Slashdot trope: Citation needed.
I think we should be spending more on alternative energy YEARS ago unfortunately the problem is that the Obama administration has show no fiduciary responsibility spending on EVERYTHING under the sun (no pun intended) with no viable funding stream to pay for it - they spent $3B on the cash for clunkers program for heavens sake !
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.
You forgot something. For unemployment, you have to have been employed, and as such, paying unemployment *Insurance* premiums.
Generally we frown on insurance policies that try to take the money and run.
For some reason, though, that seems to be exactly what the Republicans want the Feds to do with the UI insurance programs.
Someone had to do it.
Why not just build more nuclear plants? Nothing speculative about them at all.
Of course.
But we need a mix of energy sources. Is there enough fissile material being produced to power the entire nation? What about disposal? Our Sun bombards us with an obscene amount of energy. It would be stupid not to grab it.
We Americans need to get away from this magic bullet mentality of one thing will solve all our problems. And we need to get away from this mentality that we're going to turn off the oil spigot overnight and live in clean green energy and be at peace for ever and ever.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
It's folksy economic "wisdom" like that may yet lead us back into recession. Until jobs come back, we can either pay people to build things with long-term value, or we can pay them to sit at home.
p. Or how about we don't pay people to sit at home? Take the money spent on UI and "sit-at-home" spending and just eliminate corporate taxes. They bring in less than $130 billion. Eliminate taxation from companies and you'll see business creating those jobs that VP Biden's told us are gone forever (all 8 million of them).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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
Wait, so you want us to steal the UI benefits from the people that paid for them, and use them to give corporations an excuse to give their CEOs bigger raises?
Someone had to do it.
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!
No, subsidizing clean power generation is money well spent. Putting said hardware into the hands of greedy corporations so that they can turn a profit on it at our expense is not. The government *should* be spending money on solar, but it should be subsidizing it in the same way that it subsidized hydroelectric power a few decades back---by creating a nonprofit organization like TVA to be responsible for the production and delivery.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Afghanistan, who harbored the 9-11 terrorists, in not an oil producer. Their main export to the west (their 'cash crop') is Heroin.
I'm sure that if the politicians set up yet another 'Non-profit' the union bosses and lobbyists for varied interests would manage to climb up it's ass and make vigorously certain it would remain permanently and vigorously non-profit.
If it were the answer, it would already be happening. That 2 billion just created a solar energy bubble.
You are naive. What incentive does any major energy company have to abandoning the oil resources they have already invested billions in? Imagine it's any other company. Hell, imagine if Microsoft decided to invest all of their money in clean, reusable, open source code and make windows apps perfectly compatible with the Linux kernel. Would their windows sales go up or down?
Now imagine BP knowing that any breakthrough in clean energy technology enormously devalues their leased rights to oil fields and capital investments in equipment. In fact, if the breakthrough was big enough, BP would then be sitting on a pile of lawsuits waiting to happen. Are you, as BP, going to gently hold the hands of companies plotting your demise, or buy up clean energy companies, bury the technology, and spread FUD about climate change?
Yeah. Now you're thinking like a real CEO. Fuck the world: I want money.
Now imagine how well off we'd be if we spent 480 billion per year on solar power, and only 2 billion on foreign wars.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
if fusion ever (and it will!) pays off.
20 years, right?
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
I'm sure the GP is referring to the Spanish Job Study, which has been debunked by everyone who has read it. This article is particularly good at pointing out the massive methodological flaws in the study.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/paltman/credit_for_trying_spanish_stud.html
Well, it's a good thing most of those terrorists were Saudis, and they produce lots of oil!
You can stand down, wingnut.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
they spent $3B on the cash for clunkers program for heavens sake !
A program that by most analysis was a success. It got people buying cars which was the main point of that, keep dealerships and their employees in business, get old vehicles off the road.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
If it were the answer, it would already be happening. That 2 billion just created a solar energy bubble.
You are naive.
What you've shown in your entire post is that the above was correct. Solar is not the answer when you have large corporate interests whom are against changes to the status quo. By investing the $2 billion the government is usurping those interests and providing capital to those companies who are not dependent on oil remaining the dominant energy form in the US. Now, debating whether or not solar was the right technology to invest in, that's the real question.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
The terrorists did quite a bit of their training, particularly the training in how to operate an airplane, in an oil producing nation with a history of invading other other producing nations; that same nation's government also gave specialized training to the people who organized the 9/11 attacks, including Osama Bin Laden himself! Why did we not invade that country?
Oh, wait, that nation was the USA.
Palm trees and 8
Actually, a drinking analogy is not a bad one for U.S. energy policy.
An alcoholic binge drinker realizes that the amount they are drinking is making a big, negative financial impact on their lives. They have always done home brewing to try to keep the costs of their habit down, but the yield keeps declining (parts of their basement are already a large brewery, and they're out of room to expand, worse, the production volume is declining year by year for some reason). So, they have to buy more and more alcohol from the store and they're inconveniently fond of imported beer. More than half the beer they drink is now imported (~60%), and they consume a stunning 20% of all the beer available for sale in their entire community. Realizing the situation, they promise to their family, year after year, that they will cut back on the alcohol and find other alternatives. They provide financial incentives to themselves to drink less alcohol and more of the other stuff. They invest in alternatives (e.g., they bought some milk and put it in the fridge). Yet, year after year, they drink a greater and greater volume of alcohol, and it costs them more and more to do so. This goes on for about 40 years. Worse, one day the brewery in the basement blows up, and the mess and insurance costs to clean up the basement were absolutely insane (actually, that's misleading -- the brewery still leaking into the basement as we speak and the full costs aren't entirely quantified yet, but the basement is indeed a mess).
One day, the alcoholic decides to drink a small glass of water from the tap in addition to the 20 gallons of beer they expect to drink that day. It was difficult, but they feel confident they are on the road to kicking their habit.
Now replace the alcohol with oil and that pretty much sums up U.S. energy policy of the last 40 years or so.
To return to your analogy, the problem is: that brick *IS* all that's ever been invested in building your house compared to the scale of the challenge of constructing it.
Party on, USA!
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
If that was sarcasm and I missed it, I apologize. Either way, the truth is that cost savings do not roll downhill. Any tax savings realized by corporations goes to officer salaries.
Even if management is ethical, they still won't create jobs; without an increase in consumer demand, the ethical thing to do is distribute the savings as dividends.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
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.
First of all, Premiums Are Not Subsidies. The spanish government doesn't pay a single penny for renewable energy (it doesn't even concedes loans to companys, like Obama is doing). The money for renewable energy isn't paid from taxpayer's money, so cutting premiums can't return back even a single Euro to the government. So it has not sense to claim that premiums are being cutted because of public debt issues because renewable premiums aren't paid with public debt, they are paid by the companies that distribute (but don't generate) the power, and they are quite low (2c€/KWh).
Second, our anual government budget for this year is 350000€ millions. The premiums cut has been of 1300€ millions. That's a 0.003%. The total amount of premiums paid in 2009 to renewable energy before the cut was (according to the Industry minister) 6000€ millions. That's a 0.017% of our 2010 public budget. Hardly a problem even if was paid with public money (which it wasn't)
A US invasion of the USA would not only reduce the unemployment rate directly, but if televised would make a popular reality TV program. It could be bigger than the World Cup, and afterward the USA would have both sympathy (for losing) and support (for winning) of all the world's nations!
Your percentages are off by a factor of 100, should be 0.3% and 1.7%, but that still doesn't affect your argument much as those percentages are still rather low.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
You seem to think that we should not be spending money, but if not now, then when? We can't build solar capacity to take the burden off of other plants after plants start going offline for emergency repairs. We need that reserve capacity in place now. No, scratch that, we needed it in place a decade ago. And our power needs continue to increase, so we're going to need even more power plants. If we're going to build more generation capacity, why not build clean solar instead of something messier?
The fact is, our power production infrastructure is in sad shape. We get about one fifth of our nation's power from nuclear plants. Almost all of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. are operating near the end of their design lifetime or beyond it. It won't be more than a couple of decades before we're going to need *major* overhauls to *dozens* of nuclear reactors. If we don't have adequate power generation in place by the time that happens, our country is f***ed with a capital "F".
Further, solar power, unlike vegetarian Mexicans, is a resource that, once constructed, generally requires minimal maintenance to provide power for three decades or more. Compared with nuclear power, it is almost as cheap (and getting cheaper, unlike nuclear), produces no ongoing waste products to speak of, is far safer, and can be installed anywhere, not just far away from populated areas.
Solar spending just makes sense.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
You're right, that's even better with an even brighter future if fusion ever (and it will!) pays off.
This is fusion power paying off. We're just using a bigger reactor than most fusion proponents expected.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
1. By reducing our dependence on foreign oil, so we aren't pressured to depose their governments and put in people the oil companies like better (e.g. the Shah of Iran). By the way, reducing dependence was originally a doctrine proposed by Henry Kissinger way back during the Nixon years, and endorsed by both Reagan and Bush 43 in speeches they made during their terms.
2. By giving us an alternative to Nuclear, so those Muslem suicide bombers YOU want to blame for the whole problem of war, don't use it to extend their bomb blast radius by three or four orders of magnetude. That's originally from the Carter administration, but endorsed by Bush 41, 43, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and plenty of other republicans before they found out Obama had written a college paper relating to the subject.
You're the one who has claimed that Muslem suicide bombers are a very serious problem, justifying a 480 Billion a year budget and a rapidly growing deficit, but that we don't need to worry about that very serious problem getting funds from what we spend on oil, or using some of the other alternatives against us. That's crazy talk - either they are a big problem or they aren't, but there's no possible middle ground where they are not a threat but worth spending 480 billion a year to counter.
The real point is you hate the president, nothing he will ever do will ever please you, and if you have to simultaniously quake in fear of those Muslem terrorists and think they are no big deal whenever he takes a rational step to deal with them, you are capable of the double-think required to preserve your hate.
Who is John Cabal?
I served in the U.S. armed forces for 13 years, and am convinced the best war would be fought on a tropical island, using paintball or laser-tag weaponry, and allowing 15 minute breaks every two hours, plus weekends off. Winner gets whatever political point was being fought over but has to pick up the whole bar tab. If we spread it over several islands the Marines could play too.
Warning: We did have a US invasion of the USA once (Lee went north of the line into Pennsylvania, then a bit later Sherman went way, way south of the line, and finally, Sherman, Grant, and Sheridan all met up for the photo-op so everybody got to feel invaded at least a little, some a lot.), and that wasn't nearly as fun as either of our proposals.
Who is John Cabal?
Gretchen Peters: Seeds of Terror - BookTV start at about 37:00.
The Taliban have this bogus justification that they explain to farmers that they persuade or force to grow poppy. Islam, of course, bans any use, traffic, or trade in narcotics or alcohol. So, their justification for it is that it's OK because because this is a jihad against the infidels and we're selling the drugs to the infidel west. But as I said before, very little Afghan heroin actually reaches the United States. It's about 70% of the heroin sold in Europe and the UK comes from Afghanistan. But the vast majority of Afghanistan's drug crop ends up in - stays in Afghanistan, or ends up in Pakistan, Iran, central Asia now; countries like Kazakhstan have huge huge heroin problems. So it's a totally bogus argument - completely hypocritical.
If you have time, I recommend the whole thing. Your post has motivated me to get her book from the library, so thanks.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Solar power is economical. Costs for solar are close to the costs for nuclear. We don't have more solar power is because coal is cheap, not because solar is expensive. At some point, you just have to bite the bullet.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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?
Not much comes from Afghanistan?
In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/AFG07_ExSum_web.pdf
Half the imported US oil comes from an OPEC nation
The top five source countries of U.S. petroleum imports are Canada (19%), Saudi Arabia (12%), Mexico (11%), Venezuela (9%), and Nigeria(85)
43% of the oil in the US comes from the US.
Where your oil comes from is more of a regional thing - west coast, some from Mexico, alot from Alaska and California, some from the Great Basin and Great Plains
http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp
If the Saudi in question already has a billion dollars it doesn't matter if America buys any more of their oil. Besides, even if the USA stopped buying Saudi oil tomorrow, China and India would just take up the slack - So the Saudis can fund terror in America, financed by China.
In my opinion, the only long-term multi-generational solution is for the west (yes, that's you, USA) to fund education in Pakistan, Afghanistan and their ilk. If you educate the populace out of ignorance, then the Saudis lose their proxy-'warriors.'
Now imagine how well off we'd be if we spent 480 billion per year on solar power, and only 2 billion on foreign wars.
Good point. Our new Chinese overlords would let us all sit in lounge chairs and enjoy our free electricity all day long!
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Auto sales were already rising. Cash for Clunkers spiked above that rise, then "spiked" below that rise, and then it caught up to the rise. In other words, the only thing CFC did was add a spike up and a dip down in a more or less steady rise, while costing the taxpayer money.
Arizona - Solar thermal generating plant.
Colorado - Solar panel manufacturing plant.
Indiana - Solar panel manufacturing plant.
I think it's obvious who "came into this with their mind made up."
People that actually bother to analyze things, other than noting the CfC was not purely an environmental program, but also economic stimulus, are more rational, and note the program had both benefits and disadvantages:
Take a look herefor example:
First, an important point, it's not all about CO2:
"Of course, cleaner-running cars also spew fewer air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds, benzene, formaldehyde, particulate matter, and other toxic materials that contribute to smog and respiratory disease."
And here is where we get some interesting numbers...
"According to a study by Christopher Knittel of the Center for the Study of Energy Markets, that would reduce annual gas consumption in the United States by roughly 186 million gallons per year, lowering emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important element in the greenhouse gases that are implicated in global warming, by about 1.9 million tons a year."
"Another criticism of the plan is that cash for clunkers is an expensive way to reduce carbon emissions. One estimate, by Henry Jacoby, co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT, is that CARS will reduce carbon emissions at a cost of about $160 a ton; Knittel puts the figure at $237 and possibly much more. By comparison, a ton of carbon on the European trading system goes for about $20 right now.
"But while the direct environmental effect might be expensive and not necessarily huge, is it at least a meaningful step in the right direction? To answer that, one has to look at a more complicated picture. First of all, there is the environmental cost of manufacturing all those new cars; the process of making and transporting the average new car creates 6.7 tons of carbon dioxide. So that’s about 4.6 million tons of carbon dioxide created right there from the trading in of 690,000 cars."
If we went by that without considering side-factors, then CfC would eventually result in a net CO2 reduction.
However, they even take into account your point:
"What’s more, there is the “Mexico effect.” As Matthew Kahn, an environmental economist at UCLA, notes, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement has, in effect, been a hemispheric cash-for-clunker program, as the United States and Canada ship used but sellable cars south of the border. If these are sent to the scrap heap instead, that means that many older and dirtier Mexican clunkers will stay on the road longer, reducing the gains of the slightly greener U.S. fleet."
But in the end:
"Moreover, most of the the funds for cash for clunkers came by shifting money from the loan guarantee program for renewable energy, which is designed to make it easier to invest in and expand green energy projects. Unfortunately, there is no alternate universe in which to test whether there would have been more green for the buck had the money stayed where it was. But the point is that to determine the calculus of environmental impact, one has to go beyond the simple arithmetic of new cars and mileage standards. The most that can be said of cash for clunkers is that it probably has some modest environmental benefits, and that these will accrue over time — but at above-market cost." ...which, as programs that are primarily designed as economic stimulus, not environmental programs, go, is a pretty good side-benefit. History will show CfC to have been an effective program. I may wish that it was tweaked, but I am capable of recognizing that it did, indeed, work.
Also, it never hurts to ask snopes.
Someone had to do it.
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.
... because China is going to invade us with which navy, exactly?
If we spent twice as much as they do on the military, then yes, I might agree with your sentiment - we shouldn't cut spending, because maybe they might invade, who knows, but really that would be bad for business all around so they might not and anyway they don't really have the capacity to move that many people.
However, our military spending isn't just twice as much as China's - we spend TWENTY times as much as China. We could cut our military spending to one-tenth of what it currently is, and we'd still be spending more than any other country.
Oddly enough, none of the 9/11 terrorists were from Afghanistan...or Iraq for that matter.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
And, this is what Libertarians can't figure out about Keynesian economics. In bad economic times, it's pointless giving tax cuts to the wealthy big corporations because they usually choose to sit on their money (buying up gold for instance) and wait for things to get better (because they can afford to). The working and middle class take this money and spend it immediately.
The problem with our 2 stimulus packages is they were effectively trickle-down economic policy and not Keynesian economics. And, just as we should have known, the banks are sitting on the money waiting for things to get better.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Expanding solar capacity will increase the for-profit funded research as well. If we build only small scale stuff we will never learn to manage the large scale one neither. So even if the only thing it's good for gathering experience, it might worth it.
In effect, you ignored my entire post. I did not shrug off the economics of it. I pointed out that it was starting to approach nuclear power in terms of operating cost. I figured that was enough by itself, but apparently not, so here's a quick review of economics 101 for you:
1. The cheapest solar installations are currently about on par with the most expensive nuclear power plants. This means the "non-economical" thing is just a load of bull, as I said in the post you replied to.
2. What's the #1 thing that brings down the cost of manufacturing? Economies of scale. Now you can't get economies of scale on nuclear plants. Each one has to be designed specifically for the location, at least to some degree. No two are alike. This doesn't lend itself to getting cheaper any time soon. Even if we started building cookie-cutter nuke plants, we'd still only be able to put them in certain places, which means economies of scale never kick in. And the fissionable material is only going to get more expensive as demand increases, so the long-term future of nuclear is not so bright.
Does solar lend itself to economies of scale? You bet. As we build more PV panels, we continue to find ways to make them for less money. We've seen major advances in non-PV solar systems, too, particularly in the area of nighttime power storage. What one thing is required for solar power to get cheaper? Lots and lots of people building large-scale solar power systems. Unlike nuclear plants, we can build tens of thousands of these things safely, so economies of scale can actually kick in and make the cost of each installation substantially cheaper. Subsidizing a few solar installations now is a great way of making new installations much more economical in the near future.
Besides, solar power is already cheap enough that it costs barely half what I'm paying for my highest tier of power from PG&E, so it's plenty economical already. The people who say solar is not economical are either misinformed or have an agenda. If it were not economical, PG&E would not be in the process of setting up a number of substantial solar power systems right now. In fact, at California's energy rates, even individual-sized PV systems (some of the most expensive per kWh) typically break even on cost after 5-10 years and are guaranteed to still be providing 85% of their original power output after 30. Sounds pretty economical to me.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
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.