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White House Seeks 72 Percent Cut To Clean Energy Research (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The Trump administration has made it very clear that it is pro fossil fuels and has little interest in pushing programs the promote renewable energy. Now, the Washington Post reports that the president's proposed 2019 budget slashes funds for Energy Department programs focused on energy efficiency. While the proposal is just a jumping off point, the fact that it seeks to cut such funding by 72 percent underscores where the administration's interests lie and in which direction its policies will continue to go. The draft budget documents viewed by Washington Post staff showed that the president is looking to cut the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) budget to $575.5 million, down from the current $2.04 billion level. Included in the budget cuts are funds for programs researching fuel efficient vehicles, bioenergy technologies, solar energy technology and electric car technologies. Additionally, the draft budget proposal seeks to cut jobs, dropping staff levels from 680 down to 450. One EERE employee told the Washington Post, "It shows that we've made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped." The report notes that the Energy Department had requested less extreme spending cuts, but the Office of Management and Budget pushed for the more substantial ones found in the draft proposal. It's also worth noting that the proposal could still be changed before being released in February.
Come on.. This is a leaked document which is admitted to be a draft, subject to wholesale changes, of a budget request from the DOE, which will be edited at the Whitehouse before the president presents it to Congress with a bunch of other similar documents. Congress will ignore the president's input and draft their own budget in the house, argue for months over in committee, sent to the floor of the house, finally arrive at something that won't be recognizable as the original draft that the house passes as a "budget" which will be taken up by the Senate who will likely add their own amendments in committee and from the floor which if it actually passes, will head back to the reconciliation committee to be possibly edited again before both chambers vote to pass it or not.
How's this even news fit to print by a respected news paper much less "News for nerds" on Slash Dot? There is a nearly zero chance these numbers will survive all the coming edits driven by the endless debate in congress.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I was never really a "Trump supporter" (voted for Gary Johnson in the election, in fact) -- but I'm fine with these fiscally conservative changes.
Every time I turn around, someone is shoving "environmentally clean/sound/Green" this, that or the other thing my direction -- and usually without much logic to their position. As long as it makes them feel good that they're "saving our planet", to hell with common sense and logic, right?
I mean, look.... It's gotten so ridiculous, we have the state of California trying to fine restaurant workers $2,000 if they hand out a plastic drinking straw without a customer asking for one first!
When it comes to tax dollars spent on "renewable energy research", I seriously doubt there's much of any real benefit that can be shown for the money they've poured into it recently? Almost all of the incremental improvements I've seen with solar panel technology have come from private industry doing their own in-house R&D so their specific brand of panel can outperform the competition in some way. It wasn't a matter of the U.S. government doing all that R&D and then sharing it with industries so we could have better panels for all. A whole lot of the solar industry is just a big sham anyway, IMO. Basically, you've got all these installers out there hawking panels to people under low/no money down "power purchase agreements" and solar leases, when the math doesn't even add up that the panels these people bought are generating enough electricity to cover the discounted kilowatt hour rates the customers receive in the agreements.
I just saw this illustrated last month, with the super cold weather we had out here in Maryland. People pretty commonly received electric bills of as much as $750 for the month, because we're all using electric heat pumps or baseboard heating. A few people with Vivint and other solar PPA arrangements bragged that their bill was only about $50 or $60. But fact check! With the amount of energy it takes to heat a home with all electric heat plus all the other power used (electric stoves, water heaters, clothes washers/dryers, etc.), there's no WAY those panels generated anywhere NEAR what it would take to offset the bill down to $50.
So how can this be a workable business model for Vivint and others? Clearly they're banking on all sorts of clean energy subsidies they're collecting for increasing the solar footprint, regardless of any real economic sense it's making.
I happen to have SunPower solar panels myself (a 7.64Kw system) that I purchased straight out. And I can assure you that the month of December is one of the lowest power generating months of the year. My panels don't put more than maybe a 25% dent in my electric bill in winter months. They probably account for a maximum of maybe 65% of my usage in the peak months where they get the most sunshine. Granted, our house is 2,200 sq. feet and over 100 years old, drafty, and we have a family of 6 living here and using a lot of electricity. But I can more clearly see exactly what the solar panels contribute than the people on these lease arrangements that obfuscate the facts. And as much as these cost to install? They won't even break even on that until they're over 2/3rds. of the way through their usable life.
Why keep paying government to advocate this stuff?