Everything that is good for the environment is a job

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote:

plaidvillain wrote: So forget the author - the point they're making is very sensible. Advancement requires investment and some investments fail, such as Solyndra, but the effort still pushes forward. Think of how many private companies received govt monies in the '60s to develop aeronautic technologies to help us win the space (and ultimately nuclear arms) races. Some of those companies failed too...but still it contributed to the larger effort.

Resisting renewable energies and maintaining the same abusive attitudes towards our environment does nothing to help find solutions to the problems - of course, some may never be convinced there are any problems.

Ok... let's just forget Bush the next time the Obama administration is questioned on it's failed policies.

Irrelevant and foolish...but you need some way to avoid the actual point of the OP.

Predictable.

Does anyone realize that the DOE alt energy loan guarantee program was actually signed by Bush, not Obama. LOL

plaidvillain wrote:

The Liberals GOP Twin wrote:

plaidvillain wrote: So forget the author - the point they're making is very sensible. Advancement requires investment and some investments fail, such as Solyndra, but the effort still pushes forward. Think of how many private companies received govt monies in the '60s to develop aeronautic technologies to help us win the space (and ultimately nuclear arms) races. Some of those companies failed too...but still it contributed to the larger effort.

Resisting renewable energies and maintaining the same abusive attitudes towards our environment does nothing to help find solutions to the problems - of course, some may never be convinced there are any problems.

Ok... let's just forget Bush the next time the Obama administration is questioned on it's failed policies.

Irrelevant and foolish...but you need some way to avoid the actual point of the OP.

Predictable.

I don't put any stock in anything the nut case Van Jones says or writes.

Joe wrote: Does anyone realize that the DOE alt energy loan guarantee program was actually signed by Bush, not Obama. LOL

And what does that matter? It's all become political. I was involved with renewable energy research for almost 15 years. There are wonderful possibilities for the future of renewable, but the future is not now. The claims and promises of the environmentalist and the politicians are dreams right now, but that doesn't prevent them from trying to oversell the concepts for political, monetary or ideological gains. An example.

As first reported by the Reno Gazette-Journal, one turbine that cost the city $21,000 to install saved the city $4 on its energy bill. Overall, $416,000 worth of turbines have netted the city $2,800 in energy savings.

“This could allow unscrupulous developers to sell turbines to unsuspecting customers who will not generate electricity from an installed turbine because there is no wind to power the turbine,”

A year later, however, Hamilton’s warning appears to have been spot on.

The electricity produced by NV Energy’s $46 million wind rebate program has fallen far short of expectations.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/ma ... tes-littl/

Read the whole report at the link. This is a prime example of politicians looking for a political edge in promoting renewable, manufacturers profiting from renewables and taxpayers money and making claims that the science couldn't support and a community who's "green" ideologies took precedence over common sense.

And the DOE has been guilty of raising the expectations about the sustainability of renewables. Instead of adhering to the principles of sound science, the agency has been politicized to the point that they are more concerned with making political points.


Van Jones in his article states...

The time has come to create “jobs FOR the environment.” We seem to forget that everything that is good for the environment is a job. Solar panels don’t put themselves up. Wind turbines don’t manufacture themselves. Houses don’t retrofit themselves and put in their own new boilers and furnaces and better-fitting windows and doors. Advanced biofuel crops don’t plant themselves. Community gardens don’t tend themselves. Farmers’ markets don’t run themselves. Every single thing that is good for the environment is actually a job, a contract, or an entrepreneurial opportunity.

None of this "dream" of his will happen unless we have the science to back it up. We've made a good start over the last 40 years. But throwing taxpayers money on under-performing solar panels, putting wind turbines where there isn't sufficient wind and relying on algae is not sound economics, nor is it sound science.

Why is Germany's success with solar/renewable energy not possible here? Why is it in "the future" for America, but in the present elsewhere?

plaidvillain wrote: Why is Germany's success with solar/renewable energy not possible here? Why is it in "the future" for America, but in the present elsewhere?

Have you looked at Germany's economy and debt lately? How does it stack up against the US? But even so, they still only produce about 21% of their electricity from renewable. They also use diesel in the majority of their cars while our EPA has kept our diesel market very slim.

I think we would have made a better stimulus investment by putting Obama's trillion into converting government buildings to solar power. Still a bad investment but at least we would still be getting something today.

Apples and oranges PV.

plaidvillain wrote: Why is Germany's success with solar/renewable energy not possible here? Why is it in "the future" for America, but in the present elsewhere?

lol Germany is actually a classic example of overspending for limited results. Germany has a lot of cloud cover, especially during winter but they overpaid and outbid sunnier countries for solar panels.

Ever notice where companies and goverment place solar panels, where the public can easily see them. The Fed center, where you can see them from 6th avenue. DIA? Placed at the entrance to the terminal.

Looks like it is all about putting up appearances than actually depending on the technology.

plaidvillain wrote: Why is Germany's success with solar/renewable energy not possible here? Why is it in "the future" for America, but in the present elsewhere?

I stated that the science is not yet up to standards with a sustainable economic model. Germany's model is mainly taxpayer supported and the technology itself is not up to par with being able to cover it's own expenses. On a cost based ratio, are those solar panels paying for themselves?

I know who Van Jones is...

Van Jones is an ultra-leftist from San Frannie. He was so far to the left with his radical environmentalism- that Obama made him his "green czar".

He resigned after many on both sides of the political isle protested having a communist in the Obama cabinet.

No- this is not just an accusation- Jones admits he is a communist, unlike Obama himself. But all you need to know about Obama can be learned from the company he prefers to keep.

In 1992, while still a law student at Yale, Jones participated as a volunteer legal monitor for a protest of the Rodney King verdict in San Francisco. He and many other participants in the protest were arrested. The district attorney later dropped the charges against Jones. The arrested protesters, including Jones, won a small legal settlement. Jones later said that "the incident deepened my disaffection with the system and accelerated my political radicalization."[17] In October 2005 Jones said he was "a rowdy nationalist"[14] before the King verdict was announced, but that by August of that year (1992) he was a communist.

Source; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones
[youtube:1yerzrwn][/youtube:1yerzrwn]

plaidvillain wrote: So forget the author - the point they're making is very sensible. Advancement requires investment and some investments fail, such as Solyndra, but the effort still pushes forward. Think of how many private companies received govt monies in the '60s to develop aeronautic technologies to help us win the space (and ultimately nuclear arms) races. Some of those companies failed too...but still it contributed to the larger effort.

Resisting renewable energies and maintaining the same abusive attitudes towards our environment does nothing to help find solutions to the problems - of course, some may never be convinced there are any problems.

The difference between then and now is that back in the 1950's and 1960's the government was awarding contracts to produce items needed for the programs Congress decided to fund. If Congress wishes to have the entire 7 square mile expanse of land they have sole dominion over powered entirely by alternative energy, write the specs, open the project up for bids and award a contract to a company to make that desire a reality, that is quite a different thing from telling a bank that the taxpayers will guarantee a half trillion dollar loan to a company to try and develop a working solar panel. Establishing a contract for Jet fuel for the union's planes and tanks that is derived from NG or coal instead of crude oil is entirely different from handing out billions of dollars to researchers to find out if indeed stem cells derived from destroyed embryos might have some future medical use.

See, back in the 60's the federal government needed an intercontinental ballistic missile that could add another leg to the stool of its requirement to provide for the common defense of the States in the union. The Soviets already had a working model and we did not. What they paid for was not testing to see if this was possible at all, what they were paying for was a functional item. The decision was made to go to the moon. What the government needed was the hardware to get us there. So they sat down and figured out what the hardware had to do, wrote all those specifications into contracts and awarded the contracts based upon the bids they received. I would feel much better about them continuing to operate this way than I do about them loaning out half a trillion dollars at a crack hoping that something useful results from a small fraction of the investments. If Solyndra is hired to provide a working alternative energy grid for Washington DC with monies appropriated from the general treasury and fails to do so, then there are going to be a few executives losing everything they own, and possibly their liberty, for failing to provide what was stipulated in the contract rather than simply leaving the taxpayers with an additional bill to pay as a way of saying thanks for contributing to the president's campaign fund.

If we, the citizens of the States, are going to fund the research then we should also own the patents that result from that research so that the federal treasury can profit from the investment that was made.