May 10, 2012

SandBoxBlogs: Aspen Times "Take a common-sense approach toward energy"

(Read one of Sturm's 'local's fav' columns on the green industry here)

Melanie Sturm:
".....After “investing” $110 billion since 2009, the sector is littered with taxpayer-backed, bankrupt companies like Solyndra, Beacon Power and Ener1, all of which paid bonuses before going under. Reuters reported last month that “the wind industry … has shed 10,000 jobs since 2009 even as the energy capacity of wind farms has nearly doubled” … while the demonized “oil and gas industry added 75,000 jobs.”

The truth is that industries that aren't economically viable don't create real jobs, and those that are viable don't need subsidies. Plagued by competitive disadvantages like sun and wind intermittence, and expensive land, capital, transmission and backup capacity, these technologies are uncompetitive small-market players and remain subsidy-dependent.

Despite receiving 53.5 percent of federal financial support for the electric-power sector, wind and solar supply only 4 percent of U.S. power at a cost 100 to 300 percent more than conventional sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. A University of Wyoming study noted that because green policies increase prices, the “economic benefits derived from building renewable energy facilities in the short run are more than offset by losses in economic output and employment,” thus hurting the poorest and most vulnerable.

Additionally, given renewables' green patina, many don't appreciate their adverse environmental impacts beyond the eyesore, noise, water usage and wildlife destruction. Called “energy sprawl” by the Nature Conservancy, renewable energies require vastly more land while producing significantly less energy than conventional energy. Most disconcerting, their incurable intermittence requires utilities to rely on conventional power to cycle up when there's no wind or sun and power down when there is, thus diminishing carbon-reduction advantages...."  (Read more?  Click title)

"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do we get her to run for office?

Anonymous said...

I've come to the conclusion that Palin has the right idea. Marks has the right idea. I really don't have a lot of faith in Romney but know that he will win. I think he will be a one-term proposition and that we'll have powerful conservative leadership come in 2016. Four years of that and by 2020 I think there might be effective roles for women in local, state and national political offices. Not that we don't have a lot of women doing good things right now, we just need the special ones like Melanie to wait for optimum power. In the meantime, the power is in empowering. Gathering up the conservatives, blue dogs, Reagan democrats, independents and working on policy changes and general rabble rousing. Put the pressure on and keep it there. Palin's Tea Party movement is the envy of all democrats if they could be courageous enough to say it out loud. The establishment of the two-party system is in real trouble. I feel that with organization there would be a lot of that big money super-pac action that would give the boost to independent hodge-podge groups that were focused on specific poliicies. Melanie's voice and leadership could be powerful in that regard and could be as simple as just starting right here at home.