Wind And Sun

I've never been a big fan (pun alert - wait for it...) of wind farms (hah!). There are several reasons: they're noisy, they're ugly, they (and their associated high capacity power lines) spoil lovely views in remote areas, and to top it off, they adversely affect the health of those forced to live near them.

Oh yeah - and they kill birds.

It’s been five years since BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and released 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmentalists are highlighting the disaster by pointing to the 800,000 birds that have died because of the spill in the five years since the disaster, but activists have been eerily silent about the fact that way more birds have been killed by wind turbines — a supposedly “eco-friendly” energy source.

A 2013 study found that 573,000 birds and 888,000 bats are killed every year by wind turbines — a figure 30 percent higher than the federal government estimated in 2009. These deaths have likely increased as wind power capacity increases across the country.

In the time since the 2010 BP oil spill, some 2.9 million birds have been killed by wind turbines, using (the study's) figures, compared to only 800,000 that have been killed by the oil spill... It should also be noted that wind turbines routinely kill federally protected birds and eagles.

So what is the federal government's response?

Finally acknowledging that the economically inefficient, noisy, and unsightly wind turbines that they have been strewing across the formerly beautiful countryside have been killing large numbers of eagles and other birds, the bureaucrats have proposed a solution: stop the turbines whenever there is a bird nearby:

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), one of the Department of Energy’s 17 National Laboratories, partnered with industry to gather data about bird flight patterns, which will help the companies develop technology to reduce bird collisions with turbines. …

The ultimate goal is to detect birds flying near a turbine with enough time to for the turbine blades to stop spinning and prevent a collision.

Oh yeah, that'll work great. Have you ever seen a wind turbine up close? They're HUGE. Starting and stopping those things every time a bird flies near would wear those things out within a few months.

A better use for the money would be to send out crews to tear down the hideous wind turbines for scrap metal, so as to spare the lives of raptors and restore the beauty of the scenery. There are far wiser ways to meet our energy needs.

One of my pet peeves is this country's penchant for massive approaches to problem-solving. I get the whole economy-of-scale thing, but IMO a smaller-scale approach would be more effective. For example, I live in a part of the country where there are still plenty of old-fashioned windmills that pump water from wells for livestock.

More modern versions of those could be used in rural and even suburban settings to generate electricity on a local basis, reducing the need for large wind farms and transmission lines.

Along those same lines, massive solar power installations are proving to be economically unfeasible, inefficient, and environmentally unfriendly, while at the same time killing thousands of birds, along with unknown numbers of insects and reptiles.

Inefficient:

A federally backed, $2.2 billion solar project in the California desert isn’t producing the electricity it is contractually required to deliver to PG&E Corp. , which says the solar plant may be forced to shut down if it doesn’t receive a break Thursday from state regulators.

Environmentally Unfriendly:

A solar power plant at the center of the Obama administration’s push to reduce America’s carbon footprint by using millions of taxpayer dollars to promote green energy has its own carbon pollution problem.

The Ivanpah plant in the Mojave Desert uses natural gas as a supplementary fuel. Data from the California Energy Commission show that the plant burned enough natural gas in 2014 – its first year of operation – to emit more than 46,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

That’s nearly twice the pollution threshold for power plants or factories in California to be required to participate in the state’s cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions.

A Death Ray...

The Ivanpah solar generating plant is located in California about 50 miles from Las Vegas near the California-Nevada border.  173,000 mirrors are used to concentrate the sun on 3 boiler-towers where water is turned into steam to drive turbines and generate electricity. The mirrors track the sun and concentrate sunlight so that the intensity of light falling on the boiler-towers is about 500 times stronger than sunlight -- a death ray. If a person were to be illuminated by this death ray, 3rd degree burns would follow within a few seconds. Insects that wander into the kill zone are quickly vaporized. Birds are severely burned or killed depending on how long they are in the kill zone.

...That Kills Thousands of Birds

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously called Ivanpah — the world’s largest concentrated solar project — a “mega-trap” for birds and insects, although the exact number of deaths has been a subject of fiery debate.

Home-based solar panels, on the other hand, are becoming more and more common, because (1) they work, and (2) they are affordable. (More info here and here.)

The biggest obstacle to more widespread adoption of residential windmills and solar panels is that it reduces the opportunity for large projects and contracts, with the accompanying graft and kickbacks. Until we resolve that issue our elected 'leaders' will continue to pour money down the wind/solar ratholes.

Another Lie

In 2011 obama promised that by 2015 there wouldbe more than 1 million electric cars on the road.

He lied - again.

... with just days to go, he's only about 826,000 or so cars short of that goal. 

Instead of 200,000 Nissan Leafs on the road today -- as Obama's Department of Energy predicted in 2011 -- there are less than 70,000.

And while Obama forecast 375,000 Chevy Volt sales by 2014, just a bit more than 71,000 have made it off the showroom floor.

Fisker, which was supposed to be selling 85,000 electric cars a year by now, went bankrupt last year.

Add it up, and there are a grand total of less than 180,000 plug-ins on U.S. roads today. Worldwide, there are only 400,000.

And so, after shoveling $8 billion in taxpayer money into electric cars, Obama quietly ended up ditching his 1 million goal late last year.

The electric car picture isn't likely to get much better in the years ahead, no matter how much money the government throws at this technology.

As Mark Mills carefully and devastatingly explains in an article on Real Clear Politics, electric cars face one impenetrable obstacle in replacing gas-powered cars -- it's called physics.

"Pound for pound (and pounds matter) the chemicals that comprise gasoline store 40 times more energy than the best chemicals in batteries," he writes. "Gasoline is not only more dense but also remarkably safe, easy to store, and portable."

He goes on: "The underlying difference in energy density — hydrocarbons vs. electrochemistry — is locked in the physics of the associated atoms and molecules. No venture capital, government subsidy, or computer magic can change that," he writes.

What this means is that electric engines must be far heavier. "A Tesla battery pack, plus motor, weighs over 1,500 pounds. A loaded fuel tank, plus motor, in a Mustang weighs just over 500 pounds."

Electric cars are also, he explains, far more expensive to drive than gas-powered ones when you include all the costs involved.

Back in the day, one of the things I taught was cost-benefit analysis. I used to pound into my students heads that they must consider not only primary costs and benefits, but secondary and tertiary - and beyond - ones as well.
 

In the case of electric cars, that includes not only the cost of batteries and electricity, but also the cost of constructing those batteries, generating and distributing that electricity, and even the cost of building the facilties to acquiring the carbon fuels or renewable energy used to generate the electricity that charges the electric cars.
 

Science and business - two things the obama administration and most progressives know nothing about.

Every Silver Lining Has A Cloud

I'm sure you've noticed the recent drop in gas prices. I sure have.

Locally, gas prices are hovering around $2.50 per gallon. The national average is $2.76. Factor in the reduction in other associated energy costs (heating, power generation, shipping and transportation, etc.) and the net effect is equivalent to a $125 billion tax cut.

Much if not all of this is due to the rapid rise in production of the Bakken (North Dakota) and Eagle Ford (south Texas) shale oil fields.

U.S. crude oil production, rising steadily since 2008, is likely next year to hit its highest level since 1972 ... Spurred by the use of hydraulic fracturing or fracking in shale rock deposits, U.S. oil production has jumped from 5.0 million barrels per day in 2008 to 7.4 million last year and is expected to average 8.5 million this year and 9.3 million next year, according to the EIA, the analytical arm of the Department of Energy ... “Texas and North Dakota now account for almost half of total U.S. oil production..."

This success story is a great victory for the free market.

U.S. oil production has nearly doubled in recent years to 9 million barrels a day, and the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) expects U.S. supply to rise by more than 1 million barrels a day next year. And it is this supply increase that is driving down prices ... This is not only a triumph of U.S. energy independence, it is a victory for the workings of the free market. Greater supply, not government cartels, is driving down prices.

As energy prices are falling, GDP is being revised higher. Real economic growth in the third quarter shifted up from 3.5 percent to 3.9 percent, led by an increase in business fixed investment. The last two quarters averaged 4.2 percent at an annual rate.

Furthermore, inflation is down and the stock market is up, in large part due to the drop in oil prices. All good news, right?

But every silver lining comes with a cloud. In this case, it's the possibility of economic turmoil and social unrest in other countries that might have negative repercussions for the U.S. and its allies.

Russia, the world’s largest producer, can no longer rely on the same oil revenues to rescue an economy suffering from European and U.S. sanctions. Iran, also reeling from similar sanctions, will need to reduce subsidies that have partly insulated its growing population. Nigeria, fighting an Islamic insurgency, and Venezuela, crippled by failing political and economic policies, also rank among the biggest losers...

Few expected the extent or speed of the U.S. oil resurgence. As wildcatters unlocked new energy supplies, some oil exporters abroad failed to invest in diversifying their economies. Coddled by years of $100 crude, governments instead spent that windfall subsidizing everything from 5 cents-per-gallon gasoline to cheap housing that kept a growing population of underemployed citizens content.

Those handouts are now at risk.

“If the governments aren’t able to spend to keep the kids off the streets they will go back to the streets, and we could start to see political disruption and upheaval,” said Paul Stevens, distinguished fellow for energy, environment and resources at Chatham House in London, a U.K. policy group.

“Russia in particular seems vulnerable,” said Allan von Mehren, chief analyst at Danske Banke A/S in Copenhagen...

Oil and gas provide 68 percent of Russia’s exports and 50 percent of its federal budget. Russia has already lost almost $90 billion of its currency reserves this year, equal to 4.5 percent of its economy, as it tried to prevent the ruble from tumbling after Western countries imposed sanctions to punish Russian meddling in Ukraine. The ruble is down 35 percent against the dollar since June.

I doubt if Putin will sit around twiddling his thumbs as the Russian economy goes down in flames. Look for him to seek out 'opportunities' elsewhere, as he did with Ukraine.

As for Iran:

Even before the price tumble, Iran’s oil exports were already crumbling because of sanctions imposed over its nuclear program. Production is at a 20-year low, exports have fallen by half since early 2012 to 1 million barrels a day, and the rial has plummeted 80 percent on the black market, says the IMF.

The good news: lower prices will "increase the pain" on the Iranian populace. The bad news: that pain probably won't be severe enough to jump-start a revolution, or derail the country's nuclear program. In fact, it might even pressure the mullahs to speed up work on the project, hastening the inevitable showdown between the West and a terrorist state armed with nukes.

Other countries heavily dependent on $100 a barrel oil include Iraq, Nigeria, Venezuela,  Algeria, and Angola. Social unrest in those countries may not directly affect the U.S., but it would open the door for China to step in. Chinese assistance would expand its sphere of influence outside the Pacific Rim at the same time it is expanding its military influence inside it.

So enjoy the cheap gas. Revel in your fast-growing IRA. Turn the thermostat up without worrying about getting a second mortgage to pay the heating bill. But keep an eye on Russia, Iran, and China.

Because we all know obama won't do a damn thing to rein them in...

Fly Ash, Concrete, And That Worthless Asshole

I have a son who is in the construction business. More specifically, he is in the concrete business. He owns his own company. It is a typical small business - one owner LLC, with gross revenues in the low to mid seven figure range.  He has a small number of people on his payroll (around 10) but that is by design. He employs several subcontractors on a regular basis who depend on him for the bulk of their work. This is a work-around to avoid the multitude of onerous government regulations that make running a small business so difficult (the obvious one is obamacare, but there are many, many others). All told, he probably is the livelihood for somewhere from 70 to 80 people. And that doesn't include the secondary or 'trickle-down' employment: generating demand for for concrete and lumber, contracting with accountants and lawyers, obtaining all sorts of insurance, buying and maintaining vehicles and heavy equipment, and so forth, all of which in turn stimulates employment in firms providing those goods and services.

His work follows a pattern that is familiar to most business people. Get the job specs, cost it out, and submit a bid. Part of the cost estimate is based on the cost of raw material - in his case, that's primarily concrete. Yesterday he got a notice from his primary concrete supplier that the cost of concrete is going up by a substantial amount. This forces him to choose from several options, none of which are attractive. He can raise his prices, which either makes his bids less competitive or forces his customers to pass the increased cost along to their customers, which eventually affects the greater economy. He can eat the price increase, which reduces his margins and leads to cost-cutting; reduced salaries and/or reduced number of employees, which also eventually affects the greater economy. He can reduce the quality of the concrete he uses, making the end product less desirable (for example, he can substitute Portland cement for concrete, which is okay for some projects, but not appropriate for others).

Those are all problems familiar to most business people. But what makes this case interesting is that it is an excellent example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people—and especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended.

The price increase of concrete is an unintended consequence of obama's war on coal.

Coal generates 40% of America's electricity—more than any other energy source ... The EPA's war on coal has troubling economic implications for every American and U.S. business. As the new regulations take effect, Americans could see their electric bills increase annually by more than 10% ... Coal also provides, directly and indirectly, hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country ... the EPA's anti-coal crusade could terminate 600,000 American jobs by 2023 while dampening economic growth by more than $2 trillion.

In addition to raising electric rates and cutting jobs, shutting down coal power plants eliminates the primary source of fly ash, which is a critical component in concrete. Another well-known law, the Law of Supply and Demand, tells us that a reduction in supply results in an increase in price (assuming demand holds steady). Thus less fly ash means more expensive concrete. That not only affects my son's business, but every business and project that uses concrete - roads, new homes, new commercial construction, and so on.

Intellectually, I was familiar with all this. But until I talked with my son I didn't grasp the real impact of barry's misguided policies on real people, their families, and the greater economy. Just one more example of why that loser is so bad for this country, and why we'll be so better off when that worthless asshole is out of office...

Where's Waldo?

My 96-year-old father lives in an assisted living facility (ALF, for short). Thursday night he fell and cut his head.

The ALF sent him to the ER. His health care provider has a close working relationship with both the ALF and the ER. Their on-call doc decided Dad should be sent to a recovery facility for observation and evaluation. No major medical issues apparent; preliminary diagnosis was "general weakness and recurring falling."

No argument there. The "general weakness" has been noticeable for the last few weeks, along with increased time spent sleeping and 'sundowners syndrome' (sleeps during the day, awake during the night). I've got a feeling that he's in the midst of a general winding-down. He is, after all, 96.

The problem was that the ER just noted that he was released - didn't note where or to who (whom?). So when I called the ALF Friday morning to check on him, they said he was still at the ER. When I called the ER, they said he had been released, but didn't have any more info. In other words, Dad was MIA.

Oops.

We finally tracked him down to the recovery facility. All is well - or at least as well as things can be for a 96-year-old.

The reason I mention this (aside from the natural concern of a son for his father) is because of the proximity of this event to D-Day. Dad was a Combat Engineer who went ashore at Utah Beach. His unit was tasked with clearing mines and other obstacles while under fire. He made it through that okay. Later. as part of the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, he was wounded at St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge.

The defenders of St. Vith, the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, remnants of the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, and elements of Combat Command B, 7th Armored Division which reinforced the engineers on the second day, didn’t get the press coverage that the surrounded 101st Airborne Division did at Bastogne. Part of the reason was that the beleaguered defenders of St. Vith were eventually ordered to withdraw and St. Vith was ceded to the Germans. Those who could really tell the story of what happened at St. Vith were either killed or captured.

The engineers understood they had been ordered to hold this position “at all costs”, but it seemed to Lt. Bill Holland, commander of Company B, 168th Engineers, that “everyone else seemed to have orders to withdraw.” Numerous division and corps artillery units, which had been ordered to displace to the rear, withdrew through the engineer position...

...about 8 p.m. the Germans resumed their attack with several tanks accompanied by infantrymen straight up the road to St. Vith and into the engineer defensive position. The engineers opened up with everything they had – M-1 rifles, and both .30 and .50 caliber machine guns. (Over their months since Normandy they had acquired quite a few more machine guns than they were normally equipped with.) The lead Tiger tank was hit by a bazooka and brought to a halt. Another enemy tank, accompanied by infantry, came up through a fire break in the woods. A detail from Company C pulled a “daisy chain” of mines across its path, while the rest of the company drove off the infantry with small arms fire. Fierce fighting continued for a couple of hours, with the platoon of Company C immediately adjacent to the road taking the heaviest casualties.

The engineers had incurred considerable casualties. Troop B, 87th Recon had 30 men left from its original 125. Company A of the 38th Armored Infantry was less than a quarter of its initial strength. It was evident to the commanders that a strong enemy assault would now be stopped only with the greatest difficulty.

(Later) ... German armor rolled down the Schoenberg Road past the command post and on toward St. Vith. Behind them came a solid column of German troops. All that remained of the Prumerberg defense was that part of the line held by the 168th Engineers, which had never been penetrated.

... when it became clear that the Germans had finally succeeded in breaking through, orders were sent to those still in position, including all of the 168th Engineer companies, to form into small groups and attempt to infiltrate back into friendly lines.

It took Lt. Holland and the other officers several hours to notify all the men on line that they would be pulling out. They formed into small groups in the early morning light, the wet flakes of a heavy snow storm stinging their tired eyes. They held onto each other’s belts or coats to try to keep together.

There was an extreme quietness of the battlefield, Lt. Holland later recalled. Although exhausted from six days of fighting and practically no sleep, a few of the men managed to make it back to friendly lines. Most, although they evaded German patrols and sentries all that day and the next night, were taken prisoner by the Germans.

Eventually, these engineer, infantry, armor units as well as the rest of Clarke’s Combat Command B, 7th Armored Division, would receive Presidential Unit Citations for their heroic stand in defense of St. Vith.

Dad made it through the German lines. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a result of his actions during the battle. However, the confusion and the impression that the Engineers had been hung out to dry on their own soured him somewhat on officers and the 'higher-ups' (a trait he passed on to his son...). He refused a battlefield commission and remained a cantankerous NCO throughout the remainder of his almost 30 year military career.

I took Dad a commemorative issue of Time honoring the 70th anniversary of D-Day. I just hope he can stay awake long enough to read it.

And now we play the waiting game...

Cold Cash And Hot Waste

Buried deep in the bowels of the Interweb, I ran across this little story the other day.

A charge for electricity that millions of Americans didn't even know they pay will suddenly disappear Friday...

The Department of Energy has been tacking on a fee of one-quarter of a penny on each kilowatt hour of electricity to fund a dump site for nuclear waste. That may not be much - it's about 15 to 20 cents per month on an average electric bill - but it adds up. It amounts to around $740 million annually. The government has been collecting the fee since 1983, and now has $31 billion in cash sitting in the fund.

Actually, around $43 billion has been collected, but about $12 billion of that money was spent on trying to develop the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, before the Obama administration killed it.

The court-ordered suspension (in response to a lawsuit filed by power companies and state regulators) may be a modest victory for consumers, but it reflects the government's failure over the last 40 years to get rid of what is now nearly 70,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel, accumulating at 100 nuclear reactors across the nation.

"It is irresponsible on the government's part to not move forward on a program that has already been paid for," said Marvin Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington trade group that filed a suit against the fees.

Irresponsible? It's criminal. If a private company did this it would be called fraud, and people would be sent to jail.

Now, there is virtually no plan moving forward in Washington to build a dump or even a temporary central storage site. The $31-billion trust fund will continue to accrue interest and is available to help build a dump at some point, though it is probably not enough. Experts had estimated that the Yucca Mountain project would cost at least $100 billion.

So what's currently being done with all that radioactive nuclear waste produced by nuke power plants?

Under guard by SWAT teams with machine guns, the spent fuel is slowly decaying in deep pools of cooling water and in outdoor concrete casks from the California shores of the Pacific Ocean to the banks of the James River in Virginia. The waste is expensive to store and often cited as a public safety risk.

Not to mention an attractive target for terrorists. Dirty bomb, anyone?

Decades ago, the government promised nuclear utilities when they built reactors that the Energy Department would dispose of the spent fuel, temporarily easing the way for the development of nuclear energy that now supplies 20% of the nation's electricity.

Yeah, we all know what a promise from the government is worth. Just ask any veteran.

The nuclear and utility industries, which have privately complained that the government took the money and left them holding the deadly waste, filed suit to block the fees. Last year, an appeals court ruled that the government had no reasonable plan to build a dump and could not reasonably estimate the cost of any future dump, ordering that it had to suspend collections of the fee.

It has taken about six months for the Energy Department to carry out the legal order.

"The federal courts have gotten fed up with what the Department of Energy is doing," said Jay Silberg, the industry's lead attorney in the case against the fees. "We want something in exchange for our money."

Most of the taxpayers I know want the same thing.

Of course, halting collection of the fees is a minor step. The real issue is a long-term solution for handling and disposing of nuclear waste.

...in 1987, Congress directed the Energy Department to build a dump at Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge inside the Nevada National Security Site, the former test range for detonating nuclear weapons. At the time, Nevada was among the politically weakest states, the test range was already radioactively contaminated and scientists claimed the repository's geology would keep the waste isolated.

But the plan began to collapse when the state raised a long series of scientific objections to the site. When Democrat Harry Reid became the Senate majority leader, he vowed to kill the project and he delivered on the pledge when Obama was elected. The president appointed a blue ribbon committee to study the next step. It delivered a report in 2012, suggesting that the disposal program be taken away from the Energy Department and an interim storage site be established before a permanent repository is built.

Oh my aching back. Trash the existing plan. Appoint a committee to study the thing to death. Recommend an interim storage site. Pass the buck. Delay, obfuscate, ignore, and get out of office before the chickens come home to roost.

But I have a solution...

Just The Facts, Ma'am

(H/T to Joe Friday for the title.)

Today is Earth Day.

Each year, Earth Day -- April 22 -- marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.  Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson's New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962.  The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.

Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.

Like a few other aspects of the progressive movement, I find myself in agreement with their intentions...

... but turned off by their extremism and holier-than-thou attitude. So I have mixed emotions about the following story.

Oklahoma To Charge Homeowners Who Install Solar Panels

Oklahoma residents who produce their own energy through solar panels or small wind turbines on their property will now be charged an additional fee, the result of a new bill passed by the state legislature and expected to be signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin (R).

On Monday, S.B. 1456 passed the state House 83-5 after no debate. The measure creates a new class of customers: those who install distributed power generation systems like solar panels or small wind turbines on their property and sell the excess energy back to the grid. While those with systems already installed won’t be affected, the new class of customers will now be charged a monthly fee — a shift that happened quickly and caught many in the state off guard.

“We knew nothing about it and all of a sudden it’s attached to some other bill,” Ctaci Gary, owner of Sun City Oklahoma, told ThinkProgress. “It just appeared out of nowhere.”

The bill was staunchly opposed by renewable energy advocates, environmental groups and the conservative group TUSK, but had the support of Oklahoma’s major utilities. “Representatives of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma said the surcharge is needed to recover some of the infrastructure costs to send excess electricity safely from distributed generation back to the grid,” the Oklahoman reported.

Once again a legislative body passes a law in the dark of night (i.e., quietly slipping it in as a rider to an unrelated bill) that benefits special interests -- in this case, public utility companies -- to the detriment of the general public.

You'd think that utilities would be in favor of home-installed renewable energy generators. After all, they take some load off the grid during peak demand times, preventing brownouts or rolling blackouts. They put off the need for new power plants, reducing capital costs. They reduce maintenance costs on existing equipment and transmission facilities.

For the rest of us, solar and wind powered homes help with clean air efforts, reduce greenhouse gases, provide employment and small business opportunities, and generally make positive contributions to our overall quality of life.  So why are utilities fighting the trend? Two words: lost revenue.

Actually, the utilities refer to it as the “utility death spiral.”

"...as customers choose to install solar panels or adopt energy efficiency measures, a utility will sell fewer units of energy and has to increase what it charges for electricity to ensure that it can still cover its fixed costs, such as grid maintenance and labor. As energy prices go up, more customers will look to energy efficiency and distributed energy resources to reduce their energy bills, which will continue to push electricity prices up and drive customers toward other energy sources and services."

While that may sound like a reasonable argument, keep in mind that "rooftop solar makes up less than a quarter of 1 percent of the electricity produced in the U.S."

So at this point I'm sympathetic towards the solar/wind supporters. But then they had to go and spoil it.

As the use of solar power skyrockets across the U.S., fights have sprung up in several states over how much customers should be compensated for excess power produced by their solar panels and sold back to the grid — a policy known as net metering. Net metering laws have come under fire from the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group backed by fossil fuel corporations, utility companies, and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers.

Ah, yes ... the evil, "ultra-conservative" Koch brothers.

I guess it's too much to expect an informed debate on the merits. We have to drag our ideologies into it. Granted, the right does it just as much as the left, but it's still disappointing, no matter which side it comes from.

And it distracts us from focusing on the issues at hand...

FOD Wednesday Version 2014.03.06

From K.T. McFarland, Fox News National Security Analyst:

Russia, flush with new-found wealth from oil exports, expands its military reach and political influence abroad.

The answer to that is staring us folks in South Texas square in the face. It's called the Eagle Ford shale play.

It's mirrored in the faces of the fine people in North Dakota (the Bakken formation), Pennsylvania (Marcellus), and several other shale oil and gas formations throughout the United States.

Development of those natural resources, along with completion of the obama-delayed Keystone Pipeline, would bring significant amounts of new energy resources to market. In addition to creating numerous high-paying American jobs to bolster our economy, it would accomplish the twin goals of making us energy-independent while reducing the global price of oil, depriving Putin of all those petrodollars he's using to fiance his military initiatives.

A war-weary America slashes defense spending and retreats from the world.

I've commented on the folly of this short-sighted policy here and here.

President Obama may think the Cold War is over, as dated as yesteryear’s fashions. But President Putin thinks it’s game on, and Russia is winning. And there is ample evidence to support his claim...

...he’s got Snowden safely ensconced in Moscow, he’s calling the shots in Syria, he’s taken America’s place with Egypt, and Europe is addicted to his natural gas.

His budget is in surplus and his coffers flush with oil revenues.

His military is moving into regions the Americans are retreating from.

He’s even sending warships to Cuba.

The Obama administration, in contrast, has presided over a series of foreign policy disasters. "Leading from behind" has resulted in the predictable outcome: the guys up front no longer look over their shoulders for orders. America isn’t leading from behind, it’s being left behind.

Our allies no longer trust us, and our adversaries no longer fear us. We’ve alienated Poland and the Czech Republic by canceling our missile shield agreements.

We didn’t even figure in the Ukraine negotiations. The Europeans are mad at us for spying on them.

We’ve lost two wars, not on the field of battle in Afghanistan and Iraq but in the corridors of power in Washington, Baghdad and Kabul. Even President Karzai, a guy we created, is pushing us around.

In the Middle East, we’ve managed to alienate historic allies like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

We’ve negotiated a deal with Iran which allows them to keep their nuclear facilities while we lift sanctions and their economy booms. They will soon have plenty of extra cash to pay for terrorists, cyberattacks and WMD.

Japan and South Korea doubt our reliability as treaty partners.

The Chinese are taking advantage of America’s weakness to make claims to the South and East China seas.

Even that nuclear weapon toting, pipsqueak North Korean boy-president taunts America with videos of Obama burning.

That's the bad news. Here's the good news.

But all is not lost. America has a way of reinventing itself just as things seem darkest. That will be as true in the next few years as it was 35 years ago. This time American ingenuity, entrepreneurialism and abundant natural resources will lead the way with a new energy industry that will dwarf anything in Russia or the Middle East.

By 2020 America will be THE energy superpower on the planet. We will no longer export billions of dollars to import oil from countries that hate us.

We will no longer be embroiled in Arab civil wars that have commanded our presence for decades.

Cheap oil and natural gas will bring manufacturing back to America and we will make things again and unemployment will vanish. Not only will we be energy independent, we will be energy exporters to countries like China, India and Japan. And the inevitable lower oil and gas prices will bankrupt Russia.

So Mr. Putin, smirk all you want for now. You may think the Cold War is back on and you’re winning. But it won’t last.

And don’t worry America. We survived Jimmy Carter and we will survive Barack Obama. Only one question remains….who is the next Ronald Reagan?

A Modest Proposal To Reduce Income Inequality

Income inequality is the latest liberal crusade. It is also a load of crap. Here is just one of many analyses to support that statement.

Income by Household	% in 1967	% in 2009
Less than $50,000	61.4%	50.1%
$50,000 to $200,000	38.0%	45.9%
Over $200,000	0.6%	3.8%

The table shows that the amount of people making over $200,000 per year has certainly grown while the middle group has also grown and the amount of people in the lowest economic strata has declined. More households have moved into the middle-class and more people have joined the highest income group.

(The data comes from the US Census Bureau ... (it) is in constant dollars to remove the impact of inflation/disinflation from the analysis.)

But refuting the notion of income inequality is not the point of this post. Most people (myself included) can cherry-pick and torture numbers to support any position we care to take. What I would like to do today is to offer a suggestion to help decrease the (perceived and alleged) rise of income inequality.

I've spent the last five years working in South Texas, which is enjoying an unprecedented economic boom as a result of energy-related activity in the Eagle Ford Shale region. It's not just the energy companies that are benefiting. Good-paying jobs are plentiful. Landowners are reaping windfall profits, and not just from mineral rights or drilling fees. Housing, grocery stores, restaurants, shops, commercial developments ... all are going through the roof.

The same results can be seen in the Bakken Shale Oil region in North Dakota.

In 2006, North Dakota ranked 38th among the states in average personal income. By 2012, it was sixth. Department of Commerce data show that over those six years, North Dakota’s per capita personal income went from 14 percent below the national average to 25 percent above.

Granted, having a heaping helping of energy reserves in your back yard helps raise income levels. But that's missing the point. Take a closer look at a tale of two states.

...the Marcellus shale, which has been the biggest new source for the nation’s natural gas renaissance, is for the most part located beneath New York and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has allowed landowners to rapidly develop the reserves they own, while New York has maintained a moratorium on the smart-drilling technology (hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling) that unleashes the gas.

The farmers on the New York side of the state line gnash their teeth, while the farmers in Pennsylvania cash their checks. One state grabbed the brass ring while the other thumbed its nose at jobs, income and lower energy prices.

The picture on the national level is strikingly similar.

Our stunning increase in petroleum production (nearly 40 percent in the past three years) has occurred almost exclusively on state and private land. In fact, production on federal land dropped over the past couple of years.

One statistic epitomizes why that is so: In North Dakota, it takes about 10 days to get a drilling permit. In contrast, the delay for a federal drilling permit is about 10 months—double what it was in 2005.

Money quote:

You’d think that an administration that is so intent on redistributing income would be a little more sympathetic to generating the income in the first place.

Bottom line, if obama and his cronies are serious about increasing income for the majority of American workers, they'd devote more time to removing impediments to innovation and job growth, and less time to political posturing.

When pigs fly...