Obama’s insane energy policy is burning a hole through the American’s family budget. At the same time, our government is burning through our tax dollars while putting our future generations deeper and deeper in debt.
How are Americans reacting to this insanity? That I can tell, there is almost no reaction from Main Street America. The reason, I think, is obvious. The average American is being battered about like a ball in a pin ball machine by the multitude of negative impacts their government’s policies are having on them. It is almost impossible for anyone to focus on one bad policy long enough before another one smacks them from behind. We bloggers, on the other hand, are able to sift through numerous issues each day and decide to write about one of them. In that fashion, I decided that today I would write about the absurdity of Obama’s “Green” energy policies.
What The Obama Administration Won’t Tell You About Solar Power is the title of a recent article at The Daley Gator, via Big Peace, which begs for attention that it is not likely to get. So, I will do my humble best to help raise awareness on this important issue. Here are some of the highlights:
On Friday, Secretary of the Interior Salazar praised a new solar project in California, expected to be the largest in the world, as a major milestone in fulfilling President Obama’s promise to expand renewable energy.[i] The first phase of the project, to be completed in 2013, is being supported by a U.S. Department of Energy $2.1 billion loan guarantee. The 1,000-megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside County, California claims to be able to power between 300,000 and 750,000 homes and create 1,000 temporary jobs and about 200 permanent jobs. The truth is that solar power alone will dependably serve very few homes because it is too unreliable but will cost up to 5 times as much as the cheapest form of electrical generation. Consumers, businesses, and the taxpayer will suffer.
Of course, Secretary Salazar does not tell the public that this solar plant will provide only a small fraction of the power that a 1,000 megawatt fossil fuel or nuclear plant would provide. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a new solar thermal plant has an average capacity factor of only 18 percent, which compares to a new natural gas combined cycle plant at 87 percent, a new coal-fired plant at 85 percent and a new nuclear plant at 90 percent.
Think about for a second or two, my friends. A capacity factor of only 18 frigging percent. This is twenty-first century progress?
And, the capital cost compared to conventional generating plants of the same size:
Not only is the annual production less but the cost of the solar plant is much higher. According to the EIA’s analysis of the cost of new generating plants which begin producing power in 2016, the projected capital cost of a solar thermal power plant excluding finance charges is $4,692 per kilowatt compared to $2,844 per kilowatt for a dual-unit coal-fired plant and $978 per kilowatt for a natural-gas combined cycle plant. [iv] So, the cost for a 1,000 megawatt solar plant would be $4.7 billion dollars, a coal-fired plant would be $2.8 billion, and a natural gas combined cycle plant would be just under $1 billion.
What about the relative production costs?
* solar thermal, 31.2 cents per kilowatt hour,
* coal, 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour,
* natural gas combined cycle, 6.2 cents per kilowatt hour, and
* nuclear, 11.4 cents per kilowatt hour.
When I look at these numbers my blood starts to boil. Our government (well maybe it’s not our government but Obama’s government) is promoting and subsidising solar energy at a cost of 31.2 cents per kilowatt-hour while impeding development of our humongous gas reserves, which could be used to produce energy at not 6.2 cent per kilowatt-hour but something even less. If private industry had the freedom to develop our gas reserves, the unit cost of that gas would be significantly less than it is today.
So, the lucky citizens of California will be paying through the nose for their electrical energy. (That ought to really help the sales of the Chevy Volt.) But don’t worry. I’m sure it wong belong when everyone will have the chance to watch their Green$$$ being burnt up by a Obama Green Energy Plant near you.
Well, that’s what I’m thinking. What are your thoughts?
Asylum Watch 
Typical. Here in New York our beloved Governor is pressing to shut down the Indian point nuclear reactor. I guess he’s afraid a tsunami will travel 30 miles up the hudson river.
And what’s the alternative to nuclear power? Make their friends in the green industry richer.
It’s insane, Infidel, totally insane. The cost of energy affects the cost everything else we consume. But, as you say, Obama’s friends will enjoy counting their green, won’t they?
Burning money, destroying wealth is what socialists do best.
There are at least three reasons they get by with it:
1) It’s a “jobs program,” “putting people back to work.”
2) Tax breaks to consumers dumb enough to fall for the “green energy” BS. No one stops to realize even with the tax breaks, it still takes you 25 years to break even on your “investment.”
3) Free government money for businesses who abandon economically viable projects to chase the green energy chimera
Yep! Every time government sticks its nose into an economic activity, they distort the market signals so important to the proper functioning of the market economy.
Green has never really been about saving the planet, it has been about getting rid of as many people as possible and then penning the others up and controlling them! If they were really concerned with saving the planet, they would employ so many policies that actually make it worse!
I have two words for this: enslaving scam.
That fits. Come on America. Wake-up!
Great post per usual Jim.
Obama and his fellow Democrats are practicing ‘broken window’ economics, where they are spending money replacing existing generating capacity (there is nowhere in the United States that doesn’t have electricity) with this ineffective nonsense.
http://motorcitytimes.com/mct/2011/04/the-epas-re-powering-america-initiative-sending-more-tax-dollars-down-the-drain/
Sending our tax dollars down the drain and then making us pay the higher kilowatt-hour tariff rates and that says nothing about the consumer cost of the EPA”s cap on carbon policy. In other words, Obama is saying: Screw You, America!
The mere fact that the government has to subsidise these “green” energy programs is all the proof that we need that they are not sustainable. If it werent’ for these subsidies these programs would be long gone, but because of them the taxpayers will be on the hook for these programs, and they benefit practically noone.
the only winners, Steve, are Obama’s friends that are heavily invested in Green energy technology.
Great job, once again, Jim. In the end, we will pay, in higher costs.
And pay. and pay, and pay…
Sadly that does seem to be the plan, Matt, unless our Republicans in the House man-up and cut off the funding for these programs.
I like subsidizing really expensive inefficient forms of energy.
Not only do I pay for it in my electric bill, I pay higher taxes for it as well.
What a great deal. [sarc/]
Yep! Instead of a win-win deal it is a lose-lose deal and we are the losers as usual.
And that ain’t all. From The Washington Examiner:
Having already passed a law telling Americans what kind of health insurance they must buy, President Obama is preparing to dictate what type of cars everybody must drive.
In September, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are expected to release new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. As currently conceived, the regulations would effectively be a regulatory mandate for Americans to drive electric cars…
[…] Given the absurd fuel economy standards Obama is imposing, in practice, the new standards would force most American drivers to buy electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt, conveniently produced by Obama’s friends at the bailed-out General Motors.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/whether-its-health-care-or-cars-obama-knows-best?category=2180
Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. The 213th Congress will be so busy undoing everything that Obama has done, they won’t have time to pass their own stupid laws.