Green Energy Fantasies
As readers of this blog know, I do not believe that man-made carbon emissions pose any significant threat to the Earth's environment. However, environmentalists argue that America must cease using fossil fuels in order to prevent global warming, decrease carbon emissions and decrease pollution. Yet in order to make their wish a reality environmentalists must replace the energy generated by fossil fuels. America, as the most prosperous nation in human history, requires large amounts of energy to support American infrastructure, development, and comfort. For over 100 years fossil fuels have provided America with this energy. So what source of energy do environmentalists propose America start using? Wind power seems to be the choice that has gotten the most attention and makes some sense. America has vast amounts of open space and a "wind corridor" that stretches from Texas to North Dakota.
But like most liberal ideals, the generation of wind power in order to replace fossil fuels is seemingly great in theory, but utterly fails in practice. One of the centers of the environmentalist movement in America is Austin, Texas. Austin is a liberal city in the midst of a conservative state. Austin residents pride themselves on being a little odd and champions of the environment. Austin is full of hybrid cars covered in bumper stickers conveying various environmental messages. These voters elected a city council that was determined to turn Austin into the "green energy" capital of the world.
The result took the form of a program called GreenChoice, implemented in 2000. Under the plan, Austin Energy, the electricity provider for the Austin area, buys electricity from wind farms as a means to allow their customers the option of supporting alternative energy and to promote development of other green resources. Yet today over 99% of the electricity purchased by Austin Energy generated from wind farms remains unpurchased. Why? Simple. Since wind farms are far more expensive and less able to keep up with demand no one in Austin is willing to buy the higher priced energy. It seems that all those Prius owners and environmentalist crusaders in Austin will not back up their supposed beliefs with concrete action by actually buying higher priced "green" energy. GreenChoice was supposed to bring about a green energy revolution. Instead, it has resulted in higher energy prices that few people are actually willing to incur and the waste of millions of dollars invested by the city of Austin in the program.
Another green energy project that was supposed to bring about a revolution was the plan of T. Boone Pickens to massively expand wind farms across America. In a rollout that received an enormous amount of media attention Pickens proposed massive capital investments with the goal of building out the capacity to generate up to 22% of America's electricity demand from wind. Pickens has implemented a $58 million public relations campaign to sell his idea. Yet once again reality has demonstrated that green energy is nowhere close to replacing fossil fuels. The economic downturn and the realization that many more transmission lines, which would cost billions of dollars to build, are needed to make his dream a reality mean that Pickens has chosen to significantly scale back his goal. In fact, he might abandon his efforts altogether.
The take away from these two examples is that wind power is simply unable to generate enough electricity to make its use cost effective. The technology simply does not yet exist to replace fossil fuels with wind power at a price that makes sense. It does not matter how hard some may want to replace fossil fuels but it just is not feasible at this point in human history. Until the technology catches up, massive investment in wind power will just be a colossal waste of money.
Any comments or questions can be received at whyyouareaconservative@gmail.com
~ The Conservative Guy
But like most liberal ideals, the generation of wind power in order to replace fossil fuels is seemingly great in theory, but utterly fails in practice. One of the centers of the environmentalist movement in America is Austin, Texas. Austin is a liberal city in the midst of a conservative state. Austin residents pride themselves on being a little odd and champions of the environment. Austin is full of hybrid cars covered in bumper stickers conveying various environmental messages. These voters elected a city council that was determined to turn Austin into the "green energy" capital of the world.
The result took the form of a program called GreenChoice, implemented in 2000. Under the plan, Austin Energy, the electricity provider for the Austin area, buys electricity from wind farms as a means to allow their customers the option of supporting alternative energy and to promote development of other green resources. Yet today over 99% of the electricity purchased by Austin Energy generated from wind farms remains unpurchased. Why? Simple. Since wind farms are far more expensive and less able to keep up with demand no one in Austin is willing to buy the higher priced energy. It seems that all those Prius owners and environmentalist crusaders in Austin will not back up their supposed beliefs with concrete action by actually buying higher priced "green" energy. GreenChoice was supposed to bring about a green energy revolution. Instead, it has resulted in higher energy prices that few people are actually willing to incur and the waste of millions of dollars invested by the city of Austin in the program.
Another green energy project that was supposed to bring about a revolution was the plan of T. Boone Pickens to massively expand wind farms across America. In a rollout that received an enormous amount of media attention Pickens proposed massive capital investments with the goal of building out the capacity to generate up to 22% of America's electricity demand from wind. Pickens has implemented a $58 million public relations campaign to sell his idea. Yet once again reality has demonstrated that green energy is nowhere close to replacing fossil fuels. The economic downturn and the realization that many more transmission lines, which would cost billions of dollars to build, are needed to make his dream a reality mean that Pickens has chosen to significantly scale back his goal. In fact, he might abandon his efforts altogether.
The take away from these two examples is that wind power is simply unable to generate enough electricity to make its use cost effective. The technology simply does not yet exist to replace fossil fuels with wind power at a price that makes sense. It does not matter how hard some may want to replace fossil fuels but it just is not feasible at this point in human history. Until the technology catches up, massive investment in wind power will just be a colossal waste of money.
Any comments or questions can be received at whyyouareaconservative@gmail.com
~ The Conservative Guy
posted by The Conservative Guy at
7:16 PM
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