Taite wrote:trythil wrote:Why do you agree with his stance? I think his energy policy has some holes in it, especially with regard to his very strong assertions about the failure of wind and solar power generation.
I'm for becoming energy independent. I think this is probably the most crucial thing if we ever wanted to get back up on our feet. My dad can go on forever quite eloquently about the issue, but I tend to stumble over it all because I'm just scatterbrained when I'm trying to explain something verbally that is so complex as energy.
If that's your stance, then you can be in favor of Obama's energy platform, too, as he is also promising that result. No candidate is crazy (or realistic) enough to say "I'm going to gradually increase our reliance on domestic energy generation, but it'll be about a couple decades of hard work before we can totally do that". Both candidates promise regulatory reform: Romney for oil, natural gas, and nuclear power plants; Obama for fast-tracking offshore wind farms. (And probably others). In a sense, they're really pretty similar policies in the sense that they both
1. promise to achieve greater energy independence
2. likely won't do shit
The rest is nerds arguing over semantics.
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My main problem with
Romney's energy policy is that it feels like his plan is written in half-truths.
I don't like his obsession with job count. Romney writes
Spain’s experience, for example, reveals that each new “green” job created destroyed 2.2 others. The price tag in subsidies was
exorbitant, rising to nearly $1.5 million per job in the wind industry. Even steeper job loss ratios can be found in the United Kingdom, where 3.7 jobs were lost for every new “green” job created. Here in the United States, despite the Obama administration’s wishes, the marketplace is simply not absorbing green-collar workers. Of 3,586 recent graduates of a Department of Labor-sponsored “green” jobs training program, only 466 were able to find jobs. Taxpayer money spent on “green” training, it seems, was wasted.
My first objection: Let's assume that's all true and that it actually applies to the United States of America. (That's a big logical leap that I'll address in a bit.)
So what? Those lost jobs could be lost for good reasons: lower maintenance implying less need for people to work on those systems, for example.
The data point he inserts in that paragraph is also suspect. To me, it sounds like the Department of Labor-sponsored program produced graduates that sucked so hard that no company would want to take them on. Given the ineptitude of federal government in any sort of job preparation scheme, I find this to be the more probable cause.
But let's say that the Department of Labor did their job well and they produced 3,586 graduates that were
all stellar job candidates. Well, okay. One thing we have to consider about this program is that
the failure report was released in 2011; what sort of job-hiring environment existed then? How bad is the placement rate compared to, say, placement rate as a result of private-sector training? Is it a waste if it's achieving similar results? (The report doesn't answer those questions.)
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Secondly, I find his assertions of wind and solar being a failure to be suspect. On wind and solar, Romney writes
To begin with, wind and solar power, two of the most ballyhooed forms of alternative fuel, remain sharply uncompetitive on their own with conventional resources such as oil and natural gas in most applications. Indeed, at current prices, these technologies make little sense for the consuming public but great sense only for the companies reaping profits from taxpayer subsidies.
I don't understand where he's getting that from. It's true that current usage of wind and solar power make for poor base load power generation systems: first off, you can't get power from those systems all the time; secondly, production solar cells are currently only about 10-15% efficient, so they require much more space to generate the same amount of energy as, say, a steam turbine driven by burning coal. It's therefore harder, at present, to use them to power a large number of clients. At present it does make sense to back up a wind and solar system with more stable systems, like hydro and nuclear. (Oil, natural gas, and coal can also be used, but I think of them as interim steps if you're really going for renewable energy.) That way, you can use wind and solar to initially handle peak loads and gradually transition more burden to them as they improve.
But I don't understand the "make little sense for the consuming public but great sense only for the companies reaping profits from taxpayer subsidies" bit. There's at least one supplier,
SolarCity, which supplies solar power and battery storage systems to
homeowners and companies. They're based in California; Wikipedia says they employ around 1,600 people.
Sundog Solar is another such company. And they're both making money from both companies and individuals.
Solar may or may not make sense for an individual based on a lot of factors: exposure to sunlight, residential codes, individual energy consumption, and budget, to name a few. But the "taxpayer subsidies" bit, to me, seems like a bogeyman.
For wind power, I don't have much there, but I do know that Indiana seems to be doing pretty well with it. The
Hoosier Wind Farm opened up in 2009 and has been doing well since, or at least I see it in operation every time I drive to Indianapolis. There's four other wind farms in Indiana, too.
Now all these cases may be exceptions, but I want to know what's going on with them that make them special. Can we replicate their success elsewhere? If not, are there other systems that aren't fossil-fuel based that could also work?
Romney answers none of these questions.
I would like to know if he sees any merit in providing federal funds and regulatory assistance to solar and wind installers with
a proven track record of success. Such a loan system could work like the
ATVM loan program, in which applicants had to demonstrate financial viability without the loan.
Maybe some more on his energy policy later.
Now, I do have to congratulate Romney for
actually writing something and treating American voters like they can read. The oversized charts and bite-sized paragrams on Obama's website is patronizingly sickening.