President Obama keeps trying to make our electric bills skyrocket. Now he's seized on the BP fiasco as an excuse to do it.
According to Obama, the Gulf of Mexico undersea gusher proves we need billions more to subsidize green energy. That was the president's claim in his big Pittsburgh speech.
He did not tell the audience about his previous admission that electric bills will "skyrocket" under his plan. Or that our government continues to block access to immense onshore oil and gas reserves that don't require the risks of deep-sea drilling.
Obama's exact words in 2008 were, "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." Converting from fossil fuel power stations, he said, "will cost money; they will pass that money on to consumers."
If we were rapidly running out of oil, scarcity would drive up its price and make alternatives affordable without needing subsidies. But Obama left out the facts about our abundant untapped onshore reserves. As Heritage Foundation energy expert David Kreutzer notes,
Instead, Obama's speech simultaneously condemned overspending and denounced subsidies to big oil--even as he proposed spending billions more in new subsidies for the competitors of oil and gas.
Obama wants to eliminate tax deductions that, according to his own budget plan, "distort markets by encouraging more investment in fossil fuel production than would occur under a neutral system." Yet he intends to distort markets even further by expanding subsidies and tax preferences for alternative energy. Those would heavily favor wind and solar as preferred by environmentalists who overstate the potential and affordability of those.
Nuclear power, however, has far more abundant potential and needs only the lifting of government barriers rather than subsidies. As noted by Heritage's nuclear expert, Jack Spencer, "the monthly cost of producing electricity from uranium-based fuel remains slightly less than coal and substantially less than natural gas or oil" because, "Nuclear power is the least expensive form of electricity produced in the United States."
But nuclear does not fit political correctness. So another proposal is a backdoor subsidy that does not give government money directly toward alternative energy but instead dictates that utilities must generate certain levels of our electricity from sources like wind and solar (but not nuclear) -- a so-called RES "renewable energy standard."
The wind and sun are free, but the expensive equipment to harness them makes these among the costliest ways to generate electricity. RES forces utilities to use this higher-priced power and pass along the rising costs to customers. One study projects that home electric bills would rise by a third and business bills by 60 percent under proposed RES plans.
But for anyone who believes we can power America solely through windmills (even though it is costlier), dream on. This would require 55,000 square miles densely packed with nothing but windmills. That's like emptying the entire state of Wisconsin and making it all windmills all the time. But our lights would still go dark when the wind wasn't blowing.
Solar power is even trickier than wind power, requiring rare elements to build solar cells, plus daylight and large surface area.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, when subsidies are measured according to how much electricity is generated, it's $.44 per megawatt for coal, $.25 per megawatt for oil and gas, $1.59 for nuclear, $23.37 for wind and $24.34 for solar. (This leaves out the heftiest subsidy--ethanol--because it's not used to generate electricity.) Since DoE made that study in 2007, the non-fossil fuel subsidies have been increased; now Obama wants to raise them again.
Like them or not, fossil fuels have provided great quantities of affordable energy. Higher subsidies for alternatives will cost a lot more, but still not meet our needs.
Ernest Istook served 14 years as a U.S. Congressman and is now a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation. First appeared at The Foundry.
Follow Ernest Istook on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Ernest_Istook
'Peak oil" is real given current sources for oil and who now is most likely to control them, and I noticed how the Bush administration played the Wall Street cards for their oily friends: "This means war!" they'd declare one day against "axis of evil" state Iran, the next week oil stocks shot up. Iraq oil was worth about 150 trillion dollars when it was at 40 dollars per barrel, and the Caspian sea fields will be worth only God knows how much, since they are virtually virgin undersea sources. The US oil spill in the gulf of Mexico 2010 is sort of good news for big oil, since endangering an Indonesian "Islamist" region, in the empires "Clash of Civilizations," will be popular in the US and highly profitable to the likes of Rupert (duel US Austrailian citizenship) Murdock, News Corporation mogul.
They, big oil big banks and big military, are ready willing and able to start another world war (against nations which can be totally wiped out by the air force), to get their hands on this oil.
everybody alive today,
the companies storing the nuke waste,
the countries that would regulate those companies,
even the memory of where the waste is,
will all be dead and gone,
The waste will continue to be deadly for another million years.
our children's, children, for generations
that will have to deal with nuke cr@p.
In just 50 years of 500 reactors, nuclear waste has been dumped all over the world, the Mob has gotten involved, and big company clearly just don't care. The Englishes channels and Somalia are huge nuclear waste dumps now. Radiation is invisible, and insidiously kills after 20 years of cancers that are indistinguishable from natural cancers.
We all just watched BP murder the Gulf for save a buck.
Chu, Wake up! Think. Break the propaganda hold the Nuclear PR geniuses have on you.
Solar Wind and Waste Bio Fuels can provide several times the worlds energy needs, clean safe, cheaper in the long run 26$/barrel, cheap now 2-6 cents, installable in 12 years at 50% growth, and good forever.
Stop the insanity of nukes.
Building 100's of new nuclear power plants would improve the economy, reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, reduce pollution, and provide for future technological advancement.
I have been working with nuclear power for 30 years, I would be glad to have a new Nuclear power plant or high level "waste" disposal facility in my backyard. My family lives in a home within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. (Where I work) I understand the risks involved and I’m completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard". I have confidence that our kids will be smart enough to treat the nuclear "waste" as a valuable resource or at least to handle it safely. If the cavemen thought their children would be too stupid to use fire safely, where would we be now?
Using Chernobyl as a reason not to build is like saying because of the Hindenburg I will never fly in a commercial airliner.
Nuclear power has the smallest environmental impact of any current energy production method per unit of energy produced. One fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser produces the same energy as about 1 ton of coal, and if reprocessed most of what’s left can be reclaimed. Nuclear power is our best option for reliable, environmentally friendly base-load electrical power
and now you want to risk the nuclear version of that.
Nothing seems to get through to people who want to risk it all for a mythical saved buck.
Nuclear power is the dirtiest technology ever created. 50 years and we have create a million year intractable waste problem,
but you have the gall to still call it CLEAN?
several new members of the nuclear bomb club, TMI Chernobyl,
and you have the gall to call it SAFE?
http://thisweekinnuclear.com/?p=455
Nuclear power plants release no carbon monoxide, no sulfur dioxide, no mercury, no arsenic, no carbon dioxide, contribute 100 times less to the radiation dose of an average American than coal fired plants. So yes it is CLEAN!
The "waste" is in the form of fuel assemblies; ceramic pellets in zircalloy tubes, very solid materials which pretty much stay wherever you put them. Can be used to power generation IV reactors for centuries. NOT very intractable waste problem!
Please get better informed, don't listen to all that anti-nuke propaganda!
25 cent per kwh nukes 9$ per W average. http://energyeconomyonline.com/uploads/Is_New_Nuclear_Competitive_July_10_2009_FNS_Event.pdf
25 cents per KWH for new Nuclear.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/05/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/
10$ per W nuclear minimum.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/07/15/nuclear-power-plant-cost-bombshell-ontario/
that 50% default rate is used by companies to claim lower costs, because they new company does not have the construction debt.
It's an accounting trick.
The other gross lie from the nuclear power industry, is to list the incremental cost of nukes power, which is just fuels and maintenance, leaving out construction, disposal of waste, decommissioning. Yet another trick is to quote the prices of future reactors as if the nuclear power industry wasn't famous for cost overruns, and in fact, the 8B$ loan guarantees that Obama gave the Nuke folks, is for construction cost overruns.
The nuke industry of course deceives in a similar matter to make solar wind and waste bio fuels look bad. For instance they include storage for solar, to q1uadruple it's price, they use the most expensive solar they can find, when even using the average is deceptive, because it includes years of older more expensive system. Current price of installed solar best buys is less than 2$, and thus 3 cents per kwh over 30 years as an investmnet.
"30years*365days per year*24hourse per day*SunFactor 6/24 equivalent peak sunlight hours = 64 KWH per Peak Watt.
Nano solar at 2$ per installed Peak watt is just 3 cents per KWH. 2$/64KWH = 3.1 cents."
First he uses 6/24(25%) to account for solar variations and electrical losses when NOAA's PVWatts gives 19%for the perfectly aligned roof. 6648/(4*365*24)
Then he assumes that the money needed was neither borrowed, to pay down your mortgage, or reinvest ie no interest on a 30 year life.
Then he assumes no labor, permits, or maintenance cost and uses the latest going out of business sale prices.
I ran the latest American AP-1000 reactor at $5B/Gw (4 times Chinese cost for the same reactor) using his silly technique and it came to $.01/kwh.
Using an actual solar 5 kw solar Watson House,Massachusetts with Research's grid tie package ratioed up to 5 Kw we get
panels,ship,inverters $18K, labor $6k, 5500 kwh annual actual (confirmed with PVWatts), loan 6% 25 years 8% cost.
2400000*.08/5500 = $.35/kwh
Built in Phoenix
2400000*.08/8085 = $.24/kwh
Getting better but still 15 times the cost of mass produced nuclear and a long ways from Research's ridiculous 3 cents/kwh.
Seth,
has all sorts of more expensive installation.
Choose.
If you live in CA or Hawaii, it's a no brainer, since you are paying 30 cents+ for you peak noon electricity.
I read that report. I does not reference where it got the solar numbers.
really prove me wrong. They are cooking the numbers to favor nuke, because Chu Likes Nukes.
Fossil and Nukes have 100 times the money to buy the government as solar wind and waste bio fuels.
They want to conserve the monarchy, fear, and the security forces you can get using fear, are handy for keeping the serfs down.
Look at BP's private security force.
We all see that big business will cut corners on any system, till that system breaks, since, though legally persons, corporations cannot be punished, imprisoned, or executed.
So let's trust big business with nuclear power! How F'ed up is that?
A nuclear version of the Oil Spill murder of the entire gulf for 30 years,
would be deadly for hundreds, thousands of years.
Two real nuke builds one actual cost, one sale cost.
$2B/Gw Candu 2.0 cents a kwh with 5% finance
www.cnnc.com.cn/tabid/168/Default.aspx
$1.2B Westinghouse 1.5 cents a kwh with 5% finance
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&refer=asia&sid=aJPyNB5Q_Fr0
Largest solar installion in the US at Arcadia Florida
42 Gwh/annual $150M,$32B/Gw or 50 cents a kilowatt hour at Florida Power's discount rate. Google it
Latest Chinese built Texas wind farm - 56 sq miles of concrete, roads and steel, $1.5 billion. 125 Mw(avg), excluding storage, transmission, plus millions annually for load balancing natural gas. $12B/Gw., 12 cents a kwh. Google it
Nuclear is NOT CLEAN.
Specifically, Rooftop PV Solar, Offshore wind, and Waste Bio char, can supply the worlds energy and fuel needs: cleanly, safely, Forever, within 12 years and cheaper in the long run 2-6 cents now, and 26$ per barrel bio oils.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
about 1$ per Wp solar panels, new.
install solar plants for about $1.30 per watt, compared with an industry average of about $1.75, according to Hardy." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a7K1FZoNgJ0w
Wind: “between two and six cents today, depending on location.12 Wind power approaches competitiveness with conventional generation at this price point. “
http://www.repp.org/articles/static/1/binaries/wind%20issue%20brief_FINAL.pdf
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/BiofBioproBioref%203,%20547-562,%202009%20Laird.pdf
26$ per barrel bio oil from waste bio char.
Revolutionary renewable, technologies are beginning to emerge.
See Moving Beyond Oil and Running on Water at; http://www.aesopinstitute.org
The science is new and understandably difficult to accept.
Government and independent labs are increasingly involved and practical applications are on the horizon.
With one example of new science and technology, a barrel of ordinary water is expected to replace 200 barrels of oil. A gallon or two might power a future hybrid-electric car 1,000 miles.
This work grows from successful research at a National laboratory 30 years ago, A modified engine achieved 70% efficiency, probably due to fractional Hydrogen, which was unknown at the time.
Later, vehicles powered by water fueled cells might go even farther on a gallon.
In parallel, magnetic generators and room temperature Ultraconductors will replace batteries, the Achilles heel of contemporary electric cars.
The latter have been the subject of four completed government contracts. Almost 1,000 samples were made by another firm for the Air Force.
24/7 development can happen quickly. A few wise, adventuresome, risk takers could insure it takes place without further delay.
These electric cars and trucks will become power plants when suitably parked and may eventually pay for themselves by selling electricity to the local utility.
No need to build new nuclear plants. This country can supersede fossil fuels faster than might be imagined!
I can understand why you would distort what he said by quoting him out of context if you were writing for an audience that was anxious to hate Obama and so didn't care if what you said was accurate. But what is the point in distorting Obama's comment to an audience that is going to be more sympathetic to him than you.
Lying is understandable when it is likely to work. Here it is not likely to work and it is still lying. So it makes you look bad and doesn't accomplish anything. That seems a bizarre thing to do.
The United States has 3.79 million square miles of land area. 55,000 square miles for windmills is a drop in the bucket of that land surface, and we would not have to have unsightly and dangerous coal mines or mountain top removal mines. I would much rather see a windmill on a mountaintop than a mountain ecology destroyed by a mine. As for when the wind is not blowing, that is why batteries were invented.