Category: Alternative Subsidy

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 16 Comments

Breitbart;

Fairfax Media reports Mr Abbott’s conservative coalition government has ordered the taxpayer-funded $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to immediately cease any new investments in wind power projects. Treasurer Joe Hockey and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann issued the so-called green bank with a directive to change its investment strategy.
The funding ban is just the latest salvo in the government’s attacks on the renewable energy sector which also includes small-scale solar projects.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 27 Comments

Audubon Society;

In early June the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Year 2016 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill–with a sneak attack on birds attached. The bill included an amendment prohibiting the use of Department of Justice funds to prosecute or hold liable any person or corporation for a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. If it becomes law, anyone could kill birds with impunity, with no risk of jail time or even fines. It would decimate one of the most successful pieces of conservation legislation in history.
Audubon has obtained documents linking Duke Energy, the largest electric utility in the country, to the amendment, which was sponsored by Representative Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.). Duke’s renewable energy division had been the first green power company to be prosecuted under the MBTA, pleading guilty in 2013 to the deaths of more than 150 protected birds, including 14 Golden Eagles, at two wind farms in Wyoming, and forking over $1 million in fines.
In the wake of that guilty plea, Duke, which has contributed $23,000 to Duncan’s political campaigns, apparently began deploying its considerable resources and political muscle to undo the very law it had violated, paying at least $60,000 in 2014 to The Majority Group, LLC, a lobbying firm with offices on D Street in Washington, D.C. On the “lobbying report” it was required to file, Majority Group recorded one purpose of its efforts as “Amending the Migratory Birds Treaty Act and Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act to address accidental avian deaths.” A staff member in Duncan’s office confirmed that the Congressman has discussed amending the MBTA with Duke Energy but did not confirm or deny that Majority Group lobbied Duncan on the energy company’s behalf.

Via

We Don’t Need No Stinking French Fry Grease

Alternative Subsidy 24 Comments

Another milepost along the Highway Of I Told You So: European Biofuel Bubble Bursts

Ten years of debate in the European Union over the detrimental effects of the demand for biofuels for transport on food prices, hunger, forest destruction, land consumption and climate change have come to an end.
The European Parliament finally agreed new E.U. laws on Apr. 28 to limit the use of crop-based biofuels, setting a limit on the quantity of biofuels that can be used to meet E.U. energy targets.
With Europe the world’s biggest user and importer of biodiesel – from crops such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed – the vote is expected to have a major impact around the world, notably in the European Union’s main international supplier countries Indonesia, Malaysia and Argentina. It is likely to signal the end to the expanding use of food crops for transport fuel.
“Let no-one be in doubt,” said Robbie Blake, Friends of the Earth Europe’s biofuels campaigner, “the biofuels bubble has burst. These fuels do more harm than good for people, the environment and the climate. The EU’s long-awaited move to put the brakes on biofuels is a clear signal to the rest of the world that this is a false solution to the climate crisis. This must spark the end of burning food for fuel.”

h/t KevinB

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 16 Comments

Dotson v. ERP Renewables North America, Rising Tree Wind Farm et.al.

By January 2015, all of the surrounding parcel owners had either sold or leased their land to Defendants — all but Mrs. Dotson. Realizing that Mrs. Dotson would not sell her land because of the sentimental and historical value of her home represented, Defendants unlawfully and illegally conspired to intimidate and coerce Mrs. Dotson and her family in order to force a sale.
In furtherance of this conspiracy, Defendants unlawfully entered onto Mrs. Dotson’s property and physically demolished Mrs. Dotson’s home, and all of its precious and irreplaceable contents. Defendants do not deny their actions; rather, they seek to disguise their unlawful conduct as mere accident and continue to pressure Mrs. Dotson to sell the property now that her home has been destroyed.

Wynneing!

Alternative Subsidy If Women Ran The World 20 Comments

Gwyn Morgan;

Ontario’s Green Energy Act offered so-called “feed-in rates” almost four times existing electricity rates for wind and more than 10 times for solar power. Like bees to honey, wind and solar companies rushed in. By the time the government realized that these subsidies were driving Ontario from one of the lowest to one of the highest power cost jurisdictions in North America, the province had signed myriad 20-year-locked-in-rate-guaranteed contracts that will drive power rates up a further 40 per cent to 50 per cent in coming years. Adding salt to this self-inflicted wound is the reality that much of the green power comes on stream when it isn’t needed. This unneeded electricity is dumped into the United States at bargain-basement prices that Ontario’s Auditor-General found has already cost Ontario power consumers billions of dollars, with much bigger losses yet to come before those 20-year contracts expire.
Investors have reason to become bullish on the oil patch but one observer cautions that some companies may be adopting a dividend-paying structure simply to pump up their stock price.
It’s time to admit that energy stocks are terrible long-term investments
Given these disastrous results, one would think that Ms. Wynne and her cabinet colleagues would have carefully studied experience in other jurisdictions before implementing green policy two.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors

Alternative Subsidy 13 Comments

Moore’s Law;

Over the weekend, Moore’s Law — the prediction that the number of transistors (building blocks) on an integrated circuit (computer chip or microchip) would double every two years — turned fifty years old. It so happens that the silicon solar panel, the dominant variety in the market today, is about the same age–roughly fifty-two years old. And over the last half-century, while the computing power of an identically sized microchip increased by a factor of over a billion, the power output of an identically sized silicon solar panel more or less doubled.[1]

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy 12 Comments

Edmunds;

According to Edmunds.com, about 22 percent of people who have traded in their hybrids and EVs in 2015 bought a new SUV. The number represents a sharp increase from 18.8 percent last year, and it is nearly double the rate of 11.9 percent just three years ago. Overall, only 45 percent of this year’s hybrid and EV trade-ins have gone toward the purchase of another alternative fuel vehicle, down from just over 60 percent in 2012. Never before have loyalty rates for alt-fuel vehicles fallen below 50 percent.
“For better or worse, it looks like many hybrid and EV owners are driven more by financial motives rather than a responsibility to the environment,” says Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell.

We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans

Alternative Subsidy 18 Comments

Charlottetown Guardian;

Four P.E.I. community rinks that invested thousands of dollars into wind turbines that never worked as advertised have received refunds.
The payout equals about $280,000 and is being bankrolled by the provincial government.
Community Gardens Complex, which is owned by the Town of Kensington, is one of the rinks.
Mayor Rowan Caseley said Monday that the town had been negotiating for some time with the rink turbine project manager, the Wind Energy Institute of Canada, and recently managed to work out a deal for the refund and to have the turbine removed.
“We’ve received the cheque and it’s now up to them to come and take it whenever they want,” said Caseley.

h/t Ross

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