So long, SpectraWatt…

“This action is undertaken in response to deteriorating market conditions resulting from a harsher-than-usual European winter causing a large drop-off in demand for solar cells.”

h/t Maz2

Tremble, all ye who doubt me…

Some top advisors to the President are advising cutting off funding for solar and wind farm construction projects, whereas other advisors warn that pulling money from the program could antagonize powerful allies in Congress and signal failure.

Via
More! French give the boot to the “Super Ministry of Environment”

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Calgary Herald, Nov.10th, 2010 – The City of Medicine Hat is set to announce a $9-million solar power project, believed to be the first commercial-scale facility of its kind in Canada. […] “Private enterprise would be much more reluctant to do something like this because they always look at cost-benefit analysis,” [deputy mayor Ted Clugston]* said.
Australia Institute, Nov.11th, 2010 – Government subsidies for residential solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems are ineffective, costly and unfair, new research published by The Australia Institute shows. […] It found that despite costing the government $1.1 billion, it will only reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 0.015 per cent and failed to generate significant domestic economic benefits.
h/t Paul
* quote attribution corrected

SDA gets results!

New wind farms are needed to have any chance of creating enough renewable energy to reduce reliance on coal and gas power production. But planning approvals for them in England are at an all-time low, with only one in three applications getting the go-ahead from councils in the face of angry and organised opposition from people living nearby.
More than 230 separate local campaign groups against wind farms are operating across the UK, from Scotland and Kent to Norfolk, Yorkshire and Cornwall. These groups are scoring striking successes in defeating planned wind farms – even when faced with the weight of official recommendations.

More… “The Danish company Skykon, which took over the Vestas wind turbine factory in Kintyre last year, has announced it is suspending payments to its creditors. “
h/t Maz2, Daniel

Investor: “I feel cheated”.
Taxpayer: “Take it. It’s my last cyanide cap.”

Another great video by recyclingfacts.ca

And apparently now, neither do they.

According to the latest Wind Turbine Price Index, produced by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, world prices for new wind turbines are down by 15 per cent on their 2008 peak amid a sharp slump in European and global demand. William Young, manager of Bloomberg’s Wind Insight Service, says: “Expectations for turbine prices have never been so low, and the current market oversupply will continue for quite a while longer.”
But it is in Denmark, the great windfarm pioneer, where some of the most interesting changes are taking shape. In 1980, the Danish government was Europe’s first to bring in large-scale subsidies – on which, just as in Britain, the wind industry depends.
The results have been dramatic. According to the Danish Wind Energy Association, there are more than four thousand onshore turbines – two-thirds more than Britain – in a country a fifth the size. Nowhere else has more turbines per head, and Denmark is also a global centre of wind turbine manufacturing – with Vestas, the world’s leading turbine firm, based in the country.
Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe’s highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark’s ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

If only there were some sort of technology that could carry information from Europe to our own provincial Energy Minister.

By now most will have heard about Quebec City and the CPC Quebec caucus demanding federal funding for an arena to house a non-existent NHL team. Two hundred million is the number I’ve seen. Needless to say that’s a ridiculous number and if the bots in the PMO approve it they should all be recycled and that includes the head guy.
Here in Sask we’ve been talking about a new “multi-purpose facility” (read: stadium for the Riders) in Regina. The previously mentioned head guy was in Saskatoon the other day and explicitly remarked that monies would not be going to sports teams. Thus the Newspeak framing by Saskatchewan politicos of the proposal as a “multi-purpose facility”. Our number is around the $400M mark or so.
Regina will probably apply for several federal infrastructure grants, use those to get loans, find several private partners, sign over a significant amount of municipal taxes, and get the Province to dump a pile in. The federal monies I’ve heard talked about by realists is around the $25-30M mark when all is said and done. There are a lot of pie-in-the-sky kooks who would rather the Feds go whole-hog for a third but there is no-way that happens and quite honestly, if in this Province, at this time, we can’t fund it ourselves then we don’t deserve to have it and it’s too expensive anyway.
If the bots in the PMO follow the advice of the Quebec caucus and go whole hog in Quebec then history had better not repeat itself like a certain CF-18 maintenance contract.
I think it would be far wiser if we all just went Dutch today, eh.
Cheers,
lance
Related – Bernier slams Quebec arena proposition

Not just synonyms anymore!

67-year-old H. Max Speight, a disbarred Tennessee attorney, has been sentenced by a federal court and will serve a 26-month sentence for defrauding a federal biofuels subsidy program. Though his sentence may be considered harsh, Speight’s partner, William Tacker II, was convicted and sentenced to five years behind bars, plus a mandatory repayment of funds, which he collected by filing fraudulent claims with the federal government.

They do!

A reader reminded me that I had promised to send defunct CFL bulbs to my Congressman, so I’ve dug the latest failure out of the kitchen trash can and will send it off to Jimbo in Washington, labeled “hazardous waste’. Blogging may be suspended while I arrange bail.

For Canadians, the process is different:
1. Address your package to a non-existent recipient
2. In the “from” corner, write: 219-2211 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V6K 4S2
3. Drop it in a mailbox without adding stamps.
But you didn’t hear that from me.
From the comments; “what can I mail the good Dr. if I refuse to have those twisty bulbs in my house?”
A brick is nice.

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Chicago Climate Exchange website;

CCX Members are leaders in greenhouse gas (GHG) management and represent all sectors of the global economy, as well as public sector innovators. Reductions achieved through CCX are the only reductions made in North America through a legally binding compliance regime, providing independent, third party verification by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA, formerly NASD). The founder and chairman of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time Magazine in 2002 for founding CCX, and in 2007 as the “father of carbon trading.”

Chicago Climate Exchange website;

More…

Deere said the sale will allow it to get back to what it does best, which is manufacturing farm equipment.

A well done presentation for Saskatoon residents.
(The survey is here if you have the time.)

Oddly enough.

Via WUWT;

The coalition is watering down a commitment to tough new environmental emissions standards, raising the possibility of dirty coal-fired power stations such as Kingsnorth going ahead.
Green groups are aghast that a flagship policy called for in opposition by both Lib Dems and Tories, and which they last year tried to force on the Labour government, will now not be implemented in the coalition’s first energy bill to be published this year.

h/t Maz2

They’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse;

Organised groups linked to the Italian Mafia are among those to have infiltrated the industry, Jason Wright, senior director of Kroll’s consulting group, told The Times.
While emphasising that the overwhelming majority of European wind projects were “entirely legitimate”, he said that criminals were increasingly investing in the industry, both to qualify for subsidies and to launder profits from drug-running and other illegal activities.
Kroll, he added, was doing brisk business conducting due diligence on renewable energy projects on behalf of big banks and other potential investors.
The American-owned Kroll has detected a sharp increase since 2007 in the number of cases involving fraud and corruption in the wind energy sector – chiefly in Italy and Spain but also in Bulgaria, Romania and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe.
“Renewable energy is completely dependent on subsidies, so it is clearly an area for corruption,” Mr Wright said.

Related – “Under the Green Energy Act, renewable energy developers are supposed to consult with municipalities in advance of planning such as turbine developments. The Act, however, appears to take away the power of municipal councils to rule on such developments.”

Who needs windmills when you’ve got pumpjacks?

The tens of thousands of nodding pumpjacks scattered throughout Alberta’s oilfields could soon go green, generating electricity for the power grid while saving firms a cool thousand dollars a month in operating costs for each unit.
Edmonton-based Canada Control Works Inc. has devised a way to harvest gravity on the downstroke of the pumps, using the concept of kinetic energy found in braking systems for electric cars, where energy is fed back into the battery.

I love the smell of enviromarxist head explosions in the morning. And think of the profit potential in subsidy rich Ontario!
h/t Eric Anderson

Vancouver Sun;

[BCAA spokesman Trace Acres] said a Honda Civic hybrid cost only $290 more to operate over five years compared to its gas equivalent, whereas the Toyota Prius cost $1,718 more to operate than its gas equivalent, the Toyota Matrix. Over a five-year period, the cost to own and operate a Honda Insight was $38,326, a Toyota Prius cost $40,324 and the Honda Civic Hybrid cost $42,664.

Still, signs of progress. One model (out of 16 tested] has been found to produce actual cost savings over its gasoline powered equivalent!

The [Mercedes-Benz S400] cost $145,262 to buy and drive over five years, compared to the S450 gasoline model, which cost $150,622.

Because they sell it for less.

Uh oh…

Nova Scotia’s energy minister said Friday he thinks a variety of measures — including possibly revisiting emission standard goals — should be considered as the province grapples with potential energy rate hikes.
After meeting Tuesday with a number of business and community groups concerned about the effects of an increase, Bill Estabrooks wouldn’t take a position when asked whether emission targets needed to be eased in an effort to reduce costs.
But Estabrooks now says it’s his opinion that all options should be considered and that the government is obliged to do something to help many Nova Scotians make ends meet.
“Everything is on the table,” he said in an interview. “As a politician you can announce targets and state policies, but when it comes to people and policies it seems to me at times that people get lost in the shuffle.”
He suggested the government was “going to have to do something,” though he didn’t have a specific suggestion about what to do about emission targets.

After all, it’s only your money;

NORTH Vancouver’s hydrogen-powered car wash, part of the province’s touted Hydrogen Highway, has not been powered by hydrogen since the beginning of April.
The Easywash eco-friendly car wash at Main Street and Mountain Highway has been running on electricity from the public grid for the past 3* months, ever since government funding for the demonstration project expired.

Now witness as this massive real world fail undergoes transformation into “conceptual” success….

About 70 per cent of the fuel cell’s costs were covered by a grant from provincial and federal governments.
The car wash project was only intended to show the concept could work, which it did, said Armstrong.

Your takeaway Green Energy Lesson for Today – “Never underestimate the power in bullshit”.
h/t Helene