Category Archives: Green Energy

The Nannies in Washington Working Overtime Pushing ‘Energy Saving’ Light Bulbs

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Have you heard of the Department of Energy’s “L” prize?

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced that Philips Lighting North America has won the 60-watt replacement bulb category of the Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize (L Prize) competition. The Department of Energy’s L Prize challenged the lighting industry to develop high performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs that will save American consumers and businesses money.

Yep, you read that blurb correctly. Our very broke Federal Government handed Phillips Lighting North America (a subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands) a cool $10 million for developing a LED light bulb with the equivalent light output of a 60 watt incandescent.

The DOE press release goes on to discuss the performance of Phillips new LED bulbs’ performance with respect to its lifetime hours, performance at temperature extremes, performance in humidity. One aspect the DOE’s press release does not cover is light quality. This is because the ‘harsh’ and slightly blueish light emitted from LED’s that are great for the piercing daytime running lights used on newer cars create unpleasing lighting in your living room.

The reason LED lighting in a home, or any interior application, is unpleasing is because LED light is monochromatic, meaning an LED only emits a narrow wavelength of light (color). Unlike a traditional incandescent bulb that emits a true white light (made up of the entire visible spectrum of light) a white LED is either a combination of red, green and blue LED’s or a blue LED coated with yellow phosphorus.

Did you know there is no such thing as a white LED chip? “White” LEDs (packaged devices) start with a blue LED chip, also referred to in the LED industry as a blue “pump”. Then a yellow-based phosphor is applied over the blue chip – refer back to Figure 1. This combination of colors makes use of a phenomenon known as metamerism which occurs when our eyes and brain perceive two different but complementary colors as “mixing” to “create” a third complementary color. When the blue light shines through the yellow phosphor it is down-converted into what we see as white light. Blue LED chip + yellow-based phosphor = white light.

This tricking of the eye into seeing white light creating the harshness and blueish tint of the light emitted from white LED’s. White light from incandescent bulbs don’t have this problem. I’ll let Bill Nye explain…

The DOE is handing out a $10 million prize to the electronics giant Phillips Co. for creating a light bulb consumers aren’t asking for and don’t want. And, when consumers do purchase them, they will be unhappy with the light provided.

One final point. If white LED’s can perform in an automotive application (vibration, environmental extremes, voltage fluctuations, humidity, life testing etc.) why is the DOE retesting the LED’s?

The winning Philips product excelled through rigorous short-term and long-term performance testing carried out by independent laboratories and field assessments conducted with utilities and other partners. The product also performed well through a series of stress tests, in which the product was subjected to extreme conditions such as high and low temperatures, humidity, vibration, high and low voltage, and various electrical waveform distortions. The Philips L Prize winning product was also required to have a useful lifetime of more than 25,000 hours, compared with 1,000 to 3,000 hours for the products these highly efficient bulbs are intended to replace.

Just wondering.

The Brookings Institution Is Now Hyping Green Energy

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Remember when your dad said “If Bobby jumped off a bridge…” when you were being a follower?

Well, it seems like the big brains at The Brookings Institution are employing the same reasoning with green energy.

Via Michigan CapCon:

The Brookings Institution study is titled “National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment, Sizing the Green Economy.” It has been most noted for its claim that there are 2.7 million “clean economy” jobs in the United States. The 2.7 million jobs figure was tabulated in part because the report classified waste management jobs (such as garbage truck drivers) and mass transit jobs (such as city bus drivers) as “clean economy” jobs. This was the subject of yesterday’s analysis in Capitol Confidential: Media Loves ‘Green Jobs’ Report; Fine Print Shows ‘Green’ Means the Garbage Man

The report also develops the following theme: “China now leads the world in clean economy deployment. By the end of 2010 its 103 gigawatts of installed renewable energy generation capacity was more than double that of U.S. installations.”

“C’mon dad, China is doing it…” is not exactly a reason to sink billions of tax dollars we don’t have in a pipe dream that doesn’t work.

CapCon also points out:

China is also a totalitarian state when it comes to many forms of large capital spending on energy. Whereas private money in an open society may (and often does) shy away from risky and unproven investments such as large-scale power generation from windmills and solar panels, a government playing with somebody else’s money is less likely to be so careful — particularly when there is no voting electorate that talks back.

The report somewhat acknowledges this, but portrays absolute government control over a nation’s financial sector as an asset:

What is China’s secret in ensuring deployment finance? China has been inordinately successful in mobilizing large volumes of low-cost capital through its state-owned banks and other financial institutions. Clean energy projects have received preferential access to bank loans at interest rates far below what is available in other countries. Moreover, state-owned enterprises, especially the “Big Five” power companies, have been major investors …

However, as pointed out previously here at MCT, even in China they can’t make green energy work economically:

While Granholm is bullish on wind power, Energy companies in China are finding that even with their significantly lower cost structures, lax environmental regulations, free land and nearly perfect wind conditions, they can’t turn a profit:

The only opportunity to turn a profit is when electricity is sold to the grid. Even then, say industry insiders, the ability to make money depends on national tariff-setting policies and subsidies: “If there’s no subsidy, there’s no hope of a profit,” one says.

This creates conflict. The high costs of wind power have long held back growth of the sector. But the grid operators, for their own reasons, are also unwilling to buy wind power.

Electricity generated by wind in Jiuquan is currently sold to the grid for about 0.53 yuan (US$0.08) per kilowatt hour, higher than the 0.20 yuan (US$0.03) and 0.35 yuan (US$0.05) paid for coal and hydropower respectively. In Inner Mongolia, Hebei and the north east of China, the wind-power tariff has risen to about 0.60 yuan (US$0.08) per kilowatt hour and, in Jilin, to about 0.70 yuan (US$0.10), creating an even bigger gulf between the price of wind and that of coal and hydropower.

Green energy doesn’t work there and following their lead isn’t going to help us here.

An extra big tip O’ the hat to the Michigan View

Green Energy Fail: Rolling Blackouts in South East Michigan

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Remember Democrat Jennifer Granholm’s (former governor of Michigan) 2009 State of the State address? Here in an excerpt:

So tonight, I am announcing the next phase of our plan.

The demand for wind and solar power in this country is about to explode. President Obama has announced ambitious plans to double our nation’s use of these renewable energy sources in just three years. As the nation’s demand for renewable energy goes up, so, too, does the demand for the technologies and products that are critical to the new energy industry. We will seize upon this surging demand for renewable energy to increase the supply of good-paying jobs in Michigan.

So here’s our next aggressive goal: By the year 2020, Michigan will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for generating electricity by 45 percent. We will do it through increased renewable energy, gains in energy efficiency and other new technologies. You heard me right: a 45 percent reduction by 2020.

How will we reach this 45-by-20 goal and get the jobs that come with it? Instead of spending nearly $2 billion a year importing coal or natural gas from other states we’ll be spending our energy dollars on Michigan wind turbines, Michigan solar panels, Michigan energy-efficiency devices, all designed, manufactured and installed by. . .Michigan workers.

Part of Granholm’s plan wasn’t clearly outlined in her 2009 State of the State address. She issued an Executive Order that effectively slowed or prevented additional coal generation capacity in Michigan. Via the industry journal Power:

Granholm, a Democrat, said in her address that Michigan would pursue an “aggressive” goal to increase the availability of green jobs to reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels for generating electricity 45% by 2020.

“How will we reach this 45-by-20 goal and get the jobs that come with it? Instead of spending nearly $2 billion a year importing coal or natural gas from other states we’ll be spending our energy dollars on Michigan wind turbines, Michigan solar panels, Michigan energy-efficiency devices, all designed, manufactured and installed by Michigan workers,” she said.

She instructed the state’s environmental quality department and the PSC to first consider whether the new generation is needed and then to consider technologies that “prevent coal plants from spewing dirty carbon emissions into the air” before approving them—specifically technologies that reduced or sequestered emissions, according to a directive issued soon after her speech. Granholm added, “That breakthrough technology, and others like it, can create jobs [in Michigan], too.”

Michigan is currently home to 19 coal-fired plants, which produce about 60% of the state’s electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration. Most of the coal it uses is shipped in from Wyoming and Montana.

The new coal policy will significantly slow down—but not necessarily halt—construction of coal plants proposed for Bay City, Holland, Midland, and Rogers City. Three other coal plants are also in the works, though they haven’t yet been submitted for state approval.

Today, in South East Michigan, temperatures are hovering around 100 degrees F with plenty of sun. Perfect for that great solar energy Granholm was extolling in 2009. We also have had a steady breeze (15mph), right in the butter zone for wind power generation.

The State Government in Michigan, on governor Granholm’s orders, slowed construction of additional coal powered electrical generating capacity in favor of solar and wind power.

So, how is the plan working?

click for larger image

Rolling blackouts.

“It assures that one batch of customers isn’t burdened with a power outage for the entire period of time,” he said.

Singer said DTE has notified customers in Ferndale that they will rotate outages, with power out for two hours and then on for two hours for customers in problem areas.

Singer said they are also keeping their eye on electrical demand in Warren to determine if rolling blackouts will be necessary there as well.

There were about 25,000 DTE customers without electricity, Thursday afternoon, as temperatures were set to hit the triple digits in Metro Detroit. The biggest outages right now are in Redford Township, Detroit’s westside, Ferndale and Plymouth Township.

Even with perfect conditions for wind and solar power we are experiencing rolling blackouts.

EV Manufacturer Folds and City Of Salinas Loses $500K Of Tax Payer Money

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Passing out tax payer money to fund all those ‘green collar’ jobs through PPP’s (Public / Private Partnerships)… What could go wrong:

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line.

The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company.

All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.

The city of Salinas, California lost $500,000 and not one green EV rolled off the assembly line. Their mistake was not consulting with Senator Debbie Stabenow (Democrat- MI) who has this whole green collar jobs thing figured out:

The Battery Innovation Act is the first coordinated plan that incorporates all aspects of advanced battery production, from research and development, to the availability of raw materials, to the manufacturing of these high-tech products. The Act will build off of initiatives authored by Senator Stabenow in 2009, which helped A123 Systems ramp up advanced batteries manufacturing and create jobs in Michigan.

Here in Michigan, we don’t have to worry… We have Debbie Stabnow to spend our money.

Going Green Without Thinking: Back Up Generation Capacity For Wind Power Is Very Expensive

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Remind me again what is so great about those stupid windmills that Obama and the left are so obsessed with?

Via The Telegraph (UK):

Centrica and other energy companies last week told DECC that, if Britain is to spend £100 billion on building thousands of wind turbines, it will require the building of 17 new gas-fired power stations simply to provide back-up for all those times when the wind drops and the windmills produce even less power than usual.

We will thus be landed in the ludicrous position of having to spend an additional £10 billion on those 17 dedicated power stations, which will be kept running on “spinning reserve”, 24 hours a day, just to make up for the fundamental problem of wind turbines. This is that their power continually fluctuates anywhere between full capacity to zero (where it often stood last winter, when national electricity demand was at a peak). So unless back-up power is instantly available to match any shortfall, the lights will go out.

It gets better…

While the gas turbines in “spinning reserve” mode, waiting to compensate for wind fluctuations, the turbines will consume natural gas and emit CO2 while not generating any electricity. And, in an ironic twist that will send environmentalists over the edge, it turns out that while the gas standby units are in “spinning reserve” mode they are less efficient and emit MORE CO2 than when they running at normal capacity.

Isn’t the supposed “global warming” caused by CO2 emission the reason for the windmills in the first place?

H/T Ace

Liberal Democrat Carl Levin Loves His Chevy Volt

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The designers of electric passenger carrying vehicles have made great advances in the past few years, and these machines have retained all their early popularity and are steadily growing in favor with both men and women. They are very handy for use in the cities, and numbers of the best known and most prominent makers of gasoline cars in this country use electric cars for driving between their homes and their offices.

New York Times, 1911

Today’s Detroit Free Press has a fawning article about Democrat Senator Carl Levin (one half of Michigan’s liberal ‘dynamic duo’ in the Senate) and his love for his Chevy volt. The article is really and truly nauseating. Here is a sample.

But its electric power was the reason he bought it.

“It’s much cheaper to run it on electricity. And cleaner, of course. So I bought it to get those savings downstream,” he said.

Uhhh, Carl, electric vehicles are essentially coal powered vehicles. The electricity doesn’t magically appear in your wall outlet and it didn’t come from a windmill or solar panel.

The article continues with its sickly sweet prattle.

“This has a terrific pickup,” Levin grinned. “Watch this.”

The Volt shot forward, pushing passengers against the seat backs.

No one is going to confuse a Chevy Volt for a Dodge Challenger or a Ford Mustang.

Then the article get’s to its supposed point about the lack of charging stations for EV’s. Senator Levin want’s to set the example about charging stations and EV’s.

“It’s kind of a chicken and egg problem, I think,” he told the Free Press. “But as the number of cars increases, I think you’re going to get more companies to install charging stations.”

Levin said he figured it would be easy enough to charge the car at the Senate office building. Set up a plug and a charger in the garage. Pay all the expenses, so no taxpayer money is used.

Let’s get this straight. Carl Levin, the Senator who voted in favor of the $800 billion flop of a stimulus bill AND voted in favor of the largest government entitlement program known to man – ObamaCare, is now concerned about spending tax payer money.

Unbelievable.

I think most Americas would gladly foot the bill for an EV changing station at the capital in exchange for the repeal of ObamaCare.

Going Green Without Thinking It Through: ‘Renewable’ Energy Sprawl

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If you read the Volokh Conspiracy, you would’ve read about the massive amounts of land required to produce green energy yesterday:

The math is simple: to have 8,500 megawatts of solar capacity, California would need at least 23 projects the size of Ivanpah, covering about 129 square miles, an area more than five times as large as Manhattan.

However, if you are a regular reader of motorcitytimes.com, you would’ve read about this concept one month ago:

The idea of dedicating 250 acres of land to cover with photovoltaic cells is a waste of real estate (even if it is a covered land fill). For example, Zeeland Michigan has a natural gas ‘peaker’ power plant sitting on only 30 acres and powering a community of over 800,000 people. Day or night. Rain or shine.

Just thought I would point it out.

Guest Post: The Land of the free is now the land of the toxic light bulbs

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Marcia, contributor to the excellent web page What Would Founders Think has sent me another great post. This time it is on a subject near and dear to my heart…

Toilets, washing machines, laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, and now light bulbs have become a part of the green tyranny imposed by Washington. The land of the free and brave is now the land of bad plumbing, soiled clothes, dirty dishes, and toxic light bulbs.

Not only will inexpensive incandescent light bulbs be outlawed next year (the result of a 2007 bill passed by the Democratic Congress), but also federal law makes it illegal to harbor fugitive light bulbs. Whether Homeland Security will send hither swarms of officers to harass our people and confiscate their incandescents is as yet unknown. (Quick, hide the bulbs mother. The light brigades are coming!)

Something is seriously wrong here. The American standard of living has always been the highest in the world, but now we are madly peddling backwards. (It is necessary to peddle because Napolitano’s boss is close to achieving the $5 a gallon gas he’s always wanted.

Most of these mandates were imposed in the name of the international con game called global warming, or in political speak, climate change. In addition to restricting choice, these impositions are mostly self – defeating. It is necessary, for example, to increase both water and energy consumption in mostly futile attempts to get clothes and dishes clean.

It is possible that the IQs of Congressional Democrats are no bigger than their shoe sizes, but that doesn’t say much for the folks who elected them. Unless the comatose awakened in 2008 stay conscious in 2012 it will only get worse.

According to Transportation Weekly, the Obama administration is circulating a draft of a bill to require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on miles driven. A Congressional Budget Office report, requested by Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

It’s the perfect storm: it would raise highway revenue, discourage driving, limit mobility, reduce fossil fuel consumption, and last, but not least, keep track of us.

In the old Soviet Union, people were routinely required to enter and leave public buildings through just one door, all others being locked. It made it easier to find and apprehend suspected enemies of the state. Stalin would have loved the VMT.

Speaking of Stalin and the old Soviet Union I found great column in Pravda (yes, that Pravda) last year that sums up the foolishness of the ‘green’ movement:

It can be safely said, that the last time a great nation destroyed itself through its own hubris and economic folly was the early Soviet Union (though in the end the late Soviet Union still died by the economic hand). Now we get the opportunity to watch the Americans do the exact same thing to themselves. The most amazing thing of course, is that they are just repeating the failed mistakes of the past. One would expect their fellow travelers in suicide, the British, to have spoken up by now, but unfortunately for the British, their education system is now even more of a joke than that of the Americans.

While taking a small breather from mouthing the never ending propaganda of recovery, never mind that every real indicator is pointing to death and destruction, the American Marxists have noticed that the French and Germans are out of recession and that Russia and Italy are heading out at a good clip themselves. Of course these facts have been wrapped up into their mind boggling non stop chant of “recovery” and hope-change-zombification. What is ignored, of course, is that we and the other three great nations all cut our taxes, cut our spending, made life easy for small business…in other words: the exact opposite of the Anglo-Sphere.

That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that’s a different topic). Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.

Even the Soviets never created such idiocy.

Even the Soviets created such idiocy…

Mr. Friedman, What Were You Saying About The Enlightened Chinese Economy

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Remember this chestnut by the NY Times very own Thomas L. Friedman extolling communist China’s central planning?

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Enlightened, wind power, boosting gasoline prices, top down, one-party autocracy, great advantages . Got it.

There is one small problem with all this. Even with all that enlightened single party, autocratic focus on green energy and central planning, China is experiencing widespread power shortages:

It said chronic power shortages, worsened by the drought, pulled industrial output growth down to 50 in May in central China, while growth surged in western China. Energy intensive paper, metals and nonmetallic mineral producers saw sharp drops of 5 percentage points or more.

“Businesses face not only financial pressures and rising prices, but also problems with supplies of water, coal, electricity, oil, transport and key raw materials,” it said in a statement on its website.

Thomas, remember that central planning  enacted by  ’reasonably enlightened people’ will fail every time.

Obama’s Commerce Secretary Nominee Is A Big Time Supporter Of Cap And Trade

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Really?

John Bryson, nominated by President Barack Obama today to head the Department of Commerce, once said it was “incredibly important” that the United States pass cap and trade legislation and that America needed to become a global leader in combating man-made global warming.

“I regard it as incredibly important that the United States comes forth in this year with federal climate change legislation as a foundation for moving ahead,” Bryson told the U.N. International Energy Conference in late August 2009. “I think we in the U.S. have an obligation to assist in significant ways in providing leadership in this community of nations that you represent and addressing energy and climate change.”

And it gets better…

Bryson, a co-founder of the liberal environmentalist group Natural Resources Defense Council, was most recently a member of the United Nations’ Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change, a panel of scientific and industry experts tasked with providing advice on combating global warming.

2012 can’t get here fast enough.