Interesting article. I can tell by CR's answer that he didn't bother to actually read it. His idiotic "So Anthony Watts is against clean energy" (Watts did a post about installing solar panels on his home) reminds me of what CEO's of non profits ask when someone complains about how much money they waste... "So, you're against charities?"
1) The post is written by Fred F. Mueller. 2) He argues that solar and wind farms are a colossal expenditure that show very little benefit in reducing C02 and uses the Green Energy plan of Germany as an example.
I took a look at his Picture 1, in which part of the caption reads "...The German population is burdened with an ever-growing financial commitment". I was particularly impressed by his use of the term "ever-growing", since what was plotted was cumulative--in other words, it was ever-growing because it's cumulative! In fact, you could see that the change in "commitment" had gone down in recent years.
What's worse than his attempting to mislead with "cumulative" is that he doesn't define commitment, give his sources, or distinguish between real and projected data. This is one of the reasons that things like this are published on blogs, rather than in print--no competent editor would let a graph like this into his or her publication without knowing where it comes from.
I guess he should be commended then for Picture 2 because he gives a source, transparency.eex.com (which I suspect is some anti-renewable website). From this picture he draws a remarkably surprising scientific conclusion that should astonish everyone--THE SUN DOES NOT SHINE AT NIGHT. Wow! Aren't you just amazed by the depth of his analysis?
Does Anthony Watts even read this stuff he posts, or is there just a checklist where if an article is anti-AGW or pro-fossil fuel it has passed his "peer review"?
Anthony Watts personally uses solar power for his home, but apparently some people have decided he is against clean energy.
I am against energy that is mandated to be used. If solar or wind are more expensive, then the producers need ot work on improvements, not have their inefficiency rewarded.
The key to reducing CO2 emissions is to make alternative energy cheap enough that other countries would flock to it. Simply mandating more wind and solar in Europe and US will not cause CO2 emissions to drop.
Point of information:
Anthony Watts has solar panels installed on his house and drives an electric car.
It looks like CR doesn't know the difference between looking at a situation by being practical or just being against something. Any true scientist would realistically know the difference.
In answer to the questions. In reality we are donating or giving Billions to fat cats like Al Gore with no return on investment. US President Obama just handed over $100,000,000,000 to the UN in the name of GW. Australia's portion of Kyoto to the UN was the same amount.
No we are not spending, we are GIVING!
Yes. We're also spending billions on subsidizing fossil fuels and nuclear power. I wonder how much it costs to store nuclear waste for a few thousand years? Hmmm ....
The reality is that, irrespective of global warming, green technologies are good. They are economically sensible.
'Green energy' is the fastest growing sector in terms of job creation in the US. Almost 40,000 jobs were created in that sector in the second quarter of 2013. These jobs are in a wide variety of areas, primarily in construction and improving energy efficiency and in public transportation. Almost a quarter of these 'green' jobs are in manufacturing industries. Wages in that sector are 13% higher than the US national average.
Almost 60 new green energy initiatives were announced since April in 27 US states. These projects will create nearly 40,000 new jobs.
The 'green energy' sector needs to be placed in a global market context. Based on current trends, green energy will account for 25% of the world's energy supply by 2018 at which point it will represent a larger slice of the energy market than natural gas.
THAT is the reality of 'green' technology ... I often wonder why Americans seem to go all un-American when it comes to advancing new technologies, establishing new markets for export, creating new jobs, exporting knowledge and skills, and making money doing it all when it happens to be 'green'. Fine, stick with your 18th century fossil fuel technology. History tells us that sticking with old technology hurts your competitiveness.
Warmists like to condemn 'big-oil' and 'big-coal' and 'big-whatever-they-don't-like.' But the dirty secret is that big-AGW has become a major industry unto itself.
However, unlike big-oil and big-coal and other industries that produce useful products that we all need and produce jobs and tax revenue --- 'big-AGW' doesn't really produce anything of value and it cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions every year.
But it's making a lot of people rich and providing a lot of high paying do-nothing-of-value positions for those on-board the alarmists bandwagon. So it should be no surprise that those who have the most to gain from this scam are it's most fervent advocates.
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There are good reasons for developing clean renewable energy, global warming isn't one of them and government intervention is hindering the innovative process.
CR there is a big difference between reading and understanding. Wanting an alternative source that is competitive is a far cry from being against clean energy. Grow up.
So Anthony Watts is against clean energy. That is the sort of agenda of which we should be suspicious.
Ian
From the link;
"Whole sectors such as solar and wind energy farms have grown like mushrooms promising to supply our nations with so-called clean and green energy.
"These sectors have one common mark distinguishing them from normal business activities. They do not provide us with a better or a cheaper product, one that we would want to buy, but rely on subsidies guaranteed by legal frameworks instead. "
How much do I need to read to know that AW is against clean energy?
certainly spending less than we do on the military, so why not? I'd much rather have clean sustainable energy in abundance than ever more ways to kill people.
If money were in short supply why not divert all military spending to clean energy development? Get better returns on the $.
or is it trillions http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/05/crash-boom-bang/
Too much.
No..we are not.
HE'S AFTER ME.
