Discussion on:

Energy policy: Follow the money

Chris used to join in on the comments section and try to respond to the (increasingly critical) comments.

Now he just posts up and drops out.

Did we hurt his feelings?

Pat yourself on the back.

I would not trust anything from Greenpeace or the Sierra Club. They are extremist organizations against much of anything.
Nuclear power would be cheaper and less risky if they recylced the "spent" fuel. The technology is available, it is just fears that the generated fuel would be stolen and used in weapons manufacture, that stops the bureaucrats. Solar and Wind are very expensive as well. The wind industry needs to switch to styles of wind gatherers that do not kill the birds, even eagles are being killed by the propeller blades. Anything else that caused so much problems would not pass the environmental impact survey required.

Thanks Chris for your truthful candor. Again you have nailed it.
Keep Up the Great Reporting!

When a company spends money they are trying to do one of the following.
1) Get money from the government in the form of contract/subsidy.
2) Get money back in the form of a tax credit.
3) Get money from the government via a subsidy paid to a third party
in the hopes it will end up going to them.
4) Get access to a public resource like oil/coal on public lands.
5) Change regulations to make things easier for them or harder for
their competition.
6) Have money spent on research that they can capitalize on.
7) Philosophical goals. Often done for public relations purposes.

The thing is, if the people in government believe in the same thing you do, you don't have to spend as much money making it a reality, so the amount of money is not always as important. If also matters who the money is spent on.

If you are big enough and can show that you have influence on a lot of voters, you
don't need to spend more money than the cost of having your representative meet
with theirs. Think of the NAACP and the like.

richard233,

You make some good points and to some degree you are right except when the money differences are 20-100 to 1, and for the most part the corporate media follows the financial/fossil fuel story line.

Kodak dominated the market for film photography for decades, and was at its peak the world's most valuable brand. They paid for great research in photography, and actually invented ALL the core technologies for digital photography and owned the patents...but always believed analogue film would win! How WRONG they were... and Kodak in the end went bankrupt in Jan. 2012, after about 80 years of huge film photography success and 10 years of relentless and fatal attack by DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY. You all know the rest of the details of this story. Now: simply replace the words "Kodak" with "Fossil Fuel Industry" and "film photography (or similar)" with "fossil fuels" and "digital photography" with "renewable energy" and you have the main energy story of the next 10 years. All the components of renewable-driven energy services with electrified transport are being rolled out commercially today. Yes, they are still more expensive than the fossil-fuel equivalent, but this is changing FAST and it is UNAVOIDABLE that renewables and electrified transport will largely replace our fossil-fuel-driven services. It is only a matter of time. But I still remember my first cell phone, my first stationary PC, my first laptop PC, my first digital camera, my first drive in an EV, my first drive in a plug-in hybrid....This is not long ago, indeed in the big picture, it was just yesterday.

...and I hope that it is. It's a shame that we continually delay that day by distorting the marketplace and wasting resources with crony capitalism.

My recent trip to Canada, as I drove to see relatives I saw solar panels arrays every 5 -10 miles. It appears Canada gives Farmers some incentive to let solar companies install small solar arrays on their property. They were everywhere, it was a pleasant surprise and equally shocking that Canada can do this and the US is so far behind. In the town my parents live, Brockville Ont. (35,000 people) there were 2 huge solar fields being constructed, I mean huge like the ones out in the southeastern California. Canada has it faults with the oil sands disaster but at least they are, I hope, reinvesting in the future.

Windmills kill nearly half a million birds a year, according to a Fish and Wildlife estimate. The American Bird Conservancy projected that the number could more than double in 20 years if the administration realizes its goal for wind power. For years, the wind energy industry has had a license to kill golden eagles and lots of other migratory birds.
Over the past two decades, the federal government has prosecuted hundreds of cases against oil and gas producers and electricity producers for violating some of America's oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Eagle ProtectionAct.
But the Obama administration just like the Bush administration has never prosecuted the wind industry despite myriad examples of widespread, unpermitted bird kills by turbines.
Last June, the Los Angeles Times reported that about 70 golden eagles are being killed per year by the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, about 20 miles east of Oakland, Calif. A 2008 study funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency estimated that about 2,400 raptors, including burrowing owls, American kestrels, and red-tailed hawksas well as about 7,500 other birds, nearly all of which are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Actare being killed every year by the turbines at Altamont.
People who are advocating this kind of "green energy" while species are going extinct are the same people who refuse to see the main reason why we are running out of fuel: OVERPOPULATION. We shouldn't focus on how we can rape our planet of more resources we should focus on reducing the world population and then all the problems will be solved.
Check this out: http://www.vhemt.org/

I don't get why here in the USA we are addicted to sexy solutions to simple problems. What if we just quit buying suv's and oversize pickups and switched to smaller more efficient cars? There are good cars available that get 35 and better mpg... my 05' VW Golf diesel is peppy and gets a consistent 45 and better MPG. There are options, yet it seems folks continue to buy cars and trucks much bigger than what they need. Also if you like energy diversity natural gas is a good option... some will say we don.t have an infrastructure for it yet most folks have it piped to their house and only need a simple compressor to fuel their own cars. Forget paying big oil... The next time you're on the freeway take a look around and do a quick average fuel economy estimate of the vehicles around you. Then make a guess at the average occupancy do. What about in the 70's when little cars were in and everyone sold a mini pickup? Chevy sold the luv truck, Ford sold the Courier Now instead of sticking with the mini trucks we taught our kids to go back to the big stuff.. now Nissan makes the V8 titan and Toyota... Its simple folks... if its big and fast it uses more fuel. It's kinda hard to feel sorry for a population that doesn't learn from its mistakes...