Comments on: News Reports Throw Caution to the Wind http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/ taking the most charitable view of those who disagree Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:09:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.32 By: ColoComment http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457563 Tue, 17 Mar 2015 15:03:30 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457563 Mark Perry:
http://www.aei.org/publication/matt-ridley-fossil-fuels-will-save-the-world/#discussion

]]> By: ColoComment http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457509 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 22:54:47 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457509 Question: can alternative sources ever replace enough fossil fuel consumption to find the tipping point that would make them more economical in the larger sense? What I mean is, we can put solar panels on homes and commercial buildings, and cover the land with wind turbines that send energy to power plants for redistribution to homes and e-hookups for cars. But we use petroleum products for more than heating our homes and driving our cars.
For example, with transportation you have to think beyond passenger vehicles. There are multitudes of over-the-road diesel trucks on the roads, as well as ocean shipping, aircraft, trains, and whatever else uses fossil fuels to run. No alternative discovered so far duplicates the energy output of fossil fuel for commercial shipping and transportation. Biofuel, I think, comes the closest.
(Again, by way of example: the U.S. Navy has the “Green Fleet,” ships and aircraft powered with biofuel, but it’s at least 4x as expensive as the normal fuel. Which impacts the defense budget. …which has other ramifications.)
While gasoline, diesel fuel, etc., make up ~3/4 of the petroleum-derived products line, petroleum products also include asphalt and road oil, and the feedstocks used to make chemicals, plastics, and synthetic materials found in nearly everything we use today.
Wind turbines just ain’t gonna do it for us. And a carbon tax will raise the cost of just about everything we use in our daily lives.

]]> By: Lord http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457508 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 19:45:45 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457508 The side effect of opposition to carbon taxes.

]]> By: Yancey Ward http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457507 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 17:21:25 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457507 Yes, the report is total BS, and as Andrew has pointed out, is a political operation by some crony capitalists.

]]> By: Yancey Ward http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457506 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 17:19:45 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457506 If you like your electricity, you can keep your electricity.

]]> By: Dan W. http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457505 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:30:46 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457505 What the report is saying is that if the costs of developing better wind power technology and of building the wind power infrastructure are paid by someone else, then it is feasible that at such a time in the future wind power will produce electricity at a lower cost than fossil fuels.

(1) Who is footing the bill for the development? Someone has to do this. Who?

(2) We could use this same argument to justify about any expense. Hey, if the cost of building a house is ignored then the cost of living in a house is cheap! Ergo, everyone should live in a house, paid for by someone else.

One can dream up some amazing things when one only has to imagine someone else paying for those dreams.

]]> By: R Richard Schweitzer http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457504 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:02:23 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457504 Here, in haec verba, from the “study” is the major determinant:

“Wind’s growth over the decade leading to 2014 has been driven largely by wind technology cost reductions and federal and state policy support.

**Without actions to support wind’s competitive position in the market going forward,**

the nation risks losing its existing wind manufacturing infrastructure and much of the public benefit illustrated by the Wind Vision analysis.” [breaks supplied for emphasis]

Of course, it is NOT an “analysis.” It is a “scenario” full of sounds and fuzzy, signifying pretentions.

]]> By: Andrew' http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457501 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 09:07:50 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457501 Btw, isn’t it true that if new tech will cause wind power to cheapen then the subsidies for old tech should have ended a long time ago or never been? Why did we subsidize a short lived lock-in of a sub par….windmill? A windmill!

]]> By: Andrew' http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457500 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 08:46:25 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457500 Wind power can…show me.

]]> By: Andrew' http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/news-reports-throw-caution-to-the-wind/#comment-457499 Sat, 14 Mar 2015 08:45:06 +0000 http://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/?p=4906#comment-457499 http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-01-09/wind-energy-companies-prepare-for-tax-credits-end

Read the last sentence. Arnold isn’t a journalist, and as I like to say, neither are the joirnalists. The timing of these articles can probably be assumed to be political weather balloons. If Arnold could have simply added a sentence to that effect. But he also shouldn’t have to.

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