Obama Awards Nearly $2 Billion For Solar Power 514
crimeandpunishment writes "President Obama says it's time to heat up solar power, and he's willing to spend a big chunk of federal money to do it. Saturday the president announced the government is giving nearly $2 billion to companies that are building new solar plants in Arizona, Colorado, and Indiana. The president says this will create thousands of jobs and increase our use of renewable energy."
$20,000 per home? (Score:5, Insightful)
Abengoa Solar, a unit of the Seville, Spain-based engineering company, will receive a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to build a solar-power plant in Arizona that will create 1,600 construction jobs and 85 permanent jobs, according to White House documents released in conjunction with Obama’s address.
The power plant will be the first of its kind in the U.S. and generate enough energy to power 70,000 homes, Obama said.
1.45billion to power 70,000 homes.
That's $20,000 per home?
Is that a lot? I'm not sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the total cost of install and operation for 50 years for the solar project? What is it for a nuclear plant? A coal fired plant? The solar power plant likely has a higher construction and installation cost, but it likely has a lower operating cost.
I don't know the answers to the questions I'm raising -- but I do think that simply asking "That's $20,000 per home?" isn't the question which yields the most useful answer.
P.S. It's a loan guarantee. $1.45B is the upper limit on how much it will cost the taxpayers. The lower limit is $0.
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It really doesn't take a genius to accurately predict how much it is actually going to cost.
Re:Is that a lot? I'm not sure. (Score:5, Informative)
If they make it and produce electricity, then they will have to repay this loan over the years. So, unless the company screws up very badly or unless the the Sun turns off, in the end this will cost tax payers exactly $0.
Re:Is that a lot? I'm not sure. (Score:5, Funny)
>> unless the the Sun turns off
I'm pretty sure this would be covered under a sunset clause in the loan documentation.
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One of the riskiest classes of loan guarantee made by the feds is for nuclear power plant construction.
Those loans are expected to have a 50% default rate [motherjones.com].
Solar's a bit less risky than that -- far less likely to have cost overruns or construction problems. Generally the government does not price risk high enough, but that doesn't mean they lose every dollar they guarantee. Most of it gets payed back.
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Shush. Don't rain on their parade. They want to believe it's a gross injustice. Logic just gets in the way.
Re:Is that a lot? I'm not sure. (Score:5, Insightful)
Estimates vary widely, depending on who you ask and who is paying those people to give that answer. With nuclear it depends on if you count that you have to monitor the waste for 1 million years or if you just dump it in a hole and forget about it. Most people assume you can forget about it, or reprocess it later to recoup some of your costs.Here's one estimate [sourcewatch.org]:
The cheap price for coal and gas may or may not count the cost of dealing with they myriad environmental and health problems associated with them, such as acid rain, mercury contamination, coal miner occupational hazards (~120,000 coal miners have died on the job since 1850), global warming and associated climate change, water quality degradation due to mountaintop removal, wars in foreign countries to protect oil interests (Iraq, Niger delta), etc. etc. etc. Contrast that to solar power where the only point that real environmental degradation is being done is during the synthesis of the cells (and recycling at EOL) rather than over the entire lifespan as in coal.
The answer here seems to be that solar is more expensive up front, but should benefit society because of the lower environmental and health concerns associated with it. Note that this makes fiscal sense for the federal government to make these loans because more often than not, it is the taxpayer who pays for the clean up of environmental damage or health risks, not the power company.
Re:Is that a lot? I'm not sure. (Score:4, Informative)
What is the time frame of use on these estimates (20 years, 50 years)? I've never seen a PV estimate as low as that (or any of the other technologies for that matter).
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The solar power plant does not cost much to run, so almost all of the energy cost is the installation. So that is $20000/home for many years of power, plus the jobs...
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Erm... you and title = fail.
How the hell is a LOAN = "gives money to" ?
The bank loaned me half-a-million to buy my house, they sure as hell didn't GIVE me half a million and if I don't make my payments on that loan you can bet your short-and-curly's they'll take my house.
Government loans to help large projects with long-term profitability get founded is not unusual in the world and has on many occasions been critical to getting projects done. Corporations have a massive problem justifying a short-term larg
Re:$20,000 per home? (Score:4, Interesting)
I never said that.
I SAID the free market struggles with projects that have very high initial capital expenses and very slow profit. When it's going to take 20 years to make your money back it makes no sense to invest it.
And NONE of the money made THAT was has happened WITHOUT politicians.
Moreover we could argue that the greater majority of wealth created by such projects NEVER go to the investers, it's made in the form of every penny saved by a million commuters with better transport, every restaurant having an extra customer because a tunnel under a channel brought more tourists, every child that can study for a few hours more and get into college because he has light after the sun sets.
THAT kind of profit is felt by ALL of us, but the guy who made the big investment gets no MORE of it than we all do (most such projects that WERE privately funded has historically CONSISTENTLY gone bankrupt - the British side of the channel tunnel project was already bankrupt years ago until they got government loans, the French side which was a public enterprize is doing well all this time).
The only way we KNOW of to successfully fund high-cost projects where the profit is benefit to society as a whole rather than to the people who actually invest the money is to SPREAD the investment over everybody - and in our society, as it stands the only practical system we HAVE for doing that is called "Taxes'.
Only an American could honestly convince himself that paying a bit of his income so EVERYBODY (including himself) can have a better life is somehow a LOSS for him.
Gross mischaracterization (Score:5, Informative)
1.45 billion is a LOAN. If the Spanish company takes the money and runs, the feds are on the hook for it. If they take the money and default after they complete the project, the feds are on the hook for the money, but we get the project. If they don't default, the feds are on the hook for $0.
The 1.45 billion is not part of the budget, it is not being paid by tax payers at this point, it is a loan from a bank (not the feds) that the feds are insuring.
Increased power consumption is a fact of life in the US today. You can either invest in Nuclear (assuming you could get it okayed) for $3-5 billion; a coal solar park for $1.45 billion; or a coal plant for about $1 billion even. In any case, the feds are going to have their ass on the line for the project, and IMO, increasing the risk by 450 million is well worth it for not having to deal with the ramifications of yet more coal plants.
-Rick
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Re:$0 per home? (Score:2)
It's a $1.45B LOAN GUARANTEE, not cash money. Unless they default on the loan it only costs imaginary money.
Re:$20,000 per home? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Erm... that's the GP's whole point.
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Sure it does, it creates the job of cashing your welfare check. And you get paid well for it. And you are totally missing the point of the GP.
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It does if you label 'please sit at home' as a job.
Re:$20,000 per home? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even thin film panels generally last >15 years (and they are still working, really, after that, just not putting out as much power.)
Mono-Si generally is in the 20-30 year range.
As far as replacement costs go, 15 years is a very long time now that the Si crunch is over, so the panels that replace the ones that are installed today should be considerably cheaper. Solarbuzz tracks Mono-Si retail prices here [solarbuzz.com].
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Why is it hard to believe they have a life expectancy over 10 years? Or even 40 years?
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Re:$20,000 per home? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that is exactly how it works. Solar power customers can predict with very high certainty what their future electric bills will be, because the costs are known. Coal generated or natural gas generated power customers, OTOH, can only hope that their electric bill won't skyrocket due to fuel scarcity or carbon emissions laws.
So no, solar power isn't free. But it is reliably priced.
More (solar) power to his elbow... (Score:2, Insightful)
Good: I'm in favour of vastly increasing the proportion of solar in the energy mix.
Rgds
Damon
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I am too, but 70,000 homes is not "vastly increasing" anything.
And why isn't the government paying my electric bill? I don't live in any of those states.
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And why isn't the government paying my electric bill? I don't live in any of those states.
Who did your state vote for in the 2008 election?
What a mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
Likewise, Geothermal has minor amounts of funds. Yet, we are on the edge really getting it cheap. Why? Potter drilling and Foro Energy. Both are working on spallation approaches to drilling (hydro and laser). In addition, there is a REAL simple and relatively inexpensive way to get to geo-thermal. Basically create tax breaks, or even subsidies, to continue drilling down on dry wells. Many wells are exploratory and will be dry wells. These are typically at around 8-10K feet. But, we offer up breaks/subsidies to continue down to hot areas so that the well is not a total bust for the drilling company. Most of the Geo-thermal area is around 12-16K. That is expensive if you are starting from the surface. But if you are starting from a well at 5-10K, then it is relatively cheap. And from the drilling companies POV, they would very much like to make money in places that they drill. If they can not have oil/natural gas, they will be excited to have 10-50 MW geo-thermal power.
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Government cann't just throw money at an idea - there needs to be an offer, a company that has the base work and created a viable design and a business plan. It would also be good to have a pilot in place and working. So - go fund a company, get some VC funding, get smart people together, make a design, a business plan and a pilot and THEN go to both banks and government and VCs for the big lump sums for the actual construction funding. That is what the solar companies did.
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Basically, the coal plants that generate about 100-200 M
Loan vs. Grants. (Score:5, Informative)
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Cool, I'm all for it... (Score:2)
... but can we spare a couple hundred mil for a real [energyfromthorium.com] alternative?
What we're NOT paying is equally important (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs created? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the economy is not a zero sum game, so it may still sometimes be a good idea to have the government redistribute money to projects that will benefit the country or humankind in the long term, e.g. where those projects wouldn't obtain funding otherwise because the benefits of the project are external and won't be enjoyed directly by the person undertaking the project. Perhaps this project will do that, and perhaps in benefiting us all it will even indirectly create many more jobs than those that are directly necessary for carrying out the project. What I'm puzzled by is just the idea that the direct employees of the project represent "jobs created" when a similar number of jobs would likely exist anyway if the project never existed. I guess the most you can say is that jobs have been created in one state/town/place by removing a similar number of jobs from other states/towns/places, and that is a benefit to the place that is receiving those jobs. So a politician presenting such a project will want to focus on the benefit of jobs created in one place and downplay the harm of removing those jobs elsewhere.
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However, if you put it in a bank then the bank is going to invest the money which will move that money into the hands of someone who is doing something with it. That "doing something" is likely going to entail hiring someone at some point.
In 2010 the bank is going to loan it right back to the Treasury, since institutions currently perceive private investments to be too risky. Aren't you aware that we're experiencing terrifically low rates of private investment and a historically low rate of return on US go
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Has anything changed, or is the government still being stupid with our money?
What do you mean "our money"? It's the government's money! Now STFU you right-wing, racist, Fox News watching, Glenn Beck worshiping fascist!
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Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
The defence budget for the current war is around 480 billion dollars per year, so it's the equivalent of two day's budget for the war to be spent on something that may eventually reduce the number of wars.
Money well spent, all drunken sailors should be so wise.
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Subsidizing non-economical power generation is not money well spent. If anything they should have given an extra 2 billion to NIF or the DOE's Gen IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative(which is only requesting 200 million for 2010).
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Agree totally!
You're right, that's even better with an even brighter future if fusion ever (and it will!) pays off.
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if fusion ever (and it will!) pays off.
20 years, right?
fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
Solar PV and thermal *is* fusion power. It works today, and can only get better with more adoption and economies of scale. The original solar PV panels cost over ten grand apiece and weren't near as efficient as we have today! Now it is a few hundred, and they are better.
Solar PV is good for joe homeowner, solar thermal is good for making larger commercial generating plants. We have millions and millions of rooftops sitting baking in the hot sun that could be covered with panels, and millions of acres of desert that could have mirrors and towers.
You want fusion, let the engineers start building it,(I suggest 100% tax credits for actual deployment as opposed to a carbon tax to jumpstart cleaner power adoption better) the scientists can keep playing around with laser magnetic plasma bubbles at their leisure. If you want the power though, today, all we lack is building the stuff and getting it out there.
And no threats of war over who gets access to solar power, as opposed to oil or fission or man made fusion power. No embargoes, no acrimonious debate, no inspectors needed, nothing. It's the most peaceful energy source we have that actually works now, and it scales from running one small house to a whole city. This is stuff we have *now* that could be used a lot more.
Not sure if you can slap a dollar sign amount on what "peaceful" is worth, but you sure can see the external costs and threats with other sources of energy like oil and fission and coal and so on, along with the not barely hidden environmental costs. Fission power is the largest threat we have to global war today, because nations threaten each other with the weapons. If you can make fission power, it is a short step away from fission weapons, as such, too dang dangerous if you ask me. I don't care if a fission reactor can make a lot of "hot", because it is in the headlines daily that we could go to a larger war over who has access or "permission" to develop the tech.
This doesn't exist at all with solar fusion power. There should be a global trillion dollar massive push for solar, just to help eliminate the threats of war over fission power level tech. This is no joke, we are *this close* to a much larger major middle eastern war over fission tech, and that in turn WILL impact oil prices once it starts, and it looks worse and worse daily.
If we had gone heavily solar thirty years ago, on a massive scale, just done it, we could have nipped this in the bud, and helped avoid it.
All our forms of energy have costs, money, waste, etc, but eliminating wars and threats of wars, *those* costs in terms of money and human misery, should never be overlooked in the larger and more long range picture.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, that's even better with an even brighter future if fusion ever (and it will!) pays off.
This is fusion power paying off. We're just using a bigger reactor than most fusion proponents expected.
Oil subsidies (Score:5, Insightful)
Subsidizing non-economical power generation is not money well spent.
That argument will hold no water until the oil industry stops getting their subsidies.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
No, subsidizing clean power generation is money well spent. Putting said hardware into the hands of greedy corporations so that they can turn a profit on it at our expense is not. The government *should* be spending money on solar, but it should be subsidizing it in the same way that it subsidized hydroelectric power a few decades back---by creating a nonprofit organization like TVA to be responsible for the production and delivery.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to think that we should not be spending money, but if not now, then when? We can't build solar capacity to take the burden off of other plants after plants start going offline for emergency repairs. We need that reserve capacity in place now. No, scratch that, we needed it in place a decade ago. And our power needs continue to increase, so we're going to need even more power plants. If we're going to build more generation capacity, why not build clean solar instead of something messier?
The fact is, our power production infrastructure is in sad shape. We get about one fifth of our nation's power from nuclear plants. Almost all of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. are operating near the end of their design lifetime or beyond it. It won't be more than a couple of decades before we're going to need *major* overhauls to *dozens* of nuclear reactors. If we don't have adequate power generation in place by the time that happens, our country is f***ed with a capital "F".
Further, solar power, unlike vegetarian Mexicans, is a resource that, once constructed, generally requires minimal maintenance to provide power for three decades or more. Compared with nuclear power, it is almost as cheap (and getting cheaper, unlike nuclear), produces no ongoing waste products to speak of, is far safer, and can be installed anywhere, not just far away from populated areas.
Solar spending just makes sense.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
In effect, you ignored my entire post. I did not shrug off the economics of it. I pointed out that it was starting to approach nuclear power in terms of operating cost. I figured that was enough by itself, but apparently not, so here's a quick review of economics 101 for you:
1. The cheapest solar installations are currently about on par with the most expensive nuclear power plants. This means the "non-economical" thing is just a load of bull, as I said in the post you replied to.
2. What's the #1 thing that brings down the cost of manufacturing? Economies of scale. Now you can't get economies of scale on nuclear plants. Each one has to be designed specifically for the location, at least to some degree. No two are alike. This doesn't lend itself to getting cheaper any time soon. Even if we started building cookie-cutter nuke plants, we'd still only be able to put them in certain places, which means economies of scale never kick in. And the fissionable material is only going to get more expensive as demand increases, so the long-term future of nuclear is not so bright.
Does solar lend itself to economies of scale? You bet. As we build more PV panels, we continue to find ways to make them for less money. We've seen major advances in non-PV solar systems, too, particularly in the area of nighttime power storage. What one thing is required for solar power to get cheaper? Lots and lots of people building large-scale solar power systems. Unlike nuclear plants, we can build tens of thousands of these things safely, so economies of scale can actually kick in and make the cost of each installation substantially cheaper. Subsidizing a few solar installations now is a great way of making new installations much more economical in the near future.
Besides, solar power is already cheap enough that it costs barely half what I'm paying for my highest tier of power from PG&E, so it's plenty economical already. The people who say solar is not economical are either misinformed or have an agenda. If it were not economical, PG&E would not be in the process of setting up a number of substantial solar power systems right now. In fact, at California's energy rates, even individual-sized PV systems (some of the most expensive per kWh) typically break even on cost after 5-10 years and are guaranteed to still be providing 85% of their original power output after 30. Sounds pretty economical to me.
Ignore it, you are being trolled (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't have to make sense - it's just a game.
I had that idiot spouting random bullshit over serious posts I made a while ago until I read his journal to find it's a fake, joke second persona where he pretends to be tinfoil hat crazy to stir people up. To paraphrase: "
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Expanding solar capacity will increase the for-profit funded research as well. If we build only small scale stuff we will never learn to manage the large scale one neither. So even if the only thing it's good for gathering experience, it might worth it.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Interesting)
Solar power is economical. Costs for solar are close to the costs for nuclear. We don't have more solar power is because coal is cheap, not because solar is expensive. At some point, you just have to bite the bullet.
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It MAY reduce the number of wars! This is the same sort of rationalization that addicts make. In this case it's a government that is addicted to spending money (on a foolish 'solution' in this case). It seems to be their answer to every problem.
Loan guarantees (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
Now imagine how well off we'd be if we spent 480 billion per year on solar power, and only 2 billion on foreign wars.
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Now imagine how well off we'd be if we spent 480 billion per year on solar power, and only 2 billion on foreign wars.
Good point. Our new Chinese overlords would let us all sit in lounge chairs and enjoy our free electricity all day long!
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
... because China is going to invade us with which navy, exactly?
If we spent twice as much as they do on the military, then yes, I might agree with your sentiment - we shouldn't cut spending, because maybe they might invade, who knows, but really that would be bad for business all around so they might not and anyway they don't really have the capacity to move that many people.
However, our military spending isn't just twice as much as China's - we spend TWENTY times as much as China. We could cut our military spending to one-tenth of what it currently is, and we'd still be spending more than any other country.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Informative)
How exactly does subsidizing solar power prevent Muslims from crashing airliners into skyscrapers
But more importantly, subsidizing solar power research means people can import less energy. Reduced global demand for petroleum reduces the market power and therefore political power of countries that harbor Islamist crusaders like the ones who committed a mass murder-suicide in New York on 2001-09-11.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
You can stand down, wingnut.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, wait, that nation was the USA.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
I served in the U.S. armed forces for 13 years, and am convinced the best war would be fought on a tropical island, using paintball or laser-tag weaponry, and allowing 15 minute breaks every two hours, plus weekends off. Winner gets whatever political point was being fought over but has to pick up the whole bar tab. If we spread it over several islands the Marines could play too.
Warning: We did have a US invasion of the USA once (Lee went north of the line into Pennsylvania, then a bit later Sherman went way, way south of the line, and finally, Sherman, Grant, and Sheridan all met up for the photo-op so everybody got to feel invaded at least a little, some a lot.), and that wasn't nearly as fun as either of our proposals.
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Gretchen Peters: Seeds of Terror - BookTV [c-spanvideo.org] start at about 37:00.
The Taliban have this bogus justification that they explain to farmers that they persuade or force to grow poppy. Islam, of course, bans any use, traffic, or trade in narcotics or alcohol. So, their justification for it is that it's OK because because this is a jihad against the infidels and we're selling the drugs to the infidel west. But as I said before, very little Afghan heroin actually reaches the United States. It's about 70% of the heroin sold in Europe and the UK comes from Afghanistan. But the vast majority of Afghanistan's drug crop ends up in - stays in Afghanistan, or ends up in Pakistan, Iran, central Asia now; countries like Kazakhstan have huge huge heroin problems. So it's a totally bogus argument - completely hypocritical.
If you have time, I recommend the whole thing. Your post has motivated me to get her book from the library, so thanks.
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Oddly enough, none of the 9/11 terrorists were from Afghanistan...or Iraq for that matter.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
In my opinion, the only long-term multi-generational solution is for the west (yes, that's you, USA) to fund education in Pakistan, Afghanistan and their ilk. If you educate the populace out of ignorance, then the Saudis lose their proxy-'warriors.'
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Okay, you started it:
How exactly does invading countries of mostly peaceful Muslum people make them less likely to do such things.
(with solar power... just to stay on topic)
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I don't think we went to war over the bali incident, and they don't bomb your skyscrapers as much when you stop killing their families for oil.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
Follow the money. From your wallet, into the gas pump, and from there onwards.
Eventually some of it ends up going to terrorists.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
America doesn't need so much oil so the US doesn't prop up pro-US tinpot dictators in oil rich countries.
The people in those countries then don't get shit on so much by the US and so are less likely to be pissed off and violent towards the US.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
1. By reducing our dependence on foreign oil, so we aren't pressured to depose their governments and put in people the oil companies like better (e.g. the Shah of Iran). By the way, reducing dependence was originally a doctrine proposed by Henry Kissinger way back during the Nixon years, and endorsed by both Reagan and Bush 43 in speeches they made during their terms.
2. By giving us an alternative to Nuclear, so those Muslem suicide bombers YOU want to blame for the whole problem of war, don't use it to extend their bomb blast radius by three or four orders of magnetude. That's originally from the Carter administration, but endorsed by Bush 41, 43, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and plenty of other republicans before they found out Obama had written a college paper relating to the subject.
You're the one who has claimed that Muslem suicide bombers are a very serious problem, justifying a 480 Billion a year budget and a rapidly growing deficit, but that we don't need to worry about that very serious problem getting funds from what we spend on oil, or using some of the other alternatives against us. That's crazy talk - either they are a big problem or they aren't, but there's no possible middle ground where they are not a threat but worth spending 480 billion a year to counter.
The real point is you hate the president, nothing he will ever do will ever please you, and if you have to simultaniously quake in fear of those Muslem terrorists and think they are no big deal whenever he takes a rational step to deal with them, you are capable of the double-think required to preserve your hate.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
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Financing private sector: the long term value seems less important than short term bonuses to high management.
Need examples? :D
You want long term value? finance the installation of solar panels at home. Same or more temp jobs for construction, no 85 jobs, but no bill for the families. In spain they would likely provide cheap electricity to the neighborhood.
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Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Funny)
It's folksy economic "wisdom" like that may yet lead us back into recession. Until jobs come back, we can either pay people to build things with long-term value, or we can pay them to sit at home.
p. Or how about we don't pay people to sit at home? Take the money spent on UI and "sit-at-home" spending and just eliminate corporate taxes. They bring in less than $130 billion. Eliminate taxation from companies and you'll see business creating those jobs that VP Biden's told us are gone forever (all 8 million of them).
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, so you want us to steal the UI benefits from the people that paid for them, and use them to give corporations an excuse to give their CEOs bigger raises?
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
And, this is what Libertarians can't figure out about Keynesian economics. In bad economic times, it's pointless giving tax cuts to the wealthy big corporations because they usually choose to sit on their money (buying up gold for instance) and wait for things to get better (because they can afford to). The working and middle class take this money and spend it immediately.
The problem with our 2 stimulus packages is they were effectively trickle-down economic policy and not Keynesian economics. And, just as we should have known, the banks are sitting on the money waiting for things to get better [google.com].
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What's really fucked
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Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot something. For unemployment, you have to have been employed, and as such, paying unemployment *Insurance* premiums.
Generally we frown on insurance policies that try to take the money and run.
For some reason, though, that seems to be exactly what the Republicans want the Feds to do with the UI insurance programs.
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because BP spending $27B for a one-time oil spill is money much better spent than $2B in a long term strategy which might prevent such future catastrophes... and even that pales in comparison to the loss of life and incredible expense of continued efforts to do whatever it is that the U.S. is doing deployed in oil-rich countries.
Don't blame the current administration. The previous administration takes a lot of blame, but going much further back there were errors all along the way which could be easily forseen. The truth is that there are a lot of people who simply don't give a F- as to what happens to the people who are going to be living with the results 20 years from now. The bad decisions which made people wealthy 20 years ago are being paid for by the people today. And the bad decisions of today won't be paid for another 20 years.
I swear that there are some people in this world who simply disagree with political policy because they didn't vote for it, and form their opinions about what affects their immediate well-being. Choosing not to see the problem doesn't make it go away, it just makes it all the harder to deal with for the generation which will inherit the problems 20 years from now.
If you think that $2B on solar is a waste, what do you think a better policy is for a sustainable future? Solar is not the answer... but it's part of the answer.
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I think we should be spending more on alternative energy YEARS ago unfortunately the problem is that the Obama administration has show no fiduciary responsibility spending on EVERYTHING under the sun (no pun intended) with no viable funding stream to pay for it - they spent $3B on the cash for clunkers program for heavens sake !
Re:Can somebody say (Score:4, Insightful)
they spent $3B on the cash for clunkers program for heavens sake !
A program that by most analysis was a success. It got people buying cars which was the main point of that, keep dealerships and their employees in business, get old vehicles off the road.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Auto sales were already rising. Cash for Clunkers spiked above that rise, then "spiked" below that rise, and then it caught up to the rise. In other words, the only thing CFC did was add a spike up and a dip down in a more or less steady rise, while costing the taxpayer money.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think it's obvious who "came into this with their mind made up."
People that actually bother to analyze things, other than noting the CfC was not purely an environmental program, but also economic stimulus, are more rational, and note the program had both benefits and disadvantages:
Take a look here [bnet.com]for example:
First, an important point, it's not all about CO2:
"Of course, cleaner-running cars also spew fewer air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds, benzene, formalde
Re:Can somebody say (Score:5, Interesting)
If it were the answer, it would already be happening. That 2 billion just created a solar energy bubble.
You are naive. What incentive does any major energy company have to abandoning the oil resources they have already invested billions in? Imagine it's any other company. Hell, imagine if Microsoft decided to invest all of their money in clean, reusable, open source code and make windows apps perfectly compatible with the Linux kernel. Would their windows sales go up or down?
Now imagine BP knowing that any breakthrough in clean energy technology enormously devalues their leased rights to oil fields and capital investments in equipment. In fact, if the breakthrough was big enough, BP would then be sitting on a pile of lawsuits waiting to happen. Are you, as BP, going to gently hold the hands of companies plotting your demise, or buy up clean energy companies, bury the technology, and spread FUD about climate change?
Yeah. Now you're thinking like a real CEO. Fuck the world: I want money.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If it were the answer, it would already be happening. That 2 billion just created a solar energy bubble.
You are naive.
What you've shown in your entire post is that the above was correct. Solar is not the answer when you have large corporate interests whom are against changes to the status quo. By investing the $2 billion the government is usurping those interests and providing capital to those companies who are not dependent on oil remaining the dominant energy form in the US. Now, debating whether or not solar was the right technology to invest in, that's the real question.
No (Score:3, Informative)
Thirty year lifespan and it won't pay back cost of production? Where did you get that? Why do people keep repeating this? This has been debunked here on slashdot numerous times now in these discussions.
Here ya go, you offered no citation for your 30 year claim, but I have a counter with citation. Various types of PV panels and energy to build them payback period, goes from one for thin film bleeding edge to four years for more expensive crystalline types, after that, all the power they make is free. OK, do
Re:Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
I heard laying one brick would not a house build, so I gave up.
After a week of binge drinking to drown my sorrows, I finally went home only to find my neighbor's brick house completed. To this day I couldn't figure out how he did it; magic faeries wished the house into existence perhaps?
Re:Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, a drinking analogy is not a bad one for U.S. energy policy.
An alcoholic binge drinker realizes that the amount they are drinking is making a big, negative financial impact on their lives. They have always done home brewing to try to keep the costs of their habit down, but the yield keeps declining (parts of their basement are already a large brewery, and they're out of room to expand, worse, the production volume is declining year by year for some reason). So, they have to buy more and more alcohol from the store and they're inconveniently fond of imported beer. More than half the beer they drink is now imported (~60%), and they consume a stunning 20% of all the beer available for sale in their entire community. Realizing the situation, they promise to their family, year after year, that they will cut back on the alcohol and find other alternatives. They provide financial incentives to themselves to drink less alcohol and more of the other stuff. They invest in alternatives (e.g., they bought some milk and put it in the fridge). Yet, year after year, they drink a greater and greater volume of alcohol, and it costs them more and more to do so. This goes on for about 40 years. Worse, one day the brewery in the basement blows up, and the mess and insurance costs to clean up the basement were absolutely insane (actually, that's misleading -- the brewery still leaking into the basement as we speak and the full costs aren't entirely quantified yet, but the basement is indeed a mess).
One day, the alcoholic decides to drink a small glass of water from the tap in addition to the 20 gallons of beer they expect to drink that day. It was difficult, but they feel confident they are on the road to kicking their habit.
Now replace the alcohol with oil and that pretty much sums up U.S. energy policy of the last 40 years or so.
To return to your analogy, the problem is: that brick *IS* all that's ever been invested in building your house compared to the scale of the challenge of constructing it.
Party on, USA!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
(--Rupert Darwall, "Britain Tries Fiscal Austerity", the Wall Street Journal, 29 Jun 2010)
Re: (Score:2)
So, what you're saying is, unless Obama can come up with one single, perfect jobs solution that will blanket "the socio-economic stratem" with high-paying, permanent positions, there's absolutely no point in doing anything at all.
Uhuh.
May I introduce you to the Nirvana fallacy [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
I remember the good old days, when Congress would appropriate money for projects. When, exactly, did Presidents get signing authority on the national checkbook?
The president is spending from the checkbook on an account created for him by Congress. This is the stimulus bill money from last year for which there was an immediate need. "Immediate"' is clearly not what it once was.
Re:Limits of executive power (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind that Spain's experiment with subsidizing solar power is one of the causes of their looming fiscal insolvency.
And now to break out that classic Slashdot trope: Citation needed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, Premiums Are Not Subsidies. The spanish government doesn't pay a single penny for renewable energy (it doesn't even concedes loans to companys, like Obama is doing). The money for renewable energy isn't paid from taxpayer's money, so cutting premiums can't return back even a single Euro to the government. So it has not sense to claim that premiums are being cutted because of public debt issues because renewable premiums aren't paid with public debt, they are paid by the companies that distribu
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Your percentages are off by a factor of 100, should be 0.3% and 1.7%, but that still doesn't affect your argument much as those percentages are still rather low.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nevermind that Spain's experiment with subsidizing solar power is one of the causes of their looming fiscal insolvency. Let's follow them down the path to ruin. Yay!
Spain has a debt to GDP ratio of 50% as of 2009 - that's about what ours was. They just suffered a massive real estate bubble and suffered badly from the oil shock of 2008 since they have no fossil fuel resources. Do you really think even twenty billion euros is a drop in the bucket to the increased cost to their economy if oil prices skyrocket again?
You're penny wise and pound foolish. If your livelihood depends on a resource that can easily bankrupt you, then you should probably borrow every dime you can
Tesla, brought to you by (Score:2)
Tesla is brought to you by the same people who brought us PayPal and SpaceX.
Except that they appear to have been subsidized with federal tax taxpayer money (something I despise) they could be good people doing a good/hard thing at the wrong time. I suspect that if the fed-govt wasn't so expensive these days that Tesla could stand on its own.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. When you're rich enough, you start to want to whitewash all the evil you did to get that rich using all that money you have from being, well, evil. I'm not sure why they try though, it doesn't work ... it's not like people have forgotten how evil Rockefeller was. No one is going to erase from history the damage that the windows monopoly did to the computing industry, or the lives that that ruined or ended.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Arizona - Solar thermal generating plant.
Colorado - Solar panel manufacturing plant.
Indiana - Solar panel manufacturing plant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)