The Department of Energy conducts research to make wind turbines less effective

Is the Department of Energy really conducting research to make wind turbines less effective?

Essentially the DOE is conducting research to ensure less birds are killed with wind turbines. That sounds good since wind is supposed to be a green energy and it should not adversely affect wildlife, but it currently does. And the expected results of the research will be the following:

The ultimate goal is to detect birds flying near a turbine with enough time to for the turbine blades to stop spinning and prevent a collision.

"Renewable energy" is already unreliable enough. Now tech is being designed to shut it off if wildlife is in the vicinity. Terrorists don't need to blow up our power grid; they only need to release a few birds near it.

Let's take a look at the propaganda video and see if there might be some problems with the research.

Did you see the problem with the research in the video?

The turbines were not moving!

The eagles were flying without the distraction of a moving target or the effect of low frequency noise. If you are unfamiliar with "low frequency noise" then do a search on it. There are many horror stories of the affects associated with wind turbines.

Maybe there were tests with the turbines running which would mean the eagles were then put at risk. Who knows? Maybe a bird or two died in the data collection.

What else could go wrong?

How about this paragraph:

The birds used in the recent flights belong to Auburn University’s Southeastern Raptor Center, a rehabilitation center for birds of prey. These eagles are not trained for extensive flights; they are trained to soar across a football stadium and land on the field, so the researchers modified their tests accordingly. They used a man lift to take the eagles as high as possible before releasing them so they could trade altitude for airspeed.

Trained birds that are trained to fly one hundred yards or less to fetch a reward were used to simulate wild birds flying in predatory patterns looking for prey (reward). Yeah. Sure. Releasing them as high as you can will account for modified behavior between a domesticated bird and a wild bird.

Two companies and a government agency did this. Many adults had to be involved. Did not anyone say, "I see a problem?" In the end imperfect data was produced.

Why not set up cameras that activate when the turbines are active? You get data on multiple species that are actually behaving normally in the situations you want to prevent accidents.

Or am I being too sensible in gathering real world data?

• Dept. of Energy
• Dept. of Energy @ YouTube

Government Propaganda at Comic Con?

I do not care about Comic Cons but I worry about government propaganda. The Department of Energy, which has an agenda and makes policies based on that agenda, is holding a panel at the Baltimore Comic Con to "discuss the interplay between science and cinema."

You do realize this means that tax dollars are being used to send government employees to Comic Con? If the government needs a presence anywhere it is Comic Con. If the IRS can make a Star Trek video why not the Department of Energy at Comic Con?

So who is going to be on this panel? A Minorities in Energy Champion, two employees from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and an employee from the Office of Environmental Management. The Office of Environmental Management is quite legit since it is for the cleanup up of the "nuclear legacy" from government nuclear research. The others try to force the world into the agency's world view.

There is another member on the panel not listed on the DoE's announcement and that is Marius Stan. You can find this at the Comic Con site. He is listed as a DoE Senior advisor and actor from Breaking Bad; he is also a scientist.

Maybe I'm making something out of nothing. It is not like they are handing out propaganda, unless you consider handing out a children's coloring book, Get Current, that promotes only renewable energy. You know. Teach kids it's a good idea to turn food into fuel when people are starving in other countries or even at home.

No chance of propaganda here.

• Department of Energy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• Baltimore Comic Con
• IMDB
• YouTube

Money for Energy from the Department of ... Agriculture?

The redundancy in government is mind blowing. You would think loans and grants for energy come from the Department of Energy. Well, some do.

But why is the Department of Agriculture "investing" $63 million to support 264 energy projects? To promote American energy independence. Sure sounds like something that the Department of Energy should be doing.

In addition small business in rural areas are eligible. It appears that the business might not have to have anything to do with agriculture. Suddenly it seems that this program is also venturing into the territory of the Department of Commerce.

I do have to say that I am also a bit amused that these grants and loans can be used for geothermal energy production. Give me some money so I can drill through the mantel and harvest the awesome power of liquid magma!

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Peddling the Ethanol Failure to the Philippines

The great ethanol experiment has been a great big failure. It reduces engine efficiency, creates more pollution than gas, and takes more energy to create than it saves. CO₂ from the production of ethanol is even being pumped into geological storage potentially creating a deadly disaster in waiting. Even Al Gore said he made a mistake in backing ethanol subsidies.

Should we end the practice of using ethanol? No! Let's get other countries on board!

That's right. The Director of the Las Vegas U.S. Export Assistance Center, the U.S. Renewable Fuels Association, and six U.S. ethanol companies went to Manila to research the potential ethanol market. Presentations were given on different aspects of renewable fuels.

Yes. Let us expand ethanol and grow more corn for a poor fuel choice instead of food. It's not like there are starving people in the world, right?

Gas Tax : Punishing the Heretics of the Green Movement

There is a gap between funding for the highways and roads and the revenue coming in for it. The gas tax hasn't been raised for 22 years and you are going to hear calls for raising it.^[1][2]

End the Gas Tax

USA today calls for phasing out the gas tax because of the cost of bureaucracy. Anything government driven has this problem so this reason is moot.

Forbes calls for reform of the gas tax but gets the reasoning wrong. Forbes lays out the history of the gas tax and how funds in are tied to projects directly related to the road, however, in the 90's this relation was temporarily severed to pay for other things; this is blamed for the unpopularity of the tax and why reform is needed.

Bloomberg actually gets part of problem correct, ... fuel efficiency and less driving.

Government Created the Problem

CAFE standards demand better fuel efficiency in vehicles which means when the goals are met drivers buy less gas to go the same distance. So it stands to reason that less money is collected through taxes.

Fuel efficiency is nice but the government has no place dictating it; this is legislating physics which is a very arrogant thing for man to do.

The next problem is a double blow to the gas tax and funds for roads; the government's push for electric and hybrid vehicles.

Tax credits to buyers of the green vehicles is paid for by all tax payers. The first punch is these drivers don't use gas or only a little thus evading the gas tax and yet they still put wear and tear on the roads.

The double punch is the subsidy money could instead be put towards road construction and repair, but no. Instead we are going to continue to subsidize these vehicles and look to taxing the drivers that use gas more.

Last I checked only churches and non-profits were supposed to be tax exempt. (Yeah, the Volt lost money but that doesn't make it a non-profit organization.)

The subsidies don't go just to the people that buy the cars but companies within the pipeline that make the car or parts of it. There is an article that "debunks" Volt myths and fails on the government money myth. It frames the myth as "#5 It’s made of government bailout money." That is not the myth; the myth is "the Volt is a government subsidized car." In fact the debunking of the myth admits to the subsidies and blames Bush for the subsidies; whether this is a Bush subsidy or an Obama subsidy it is still a government subsidy. Supposedly the 2016 Volt will be profitable.

There's no telling how long these subsidies will continue. A subsidy is per model per model year and does not phase out till 200,000 units of it are sold. Even then the subsidy phases out to 50% after two quarters, 25% at four quarters, and no credit after six quarters after hitting the 200,000 mark. By then the car will be on to the next model year and a new set of subsidies.^[1][2]

To be fair there was a discontinued subsidy. It was replaced by a new one.

What's the Solution?

End the gas tax, end the green car subsidies, and budget the roads like any other part of the government.

Ending the gas tax will make the cost of the transportation of goods cheaper thus making them more affordable. This can lead to an increase of consumption and leading to the need for more production. In the end there could be more tax revenue through increased income tax revenues; in addition this enriches the lives of the citizens.

Ending the subsidies will also correct the car and energy market to use what is truly economical choices. Also, it is immoral to make one person to pay for part of another person's desired purchase. Can you imagine if the government subsidized the purchase of yachts? Subsidizing the purchase of a car because of the type of motor it uses is no different.

Budget the roads like other parts of the budget. Make the importance of running shrimps on a treadmill compete with the importance of good roads. Hopefully we can expose wasteful projects by making them compete with critical projects.

Or we can raise the gas tax making products more expensive due to transportation costs while we give money to people who buy cars that do not contribute to the road fund.

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Why we don't need the Second Amendment

We have the Second Amendment to provide protection against the government if it raises arms against the people.

Hasn't that been happening?

So many government agencies now have their own police force; this means the agencies have arms. People worry about the NSA collecting meta data but when is the last time you heard of them kicking in an American's door and arresting them? None. However, the Bureau of Land Management had no problem invading Bundy's ranch and killing his cows over a tax dispute. Why not a court order? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided Gibson Guitars over what wood they were using which in the end was shown they did nothing wrong. Couldn't they have sent in an inspector instead of a raiding force?

The point is arms are being raised against the people and that is only two simple examples. However the military is not raising arms against the people but faceless bureaucracies are doing so. This is why people don't recognize the violation for what it is.

We have had the Supreme Court deem it is okay for the government to take your land for financial improvement for the common good and also deem that we can be taxed for our mere existence through the Affordable Care Act.

We are also victims of Congress trying to legislate physics. Fuel efficiency in cars and pollution control causes the design of smaller and or lighter cars that are less safe regardless of their safety features. Incandescent light bulbs were not made illegal by name but made illegal by defining how much energy can be used per lumen. As a result you get bulbs with poisonous mercury or a really expensive LED bulb.

So why do you so love the Second Amendment? Where are the bodies showing you've stood up for your rights? Work within the system you say? Really? The oppression through agencies and regulations are from unelected officials you can not depose. You didn't vote in those judges nor can you kick them out using the system.

We do have elected Congressmen that have passed oppressive laws (A.C.A., light bulbs). Why are they still in power? Is that your version of working within the system?

Recently Gruber, an architect of the A.C.A., said that a tortured language, lack of transparency, and lies were need to pass the A.C.A. because the public were to stupid to approve something he thought was good for them. He's right; you are stupid.

There it is. It has been exposed that for the government to tax you for your existence they had to lie to you because you are too stupid to make decisions for yourselves.

So why are you so attached to the Second Amendment? I see no bodies proving your affection for it. All we get are crazies going into gun free zone and killing innocents; the result is a call for more gun control and you go nuts.

Where are the bodies of those that legislate away your freedoms?

Huh?

I thought so.

You are never going to exercise your Second Amendment rights because as Gruber said you are too stupid.

Our lives are so comfortable that no one wants to rock the boat. People are picked off here and there by the government and there are no repercussions.

Why are you so insatiable for a right you don't want to exercise?

Solar Cells for a Dark Village

Just got to love how the government keeps throwing money around while they complain about the sequester.

Up to $250,000 is available to five different Alaskan Native villages each for "clean" energy improvements. Yeah. $1,250,000 more is planned to be dumped into "clean" energy because the government has such a good record on its energy policy as of late.

Here's one of the specifics laid out in the blog post.

Native Village of Minto will receive assistance to identify energy efficiency, biomass, and solar energy opportunities.

Did you catch that?

Alaska, which probably needs more energy in the winter to heat their homes than energy for air-conditioning in the summer. Do you need air-conditioning in the summer in Alaska? Just asking.

So money will be dumped into solar energy for a village when their most energy critical needs are in the winter when the sun doesn't even rise.

Yeah. I have no idea how our government keeps losing money on solar energy with their super smart choices.

Fossil Fuels are Good for the Environment

You're Not Helping

The Department of Energy has a blog entry titled "Keeping America Competitive: Bringing Down the Cost of Small Wind Turbines."

So how does the blog describe the way to accomplish this? The government is going to "invest" in two projects that will help upgrade manufacturing processes for wind turbines. And of course "invest" means that our tax dollars are given to these projects which means the government subsidizes the companies.

Remember how bad it is that we subsidize oil companies? Then again, I am still fuzzy on that fact. I think they get tax breaks, not subsidies. Very different.

Basically, in the end the government is not making wind energy cheaper. The government is making us pay for it regardless of whether or not we want to pay for it. So if we have paid for it to make it cheaper so that we can buy it then we really haven't made it cheaper. We will just be buying it because we've already paid for part of it.

Stop Gambling With Companies! You Can't Pick Winners!

The government is at it again.

How long have we lived in houses? How long have we striven to weather-proof our homes to keep our energy bills down? There is a vibrant market for making a house energy efficient, is there not?

Then why is the Solyndra debacle being repeated? Why is the government "investing" in companies of their choosing to create efficient heating, cooling, and weatherizing technologies? Of all the companies that do this sort of development the government has given $9.5 million to 6 companies/universities to develop products.

What is even worse is that the products invested in are predefined. Not only has the government interfered with the market by giving a few companies in a large market money, but they are deciding what should be developed instead of letting the market decide. If the end products do not meet the stated goals then people will probably not want them. Even if the products do meet the stated goals the people still may not want them.

Basically, the DOE is gambling in the market again with $9.5 million dollars picking companies and products they want in an industry that has been around for a long time. How did they not learn from Solyndra? How can they not realize that "if you build it they will come" is just a fantasy from a movie!?

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Solar Energy and Political Math Tricks

There is a new solar panel structure at Monterey County’s Laurel Yard Complex in Salinas, California. The Energy.gov post boasts that it will save the county $222,000 in energy costs in the first five years and at least $18,800 in the sixth year.

What? $222,000 over five years is $44,000 a year. Why the drop to $18,800?

The Monterey CAO Weekly Report for the week of September 10, 2012 gives more information about the project. That $222,000 in savings includes a $27,600 a year rebate for the first five years. That means that $44,000 a year savings is really $16,400 a year. Also, the solar panel structure was a $1 million dollar project funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

That rebate is part of Energy Incentive Programs in California. It costs $3.1 billion from 2010 through 2012 and was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. This means tax dollars spent on rebates.

I have not yet found how the real estimated savings of $16,400 will jump to $18,800 in the sixth year. Maybe there is a new rebate that kicks in.

The statement that $222,000 will be saved in the first five years is ludicrous. It is like the missing dollar riddle. The savings statement is a false statement.

Since the ARRA and rebate money comes from the government, the money comes from the consumers and the people through tax dollars. Through the rebate program the people are paying $27,600 a year to save $16,400. The solar plant is now running at a loss of $11,200 a year. If there was no rebate then it would be saving money after 61 years of operation, the amount of time it takes to save $1,000,000 at $16,400 a year.

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Energy Independence : What a Crock

I am sick of this "Energy Independence" that the politicians talks about. One set of people mean as switching to renewable energies : solar and wind. Another set of people mean it as drilling for oil and keeping it for ourselves. Granted, this is an over-simplification.

Renewable Energies

If renewable energies were good the companies would not keep going bankrupt! The government has been dumping too much of our money into them. The government has no business doing that!

They can not legislate physics to do what they want!

This means no matter how much legislation you make you can not make renewable energy perform better. Only scientist and research can make it better and only if it is possible. Dump all the money you want into research, it does not mean you will find a way to make it cost effective.

More Oil

Yes, it would be nice if we drilled for more oil. It would mean more jobs here. However, it does not necessarily mean the price of oil would drop. The price of oil is pretty much set by the global economy. The US buying power helps us to purchase it at a reasonable price compared to other countries.

Energy

This energy independence talk is just ridiculous. Our energy is produced here. There are no wires coming in from another country powering us. We produce the energy ourselves.

The issue is fuel. By continuing to talk about "energy" we screw up the conversation. Energy needs to be reframed as different concepts.

• Fuels
• Production Methods

Independence

Are we talking about isolation? The independence talk eludes to the idea we will not buy fuel from the global market. Why?

We are not food independent nor manufacturing independent! Why do we have to be energy independent?

Any leveraging another country might exert against us may drive prices up, but we do have many forms of producing energy. If oil prices worry us, look at what is happening now. So far gas is high and we have a bad economy, but we are still here and we are not rioting like other countries.

We can get through and come up with a way. Chances are at some point private industry may ignore government and just do what must be done. Damn the regulations and step up and provide the country what it needs. More energy, not more laws.

Regulations

We can stop talking about energy independence by talking about regulations. Regulations are out of control.

People believe the regulations protect us and keep the environment clean in regards to mining and extracting fuel. The problem is that there are two tipping points in regulations that end up hurting us and cause production to move out of country:

• Regulations that deny fuel extraction
• Regulations that make fuel extraction no longer cost effective

We are hurt in two ways.

• Loss of jobs
• Dirty environment

The loss of jobs is obvious, but dirty environment? That is what happens. The countries that end up accessing the fuel do not have as stringent environmental policies as the US. This becomes a case of "not in my backyard" solutions that still affect us.

The environment is supposed to be global, so it does not matter where the pollution happens. In the end by us not having a more reasonable set of regulations we let someone else do it in a dirtier method.

Energy independence. What a crock. No one is making sense.

Is there an Obama energy war?

The Cato Institute is a wonderful organization and day by day I realize I am more Libertarian than Republican or conservative. Recently Cato has released a couple of podcasts about Obama's energy performance, NOT policies, and the criticism he has received.

The Cato podcasts bring up some interesting points. If you are anti-Obama or strongly against his policies these podcasts might take a bit of your enthusiasm out of your objection to Obama's administration. However, maybe you will take away from these podcasts what I did:

• Obama's opponents make a mountain out of a mole hill. Single incidents that they do not like are reframed as Obama's whole policy.
• Cato has looked at how Obama has handled coal and oil seperately. It is a wider view of what has happened across the board in those individual energy fields and whether or not there are differences from his predecessors.
• The Cato podcasts do not address Obama's overall policies. An even wider look would show that what looks like a lack of change in oil and coal policies ignores the tendency to promote wind and solar over coal and oil.

In the end, for all of the information these podcasts gave, it can be considered a bit of a highlighting of how incompetent Obama might be. Obama has stated he wants to limit coal and oil. Has he failed to do that?

Depending on how wide or narrow we change our views on politics changes the perception of what is happening. Also, we need to remain conscious of the differences are between what a politician says the will do, what they set up as policies, and what actually happens.

Sometimes what actually happens is less important than what they want to do. If some one says over and over they are going to stab you but don't do it does not mean you ignore them. One of those times they will try and you will want to be on your guard!

War on Oil

War on Coal

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Department of Energy ruins the Jack-O-Lantern

It is National Energy Action Month and the Department of Energy would like you to increase awareness by "geeking out" your Jack-O-Lantern. At a time when bullying is such an issue and we are having absurd anti-bullying laws we have a department of the federal government urging kids to be geeky at a time they should be scary for the season? That's just begging kids to make themselves targets to get picked on!

You can download a PDF of some recommended patterns for your pumpkin(s). The following is a thumbnail of the patterns:

Jeez! What kid doesn't want to carve a light bulb in their pumpkin instead of a scary face?

This probably is not a big deal except for the fact that parents might get involved in this idea. Why would a parent have light bulbs and windmills on their kids pumpkins instead of scary faces? Because the DOE will post images of your Lame-O-Lanterns that you send in. Some people just can't resist that bit of Internet fame by having their handiwork displayed on a government site.

Thanks to the DOE, some kids are going to have a lame Halloween.

DOE ends their blog entry with Happy “Energy-ween!”

I am a bit surprised they didn't go with Happy Hallo-green!

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BioNerd23 at Chernobyl 2012

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Second Warning! Environmentalists are coming for your Internet!

I alerted you last week about this with Green Peace. Now the New York times has done a story on how environmentally unfriendly the Internet is and the story is being repeated.

They are coming for your Internet! They are coming for your Capitalism!

The NYT article attacks the Internet based on data centers' power usage. They use a lot of energy and right now energy usage is framed as bad for the environment. To try to add punch to the story a straw man is set up:

A yearlong examination by The New York Times has revealed that this foundation of the information industry is sharply at odds with its image of sleek efficiency and environmental friendliness.

Environmental friendliness? I have never heard that about computers! I have read stories of how toxic it is to make computers. How low wages are paid to workers in China to build them and the factories spew out pollution. Throwing away a computer is awful for the environment because of the materials that comprise it, not to mention the Lithium batteries they house.

Environmental friendliness? Don't make me laugh!

Do a search for "internet environment friendly" and see what you get. Articles and posts about the effect of the Internet on the environment. Scads of companies claiming to have green hosting by being more responsible or being solar powered. Articles about how to make your use of the Internet more environmentally friendly. Years before this article people have been working on solving the environmentally unfriendliness of the web.

The article claims that 90% of the energy consumed by data centers is wasted. That is hard to believe that a company that wants to make money would throw it away. However, this is potentially possible if the energy bill is relatively low in comparison to other operating costs. That is something that the article does not cover. What are the energy costs compared to other operating costs?

The article just laments how much energy is wasted. How idle data in old emails or business archives is still powered but not accessed or used. How the energy is wasted. The companies are more concerned with having up time on the servers than energy efficiency. It is so easy to make energy consumption look bad when its cost is not compared or given any relevance to any other operating costs.

The article is puffed up with paragraph after paragraph restating the same problem over and over in different ways. However, the most amusing part of the article is when talking about the diesel generators that the data centers will have as power backup.

To guard against a power failure, they further rely on banks of generators that emit diesel exhaust. The pollution from data centers has increasingly been cited by the authorities for violating clean air regulations, documents show. In Silicon Valley, many data centers appear on the state government’s Toxic Air Contaminant Inventory, a roster of the area’s top stationary diesel polluters.

An example used to illustrate the evil of the energy usage was Amazon. In 2010 they were to be fined $554,476 for the use of diesel generators without a permit. It was bargained down to $261,638. Since then Amazon now has the proper permits.

Did you catch that? Running polluting diesel generators without a permit is awful. Pay the government to get a permit to run diesel generators then everything is honky dory. Did the generators magically become clean because of the permit?

The story tells of research that has been done to make energy usage more efficient but it has not been adopted in general. Some companies are working on the problem though.

No one knows what innovations will be next. This problem, if it is a problem, could be resolved a year from now with a brilliant invention.

What is really needed is a sane energy policy. This story is just a ploy to get people to stop using energy. We instead need a policy to make energy more abundant. Stop shutting down coal plants. Let the KeyStone pipeline go through. We can try wind and solar but only as a supplement, not the solution. We need everything, not the shutting down of sources because they are not culturally popular. Other countries aren't which puts us at a disadvantage.

Heed my warning. This attack on the Internet through energy usage is just another prong in the attack of capitalism! Push back!