This weekly newsletter, focused on environmental issues, highlights relevant analysis done by the John Locke Foundation and other think tanks, as well as items in the news.
1. Wind Power: Bad Economics, Bad Environmentalism
Earth Scientist and Environmental lawyer David Schnare, writing for Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson Institute, has penned one of the best and most succinct discussions of why wind power is unsupportable on either economic or environmental grounds. Drawing on two peer-reviewed and, what Schnare calls, "unimpeached studies," he explains why generating electricity by using giant wind turbines is both completely inefficient and is bad for the environment, even from the perspective of those who believe that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant.
As Schnare points out:
The wind blows, except when it doesn’t. And, wind speed varies on a second by second basis. Thus, wind energy produces electricity in fits and spurts. To prevent blackouts and brownouts, we need extremely consistent electricity. The voltage supplied to our electrical grid must exactly meet the demand and the frequency cannot vary by any more than five cycles in 60 (8.3%) or electrical equipment shuts itself down to prevent damage to motors and circuits.
In an effort to make wind energy useful, electricity generators have to "back-up" the wind energy with other generation capacity, like natural gas and sometimes coal power. When the wind goes down, the back-up energy must fill in – on a second by second basis. Thus, building a 150 megawatt wind farm means one must also build a 150 megawatt fossil fueled back-up supply…The reason wind isn’t clean is specifically because of the back-up energy needed. Imagine it this way. If you race your car up a hill, then glide down the other side, then speed up, then slow down, then let it idle for a couple of hours, then race back into traffic, then slow down, then . … You get the picture. Horrid gas mileage. And guess what else. The pollution control devices were designed to work on a steady emissions stream, not on one that is as variable as the wind. So, it takes more fuel and it doesn’t scrub the pollution out as well. Voila, dirty air from windmills.
2. The Green-Industrial Complex: Marrying big environmentalism, big business and big government
Writing for the Capital Research Center’s Green Watch, investigative journalist Amanda Carey analogizes the interconnectedness of the big investors, environmental pressure groups and big government to what President Eisenhower referred to in the 1950s as the "military industrial complex." Under the Obama administration this uniting of some of the biggest special interests in the country and government money is best referred to as the "green-industrial complex." She traces much of this to Obama’s stimulus bill, which she suggests resembles a slush fund for environmental groups and big business:
That law doled out $787 billion in funding, included $86 billion in Energy Department earmarks for "green initiatives." Since the law’s enactment in February 2009, it has become apparent that the $86 billion is more like a slush fund for environmental groups and "green energy" investors, and a spur to crony capitalism and corporate corruption.
The article goes on to point out how money is being funneled to environmental groups and companies like GE, forming an unholy alliance of interests that are not called to respond to consumer demands as in the market place, but to the political agenda of far-left organizations who want to control the economy for their own purposes. This is a great read, quite worthwhile.
3. President Obama and the Environmental Movement: Gadaffi’s Best Friend
Commentary
How has the U.S. Congress, President Obama, and the eco-leftist movement propped up Muammar Gaddafi and other Middle Eastern dictators over the years? They have stifled nearly all new oil exploration in the United States. What gives petro-terrorist like Gaddafi the kind of power they have is their control of large amounts of oil reserves. Strengthening that power has been the fact that competition from new sources of oil, such as those off U.S. coasts and in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), has been kept at bay because of the hatred of oil and oil companies by environmentalists and their political allies.
Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and other OPEC countries have power over the West because the environmental movement has been completely willing to keep supplies from OPEC’s competitors off the market. Our dependence on oil from unfriendly and potentially unfriendly regimes is not a result of Americans using too much oil, but the result of the U.S. government not allowing American industry to exploit petroleum resources that are at its fingertips. This is a travesty and an assault on American consumers by their own government.
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