More great green news…
A123.. another social engineering project gone wrong [gov't investment in lithium ion battery maker]
First, note that this company received preferential treatment from the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and (surprise, surprise) the Romney administration in in role as Governor of Massachusetts.
Second, I know it’s popular to repeat the mantra that the government should not pick winners and losers, but the reality is that it’s nearly impossible to avoid doing so if you want the government to encourage any sort of specific economic growth or to set up rules and regulations. Even government inaction is picking winners and losers. Picking winners and losers a major thing governments around the world have done since their inception.
More importantly, it’s only when Obama does it on an issue is more closely aligned with the progressive movement (even though it had bi-partisan support), that people start trotting out this tired mantra about government picking winners and losers. It’s seems clever, but even a cursory review of history will disabuse you of the fact that such a stance is ahistorical and myopic.
Since you are so big on the government not picking winners, do you have a problem with the government giving out student loans and grants? Should they fund colleges, or build roads? What about them leasing land to oil companies to drill on? Do you not want them to bribe pharma companies to produce vaccines? Should they fund the NIH?
The market may in most cases be more efficient in many cases, but it’s not always fairer or better in the long term for the public. That’s when the government needs to intervene. Will their “interference” always be prudent or efficacious? Or course not, but that’s not because government is bad, it’s because no one can predict the future with 100% accuracy.
I really don’t understand this. What is ‘efficient’, then? It can produce goods or services at the lowest cost? What good is that if no one, or not enough people, make enough money to buy them?
The Market does not recognize the complete cost of production, not just the infrastructure, but educating the workers, dealing with waste, ensuring customers have the means to purchase the goods (that would be paying a living wage) …
We need regulation, infrastructure, and a social safety net to maintain a healthy economy. As others have noted, we need to invest, and sometimes investments go south.
The energy produced by breaking down the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformations of these atoms is talking moonshine.”
~ Lord Ernest Rutherford
Clean, cheap green energy. OK, maybe impossible. What if it isn’t? Nuclear power is as close as we’ve come, and we’re pretty close. We have promising possibilities, but we don’t have our Tesla, our Einstein, our singular genius with a epochal insight.
If we can tap into such energy, we could set off a revolution in human living. Cheap green energy would be the staunchest enemy to our ancient foes: hunger, misery, and ignorance.
What if it is possible, but we don’t do it, and somebody else does? Is that a threat? Dunno. But speaking as an all-American, red-blooded flag waving radical lefty, I want it to be America that leads the way. America, fuck yeah! For real this time.
Germany is now producing nearly half of their daytime electricity with solar energy.
No way that was going to happen without subsidies to create it.
Deriding government subsidies for new technologies as “social engineering” is fucking stupid assed luddite-ism. Governments have always been involved in new technologies in one form or another going back to ancient days. What governments can do involves economies of scale, cooperation and investment that won’t happen otherwise.
Gore was going to run an exchange for the credits. Big polluter buys credits from small polluter-Gore gets a commission/cut.
So, if you don’t like change coming from the government, and you don’t like change coming from folks motivated by making a profit on it, where do you want it to come from?
The key is “daytime energy”-PV doesn’t work at night, or during those dark winter days that German is famous for. The Germans could have built nice new nuclear plants (self regulating pebble bed reactors). But the Green party prevailed..and now Germany is stuck with antiquated, expensive PV farms that don’t return the investment spent on them.
BTW-is there enough lead in the world to make batteries to store PV energy?
Who uses lead for batteries anymore? :dubious:
Prove it. Take your time, I’ll remind you.
I posted this link in the green car thread, but looks like it will come in handy here too:
They’re building 36MW battery for a 151MW wind farm. They aren’t the only guys doing it.
At this scale, flow batteries make sense (though you can build them as lithium-ion too). Flow batteries use vanadium pentoxide, zinc bromine, or a combination. There may be other chemistries, I am not an expert frankly.
IT departments use UPS batteries.
So? Power consumption is significantly higher during the day than at night. Which makes half of the daytime energy a pretty hefty chunk. Yes, it’s less than half, but that’s still a lot, for a non-fossil-fuel technology.
But no one is going to use lead-acid batteries for large scale storage.
That is the argument for government funding of basic research. Because the market will NEVER engage in it. The risk reward ratio to an individual company is too limited. I don’t think we should be funding companies, I think we should have a space program for alternative energy.
They signed up and even if they didn’t, there is a thing called a carbon import tax. If China doesn’t participate in a comprehensive global carbon regime, we tax their exports to pay for the carbon credits created that would put China in compliance.
“The majority of Solyndra funding was provided under Title XVII section 1705 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (as amended by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Title 1705 has provided $36 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects.[20] As of May 16, 2012, “The 1705 loan guarantee program has provided loan guarantees to projects worth $16.1 billion,” about 2% of total federal loan guarantees.”
The source of the Solyndra funds is not exactly a secret. The scandal with Solyndra wasn’t that government is funding alternative energy, it was that a company that Obama’s administration funded flamed out in a big way.
They tried to make hay over the fact that the government allowed the government guaranteed debt to be subordinated to subsequently acquired debt. I don’t know if this was legal but it is entirely routine for new lenders to demand priority over old lenders and then the old lenders have a choice, either let the new guy have priority or watch the enterprise go bankrupt and lose everything anyways.
cite.
I prefer really large pendulums as a method of storing energy
Other governments do. And if we’re playing international checkers, you don’t move, you forfeit.
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic but that’s actually an interesing topic.
I can’t find the article right now but I once read that really big heavy flywheels would be a good way to store energy and then convert it back to electrical power when needed. I would imagine you’d need some really good bearings though.
Adaher, I wonder if you would care to comment on this study at all?
Most specifically (to quote just a very short part)
Aren’t a couple of things obvious to you…
- “green” technology is the way of the future
- There is underinvestment from the private sector in green technology
- Govt funding will spur investment and let the US take the lead for the future.
And by the way…
Guess who leads the world in green energy investment?
And did you know about this?
But you know what? I’d be willing to bet that in 10 or 15 years, when the US is behind in green technology, it will be the right screaming the loudest about how US innovation was passed by because of stupid democrat policies
Flywheels can provide 120 wh/kg, compared with 25 for lead acid and 350 for lithium, from the chart on page 2 here.
I’ve wondered if a superconductor flywheel could work- if the thing floats magnetically, there would be very little friction…
Well if all you wind/solar advocates are correct, the widespread abandonment of fossil fuels should have the effect of decreasing oil and cola prices. Suppose Germany accomplishes the impossible, and is able to run its economy on solar and wind energy. What does that do to its coal-mining industry?
Seems to me that lower fossil fuel prices will just encourage places like India and China to use more of them.