Supporters of nuclear energy have long known that the Renewables Lobby makes common cause with the anti-nuclear Greens, yet on the whole the Nuclear Industry has been reluctant to challenge renewables claims. The Renewables Lobby is anything but left wing. The most conspicuous spokesman for the wind lobby is the old swiftboater, T. Boone Pickens. Daily Kos bloggers Plutonium Page, and Devilstower describe how the ideological green crowd loves Pickens. When he isn't hanging out with his right-wing, global warming skeptic friend like Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Pickens is garnering endorsements from green sell outs like John Podesta the President and Chief Executive Officer of American Progress, and Sierra Club president Carl Pope.
Pickens is not interested in global warming although he pretends to be. Money is the only thing that really counts to Pickens. When an interviewer asked Pickens:
"What happens if Congress doesn't extend the $20-per-megawatt-hour Production Tax Credit for wind -- set to expire December 31? On a project this size, that's an $80,000 deduction every hour at full capacity."Pickens responded
"Then you've got a dead duck. It would be hard to go without a subsidy."Pickens and his sell out green buddies are not opposed to burning fossil fuels. When asked
"What about when the wind doesn't blow?"Pickens responded
"That's the problem with wind generation. You've got to supplement it with a gas-fired or coal-fired source so whoever buys it gets continuous 24-7 generation."The renewables lobby is the coal and gas lobby. In case you wonder, according to Semi-Politico
T. Boone Pickens owns Clean Energy Fuels Corp, which is the sole sponsor behind Proposition 10 in California, a bill that would add state funding for a number of "clean energy" initiatives. Clean Energy Fuels Corp runs natural gas fueling stations, and the natural gas industry would be one of the main benefactors of this energy bill.So when I posted about wind subsidies on Daily Kos yesterday, I got the T. Boone Pickens wind Zombie response.
Wind Zombie SteamPunkX, told me that he was a wind expert and how wrong I was, but did not tell me why. I suppose being a wind expert means you know how to blow a lot of hot air.
Wind Zombie kalmothannounced, "This is an Astroturf diary, boys and girl. Kalmoth excused his inability to respond rationally to my post by claiming, "It would take me half a day to describe all the ways in which you are wrong". Response would take much longer for a brain dead wind Zombies. kalmoth in true zombie fashion described me as "a double troll".
Wind Zonbie Mia Dolan, responded to my post with the words, "What a bunch of shit". She added, "since this is about Britain, what a bunch of shite".
This is about as articulate as Mia got, but what do you expect from a Zombie.
In another comment, Dolin was able to articulate, "You are in deed an assclown".
kalmoth responded in the best Zombie like fashion, "with this comparison, you will definitely offend some assclowns".
Wind Zonbie DocGonzo ranted, "Simpleminded Reactionary".
Thus despite the fact that the wind Zombies are serving the purpose of the right wind lobby, they categorized me a Republican, a simpleton and a reactionary.
Wind Zombie Eternal Hope described me as a "loser". Like all true Zombies, Hope thinks that every problem can be solved by a "winning attitude." Winning attitudes will not make the wind blow hard on hot summer nights.
There you have it, brain dead Daily Kos wind Zombies struggling to bite. T. Boone Pickens must be smiling. In 2004 Pickens had his swiftboaters, in 2008 it is the Daily Kos wind Zombies who do his work.
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10 comments:
You forgot to add two more Pickens wind zombies -- Dem Govs. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Brian Schweitzer of Montana, not exactly swift boat conservatives. Maybe, unlike you, they are rational. How it feel to be both wrong and on the wrong side of the wind energy issue?
anonymous, like all wind zombies, you do not debate, you insult. I suspect that like other wind advocates neither Governors Richardson nor Governor Schweitzer have subjected the claims of wind advocates to critical analysis. Wind Zombies seek to silence wind critics by personal attacks, rather than answering their criticisms.
Charles, I've always had a low opinion of anti-nukes, knowing them to be defiantly ignorant. Reading the comments to your Kos diary, though, made me cringe. When you confront delusions with information you expect rejection, but the spittle-laden insults coming from the Peter Pan crowd (if all the children in the world clapped their hands wind energy would work) would dismay the most jaded observer of the human condition. Even if the articles you referenced didn't prove the case against wind energy, which they certainly did, the blind, hate-filled responses you got would convince any sober reader that the supporters of wind energy are insane.
red craig, thank you for your comment. I would take the emotional age of these critics to be similar to that of immature Junior High School students. I seem to have attracted an emotionally retarded crowd.
Charles,
This graph:
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u304/wflamme/DE_2006-Stromexport_ueber_Windeinsp.png
from Germany shows (in 1 hr intervals) the Electrical Power Export of the whole of Germany into neighboring countries, graphed over the Electricity production of all of Germany's wind power fed into the grid.
Each dot represents 1 hr of power production. The horizontal zero axis would mean Germany produces exactly what it needs, no more and no less. Anything above the zero line is net Export. Below net import.
You can see, that when there is a lot of wind, a lot of that wind power has to be exported as it does not match demand. Contrarily, you see a lot of dots below zero when there is little wind. Which means Germany is importing. You can also see how well demand matches supply by looking at all the dots not on the zero line.
Anybody who can understand that graph can see how worthless wind power is.
BTW, Germanys feed in laws mean that wind power producers get 8 cents/kWh, regardless of demand. These 8 cents/kWh are ultimately paid by the electricity customers. Even when most or all of that electricity is exported for free.
The US does not have the luxury and grid connections to import or export a large fraction of the demand from Canada or Mexico.
I have experienced the name calling and accusations of being a liar by the wind/solar crowd. Whether their motivations are personal or professional like Pickens, doesn't matter much, in the end it's all about ego protection.
No one likes to be shown the mathematical proof that their ideas suck and amount to a scam. That said, I truly believe it is a mission for the pro-nuclear camp to take the high road and make as many friends of the cause as possible.
I have tried to do this with my blog by showing back-of-the-napkin math, drawings, and other comparisons to make a case for nuclear. There is strong support among democrats for nuclear. This voice is often drowned out by the noise but it is important to recognize.
href='http://pronucleardemocrats.blogspot.com/'>Pro Nuclear Democrats
kla, thank you for the information and observations,
Jason, welcome to my blog. I am also a Democrat. It is important to find allies, but the advocates of renewables have shown themselves to be for the most part, bitter enemies of nuclear power. We cannot ignore the fact that we are involved in a fight, and that the ultimate issue is which energy system is more consistent with human well being.
Jason, thanks for the link. I am a conservative, but I want the debate to be about how best quickly to develop and use nuclear energy, not about whether or not we should use nuclear energy. Name calling by either side gets us nowhere.
Charles, I am glad you have thick armor on your backside. Someone has to take the arrows from those who can't stand the truth.
There is a fair share of anti-nukes in Minnesota where I go to college. The state actually has an outright BAN on building any new nuclear power plants. It has been in place since the early 1990's that resulted from a legislative task force with an overractive imagination and an underactive mind when it came to analyzing the risks associated with nuclear power. There has been some unenthusiastic talk about lifting the ban, but it has not gone anywhere. Plus, Pawlenty signed a bill into law last year requiring energy companies in the state to generate one fourth of Minnesota's energy demand from "renewables". I do not see HOW that is even going to be remotely possible. It is almost like the same energy policy fantasy that the German Green party is advocating.
The Minnesotan renewables program is off to a great start, though as it rushes to build transmission lines from the proposed Big Stone II coal plant in South Dakota to the Twin Cities. Apparently, Minnesota is going to make up the bulk of demand for the power plant. The only reason that it is being built in South Dakota is to get around the tougher emission standards the state has. However, it could be worse as this thing might not get approved.
I suppose I should not expect very much from the energy policy of a state that requires that 10% percent of all of the automobile fuel sold is ethanol by volume. I wonder how long it will be before we have a huge push for corn ethanol-burning power plants. But I digress.
Donb & Charles,
Here is a better link since I made a mistake with the last one:
Pronuclear Democrats
I agree with you both and I see no good reason why energy has become an issue divided by left and right when it should only be about science and economics. That said, both republicans and democrats have endorsed some bad ideas about energy and neither of them is bold enough to create a grand vision for energy and implement it. I recommend both parties endorse a plan to 1) increase nuclear power production annually to 3.8 billion mWh 2) Finish and implement Yucca Mt. 3) Built at least 1 recycling facility 4) Implement small scalable, 4th Gen. nuclear & thorium facilities and 5) Make a plan to phase out most coal and gas for electrical power and redirect their use use toward liquid fuels and transportation respectively. Nuclear can be a friend to coal to do this as we know. Sure there are other minor points but I think that would bring us into the Energy Infrastructure 2.0 phase. Something I wish both Democrats and Republicans will agree on...for the sake of the country.
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