The 'green' energy credits that aren't

Bill Virgin wrote in the October 5 Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Wells Fargo & Co. announced this week that it is buying renewable energy certificates for 550 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy a year for three years. ...

But the buyers of those credits aren't actually reducing their electrical consumption from the local utilities who serve their offices, power that could come from coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydro, or even wind -- not through these transactions, anyway.

So what exactly do these transactions contribute -- beyond burnishing a company's environmental reputation?

The answer, not surprisingly, is that they provide a nice subsidy.

"What renewable energy credits do is provide a second revenue stream for wind developers," a Wells Fargo spokeswoman says. "It encourages development of more wind power" since it "becomes more profitable for them to do so. It pushes the market." ...

But what about the supposed environmental benefits to the energy-credit program? Wells Fargo says its purchase of wind credits will offset 40 percent of its electrical consumption and prevent the emission of 380,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

But if Wells Fargo isn't actually cutting its consumption of power, and the credits represent power that someone else has already bought (and would have whether or not someone acquired the credits), it's an incredible stretch to argue that the purchase of credits represents a reduction in emissions. Not one less lump of coal or cubic foot of gas will be burned because of this. The only heat generated is the warm-and-fuzzy feeling the buyer of credits hopes everyone gets from the publicity. [emphasis added]

wind power, wind energy, green tags, environment, environmentalism

Leave the fish alone!

As the BBC reports the recent report in Science, 'There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study. ... Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."'

Manage? How about leave alone? A lot of people don't have a problem here. They are vegetarian. It's a simple solution, scientist Steve.

animal rights, vegetarianism

On the wind plant proposed off Long Island

A couple of good reports from Newsday:

Oppose wind power? You must support breast cancer

Pay (much) more for (much) less

wind power, wind energy, wind farms

Heating up

Peter Kurth ("Crank Call") writes in this week's Seven Days:

"I’m sure you, like all of us, are doing everything in your power, in your little bitty way, to prevent the looming calamity of climate change, such as switching your light bulbs and walking to work. But let’s face it: Until the whole screeching, screaming, over-producing, mass-consuming culture of predatory capitalism comes crashing down around us, this planet’s going to keep on heating up."

environment, environmentalism, Vermont

The military is not sacred

Sam Smith (Progressive Review) wrote an excellent piece yesterday about the worship of the military by Americans. It closes:

I sometimes fantasize that war will be the slavery of the 21st century, which is to say a concept once widely accepted is turned into the pariah practice it should always have been. For this to happen abolitionism will have to replace pacifism; it is not the good of the resister that is important but rather the evil of the practitioner. We need to demystify the military, pointing out not just its moral weaknesses but its logical fallacies. We should sensibly regard people who walk around with pins on their chests celebrating their life as, at best, somewhat unstable. And we need to remind the media that it can not call itself objective and repeatedly rebuff the voices of peace. [emphasis added]

A letter from a local progressive activist a while ago decried the Iraq escapade but also expressed pride in thanking returning soldiers for doing their best. But military service is voluntary, and this far into the occupation any soldier involved is a willing actor in the crime, a willing servant of the psychopaths in Washington.

The responsibility is not Bush's team's alone. The president cannot wage war without the approval of Congress, which has never hesitated to keep the money flowing and to buy into the legalization of torture, extrajudicial detention, and unwarranted spying. Responsible, too, are all of the nation's governors, not one of whom refused the deputization of their National Guard forces for an illegal war.

As Smith suggests, perhaps the peace "activists" are mostly interested in showing how good they are. They don't ask why a man abandons his family to be with his friends in Iraq, as if it's just a weekend hunting trip -- no, they thank him if he survives and mourn him as a victim if he is killed. When such an avatar of militaristic evil as John Negroponte comes to town, they cower, "sensitive" to the feelings of their neighbors. Not only is every soldier responsible for choosing to participate in Bush's madness, but so many pacifists and leftists also validate the fetishization of force.

It is like honoring George Bush for not being as much of a drunk as he once was. So he can drive the getaway car more safely. Slavery is wrong, no matter how "good" the slaveowner. There is no noble war, and there are no noble warriors.

Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism

Endorsements

Jim Hogue (Green Party and supporter of Second Vermont Republic) for Governor.

Pete Diamondstone (Liberty Union and Socialist Party USA) for U.S. Senate.

Vermont

Stretching and ignoring the facts about wind power

Glenn Schleede has written a new paper about industrial wind energy, mostly looking at the economics: "Stretching or Ignoring Facts and Making Unwarranted Assumptions When Attempting to Justify Wind Energy." It can be downloaded from the National Wind Watch Resource Library. Here is the outline of section D, which concisely lists the issues to be weighed.

D.	Facts about wind energy that are often ignored by federal, state and local officials when considering wind energy policies or facilities
	1.	Electricity produced by wind turbines is lower in quality and value than electricity produced from reliable generating units.
	2.	Building wind turbines will not replace the need for building reliable, dispatchable generating capacity.
	3.	Published information on the cost of electricity from wind per kWh generally is not valid or reliable.
	4.	True costs of electricity from wind are much higher than often admitted because important elements of cost are ignored.
		a.	Federal and state tax breaks for wind energy are part of the true cost of electricity from wind.
			1)	Two very generous tax breaks are available from the federal government.
				•	The wind production tax credit (PTC) of $0.019 per kWh for electricity produced during the first ten years of a wind facility's operation.
				•	The ability to deduct the entire capital cost of a "wind farm" from taxable using 5-year double declining balance accelerated depreciation.
			2)	"Wind farms" enjoy other tax breaks from the state.
			3)	Other subsidies are also a part of the true cost but are hidden in either tax or monthly electric bills.
		b.	The intermittent, volatile and unreliability of electricity from wind turbines also adds to the true cost of that electricity.
		c.	Adding transmission capacity to serve "wind farms" adds to customer costs.
	5.	Local economic benefits of "wind farms" are generally exaggerated.
	6.	Environmental benefits of wind energy are typically overstated.
	7.	Wind energy advocates try to ignore adverse environmental, ecological, scenic and property value impacts of "wind farms."

wind power, wind energy