George Rebane
Stimulus Package $787B (SP787) came with Obama’s promise of programs “laying the groundwork for new green energy economies that can create countless well-paying jobs.” – five million at latest count. Furthermore, the green energy industry would become an “engine of economic growth” to rival the computer revolution. Well, either the people inside the Beltway don’t know how to use the backs of envelopes for simple calculations, or, more likely, they know that the sheep don’t get caught up in any such mental exercises. In ‘Don’t Count on ‘Countless’ Green Jobs’ Max Schulz lays out some of the realities that are supposed to be beyond our ken as we’re busy singing hosannas to hope and change. Even a more hopeful article on recent progress – ‘Cost of solar installation has fallen in decade’ – reminds of the reality of solar power economics. We do need major technical breakthroughs (see below) not currently on the horizon. (For the so-inclined with pencils and used envelopes, consider that the average household uses about 50Kwh of electricity per day that in California costs about 14 cents per Kwh and compute the payback from installing solar power.)
Meanwhile our brave little county seems to be ignoring all of the stuff going on in the outside world, and is on a determined march to attract companies escaping California into one of the state’s highest risk business environments. All this is done without a shred of back-up to support that a reasonably intelligent person can understand. (RR and NC Media Watch readers have been made aware of this situation. So far the response from our leadership has been the sound of silence.)
On the brighter side, there is progress on using sunlight to make ethanol from CO2 and water vapor, two greenhouse gases. This is an example of how advances in science and technologies overturn the statist policies put in place to solve non-existing problems. Such bigger hammer policies, however, leave behind the noticeable residue of a more intrusive and expensive government.
rebanesruminations.com 
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