Amid hundreds of graphs, charts and tables in the latest World Energy Outlook (WEO) released last week by the International Energy Agency, there is one fundamental piece of information that you have to work out for yourself: the percentage of total global primary energy demand provided by wind and solar. The answer is 1.1 per cent. The policy mountains have laboured and brought forth not just a mouse, but — as the report reluctantly acknowledges — an enormously disruptive mouse.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has in recent years become an increasingly schizophrenic organization. As both a source of energy information and a shill for the UN’s climate-focused sustainable development agenda, it has to talk up the “transition to a low-carbon future” while simultaneously reporting that it’s not happening. But it will!
This report should be profoundly embarrassing to the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, which has virtue-signalled itself to the front of a parade that is going nowhere, although it can certainly claim genuine leadership in the more forceful route to transition: killing the fossil fuel industry by edict.
The WEO report, yet again, projects that global fossil fuel use — and related emissions — will grow out to 2040, as oil, gas and coal continue to dominate the energy picture. But it also struggles to put a positive spin on wind and solar. Solar had a “record-setting” year in 2017. The Chinese solar business is “booming.” New wind and solar additions “outpaced those of fossil fuels in 2017, driven by policy support and declining costs.
“Policy support” means subsidies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As for declining costs, solar is at least twice as expensive a generator as coal and almost twice as expensive as gas.
Finally, and most significantly, the report confirms what should have been obvious from the start: the more “variable” wind and solar are introduced into any electricity system, the more they make it both more expensive and less reliable.
The term Variable Renewable Energy, VRE, could more accurately be described as Unreliable Renewable Energy, URE, due to the terribly obvious fact that the sun doesn’t shine at night, and sometimes not during the day either, while the wind doesn’t always blow. Thus the more that wind and solar are part of your system, the more technical contortions they demand from backup power and the structure of the grid. The efficient part of the system has to twist itself into a technical pretzel to accommodate the inefficient part. Accommodating unreliability has led to outright perversity. The widespread adoption of wind and solar under Germany’s Energiewende (“energy transition”) has resulted in rising overall emissions, mainly from coal-fired backup facilities. Meanwhile the green Godot is battery storage, which is always on the point of turning up, but never quite does. Still, the IEA has a scenario for that: “What if battery storage becomes really cheap?”
Supply isn’t the only area where expensive and unreliable wind and solar need to be accommodated. There is also “demand flexibility.” This includes having solar panels installed on your roof, or adopting — or being forced to adopt — “smart meters,” which can monitor a household’s electricity usage in minute-by-minute detail. According to the report, “The spreading of rooftop solar PV (photovoltaics) and the falling costs of digital technologies, combined with affordable wind and solar power options, are creating a host of new opportunities that enable consumers to take a more active role in meeting their own energy needs.”
But wind and solar are not “affordable,” and few people want to take a “more active role” in meeting their energy needs (That is, unless they are being heavily “policy supported” to stick solar panels on their roofs). They just want to flip a switch.
I read that the fact Wind Turbines and acres of Solar Panels are harmful to birds and back in 2015 the American Bird Conservancy sued the Dept of the Interior to invalidate a 5 to 30 year permit to allow for the talking of Protected Bald and Golden Eagles while the Greens and the M.S. Media turned their backs on the whole thing
What do people not understand about the simple fact that the Earth’s fossil fuel supplies are finite? They will run out. Renewable energy is not actually an option; it’s a necessity, and there’s limited time to make a transition—less than an individual human lifetime. This is so, even if you want to pretend that the rising atmospheric CO2 level is not a driver of global climate change.
Refer to the chart titled Years of Fossil Fuel Reserves Left. Refer to the following article, if you’re interested in the context in which the chart appears: Fossil Fuels
The economically recoverable supplies of petroleum and natural gas will both be exhausted in around 50 years—within the lifetime of most Americans who are currently 20 years or so of age, or younger.
@Greg: All they had to do was be honest, so much data manipulation, then say its a “settled science” and still want grants. Study of climate change doesnt solve the issue, subsidizing countries that pollute like crazy will not slow the carbon contribution. Geo engineering and climate control are not conspiracy theories they made it rain in VN in the 60s, Operation Popeye.
They lied so much we no longer believe anything they say. Now they want to openly alter the weather? The technology is covered under US Patent 4,686,605 on the “Method and Apparatus for Altering a Region in the Earth’s Atmosphere, Ionosphere, and/or Magnetosphere.” What could possibly go wrong? https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/sun-dimming-aerosols-global-warming-intl-scli/index.html
I, too, would love an array of solar panels on my roof (my southern-facing tall back roof is perfect for them) but without heavy subsidy, they are simply unaffordable. Companies offer to provide them but, along with government subsidies, can only match what we currently pay. What happened to “free energy from the sun and wind”?
@Greg:
Indeed, fossil fuels will one day be exhausted. Just as certainly, an alternative fuel will be used. However, wind and solar does not appear to ever be anything more than a supplement and another cheap source of energy is needed; as yet, of unknown origin.
The research into this new, unknown source of energy needs to be carried out vigorously but WILL not if energy costs are driven upwards to make wind and solar appear to be a good idea. Like socialism, if you have to make the option look terrible in order for YOUR idea to look reasonable, wind and solar will never be able to provide our needs.
The US has lowered its CO2 output even lower than the Paris Accord targets.
By previous estimates, we ALREADY have run out of fossil fuels… and the poles are ice free, the oceans have overwhelmed all shores and temperatures cooking us all. Just how resilient do you thing liberal credibility actually is? As the chart itself says, this does not take into account new discovery of reserves. Again, the left tries to obstruct those discoveries in order to substantiate their charts and graphs.
@Greg:
When did the Earth stop making fossil fuel? Give me a date, a year, an era.
And all are in agreement with that?
And you estimate that our “limited time” to transfer completely to renewable energy is how long?
Note that your chart also states that those values can change, based on discovery of new reserves, i.e. reserves not yet discovered.
This philosophy can only hold if you totally discount new discoveries, and a lack of any new technology that produces energy sources easier, safer and with greater efficiency and that the current technology will remain stagnate for 50 years.
@retire05: I would love to see the energy related patent applications the US government has declared threats to security there are 5000.
Wouldnt darkening the skies harm solar energy? 325 years of coal reserves.
@retire05: I graduated from college in 1972. I remember a lecture on campus speaking against fossil fuels. I don’t remember if it was pollution or global cooling (big at that time). We were told that there was most likely only enough oil to last 20 years and be gone by the turn of the century at best. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the term “peak oil” before another giant field is found. Renewable energy shares a common trait with it’s sister, anthropogenic climate change-they are both scams. I do hope someday someone is able to see just where the money went, outside of the millions in the goracle’s pocket.
@Bookdoc:
By the time you graduated, the “environmental” movement was in full force. Ten years earlier, the book Silent Spring had been released about the dangers of DDT. The entire world went into a panic of “We are all going to die.”
Never mind that the book was based on faulty science. And the cure (banning DDT) was worse than the ailment.
Remember the gas lines. We were told then we were running out of gas (a fossil fuel) but that, too, was a lie.
DDT, aerosols, fossil fuels, burning wood in stoves and fire places, name the “environmentalists” poison. But it was never about the environment. It has always been about control. Pure and simple. And a belief that there are those who are so smart they can outsmart Mother Nature.
When, and if, we do start actually seeing that fossil fuels will be a thing of the past, ingenuity and inventiveness will find an answer. Just as electricity replaced coal oil which replaced the very expensive whale oil, science will progress to give us the solution. In the meantime, the green weenies will continue to scream “We are all going to die.”
@retire05:
If the resource is being depleted as quickly or more quickly than it is being replenished, then it’s essentially the same thing.
@retire05, #5:
The fossil fuel resources that our civilization will be burning through over a total of 2 or 3 hundred years took around 300 million years for natural forces to produce. This has not been a continuously ongoing process, as the vast planetary swamps and forests of the Carboniferous Period ceased to exist at the end of that geological era. They are what define that geological era. Similar conditions on such a scale haven’t recurred on Earth since then.
All who understand the underlying facts and simple logic are in agreement. We’re presently consuming a finite supply of fossil fuels at a rapidly increasing rate.
Current projections indicate that we have about 50 years before the lights go out—or more importantly, before we can’t produce enough energy to maintain the mechanized farming we’re already totally dependent on to keep away global famine. Nuclear fusion might save us from the global catastrophe that would follow, but that’s a hope, not a certainty. Fusion reactors would make modern fission reactors look like grade school science projects, and we still haven’t even got those right. There are enormous challenges. Large scale utilization of solar energy is already technologically within our reach. We can’t afford to wait for 50 years before we get serious about it. That will be too late.
There are finite places to search. We’re already looking nearly everywhere we can get to, and often using questionable means to recover what we find. Fracking, for example, carries costs and dangers we’re trying to ignore—there are early warning signs of made-made geological instability, groundwater contamination, etc. There’s also a point where it can require too much energy to extract energy. Oil shale might turn out to be a case in point.
It has been calculated that using solar generators, it would only take 0.6% of the country’s land to provide electricity to the entire United States. To my way of thinking, it’s pretty much insane not to elevate such a project to the level of importance we formerly gave the Apollo program.
Given all the facts, it seems stupid not to do so. Our nation’s entire future could very literally depend on it. But it’s being strongly resisted—using all possible means, both fair and foul—by a fossil fuel sector more worried about their short term profits. I consider that to be something far worse than simply irresponsible.
We built a house in rural New Mexico. The power company told us…at the time…it would cost $78,000 to run power lines to our house (I did mention it was rural…). We explored the options available to us and went solar. Now our house is self sufficient with a combination of solar panels, batteries and a propane generator which runs around 2 days a month in the winter. Total cost was $55,000. The house runs on 220/110 volts and we cheerfully use our appliances and all just as if we were on the grid. We do use the energy saving light bulbs.
And we voted for Trump, believe that AGW is an absurdity, and find the liberal mind…which may be an oxymoron…unintelligible. Rather, we decided to free ourselves from a rapacious power company which wanted to overcharge us to run some copper to our house. Oh…we pay nothing to the power company and set aside around $2,000 a year to replace the batteries which look like they will be good for 10 years or so. The solar panels will…should…last about my lifetime.
It can be done. But it probably can only be done by individuals who want to improve their personal lives. The government…as usual… can’t manage it.
@Greg:
What will the price of nuclear fuel be from the people Hillary sold it to?
No we aren’t. The left fights exploration wherever they can. This furthers the fantasy that we can’t sustain our energy needs.
It’s not being resisted; it simply isn’t viable without heavy government subsidies.
@Gasjim: Congratulations on your energy independence, What cost you 55 K, how much more would it cost for someone that doesnt live in the desert? Where there are rainy seasons, real winter seasons? Triple or more? How many more panels will you need when the brainiacs decide they need to darken the skies to stop global warming? The technocracy “experts” making decisions for everyone really need to be re-educated, they will do this perhaps to the detriment of plants that need the sunshine, they threaten the bee population with the chemicals, bio diversity with industrial chemically dependent farming, ect ect ect.
@kitt: We bought around 35KWH of solar panels and around 1100 AH worth of batteries. Add a generator and charger/inverter and a couple of PV controllers and you get up to that range pretty easily. The key calculation is what you need to keep your house alive in KWH. Obviously that is available to you on your current electricity bill. We built the house from scratch and planned it around the solar use. If you are going to add it to a current house, it is both easier and more difficult…power use is going to be more than ours…and the numbers are already available. Make sense?
No idea where you live…clearly we are in an area where sun wins. You may be in an area where wind wins. There are a lot of advantages to a windmill, if you can site it. We would have gone that way, but our problem was the windmill had to be too far from the house (DC power comes off of the windmill…so it is hard to afford the copper to get it there). And…well, New Mexico.
Not worried about sky darkening…we have enough excess power…
Oh, and we live at 7,200 feet above sea level and we have real winters…
Jim
Greenpeace needs to stop sailing all over the globe producing a carbon footprint the size of 200 Football fields and making total pests of themselves
@James Harper: Dont miss the point you had freedom of choice, the technocrats will not allow this for the masses, no matter how badly it turns out. They are not elected and make choices that may not fit many individuals, never admit they are flat out wrong, hide the worst ramifications of their decisions. The epidemic of black on black crime is a ramification, the test scores of our educational system is a ramification, all set up by think tanks, experts technocracies with failed ideologies, Has 5 G been proven a safe technology, doesnt matter no one has a choice.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180924/08281340701/cities-counties-say-fcc-5g-plan-massive-handout-to-wireless-carriers.shtml
@kitt: Absolutely…we reveled in being able to make a choice. As far as the rest? I am going to retire to our NM redoubt in July of 2020. After that, the only wire that connects us to the world is our telephone line…and that may have to go. We are well armed, produce our own food, have a nice supply set aside of coffee, food and ammunition…and some booze. As to the rest? Good luck.
Jim
@Deplorable Me, #12:
The Uranium One story was largely a fabrication of right-wing hack writer Peter Schweizer, who makes a living selling politically useful lies to a gullible conservative audience. His conclusions are total bullshit, incompatible with a couple of easily verifiable facts:
(1) Clinton had no power to sell uranium to anybody. She was head of only one of eight governmental components that have a voting representative on the Committee on Foreign Investment.
(2) The Uranium One deal didn’t include an export license. Processed Uranium didn’t go to Russia, or anywhere else outside of North America.
This has probably been pointed out here a dozen times at this point, but the right-wing brain is apparently totally impenetrable to facts that don’t fit with their increasingly bat-shit crazy alternate reality.
A fusion reactor would most likely be fueled with deuterium, not uranium. Deuterium is a relatively plentiful isotope of hydrogen. It’s a component of sea water. There are other possible fusion reactor fuels. Uranium isn’t one of them. Uranium is used in fission reactors.
@Greg: No, the Uranium One story is one about Bill going to Russia, meeting Putin, getting a half-mil payday for a “speech”, then Hillary approving the sale of 20% of our uranium to a company they KNEW was controlled by Putin. THAT’S what it is.
The deal didn’t include an export license… but the material LEFT. It’s GONE.
Yeah, you’ve pointed out you are satisfied to look like a complete fool while blinding defending Obama and Hillary when the glaring evidence shows you are wrong, all while assuring us Trump is guilty of collusion with the Russians when, after three years of looking for it by legal and illegal means, not ONE shred of evidence shows that a valid suspicion. You’ve displayed that quite well.
How many fusion reactors for public power do we have up and running? Or planned?
@Deplorable Me, #19:
Nothing left. Nothing is gone, unless you want to count conservative common sense. How does it even make sense that it would have gone to Russia? Russia has proven uranium deposits of around 500,000 tons in the southern Urals and Siberia. They produce a lot more than they need. In 2017, the United States actually imported about 18% of the uranium we used from Russia.
The “20 percent of our uranium” Clinton supposedly “sold to Russia” isn’t even out of the ground. It’s an unmined resource in Wyoming. What Uranium One purchased are the extraction rights. It hasn’t gone anywhere, because it hasn’t even been mined yet. Possibly that’s why people are having trouble finding it.
None, as was pointed out, because the technology doesn’t yet exist to build one. Fusion reactors are still only a theoretical possibility, like warp drive, or colonizing and terraforming Mars. Check back in 50 or 100 years—assuming we turn out to be smart enough to avoid the global collapse of a civilization that couldn’t shake its addiction to fossil fuels. Idiots like Trump are setting the world up for an avoidable disaster. It’s all because they can’t make a quick buck from seeking solutions now, and rightly figure they’ll be dead before the worst consequences of their stupidity set in.
Solar power is not theoretical. It’s already real and could be rapidly expanded. Last year, the Japanese developed a new solar panel that’s over 20 percent efficient at converting solar energy into electricity. That’s a big deal, considering that sunshine is free, and we’ve got vast desert areas that could be used for collector grids. Far higher efficiencies than that may be on the horizon; possibly up to 90 percent:
Self-Assembled Carbon Nanotube Antennas for Solar Power Revolution
@Greg: There are plenty of people that would love to tear those smart meters off their house. When solar is affordable and can pay for itself well before it wears out the consumers will buy it. It would be nice if in addition to affordable it wasnt butt ugly to hang on the house or set up in the yard.
I remember solar house paint too what ever happened to that?
Ive been telling you its engineers that need to save the planet not grant sucking computer model climatologists that want to only tax and regulate.
@Greg:
Ah, Greg. When will you realize those supplying your thoughts are lying to you?
See above. Hillary is a liar. Obama is a liar. Making money off of selling a US strategic asset; you can’t get more liberal than that.
Arranging uranium deals for oppressive dictators nothing new for the Clinton’s
https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2008/01/clintons-multi-million-dollar-communist-uranium-deal/
FBI knew the Russians were bribing and worming their way into US uranium business but Obama/Hillary approved uranium deal anyway
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/355749-fbi-uncovered-russian-bribery-plot-before-obama-administration
Hillary lies about knowing of uranium deal
http://circa.com/politics/election-2016/clinton-warned-in-2009-memo-that-russian-uranium-moves-were-bad-for-us-europe
Clinton Foundation gets heads up about questions about Uranium One deal
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/08/wikileaks-putting-on-all-of-your-radars-clinton-foundation-warns-hillarys-campaign-grassley-asking-about-uranium-deal/
Russian company’s donations to Clinton foundation, Clinton speeches and approval of Russian control of uranium in US linked
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/22/nyt-clintons-failed-to-disclose-2-35m-donation-from-russian-owned-uranium-corp/
“None, as was pointed out, because the technology doesn’t yet exist to build one.” Where did you point that out? More likely, you didn’t think I knew anything about fusion generation. You tried to divert attention away from the subject of Hillary and Bill cashing in on selling our uranium.
Yeah, sunlight is free, but the cost of panels, transmission and storage makes it very, very, very, very prohibitively expensive.
@Deplorable Me: Government subsidies and “loans” to choose who in the market survives has nearly ruined the industry.
Same with college and health insurance. Add government instant crap.
The federal government puts out their cost projections for energy, called the Levelized Cost of Energy, or LCOE.
These numbers are supposed to act as a measuring stick that allows policymakers to determine which energy sources will best serve their needs, but these numbers are wrong because they assume all power plants, whether they are wind, coal, natural gas, or nuclear will have a 30-year payback.
period.https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/exposed-a-key-element-of-the-wind-energy-fraud.php
But the useful life of a wind turbine is only 20 years!
Coal and natural gas plants, on the other hand, can easily run for 50 years, and nuclear plants can run for 60 years.
So this artificially reduces the cost of wind power by allowing them to spread their costs over 30 years, when 20 would be much more appropriate, and it artificially inflates the cost of coal, natural gas, and nuclear by not calculating the cost over the entirety of their reasonable lifetimes.
(Here in Utah so-called “free” rooftop solar panels are only given an 18 MONTH guarantee! Cracks around the roof contact points that lead to leaks are common but not covered.)
Another point, how “green” are wind turbines?
The permanent magnets used to manufacture a 3-megawatt turbine contain some two tons of rare earth.
Rare earth processing in China is a messy, dangerous, polluting business. It uses toxic chemicals, acids, sulfates, ammonia.
The environmental problems include air emissions with harmful elements, such as fluorine and sulfur, wastewater that contains excessive acid, and radioactive materials, too.
(China’s air pollution reaches all the way across the Pacific to the West coast of the USA.)
Each 3 megawatt wind turbine costs ~$4Million to build & install.
1 megawatt hour can power 650 homes for that one hour.
So, a 3 megawatt wind turbine can power 1950 homes for as long as the wind is hitting it just right.
The efficiency of the wind turbine varies with the wind speeds, most of the time a wind produces only a 25% top capacity from the turbine.
What a waste of money!
@Deplorable Me, #22:
Look in a mirror, if you want to see someone whose head has been poured full of lies and nonsense. I’ve been capable of independent thought since I was about 12 years old. Those who don’t think for themselves quickly fall under the control of those who do their thinking for them. Thinking is not something you can trust an opportunistic charlatan like Donald Trump to do for you..
In post #10, to wit: “Nuclear fusion might save us from the global catastrophe that would follow, but that’s a hope, not a certainty. Fusion reactors would make modern fission reactors look like grade school science projects, and we still haven’t even got those right. There are enormous challenges.”
Yep. So it would seem. Uranium can’t be used as fuel for a fusion reactor. It’s only used in hydrogen (fusion) weapons to provide enough energy through fission to heat and compress deuterium and tritium to the point where fusion initiates. It would be impossible to do this with any expectation of and containment controlled energy release.
The right is fixated on Hillary, Bill, and Obama. They’re a maniacal obsession, and seem to be at the center of every current right wing suspicion and convoluted conspiracy theory. That is the right’s the distraction. What it’s distracting from is what would otherwise be totally obvious about Donald Trump. The man is a liar and a crook. He has surrounded himself with liars and crooks. His administration is appallingly corrupt. How he got into office in the first place appears to have involved criminal activity and collusion with a hostile foreign power. That’s being investigated by some very serious and highly competent people. When the investigation is completed, the facts will be there for all to see. That will be sooner rather than later.
@Greg: You start off using the term Fossil Fuel, news flash Greg, there is no such thing. PLEASE TRY to keep up ok? We understand it’s hard and sadly too many, myself included, attempt to correct you but you refuse to even begin to learn.
@Nan G: There was a great paper on how the Germans are trying to figure out how to get rid of the dead wind turbines. The blades are composite and can’t be, well anything. Then the huge concrete bases have to be dug out. Then as you alluded to the toxic materials in the units. Solar panels are the same thing, tons of toxins. You have people putting on panels with old roofs, then boom hit with huge bills. I will say that I have panels but I put them on when I remodeled and the supports were put in properly. I’ve got serious doubts that after 18 years I’ve paid off the cost of the panels, what with repair costs.
@Greg:
We are all capable of independent thought. Some (we’ll call them “liberals”) forgo that capability in favor of allowing a propaganda apparatus to supply them with a reality selected from an assortment; one that fits their predetermined conclusion.
How about that allusion to fusion generation, as if the loss through corruption of a fifth of our uranium is a minor consideration?
But that isn’t so important without any fusion reactors, is it? We need uranium for OUR reactors and Hillary traded it for personal cash. IF we or anyone else had fusion generators up and running you can bet she and Bill would be selling off our deuterium and tritium to whomever would make a “contribution” to the Clinton Foundation.
They have committed grievous crimes and should be punished. Meanwhile they and their minions accuse Trump of imaginary crimes and think they can simply wish him out of office. Talk about fixated… all due to not being mature enough to accept election results. Crybabies.
What is corrupt? Where is the corruption? Corruption is running guns to Mexican cartels to undercut the 2nd Amendment. Corruption is using the IRS, DOJ and FBI to attack political enemies. Corruption is KNOWINGLY allowing the Russians to take our uranium. You LIKE corruption, liars and criminals because you support and defend them on a regular basis.
No it doesn’t. Not in the slightest. What has been REVEALED is that Obama, Hillary and the DNC worked with the Russians to try and affect the election.
@Boris Badenov, #26:
There is such a term, which has been in common use for a very long time, and which has a very specific meaning:
Coal, peat, natural gas, petroleum… They’re all fossil fuels.
Did everyone on the right sleep through their elementary school and high school science classes? Terms such as this are very basic stuff. But then I suppose we must consider that an obvious fraud like Donald Trump has managed pull the wool over many people’s eyes.
What I mostly see are Trump’s topics and memes of the day popping up simultaneously across the entire right-wing echo box.
Where’s the thread supporting Trump’s threat to remove electric car subsidies as punishment to GM for not maintaining the party illusion of unstoppable economic expansion? It seems to be arriving late.
@Greg:
Really. Who keep clinging to that desperate hope that even though Obama conducted illegal wire taps and surveillance for over a year and found NOTHING and even though Mueller has “investigated” Trump for over two years and found NOTHING (even though all the evidence was blatant, glaring and laying around on the ground like 1848 California gold, golly gee whiz, that collusion (not the DNC/Obama/Hillary collusion, no nothing like THAT) is going to be found? All they have to do is look forever and question every person on the planet. How how about the belief that Hillary only deleted 33,000 emails just after they were subpoenaed only because they were just about yoga and weddings? That is real dedication to the dying liberal agenda.
No doubt part of GM’s financial problems is their dedication to their failed electric cars. But, since they kept the Mexican plants open, it appears labor costs is a large part of their problem. That would be the UNION labor they were not allowed to renegotiate because Obama bailed them out (screwing the bond holders in the process) instead of allowing them to reorganize under bankruptcy. But, that’s just another of Obama’s wonderful legacies. Failure.
The Trump administration is dirty. Mueller is the nation’s duly appointed janitor.
Electric cars are selling well globally. They’re perfect for urban and suburban environments. At the current rate of sales growth, it’s projected there will be 300 million on the world’s roads and highways by 2040. GM is wisely targeting that market. Trump’s trade war won’t last forever.
@Greg:
The Trump administration is clean as the driven snow until you solidly prove something to the contrary. Just like Kavanaugh, absolutely 100% innocent until PROVEN guilty and Manafort is more interested in grandstanding and headlines on leaks than finding facts. Facts do not further his purposes. He doesn’t care about facts.
@Greg: Really Greg, you need to learn something, do some research, not just copy paste. There isn’t one dead anything in the earth oil or the methane produced by the earths crust. The only thing dead is the Liberal lies. And they stink. Let me add one small thing, Greg, it’s suitable for your little mind, just where is all of that oil coming from that is filling in old dead wells? More dead Trannysaurs? That’s a heck of a lot of dead Trannysaurs and the such Greg. I’d give you a link or ten but you’re not worth it.
Maybe oil comes from the geologically transformed bodies of dead sock puppets, in which case the supplies may truly be infinite.
September 4, 2019 – Trump administration rolls back Obama-era lightbulb rules
*If you were looking for a metric to quantify the stupidity of this particular boneheaded policy reversal, there you go.
*If having choices that are more expensive, burn through more resources, generate more CO2, and diminish air quality as a result of burning more coal somehow make consumers “better off”, that might be true. Otherwise the statement is as stupid as the new rule reversing Obama Era light bulb efficiency standards.
@Greg: Not choice OMG!
Lets put heavy metals into the light bulbs making them more toxic to the environment and humans.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/led-lightbulb-concerns
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/2013/01/16/new.
Just like the more energy efficient an auto is made, thousands more die in accidents.
Liberals with ideas so good they have to be mandatory?
@Greg:
Gee… market pressure. What a concept. Competition.
I wonder if the government would stop propping up solar panel manufacturers if THOSE prices would come down or a better alternative might be found?
Obama’s edict is what brought us the disastrous CFL’s which won’t last 6 months, contain MERCURY and cannot be thrown away but through special designated centers.
Just something else of little or no consequence you liberals seek out to whine about to try and blind yourself to the progress and success Trump is bringing about.
CFLs last an average of 8,000 hours. They were a transition technology from the beginning, and are now being gradually phased out in favor of LEDs, which are even more energy efficient and last even longer.
There’s some lead and mercury in CFLs, but their adoption resulted in an overall reduction in the amount of lead and mercury being released into the environment because less coal must be burned to provide the electrical energy for an identical amount of illumination.
People have a right to make stupid choices. That doesn’t mean they have to be pandered to with wider variety of stupid options, when the consequences of their stupid choices affect the nation as a whole. Yes, your car must come equipped with seat belts; yes, your toddler must ride in a protective car seat. You would prefer to choose otherwise? Sorry. Your stupid choices have consequences for others, so you’re not going to be given the option. Deal with it.
@Greg: Most don’t last 20 hrs. Some last a long time. I started writing the installation date on them when I was replacing them repeatedly. Had a pile of them (you can’t just throw them in the trash) before I leaned Lowes takes them.
LED’s are much better, some are dimmable, they use less energy and last longer. I even replaced all the bulbs in my 5th wheel with LED’s.
CFL’s is the typical government mandated disaster.
@Deplorable Me:
Well, there you have it. In Greggie Goebbels’ world, if your choice differ from his, your choices will be removed and you can just “deal with it” well, because, you are stupid for not agreeing with him. And stupid people (in his mind) must be controlled. You will be told what to purchase, what kind of light bulb you can have, and totalitarians like Greggie Goebbels will be the ones telling you that. What is next? Telling you what doctor you will see, what car you will drive and taking away your firearm?
Totalitarianism. It is the credo of the Democrat (re: New Communist) Party and Greggie Goebbels is all for it. Perhaps he thinks he will be one of those running the lives of the rest of us.
What a disgusting person he is.
@retire05: Bernie intends to control the population, as in deciding who can procreate and what babies can live. What can go wrong with that? Full police state, socialist, totalitarian control.
@Deplorable Me: Its the China model look whats happening there with the one child policy, Bernie and the democrats are just stupid enough to repeat that major FUBAR. They love to repeat failed policies.