Saturday, October 24, 2009

Obama Lays Out His Energy Game Plan   [William Tucker]

President Obama didn’t mince words in his speech to a receptive audience at MIT on Friday. Renewable energy is the name of the game. 

The Recovery Act provides the largest single boost in scientific research in history. Let me repeat that: The Recovery Act, the stimulus bill represents the largest single boost in scientific research in history. (Applause.). . . The Recovery Act includes $80 billion to put tens of thousands of Americans to work developing new battery technologies for hybrid vehicles; modernizing the electric grid; making our homes and businesses more energy efficient; doubling our capacity to generate renewable electricity.

Moreover, anybody who doubts any of this is in for a rough time:

The naysayers, the folks who would pretend that this is not an issue, they are being marginalized. But I think it's important to understand that the closer we get, the harder the opposition will fight and the more we'll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to the much needed action that we're engaged in.

At the center of all this, of course, is the marvelous research being supported by stimulus money at MIT: 

Now Dr. [Ernest] Moniz is Director of MIT’s Energy Initiative, called MITEI. And he and President [Susan] Hockfield just showed me some of the extraordinary energy research being conducted at this institute: windows that generate electricity by directing light to solar cells; light-weight, high-powered batteries that aren’t built, but are grown — that was neat stuff; . . . efficient lighting systems that rely on nanotechnology; innovative engineering that will make it possible for offshore wind power plants to deliver electricity even when the air is still.

That last one is really interesting. Probably what’s involved is some kind of storage system or tapping of underground ocean currents. But it’s nice to keep that walk-on-water aura.

There was a picture accompanying most stories that showed Obama ogling in the lab while a scientist held a little windmill over his head. It’s important, however, not to forget the scale of these things.

For the first time, researchers in the United States will be able to test the world’s newest and largest wind turbine blades — blades roughly the length of a football field.

Just think, if you put one of those up over MIT’s Roberts Field, you could generate three . . .  count ’em, three . . . megawatts — or 1/500th the output of a standard nuclear reactor; and that’s only when the wind blows, which is about 30 percent of the time.

Wind power is now the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme and possibly the next subprime mortgage meltdown as well. As Professor Michael J. Trebilcock, professor of economics at the University of Toronto, said in testifying before the Canadian Parliament last April:

Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone). . . . Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen, the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.”

Yet nobody among our regnant liberal elite dares breath a word of this. Instead, countries that have failed at providing electricity with windmills simply move on to the next country telling everyone they’re doing great.  Vestas, the Danish wind energy giant, is the leading player in the American market with a 20 percent share. 

The inclusion of Dr. Ernest Moniz in Obama’s energy address is also interesting. Over the past six years, Dr. Moniz has been leading an effort by MIT scientists to reconsider nuclear power. Like any group of academics, the MIT group has been very cautious about embracing nuclear, but the general recommendations have been positive. Their 2009 update (click here for a PDF) concluded:

Compared to 2003, the motivation to make more use of nuclear power is greater, and more rapid progress is needed in enabling the option of nuclear power expansion to play a role in meeting the global warming challenge.

So was there any mention of nuclear in Obama’s 20-minute address? Yes, there was one phrase buried in a long list of alternatives about the need for “creating safe nuclear power” — as if the kind we have isn’t safe already.

Running even a small portion of this country, 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, on “renewable” energy would require Congress to repeal the laws of physics.  Don’t be surprised if they give it a try.

10/24 03:15 PMShare