Christopher Horner reports that Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal document confirming Spain realizes its green failures, just as Obama pushes the American Power Act based on Spain’s program.
Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal assessment produced by Spain’s Zapatero administration. The assessment confirms the key charges previously made by non-governmental Spanish experts in a damning report exposing the catastrophic economic failure of Spain’s “green economy” initiatives.
On eight separate occasions, President Barack Obama has referred to the “green economy” policies enacted by Spain as being the model for what he envisioned for America.
Later came the revelation that Obama administration senior Energy Department official Cathy Zoi — someone with serious publicized conflict of interest issues — demanded an urgent U.S. response to the damaging report from the non-governmental Spanish experts so as to protect the Obama administration’s plans.
Most recently, U.S. senators have introduced the vehicle for replicating Spain’s unfolding economic meltdown here, in the form of the “American Power Act.”
But today’s leaked document reveals that even the socialist Spanish government now acknowledges the ruinous effects of green economic policy.
Full story here:
Of course. On the front page of my local paper is an article detailing how natural gas customers can expect a 20% decrease in their heating bills this winter because we are drilling for natural gas here in Pennsylvania and the increased supply is bringing the heating bills down, thereby furthering prosperity. Also, Governor Rendell is calling for increased taxes on the drilling operation. When we drill for gas or oil, there is tax revenue produced and energy costs go down for consumers, thereby enriching our government and the consumers. More money is available to spend, the economy improves.
But when we construct “pixie-dust” alternative energy the exact opposite occurs. The government has to pay to construct the alternative energy, because no person would be silly enough or foolish with their money to consider these sources as “energy”, and then the consumers in addition, have to pay more for energy, even with the tax subsidies.
Traditional Energy = WIN/WIN
Alternative Energy = LOSE/LOSE
For reference purposes, here is an article about the previous damning report from April, as I just found from a link at Michelle Malkin’s mention of it. (Hey tarpon, you still stand by that comment? Is A123 Systems still that great?)
Both sites have the link to the report (pdf).
Interesting info in the Executive Summary, and yes I handpicked bits I find interesting:
It’s worse than we thought.
I’ve long heard that “2.2 jobs lost” figure around here. However, that’s 2.2 directly lost on net per green job created. And only 1 in ten is permanent, so 3.2*0.9 + 2.2*0.1 yields 3.1 old jobs lost over time, period. And every “green” megawatt installed is destroying 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy. Yup, that’ll add up.
From this I can see two possible conclusions that can be reached:
1. “Green energy” is a job-killing monster that will destroy our economy.
2. We can keep installing “green energy” until everyone is out of work, which won’t matter since we’ll be awash in free energy thus no one will need to work anyway.
The job loss is a linear trend, just like atmospheric CO2 concentration and global temperatures, and the current US government is spending us out of a hole created by debt. So #2 is looking really good and totally possible. We can do it! Yes we can!
I’ve been living in Europe for 20 years, and believe me, it’s not just the wind generators that are a disaster, i.e. fiscal and social policy – Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal…and the rest will follow if something isn’t done soon).
Milio, your English is good. You do not need to apologize.
Here in Minnesota we have no coal or oil. So we could also say that our cost is cheaper to import than produce locally.
Warren
Re: kadaka (KD Knoebel) on May 18, 2010 at 11:59 am
Whoops. Did I add those jobs up correctly? I may have mis-interpreted how those “elsewhere in the economy” numbers work together between the jobs-per-jobs and jobs-per-megawatt figures.
But it’s still shocking that only 1 in 10 of those great “green jobs” is actually permanent. Ouch.
Just north of the Montana border in Southern Alberta, where the wind reliably blasts in from the west through the Rocky Mountains, is a really large group of these ugly wind thingies. They’re almost always spinning away at speed, day and night, winter and summer. Supporters say it’s one of the few locations that wind power actually makes sense, and I’d tend to agree (luckily I don’t live there).
Mile after mile of giant, roaring, humming blades spin hour after hour. It takes 1/2 hour at highway speed to get through the infestation. Eagles, falcons, hawks, owls, ducks, Canada geese, and other birds regularly travel through that same mountain route.
Meanwhile, in Calgary there is a mall… a single shopping mall… that claims to be powered by this huge wind farm. Just one single mall. So I checked it out, and sure enough, the approximate output of this huge array of bird slicers approximately matches the power usage of that mall. And only that mall.
Years ago when I was 15, my first job was in that mall. I happen to know they have a backup generator, and it sits in a room beside the garbage bins. The size of the generator is about the same as the size of my car. When it’s running it is not much louder than my car. It has never sliced a bird in two, has never kept hundreds of local ranchers awake at night from the noise, and has never blighted thousands of acres of otherwise beautiful rolling landscape. Nobody ever printed brochures and pamphlets and newspaper ads bragging about the backup generator. They never set up a kiosk in the mall extolling the virtues of the generator. Nobody has ever postulated hundreds of jobs of any color based on the operation of that generator (I’m sure the maintenance guys sometimes check it over, though). Also, they never hooked up the generator to the power grid, then claimed they were powered by it.
If these are “green” jobs, and this is a “green” industry in a “green” economy, then they are about as honest as climatologists.
So I suppose the syllogism as follows:
a)Spain is onthe verge of public debt meltdown.
b)America does not wish to be exposed to the contagion of that meltdown.
c)Therefore America must pressurise Spain to clamp down on its public debt, while emulating the green energy policies that are powering that debt…
Is it absolutely necessary to have a reality bypass to be in a government these days, or does that just help?
The Greek economy has gone into meltdown. It is swiftly being followed by the economies of Spain and Portugal. The UK economy is hardly in a fitter state. The UK is swiftly approaching an energy crisis and what is our new Prime Minister going to do about it?
Well judge for yourselves…
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/05/doomed.html
Calling Camoron (spelling intentional) and his coalition/liberal sidekick Chris Huhne (who is our “not gonna renew nuclear and fossil fuel power stations” energy and environment minister), cretins is a massive understatement. Their policies, if carried out, will herald a new Dark Age.
With something like 40% of our generating capacity about to be lost through shut downs in the next few years, courtesy of aging power stations and nuclear reactors, we expect that Huhne will employ magic moonbeams and fairy dust to provide what wind turbines fail to generate. He certainly won’t be filling the energy gap by any sensible conventional means. Should we remind him that we are on a similar latitude to Hudson bay and the climate is cooling?
We are so screwed. :0(
Hey, a bit OT, but just in time to provide comic relief at the ICCC4 – NOAA today announced that Jan-Apr 2010 was the WARMEST EVAH!!!!!
History about to repeat itself….
The socialist are experts in newspeak. They managed to carry on for quite a few years in the USSR.
This report will give wavering congressmen the justification they need to vote No on cap and trade. This plus the ongoing monetary crisis.
I have no other explanation, except the political left willingly wants to destroy the success of capitalism, when they did not succeed it in open competition Soviet bloc vs West. In the process, they want to create a mass of citizens depending on state and thus to create indestructible base of their future voters.
Do something, because if you fail, we will wake up being loaded into trains like cattle again.
Mayan prophecy or reality check?…:For December 21st. 2012 all “developed” countries will be broken thanks to green policies, then the UN will proclaim Al Gore as World Regent.
Serious materials is a takeover subsidized window company. They went broke after the mortgage meltdown. They shafted a lot of creditors. The weatherization boondoggle is feeding the shark. The windows get subsidized to the homeowner but on the way, the price tripples. Cube farms, bureaucrats, approvals, paperwork and tax subsidies are behind the windows.
Nothing that we don’t know for several months here in Portugal and Spain. The worst things about green energy that one can imagine are happening here and in Spain! Please find more in my blog, despite it being in Portuguese. More details can be given: send me an email (top left side of the blog).
Ecotretas
I tried to post a comment on YouTube under the Serious Materials video (above). This is what I wanted to say:
“I encourage all of you to read the fallacy of the broken window:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
All ‘green jobs’ fall under this fallacy. While the 150 people at this factory will benefit, they do so at the cost of all other tax payers who subsidize the factory and consumers who buy the expensive windows to avoid the artificially high cost of fuel (under Obama’s energy plan). The result for the economy is negative and more than 150 jobs will be lost elsewhere.”
Apparently Serious Materials doesn’t want people to point out the ‘scheme’ they are participating in with the administration. I can’t really blame them.
This is old news here. This has at least three weeks: http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/04/bons-ventos-de-espanha.html
Ecotretas
“No more than most of us expected. No doubt Obama won’t get around to reading it, as his sole purpose appears to be to destroy the United States as we know it.”
No doubt he won’t read it – the people in this administration can’t even read a 10 page bill from Arizona about immigration law.
I think UK will fold before Spain, since they’re already on the brink of being on the dole in EU like Greece.
Personally I think France ought to be the on to go second, since they didn’t have the decency to go first, what with being the sole reason, and almost the sole beneficiary, for massive subsidies for farming and agriculture, almost half the EU budget goes to that idiocy, even though the effects are known negative.
Political corruption seem to be the norm when it comes to all things “green governing” and crap like it. They always need hand outs, for ever.
Energy efficient windows? LOL
I can’t believe Americans are making a big deal out of double glazing and politicians get involved. We’ve had them in England for decades.
But then again, England’s elite taxed us for having windows a couple hundred years ago…
This “leaked document” is just a slide show presentation. It describes some pros and cons of Spain’s energy policies. (E.g., too much emphasis on solar.) It does not confirm claims made in the controversial study critical of Spain’s green economic policies. This has little to do with current debates about U.S. energy/climate policy.
UK Sceptic,
“Calling Camoron (spelling intentional) and his coalition/liberal sidekick Chris Huhne (who is our “not gonna renew nuclear and fossil fuel power stations” energy and environment minister), cretins is a massive understatement. Their policies, if carried out, will herald a new Dark Age. ”
It becomes stranger with each passing day. First Cameron appoints Huhne as Minister for energy and climate change to oversee the destruction of the UK energy base, then he appoints Charles Hendry as Minister of Nuclear development to cancel out Huhne.
It’s starting to remind me of the nursery rhyme about the old lady who swallowed a fly, and then swallowed a spider to catch the fly, and then a bird to catch the spider etc. Who will Cameron swallow next to cancel out Hendry?
About Serious Materials windows.
They are made with fiberglass and foam or vynyl frames. Neither material is recycled nor will it be recycled. Not wood from trees of course. It would cut their profits.
How about them windows made prom crude oil products? But get this, they get the big Energy Star because they are double glazed.
60 million dollars raised from “green” investors. If you put green colorant in wallboard, you can double the price. They sell sheetrock also. The sermon on the environment they provide is included at no charge.