From home of the weather station that started it all, Marysville, CA their small town newspaper writes a scathing opinion on the California Air Resources Board.
They get it. The problem is that people that make up CARB are like clueless Al Gore clones. With a recent 340% error exposed, CARB is going along like nothing has happened. The problem is CARB chief Mary Nichols, who sees herself and her organization as above the democratic process.
Our View: Air board’s arrogance damaging
California seems intent on traveling a road to self-destruction paved with government mandates and regulations that drive businesses and jobs out of state while discouraging new job creation. A prime job-killing, business-punishing scheme is the insistence on achieving radical environmental goals, despite their real-world economic liabilities.
The California Air Resources Board has adopted a mandate that utility companies produce 33 percent of their electricity from so-called renewable resources by 2020. That’s a drastic increase over the previous 20-percent requirement, which the state still is nowhere near achieving. For some perspective, Congress, firmly controlled by a Democratic majority, refused to hike its renewable requirements even to the 20-percent level.
Compounding the state air board’s error is its arrogance. Even the state Legislature, controlled by left-leaning Democrats, failed this year to impose such an over-the-top requirement. But neither Congress nor the state Legislature’s reluctance dissuaded the Air Resources Board’s unaccountable bureaucrats from going where elected representatives fear to tread.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that air board boss Mary Nichols says the 33-percent standard is important because it “sends a strong, positive message to the market.” The market will get the message, alright. That’s part of the problem.
The message is that California energy prices will soar, on top of the added costs of huge taxpayer subsidies that will be needed to finance so-called renewable energy sources. Wind, solar and geothermal energy are all economically infeasible without massive subsidies.
Like the huge amounts of taxpayer dollars already wasted in government subsidies for the ethanol industry, other renewable-energy endeavors are likely to face similar fates. In Spain, where large tax-financed subsidies spurred its solar industry, 50,000 subsidized solar entrepreneurs now “face financial disaster” as the government realizes it can’t afford to continue propping up the industry with price guarantees, Bloomberg reports. Not only can’t Spain afford to continue subsidies that paid 10 times the wholesale price per kilowatt-hour, but for every new “green” job created by the subsidies, more than two normal jobs were lost.
Without generous tax breaks and subsidies, wind power costs $149 per megawatt hour compared with $100 for coal, according to estimates from the Energy Information Administration.
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Read the full editorial here
IMO, CARB is a clear and present danger to the livelihood of people of California, it is unchecked bureaucracy gone mad.
Addendum:
Since November 2nd, I’m getting a 3x increase in SPAM inviting me to move to/incorporate my business in Nevada. Given what lies ahead for business in California, the idea has merit.
There’s an old saying: “If something can’t happen, then it won’t happen.”
No way California can replace one-third of its energy production with renewables. It won’t happen.
When it becomes clear that this arbitrary number can’t be reached and the costs will be huge, the blame game will start. We should already be spreading the word that the problems and the cost is entirely the fault of the Democrat Party. They are not the old JFK Democrats. That party has been hijacked by ultra leftist billionaires, and now it represents very rich socialists and communists, not working people. It’s their fault these things are happening. It’s their fault energy costs will skyrocket. It’s their fault that unelected CARB bureaucrats have legislative power. Spread the word.
Christopher says:
November 13, 2010 at 1:11 pm
You have to understand. I dont even like Beck but he is correct is in his mantra. If you want change in a established country, you have to collapse the original system first. Its not some unknowing-bungling bureaucracy going awry here. Its a well thought out, well funded organization built with a purpose other than the one they front as being for. This group is designed to cause anger and dissatisfaction among the general population. After all Revolutions never occur when things are stable.
Quite so. But the purpose of revolutions is to revolt against the thing that is making the general population angry. Are you saying that the underlying purpose of this fiasco is to make Californians revolt against green energy? Because if so, they are going the right way about it (and more power to them in that case, I say).
Was’t Mary Nichols the name of the first victim of Jack The Ripper?
Bravo Appeal-Democrat! I always liked Marysville. Wife and I stayed with Friends there. Loved watching SR-71’s in the Pattern at Beale. Wife, and I in friend’s backyard.
warm fall afternoon, an SR-71 just blasted over town in after burner. Wfe said,
“Oh look at that Black Bird! what is it called?” I said:”Blackbird.” miss those times
and people…
New search engine term of the day is “Climategate”.
Google over and over again “Climategate” in Bing, Google, and Yahoo search and get Climategate in the top of the news again, just like Infowars does. November 19th is the anniversary of the climategate email release and we should be planning a big celebration for that day.
@Chemman
The power companies should collect the names of those who object to renewable schemes, and prioritise their properties as the first to be cut off from power in the event of shortages, followed by other supporters of this dimwit legislation.
It is only fair that those that advocate most strongly for a return to the dark ages should be the first to enjoy the experience.
Well – here in the United Kingdom La-La Land, our deluded politicians are aiming for an 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050.
EIGHTY PERCENT..! Can you credit it..? Basically, we might as well all go back to living in caves and emerging now and then to grind some corn (in a windmill, obvously) – what we do with it then I’m not sure – can’t stick it in the oven to make bread, that’s for sure – and as for lighting a fire to roast a pig…
The cost of this lunacy is to be £18 billion a year (no, that’s not a typo) for the next forty years. Who’s paying..? Yep – you’ve guessed it….
The thing is, Coal will get more expensive; Wind won’t.
When oil spiked to $147.00/barrel in 2008 Coal went to $140.00/ton (and, actually, briefly went to $160.00/ton.)
On Jan 1, 2011 Ethanol will be cheaper to use than gasoline. AND, it will no longer be Subsidized. Yes, that is correct; the fairly minor amount the government has invested in ethanol (and, that was spent right here in the U.S. for U.S. jobs, manufacturing, transportation, farming, etc.) has given us a fuel that is more powerful, and less expensive to use (in a modern engine) than gasoline.
However, the $52 Billion the Government spent subsidizing Fossil Fuels last year have given us nothing but a more expensive Addiction.
There is a common problem in all Western democracies, developed or developing. The government bureaucracy runs the show. Theoretically answerable to the elected government, the elected government depends upon the bureaucracy to shield them from criticism by the citizenry. The result is that the bureaucracy grows and increases its power all the time, unchecked by the elected government.
The only remedy for this is to take away the cookie jar. Government should be limited to governing, not ruling and controlling and dictating.
Hi …A new thread on ATS for any spirited folks to take up the gauntlet ….Normal” Arctic Climate is Now Obsolete …………………….”It’s really frustrating to hear of such irreversible climatic changes, especially when so many people have hopped on the bandwagon of pretending it isn’t happening. I’m not normally somebody who’s afraid of change… but climate change is one of those terrible global changes that we DON’T want to see happening. What do those of us who care do when the polar caps melt before our eyes? How can the momentum of this train of fossil-fuel based energy economies be stopped in a timely manner? Unfortunately, the media, the public, and the government have hopped on their own train of “let’s compromise with industry, take our sweet a** time, wait till somebody else acts first, and not really do much about it until it’s too late”. As many people have said before… humanity is a terribly immature species in its handling of “civilization” and our planet. It’s my contention that this planet is NOT here for us to own or manage, and that instead we are an equal part of the biosphere as any other species, regardless of our great intelligence/curiosity. I hope to see the day when we clean up our act.” http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread629872/pg1
Now normally I might make a comment like,Great like what would be wrong with the Natives growing their own fruits and vegetables but as always there are some AGW’s that come on spewing more graphs and scientific jargon to make a simple person like myself regret the ever hit the reply button ….so please , embrace the challenge….who knows you may find one convert,but it is more likely most already know ….peace
Capitalism and industry are the enemy. These nitwits see themselves as post-Industrial collectivists who must have certain privileges that they deny others in order to bring about the necessary change. Elites disciplining the unwashed peasants.
e. c. cowan says:
November 13, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Can the EPA do on a national scale, what CARB is doing to California? Reduce or outlaw the production of C02?
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REPLY: They’ve already started. This article came out a few days ago, and provides the link to the Title V document:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/10/10greenwire-epa-issues-guidelines-for-states-permitting-fo-82460.html
“U.S. EPA has released a long-awaited guidance document that instructs state and local officials how to start issuing permits for power plants, refineries and other large stationary sources of greenhouse gases when EPA’s new climate rules take effect next year.
State and local officials will need to absorb the information by Jan. 2, when they must begin requiring the best available control technology for greenhouse gases at new and modified facilities.”
I predict that, despite their bluster, Congress will be powerless to stop this. EPA has a Supreme Court ruling on their side, and they operate under a different branch of government (White House). Congress can attempt to limit funding or force changes, but that won’t succeed.
Watch this story develop over the next few weeks, it’s huge.
I’ll put it more bluntly
Draft Letter to: Mary Nichols, Chief of CARB, and all supporters whether Democrat or Republican
When due to your policies, California has power shortages, do you, by supporting these policies agree that, your household power supply should be terminated as a priority, along with all your company and office (including political) power supplies, in favour of people who oppose you?
Why should your opponents suffer from your foolishness?
Please feel free to copy and paste
It is clear that Californians are afflicted with some disease that enters their brain and makes them crazily spend money they don’t have. The federal government is just as diseased for forcing the other 49 states to give California $10 billion per month to continue to feed California’s spending addiction. Let’s just let California crash into the rocks and sink so that we can use them as an example of what happens when you let idiots man the helm.
the2ofusr1 says:
“but climate change is one of those terrible global changes that we DON’T want to see happening”
Huh? You make no sense. Are you saying we can stop the next ice age, which is due to happen in 2000 years or so??
The solution is easy.
Mandate (as long as everything else about it is mandated, this can be too) that electric service to ‘windies’ will vary directly with the wind’s power input into the grid.
When the wind doesn’t blow, their lights don’t glow. Currently available electronics and metering devices can surely implement the above.
Then no nasty backup generators are needed at all for the wind-power loving community.
They can choose their own alternate power strategies for calm days, and their self-righteousness will remain unblemished.
Ok. I see a lot of people here are putting two and two together. Let me put a large piece of the puzzle in there for you.
$50 Billion dollars spent on the police state per year. I think I know exactly what this exercise is all about.
See the latest episode of Jessie Ventura’s Conspiracy Theory titled “Police State”. And no, it’s not a theory. It’s in 1080P and you can see it with your own eyes on TV.
This is an amazing article.
Big Sis Forced To Respond To Nationwide Revolt Against TSA
http://www.infowars.com/big-sis-forced-to-respond-to-nationwide-revolt-against-tsa/
For you who don’t think you are being played, you are incapable of recognizing you are being played, like a fiddle.
Alex Jones: The Real Pyramid of Power
the2ofusr1 says:
November 13, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Why would I waste my time? As soon as I hear someone refer to our planet as “the biosphere” I know I’m listening to a deluded and green cretin, and I immediately back away.
Alex Jones: The Real Pyramid of Power
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHHw1ihH1iw ]
“Kum Dollison”, the energy density of ethanol is *lower* than the energy density of gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. It’s also difficult to see when it’s burning which makes for nasty burns after accidents, and is corrosive enough that many vehicles cannot be cost effectively modified to allow its use.
Since it is great at mixing with water which it can suck right out of the air, in very cold weather you can actually have ice crystals form and block fuel lines. So if you’re driving you pull to the side of the road while you can, and if you’re flying, you land somewhere you’d rather not land.
In short, even if you can produce the ethanol putting in less energy than you get out, it’s a lousy motor vehicle fuel.
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I would like someone to put a copy of the Rules of Behavior(ROB) PDF for InfraGuard on the web.
Kum Dollison says:
November 13, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Kum,
Please cite your information sources for the assertions you made:
1. Unsubsidized ethanol cheaper than gasoline (USA?).
2. Ethanol ‘more powerful’ than gasoline.
To my knowledge, these assertions are not true but your sources could change my mind…..
Kum Dollison says:
November 13, 2010 at 3:44 pm
The thing is, Coal will get more expensive; Wind won’t. ”
You are correct but not for the reason you think; here is the reason:
“Under my plan electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket” Barak Obama speaking of the coal industry.
It does not have to be that way.
We need a new word along the lines of “schadenfreude.” Over the years, I have managed to pretty much avoid falling victim to schadenfreude. But what is happening in California gives rise to a delight in the misfortunes of others that is not schadenfreude. What is the difference? Part of the difference is that the people who are bringing this 1,000 year calamity onto the state of California are arrogant control freaks who believe that they must whip into shape the scientifically illiterate vast unwashed that we are before we destroy the environment, the poor, academia, the transnational elites, puppies, and kittens. These control freaks are hopelessly and grandly self-destructive. In my own case, I think it is knowing just how dangerous these people are how wonderful it is that they are totally self-destructive that gives me such pleasure. Imagine if all public meetings organized by Hitler or his associates had turned into internal brawls with fifty percent casualties. I think that is the source of the pleasure. What is the word?
How can a state government run a large budget deficit? California can’t print its own money. Most state constitutions require a balanced budget, and most states adhere to one, as they have no choice.
/Mr Lynn