Guest post by Robert Bradley, Master Resource
I have been studying the global warming debate from a physical scientific and political economy basis for 20 years. And I remain amazed at how the energy/climate alarmists will not concede (are ‘in denial’) that the human influence on climate can be positive, not only negative, from an ecological and economic perspective.
The work of leading climate economist Robert Mendelsohn calculates net positive externalities for much of the world from anthropogenic warming at the bottom of the canonic IPCC temperature range. And climate scientist Gerald North of Texas A&M convinced me that the models would eventually get to a warming range of 20C, plus or minus 0.250C, for a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas in equilibrium. (Dr. North was my paid consultant back in my Enron days, tasked with helping me figure out just where the middle ground was in the contentious debate.)
Mendelsohn plus North: a net positive externality from manmade greenhouse gas emissions. And a win for fossil fuels even before getting to the political economy question of comparing ‘market failure’ against ‘government failure’ to evaluate the case for government intervention.
Now to the renewable energy debate online at The Economist magazine where I was invited to oppose the motion: “This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.”
In my opening statement, I argued that renewable energy was doomed by physics for reasons that were first comprehended by British economist W. S. Jevons in his 1865 classic, The Coal Question.
Noting the taxpayer and environmentalist backlash against wind and solar facilities, as well as the inability of intermittent energies to exist without fossil-fuel blending/firming, I found myself squarely back at the premise to the motion: that fossil fuels were bad.
With peak oil and peak gas waylaid by the shale revolution, and the statistics of less pollution alongside greater fossil-fuel usage, the question then got back to global warming (my rebuttal statement). My closing statement summed up my case for the increasing sustainability of fossil fuels, not only the failure of renewable energy.
Economist debate moderator, James Astill, is upset. After all, we should all know that the human influence on climate is severe and bad and government must do something! He complains:
In my previous offering, I confess I underestimated how relaxed our opposer, Robert Bradley, was about global warming. I thought he did not consider it a problem. It now seems he is rather in favour of it. “A moderately warmer and wetter world, natural or manmade,” Mr Bradley writes, “is arguably a better world.”
I said “moderate warming,” Sir. And I said “arguably,” Sir. Why is your world so black and white, and black in favor of energy statism? Given the public and political backlash against climate alarmism and forced energy transformation, and the very comments and voting cast in this forum, perhaps it is time to debate rather than assume.
Astill continues:
This shows how far Mr Bradley has strayed from the question in hand: concerning the desirability, or otherwise, of subsidising renewables as a means to stop the world burning fossil fuels. I do not blame him exactly. It stands to reason that no one untroubled by the prospect of global warming would bother himself with wonky, expensive renewables. But, alas, that does not describe this house. It assumes that a way to get the world off fossil fuels must be found.
Astill is missing the energy forest for the politically correct trees. Compared to dilute, intermittent, and environmentally invasive wind and solar power, fossil fuels are socially advantageous. And even assuming high climate sensitivity to GHG forcing, ‘market failure’ must be balanced with ‘analytical failure’ and with ‘government failure.’ No more assuming the problem, the solution, and perfect government implementation of the ‘solution.’ The era of magical energy postmodernism must end!
I invite readers of WUWT to visit, read, and vote. I like my case. As I conclude my final statement: “The best energy future belongs to the efficient and to the free.”
Realism and optimism, anyone?
@ur momisugly Dave Springer says:
November 16, 2011 at 1:01 pm
No argument from me on that. 🙂 But I fully intend to continue to enjoy our current position at the top of the food chain while it lasts. 🙂
More Soylent Green! Brazil uses sugar cane and not corn. Big difference in yields. But why is Brazil developing it’s offshore oil resources if it’s biofuels are cheaper?
a. That’s why I did not write anything about American corn ethanol, but about cellulosic ethanol.
b. They want more total fuel than can be supplied by ethanol. They import oil, and they want to reduce their imports.
This year Brazilian sugar-based ethanol production is down and they are importing ethanol from the U.S. That’s probably just a transient.
The Economist is controlled by Rothchilds. It has a CAGW agenda and is grossly biased and distorted. The Rothschilds also control the Weather Channel. Readers need to be aware that they are NOT reading a news magazine but the Rothschild’s “pravda” agency newsletter.
Septic Matthew says:
November 16, 2011 at 2:03 pm
This year Brazilian sugar-based ethanol production is down and they are importing ethanol from the U.S. That’s probably just a transient.
===============================================
…. and curiously, also exporting it to the US !!
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-07/brazil-lacks-cane-to-boost-fuel-exports-senator-says.html
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Smokey: I’m not arguing that the cost of solar isn’t declining. But so what if the cost of fossil fuel is “huge”? If it didn’t provide value it wouldn’t be produced. That $2.3 trillion figure has no context. It’s just intended to be a big, scary, eye-catching number. So let’s put it in human terms.
My point was that alternative fuel development is worthwhile because the alternatives will eventually be cheaper than the fossil fuels. The writer I responded to claimed that they were worth nothing without the CO2 scare. I think he is wrong. In no place did I write that fossil fuels were not worth anything. The time is approaching when $2.3 trillion worth of pv cells will generate more electricity than $2.3 trillion worth of gas will generate; the time is approaching when $3.50 worth of pv cells will generate more travel than $3.50 worth of gasoline (unless alternatives are produced sufficient quantities to reduce demand for oil, which I don’t expect but which might be possible); not real soon, but maybe within 20 years. The only real question is what is the best rate of investment in the alternatives?
“Who owns, or should own, these resources? ”
Whoever legally acquired or earned them, such as stockholders.
Real world to Robert: most of those resources belong to GOVERNMENTS,
most of whom STOLE them.”
Ah, so another mind reader. You presume that I meant that we should nationalize all of the resources. You also presume that it is now, or was ever possible, to truly “legally acquire” resources. For example, take the United States, most of which was “legally acquired” by virtue of kicking the inhabitants out, not even as an act of government but one theft or settlement at a time. Not that I regret this, I’m just pointing out that the issue of ownership is an important one. Most of our current laws regulating this sort of thing were predicated upon “frontier Earth”, inexhaustible, always another mine to dig, another well to drill. Well, that’s just silly. We know better. Not happening.
Given that, I’d suggest that you read “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin. Then return to the discussion.
Personally, I think human ethics is a human invention because I’m not religious and don’t think God endorses “ownership” of something like the earth. Hell, my own body is at best borrowed, mine for a time before it gets eaten by worms. Half the wars on this planet have happened because people have a truly skewed notion of both ownership and the commons — the one to be defended against all sense, the other to be exploited as long as one gains advantage over everybody else by doing so.
In a universe of FINITE resources — very finite ones, not a frontier at all — the ethics of ownership and management of the commons has to change. At the moment life is good (in the US) because we have a low population — still, but probably not for long — and still have some frontier to exploit. But try to find gold in NC at this point. For most of the history of the US we were one of the biggest gold producers. Gold has gotten so expensive that people are once again invading the commons here to pan for gold, destroying stream ecologies to do so. California is still paying the ecological price for its gold rush — truly enormous amounts of mercury lie buried in the silt of many of its rivers.
My point isn’t to assert one thing or another, it is to note that the issue is complex, and that a lot of the land to be drilled, mined, explored is in the commons, owned by the government not because it “stole” it, but because it more or less inherited from our thieving ancestors that stole it from other thieves and so on, bad ad infinitum. It’s as silly as the “Who owns the Falkland Islands” debate. Ultimately, the owners are the ones with the bigger guns, because NOBODY >>really<< owns them. They're frigging islands. How can you own an island? At best you have a transient custody in a chain of such custody of greater or lesser merit, custody supported by common custom and the myth of ownership.
I love myths. The myth of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness is a lovely myth, a noble myth. Living in a society where we collectively agree to embrace the myth is simply grand and a very advantageous thing. But of course it is perfectly obvious that Hobbes was more right than Locke or Jefferson: life in a state of nature is ugly, nasty, brutish and short and we ALWAYS live in a state of nature, protected from one another only by those myths.
"That cursory glance would assign that threat to BIG GOVERNMENT, which threatens all humans, wealthy or not. Communism and its Evil Twin Naziism killed hundreeds of millions, while Capitalism has saved billions."
Or, capitalism has helped kill hundreds of millions all by itself. Who supported Hitler in his rise to power? Why, big companies! Could he have managed to do what he did without them? Of course not. Who did he fight — and lose to? Communists, every bit as much as us. Don't get me wrong — I think that Communism is moderately stupid — it is yet another mythology, the notion that optimal economics and social order is SIMPLE. I also think that unrestrained Capitalism is moderately stupid. Obviously you've missed out on most of the economic history of the United States, so things like depressions and the company store and the negative consequences of supermonopolies on things like human freedom escape you, but do try to bear in mind that sufficiently large corporate structures become shadow governments in their own right. Power goes with money, and power AND money's first duty to itself is to defend itself at all costs. Without a strong government to keep the "capitalism" playing field level and the most powerful players in check, we'd have, well, we'd have the Fed.
Gee, somehow Big Government in the US seems to actually be RUN by those same Capitalists you admire so much.
I grew up loving Ayn Rand as much as you obviously do, but it is worth remembering that Ayn Rand — after smoking 2 packs a day for most of her life — relied on social security and medicare when sure, she got cancer and would have had to spend herself down to poverty to get treatment otherwise. It's easy to argue against the need for a social network — nobody likes paying for anything they don't need — until they need it, when SUDDENLY it makes sense.
But this is a distraction, as you note. The point is that even under Adam Smith's mythical (and hence damn skippy invisible) hand, you can argue all you want about how "good" or "bad" solar cells are and how great it is to pay lots of money for gasoline and drill and frack and fight wars to ensure our continued access to it, ideally access to the stores in other people's countries where we can buy it from corrupt governments on the cheap. That won't stop solar — with or without any more subsidies than the SUBSTANTIAL subsidies the oil industry has received (fighting a friggin' war in Iraq, for gosh sake) from being cheaper over the counter energy right now than oil is, joule for joule. The only thing slowing it down is the lack of CAPITAL in the US right now — it's break even for me to solar-electrify my own house, or very close to it (with subsidies) but the capital costs are high with a 15 year payoff to reach a 30 year ROI. With bank in a bank worth less than 1%, it's actually attractive but that doesn't alter the fact that you need $25-50K to buy in.
In the southwest, energy prices and relatively high insolation make it a very attractive investment WITHOUT carbon credits and so on. Subsidies make it more so, and encourage the building of better foundries that will lower the price and accelerate the rate at which it becomes profitable. This in turn increases the wealth of everybody — everybody benefits from cheaper energy. Well, everybody but the people that sell more expensive energy…
Our biggest mistake was in not putting more public money and energy into solar 30 years ago. At this point the issue is nearly moot — after being delayed by 20 pointlessly expensive years and several wars whose real reason was to preserve access to oil and a military presence in an oil rich region to defend it, it's probably unstoppable at this point. Not that the Republicans and their friends in the oil industries won't try, but at this point it will be very tough.
rgb
It would seem that the concept that the Earth has a limited stored carbon resource of which we have already used a major portion and the belief that man will irreparably damage the climate with excess carbon dioxide are two inimical views. If there exists an inexhaustible supply of non-oxidized carbon yet to be found somewhere, then there is a possibility that we might double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere enough times to cause a real problem.
So far, we have only seen the amount of CO2 increase by a factor equivalent to the square root of two, or a half-doubling. Some petroleum technologists are saying that we will have consumed half the available supply in this century. David Archibald has presented a plot that says the maximum, resource-limited CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will be on the order of 522 ppm in 2130. That is 38 PPM short of 560 PPM, a full doubling from the nominal pre-industrial level of 280 PPM.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/image4.png
MODTRAN, available as a web utility hosted by the University of Chicago, seems to indicate that this ‘huge’ change in the CO2 content in the atmosphere will require a one degree increase in surface temperature to make up for the *raw* doubling of the CO2 in the atmosphere. From a plot showing the difference in ‘radiative forcing’ at 20 km up, it is hard to see the difference between the blue 600 PPM curve and the green 300 PPM curve hidden behind. One can see a CO2 hole at 667 kayzers (cycles per centimeter, CM-1) and a minimal ozone hole at 1111 kayzers but curiously no ‘holes’ due to H2O, the primary greenhouse gas in the lower troposphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ModtranRadiativeForcingDoubleCO2.png
Hear, hear, Septic Matthew! So very sanely put. What’s the net present value of (say) a 20 year reduction in the time until alternative energy resources and technologies pass the upward spiralling oil prices. Because who really thinks that gas prices are going to stay at ONLY $3.50? Or go back to $0.25/gallon or some pre-historic price like that? Note well, there has been rather low inflation during most of the last decade — gas price increases have been real increases, not just riding inflation. If anything, they are causing it.
rgb
Robert Brown
Considering how even-handed and moderate most of your exposition is,
you seriously need to delete that absolutely horrid ‘Equity’ section,
which shows you eagerly swallowing the collectivist worldview hook, line, and sinker,
except that the metaphorical fishing line drags you to the bottom, not the surface.
“Who owns, or should own, these resources?”
Whoever legally acquired or earned them, such as stockholders.
Real world to Robert: most of those resources belong to GOVERNMENTS,
most of whom STOLE them.
“Various individuals and companies become enormously wealthy from them, and will become still wealthier as they ride the cost-spiral up.”
GREAT! The more that happens the better off we all are. Do you resent the drill-inventor who rescued the Chilean miners? He could do that because he first invented fracking.
“Enormously wealthy corporations and individuals represent a huge threat to the civil and political liberties of all humans with far less wealth, as even a cursory glance at history can reveal.” (What a whopper!)
That cursory glance would assign that threat to BIG GOVERNMENT, which threatens all humans, wealthy or not. Communism and its Evil Twin Naziism killed hundreds of millions, while Capitalism has saved billions from poverty, Big Government’s offspring..
“Wars have been and continue to be fought over them. ”
Actually, those wars were fought by and for BIG GOVERNMENTS, for their own sake.
“Politicians are bought and sold because of them.”
No, they are BRIBED, because of the overweening power of BIG GOVERNMENT. In fact, the politicians act like they own us and ALL our money. You don’t buy the Mob when you give them their ‘protection’ money.
“People are advantaged or disadvantaged, often critically, during the huge fluctuations that have occurred in the supply chain (some of them artificial and INTENDED to frighten people into giving still more power and access to those that control the chain, IMO).”
Don’t you love that weeny sway of using a noun as a verb, and a totally vague, emotionally weepy one at that. Try slipping ‘downtrodden’ in there somewhere, say behind ‘critically’?.
Worse, yet, this supply-chain fluctuation notion is an obvious mark of complete ignorance of market operations, which in their essence are VOLUNTARY, and thus must profit BOTH sides.
Worse yet is the typical leftist projection, accusing legal corporations of the kind of coercion so typical of governments: “frightening” people into giving up power. Yeah, those multinationals are trying every day to rob me…Oops, sorry. That corporate-looking logo on that demand letter says ‘IRS’.
Zheeese, pal, spare us the socialist cliches, would you? There be thinkers here.
Following on from Allencic’s (first) post , if solar is 1/10 as energy dense as coal, and is intermittent to boot ( as is wind and waves) then we can reasonably expect to have to expend about 10 times as much capital in order to capture the same quantum of energy. Do we really want to distort our economies by that degree? When you start to quantify the investment required, where on earth is the money going to come from and what on earth is going to have to be forgone? And then think of the effect on the developing world. About as helpful to humanity as an asteroid strike, methinks. When will these innumerate green loonies take a reality check?
“Ecologists see ANY human interference as bad”
People here are understandably p*ssed off with the warmist save-the-planet Greenies, so am I. Yet I am a greenie too, so are many others here. Ecologists do not see all human interference as bad. The greenie problem is a scientific infantilism that wants to believe IPCC without being prepared to listen to us, check the science themselves, or consider the possibility of rank corruption in high places. I’ve tried with Transition Towns, Schumacher College, and Scientists For Global Responsibility, and have failed so far to move them an inch. I am, sadly, disgusted. Peter Taylor is a rare exception.
However, there are many places where humans have made a generally positive difference… The most interesting factors are EDGE habitats, which we humans are pretty good at creating eg hedgerows; an INCREASED overall diversity of habitat – gardens, fields, tomatoes in greenhouses with CO2 pumped in, etc; EXPERIMENTAL work in straight science, biodynamic farming, permaculture etc; and DEEP ECOLOGY which includes the development of shamanic types of collaboration with nature. Some we gain by, and some we lose. Our inner attitudes play a huge role and we can work on those ourselves. Romanticism (incl Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman) arose in the nineteenth century in response to the drab face of industrialism; the one simply helped to balance / cope with the other, and the rise in population was crude proof that everyone had benefited. Only a small minority (the luddites) actually suggested we should destroy the machines.
Henry Phipps:
clipe:
Thanks, I see now, I was operating from an improper mind-set. GK
If given a choice between clean power and dirty power, who wouldn’t want clean power?
Characterizing things as clean or dirty, is reducing debate to the level of the kindergarten.
“Don’t touch that. It’s dirty.”
Some of us understand that all of our food comes from dirt. Characterizing power as to whether its source is ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ makes as much sense as characterizing food as coming from a ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ source.
RE: Septic Matthew: (November 16, 2011 at 2:23 pm)
“My point was that alternative fuel development is worthwhile because the alternatives will eventually be cheaper than the fossil fuels.”
Kirk Sorensen appears to be telling the Green Earth people that his LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) will make energy so inexpensive as to allow the manufacture of alternative transportation fuels such as methanol, dimethyl ether, and ammonia at less cost than traditional ‘fossil ‘ fuels. As far as I know, thorium is the only potential energy source that is *known* to be so abundant that it might sustain and support our current energy use beyond the projected life of the planet.
Gail Combs says: November 16, 2011 at 1:22 pm
…The Economist is still on the bandwagon because CAGW is just too big a money maker to allow us “Deniers” to kill it. Truth of course never had a place in the business of making money.
That says it all.
People have been glamorized, hypnotized and paralysed by the brilliant, smoothfaced “blitzkrieg” invention of the IPCC with its multiple denial of true science even while usurping that name:
* it crosses the divide from “fun” science into science with expensive and dangerous consequences, without instituting requisite engineering standards
* being accountable to none, the “fun” scientific standards which it claims to raise are actually lowered
* it’s a financial-political wolf disguised as Grandmother Science, since it starts with the “Summary for Policymakers” and shoehorns the science into a prearranged result with the help of models’ “data” and everything Climategate exposed
* it is supported with crooked thinkers and pickpockets in high places, like Bob Ward at the Royal Society, William Connolley at Wikipedia, the desmogblog and RC providers, Rothschilds behind The Economist, etc.
Robert Brown says:
“What’s the net present value of (say) a 20 year reduction in the time until alternative energy resources and technologies pass the upward spiralling oil prices. Because who really thinks that gas prices are going to stay at ONLY $3.50?…gas price increases have been real increases, not just riding inflation. If anything, they are causing it.”
Two points: first, the supply of petroleum products is artificially limited by government decree. If companies were free to explore and drill for oil, it would be abundant and the price would substantially decline. The reliability and energy density of fossil fuels makes them far superior to alternatives such as solar, and especially, windmills.
Right now Mexico, China, Cuba and Canada are drilling not many miles off the U.S. coast. We have no control over, or recourse if there is a spill. We get all of the problems and none of the benefits due to Obama’s job killing drilling ban. There is no credible or rational reason that companies should be banned from drilling.
Second point: inflation is caused by artificially increasing the money supply. Yes, there is demand/pull and cost/push inflation, but the basic cause is printing money. However, the primary reason for high gas prices is the strict limiting of supply by the government.
Finally, I personally dislike the word “capitalism”. It is a Karl Marx word that incites class warfare. The actual benefits to society come from the free market. Regulation is necessary to make a level playing field and set reasonable standards, and courts are necessary to adjudicate disputes and punish fraud. Other than that, the less government interference, the more wealthy the entire society becomes. The richest countries are the most pollution free; the direct result of the free market in operation.
Lucy Skywalker says:
November 16, 2011 at 3:00 pm
“farming, permaculture etc; and DEEP ECOLOGY which includes the development of shamanic types of collaboration with nature. ”
Deep Ecology Linkola style?
http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-warming-alarmist-calls-for-eco-gulags-to-re-educate-climate-deniers.html
Or his apprentice Satu Hassi?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satu_Hassi
(currently member of the European Parliament)
Robert Brown: Hear, hear, Septic Matthew! So very sanely put. What’s the net present value of (say) a 20 year reduction in the time until alternative energy resources and technologies pass the upward spiralling oil prices. Because who really thinks that gas prices are going to stay at ONLY $3.50? Or go back to $0.25/gallon or some pre-historic price like that? Note well, there has been rather low inflation during most of the last decade — gas price increases have been real increases, not just riding inflation. If anything, they are causing it.
I can’t tell whether you are serious or sarcastic. You put in questions where it might have been better to put in short bullets.
Philip Bradley: Characterizing power as to whether its source is ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ makes as much sense as characterizing food as coming from a ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ source.
With energy, the important distinction devolves on how much damage is done, and how many people and agricultural produce, killed by the extraction and pollution. Uranium and mercury pollution from coal kill people. It isn’t a negligible consideration, though we can’t tell exactly how many or who they are.
Many of the comments supporting renewables assume that that oil is used for electricity generation and that renewables will displace oil. I don’t know the situation in the UK but in the States less than 1% of electricity generation comes from oil and in New England it is less than 0.4%. And the winning form of generation is natural gas which is plentiful, has relatively low emissions including CO2, and is cheap (fuel cost is about 3 cents per kWh in modern combined cycle plants).
In comparison wind including transmission costs from 15 to 30 cents per kWh and this saves 3 cents per kWh worth of natural gas (I ignore the additional 3 dents /kWh to build and run the GTCC as it is required anyway to back up the renewable resource). Solar PV costs presently about 70 cents/kWH in New England and again this saves 3 cents per kWh of natural gas— a 23:1 cost disadvantage.
If you look at the cost per ton of CO2 removed, renewables are also outrageously expensive.: Wind studies for New England show CO2 removal costs to be $300-450 per ton or about 10 times the expected CO2 price and about 20-30 times the cost claimed by the Waxman-Markey proponents. Most studies don’t calculate the cost of CO2 removal, but it is easy to do yourself.
In New England studies show that CO2 removal can be achieved at one tenth the cost of wind, by simply retiring old inefficient units. I suspect the same situation exists in many other places.
With the US emitting 7 billion tons of CO2 per year, a cost of $100/ton equates to a total cost of $700 B per year or a subprime crisis hit to the economy every year. The cost of the most efficient CO2 removal solution may be unbearable. The many times greater cost of renewables will certainly be.
I LOVED the comment by the guy who said Bradley was obviously a religious fundamentalist who believed that God would solve all of our problems! With CAGW supporters who are that brilliant, we can’t possibly win the debate.
DirkH says: November 16, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Deep Ecology Linkola style?
Ye gods, no. I did start by stating clearly the greenies’ rubbishy side, their infantile attitude to science, angers and upsets me as much as everyone here. My post was a plea to not overgeneralize. Deep Ecology per se need have nothing to do with espousing cr*p science. The fact that currently it often does, simply makes me either stay away or try to bring greenies to their senses. But I will not throw the baby out with the horrible bathwater it’s currently immersed in.
Hope this answers your concern.
CO2 is good for plants, good for the Earth, and good for you!
I voted No.
/Mr Lynn
The zealots are all for flagellation as long as it isn’t SELF-flagellation. Their deeds do not match their words. That is all you need to know about the zealots to pronounce judgement on them.
here’s further evidence of the improving economics of renewable energy, but it only works if you’re a major contributor to Democrat campaign coffers
http://biggovernment.com/whall/2011/11/16/robert-kennedy-jr-s-green-company-scored-1-4-billion-taxpayer-bailout/
“The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle.
Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. When Obama won the White House, Wagle was installed at the Department of Energy (DOE), advising on energy grants….
Ironically, in 2008, Kennedy wrote a CNN article praising Obama as reminiscent of his famous father and uncle. The article, titled “Obama’s Energy Plan Would Create a Green Gold Rush,” proved prophetic. However, the “green gold rush” came in the form of $1.4 billion of taxpayers’ money flowing into the pet projects of rich venture capital investors like Kennedy, not average citizens.”
>>
Petrossa says:
November 16, 2011 at 9:22 am
I love the phrase ‘renewable energy’.
<<
Thanks for pointing it out–another oxymoron to add to my list.
Jim