renewable energy

Somebody's getting a little too big for his Chairman's britches:

The amended bill still went down 18-13 in Hager’s committee, with six Republicans joining its 12 Democrats. Hager said late Thursday afternoon that the bill is still very much alive and could come back to a vote with further amendments.

“Of course,” he said. “Fortunately, that bill is in the committee that I’m chairman of.”

"Of which I'm Chairman", not that anybody who was involved in the Cliffside coal plant fiasco could ever learn from his mistakes. Speaking of, we'll be paying for that $2 billion monstrosity for years, in both rate increases and health deterioration, not that Mike Hager would ever dare to mention such things. Back to "his" Committee, which (if he gets his way) will soon be populated by Teahadists:

I guess this means I can Google my ass off and not feel guilty (get your mind out of the gutter, people):

Google said it is committed to using renewable energy at its data centers — the reason it plans to participate in a new program Duke Energy is developing for large customers that want to buy renewable energy. "As more of the world moves online, demand for Google's services continues to grow — and we want our renewable energy options to grow with it," he said. Google said it operates some of the world most efficient data centers, and in 2007 made a voluntary commitment to become carbon neutral.

We'll have to wait and see if the Victorian Era NC GOP will try to put the kibosh on this, but it looks like Duke Energy is all for it, so... If they (or Americans For the Prosperous) do decide to oppose it, there will need to be some serious explaining:

When the truth doesn't fit your agenda, it's time to make shit up:

But supporters of the rollback, including the bill's sponsor, Rep. Mike Hager, R-Rutherford, say the price of renewable energy is too high, and state taxpayers and ratepayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize the sector. Woodhouse said environmentalists are pushing green energy because they want power to be more expensive. "It is a goal of them to have higher electricity costs because they want to punish people for using power," he said. "They think using power is a bad thing. They want to punish people for flipping the switch."

Just when you think you've seen the archetypical, bottom-line worst of Dallas Woodhouse, he opens up that yap and gives you a new low-level of stupidity. Dude actually gets paid for this. Fortunately, you don't have to dig very deep to see the reality is exactly the opposite of what these demagogues are spouting:

A bright candle in an otherwise dark room:

We led the nation in clean energy and clean transportation jobs in the 4th quarter of 2012, and came in second only to California for the year as a whole. The 10,800 new clean energy & transportation jobs E2 tracked here in 2012 are some of the more than 21,000 clean energy & transportation jobs that have sprung up across the state in the last five years. These are good-paying jobs in fields like public transportation, solar and wind farms, electric vehicle charging stations, and solar and wind power manufacturing.

These jobs didn't just magically appear. It took cooperation and vision and hard work, with a constant eye towards the future. Unfortunately, there are some who would ignore such evidence and take us back in time:

Aided and abetted by ALEC, of course:

ALEC's Electricity Freedom Act model bill was written by the Heartland Institute, a shill group made infamous for comparing those who recognize climate science to terrorists like Ted Kaczynski. Todd Wynn, a corporate influence peddler who heads ALEC's Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force, named North Carolina as one of several states ALEC will focus its clean energy attacks

I sincerely hope this bad idea gets stopped in its tracks. But if it doesn't, everybody needs to remember the original (bad) deal: in order to get SB3 passed, utilities were allowed to reinstate the previously disallowed process known as Construction Work In Progress (CWIP). If SB3 goes, CWIP needs to go too.

I suppose if you're willing to wait 45 million years...

Makes a good Christmas gift, too:

As of 2008, NC GreenPower also offers carbon offsets to address growing concerns about the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment. The program accepts financial contributions from citizens and businesses to help offset the cost to produce green energy. There is no limit on the number of $4 blocks an individual, organization or business can purchase.

If you're not sure just how much carbon you need to offset, there's a neat calculator on this page.

Not the alternative we're looking for:

"With wood you get half the amount of energy typically than with conventional fossil fuels." Mitchell says it'll take at least 100 years for everything to equal out. "You're going to be doing more harm than good than if you were to just be using fossil fuels."

I could argue that (most) wood contains far fewer toxins and heavy metals than coal, but none of these are the proper questions. The proper question is: "Why are we still relying on steam to generate our power?" Which includes nuclear power, by the way. It's just a fancy (dangerous) steam engine. This is what we need:

I won't be dwelling on the legal or ethical problems associated with the Solyndra loan guarantee debacle; I'm sure investigators will be sorting that out soon enough. But I did want to clarify a few aspects of this situation, because apparently many folks are viewing this company's troubles as a failure of either public policy or the viability of renewable energy itself. Far from it. As a matter of fact, this story represents a stunning victory. Not only was the precipitous drop in the price of solar panels predictable, it was desired.