Have solar goons shanghaied Lt. Dan?
I’m seeing some things on Twitter that are making me a wee bit uncomfortable. Here’s one:
And HERE is another:
Kairos Governmental Affairs and Betsy McCorkle are leading mouthpieces for renewable energy government mandates and government subsidies of solar and wind energy. The fact that Betsy 
is so happy should make all of you, as utility bill payers, very nervous.
Forest was speaking at an event hosted by “Conservatives for Clean Energy” — the front group set up and promoted by Kairos, Paul Shumaker and Dee Stewart for the purpose of giving Republicans cover for supporting government subsidies for solar and wind.
Maybe Lt. Dan needs to take a fact finding trip to the Australian state of South Australia to learn the consequences of “renewable energy” and discover why the voters of that state in what was dubbed a referendum on wind energy threw out the party that had ruled for 16 years and built lots of “clean energy” whlle dismantling coal fired power plants.
“Clean energy” gave them the highest consumer electric rates in the world.
“Clean energy” gave them an unreliable power grid with frequent brownouts and blackouts.
“Clean energy” gave them residential electric rates that DOUBLED in 12 months.
If Lt. Dan is for doing THAT to consumers, then we need to look for another candidate, but maybe he will take a good look at the snake oil the wind / solar energy crooks are trying to sell him first.
The voters said NO to the Labour Party of South Australia over “clean energy” after seeing how it wrecked their state, and it should prompt NC voters to say NO to solar / wind politicians.
This is a clear cut issue of free enterprise versus crony capitalism. Wind and solar would quickly go belly up in a free market, so they seek out government subsidies, government mandates, government tax breaks, and other government special favors. They are parasites mooching off of the taxpayer and electric rate payer. Wind and solar constantly have their hands out for corporate welfare and they give out lots of payola to politicians to get it. This is probably the most corrupt special interest around.
Dan Forest has to this point always been a man of conservative principle who supports the citizens over the special interests. Now one of the worst special interests out there is trying to capture him. If not made already, I am sure there will be offers of thirty pieces of silver.
The NC Republican Platform calls for a free market in energy. To achieve this free market a number of special government favors to the wind / solar boys need to be revoked:
1) The renewable energy mandate on utilities, which gets passed on to customers in the form of higher rates. This mandate is as much an affront to freedom as the mandate in Obamacare.
2) The ratepayer subsidies passed last year.
3) Exemptions for wind and solar on paying penalties when they do not deliver the power they have contracted to deliver.
4) The 85% exemption on county and city property taxes on renewal energy facilities. Why should other taxpayers in the counties have to subsidize the rich out of state corporations that own these wind and solar LLC? Other taxpayers have to pick up the slack for those taxes and that is simply not fair.
Wind and solar should be fed out of the same spoon as other energy providers and not have all the special priveleges they have been granted.
Dan Forest made a very general statement, and we should not read too much into it, yet. It is a concern that he is hobnobbing with these people that Civitas calls “energy crooks”. I would hope that Lt. Dan and the renewable energy experts at Civitas can connect so he can get a crash course in the very extensive downside of wind and solar.
We have witnessed politicians go bad on us before. I am not ready to consign Lt. Dan to that group of scoundrels, but I think it would help to get solid information to him to help guard him against the siren call of the crony capitalists and their corrupting money. .
There’s a lot of counties in this state where Pat McCrory performed 2-3% below Burr, Trump, and oh yes, Forrest. The difference is explained in terms of conservative Republican voters who got wise to McCrory’s less than conservative behavior and decided that we needed to endure a Marxist like Cooper in order to clean our own house. Think about that hard, Lieutenant Governor.
There is a big difference between promoting energy efficiency efforts – which can make sense – and promoting solar and wind silliness. I think the Lt Gov understands these issues very well.
Richard Maynes has it correct. I believe Dan Forest knows the difference and, as a state legislator myself, its often times good to attend events that you don’t quite agree totally with in order to find out what the other side is thinking. Energy issues are an important infrastructure issue but the “solar, wind farm” issue is nothing more than a scam on the rate payers and the tax payers. Often times to uncover a scam you need to “follow the money” but to uncover this scam but you also need to “follow the power generated” by these farms. These farms do generate plenty of power but the bare truth is that instead of being able to use it they just dump it. The reasons for this truth are more complicated than this post has room for but just imagine what does the power company do with an unpredictable power source at a time of day they least need it?
Funny how people do not like low cost, low impact energy sources. Wind and solar are now bidding sub $40/mwh in many markets.
Why no outrage over the “subisdy” granted to Duke energy via its state granted monopoly? Or Nat gas and coal receiving decades of subsidies in various forms (tax benefits, eminent domain for rail and pipelines to move it’s fuel, etc)? Nuclear… massive tax credits, then govt backed insurance against civil liability, and govt backed efforts for long term waste.
I guess, maybe some people just read talking points.
Some people ignore statistics. Look at countries or states that have built lots of wind and solar and then look at what that has done to their electric rates. To quote Barack Obama “electric rates will necessarily skyroket”. That is what has happened. Pushing lots of wind and solar gave the state of South Australia the highest consumer electric rates in the world, and the voters just responded by throwing the pro-renewable politicians out of office:
http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Blog-3931.112112-14010.114136-Voters-dump-prorenewable-energy-party-in-South-Australia-election.html
Anyone who thinks wind and solar are “low cost” is smoking something other than a tobacco product. Go to places like South Australia or Germany to learn the truth.
Low impact? Tell that to the birds and bats killed by wind and solar:
http://www.savetheeaglesinternational.org
Or to the bees killed by renewable energy:
https://stopthesethings.com/2018/03/31/beeline-to-fury-korean-farmers-declare-war-on-wind-power-for-wrecking-communities-killing-bees/
Or to those suffering massive pollution as a result of the manufacture of wind and solar equipment:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
Or to those who do not want cancer causing GenX from solar panels in our groundwater:
https://nsjonline.com/article/2018/02/solar-panels-could-be-a-source-of-genx-and-other-perflourinated-contaminants/
Or those people whose health is adversely impacted by the low frequency noise of wind turbines:
https://stopthesethings.com/2018/03/22/german-researchers-target-effects-of-wind-turbine-infrasound-on-the-heart/
John Steed…. those links are funny.
The Gen-x in cape fear river has been linked to one specific manufacturing facility that has ZERO to do with solar. The plant has been reporting they have discharged for years. You should really check your sources.
Again let’s compare notes on environmental and economics of solar, wind, coal, Nat gas and nuclear. Hydro is really solid but probably maxed on potential right now.
The environmental impacts of getting fuel for Nat gas and coal are meaningful. Resource extraction us damaging. Just as resource extraction for manufacturing parts for solar and wind can be damaging. Oh yeah there are similar extraction impacts for manufacturing components of coal and Nat gas facilities.
So tie game there.
Once built and capitalized wind/solar can operate for ~35 years with vary little capital cost additions and ZERO fuel cost. They are each now $1/w to build now on a capacity basis. They sell power at varying prices. In TX (ERCOT) pricing is in the $0.03/kwh range on merchant market for solar and wind. Hence coal plants are being retired there.
Until storage becomes cheaper, which it is trending cheaper now… Nat gas will need to be built for base load Generation and smoothing of intermenticy issues. Once storage becomes scalable then solar/wind will push power prices down.
You are just simply wrong in your assertion that solar has caused power bills to increase. It is only a small part of generation mix. Duke likes to conjure any story it can to hide rate increases. Truth is they just want to increase rates because they have a monopoly and enjoy protected profits (free of market pressure) for their shareholders.
You cannot have disgust for any type of renewable subsidies without having same disdain for utility monopolies and similar fossil fuel/nuclear subsidies. Otherwise you are just a hypocrite and choosing political talking points over true ideals.
The EPA scientists were not talking about the Cape Fear River. They were specifically warning about GenX and related contaminants from solar energy facilities. Or did you not read the article?
Somehow you neglected to mention the millions of birds and bats killed by wind and solar. Is that supposed to be environmentally friendly or “low impact”? The Obama regime issued a waiver allowing wind energy projects to kill 4,200 eagles EACH without penalty, and that is just eagles, our national bird.
Duke Power was NOT making excuses for the crushing cost increases of electricity caused by expensive and intermittant wind and solar in places like South Australia and Germany. They do not operate in those countries.
In fact, one of the pioneers of renewable energy in Germany has now recanted and decided it was a bad idea:
http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Blog-3931.112112-14022.114136-Architect-of-German-renewable-energy-policy-now-regrets-position.html
Read this article from the Toronto Sun on what a disaster the Ontario Liberal Party’s wind and solar obsession has been for that province, and tell me with a straight face that the Demcorat / RINO push for wind and solar in NC would turn out any different:
http://torontosun.com/news/provincial/goldstein-green-energy-is-grits-mega-blunder
John— Wind and solar sell below utilities cost to buy power from current generation assets… below (avoided cost). You simply do not know the math or economics. Again you spew political talking points rather than ideal based logic. You search the globe (not the US) for examples to support your story line. Here is an article from TX, the closest to a free market in US.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/why-distributed-solar-winning-texas
Utilities in regulated states get to rate base capital improvements and even environmental clean ups. Hence, massive nuclear plants and rate payers paying for coal Ash spills.
You are just bias due to political position. I am very much a libertarian, and think regulated utilities should be banished. Lowest cost fuel will win long term for electricity. It is going to be solar and Nat gas for new generation in US for next 30 years.
Of course energy demand has plateaued or even decreased in some areas so new generation will mostly expedite coal retirements.
A Libertarian who supports crony capitalism? And especially a crony capitalist operation with the massive federal subsidies that wind and solar have, and the ratepayer subsidies in NC that were passed in the last legislative session?
I would love to see an end to the utility monopolies, but even worse are the special favors politicians give wind and solar producers like the renewable energy mandate, the massive government subsidies (in Germany they have reached a trillion euros), and NC’s 85% exemption on local property taxes for wind and solar (why should average citizens have to subsidize the big corporations that run these wind and solar operations through LLC’s they own?)
You ;talk about prices bid to sell energy but either you don’t know the process or misrepresent it. All providers are actually paid at the rate bid of the highest bidder who provides electricity, so low bids don’t mean what they are actually paid. Also wind and solar are exempt from having to pay penalties if they do not actually deliver the power they have bid and are contracted for, which conventional providers have to pay. This is very unfair and needs to be stopped. All of them should follow the same rules.
Without all of their government granted special priveleges, wind and solar would go belly up.
Wind and solar will never be efficient as they cannot provide base load due to being intermittent sources of power. Wind does not produce if the wind is not blowing or is blowing too hard. Solar does not produce if the sun is not shining, or the panels are covered in snow, ice, or dew. They are unreliable. Even the architect of Germany’s “energiewende” leap to wind and solar now admits that the result was “chaotic” due to the unreliability of wind and solar. Intermittent power sources have to have expensive backup for when they do not produce, and this adds to electric rates.
The chart in this article shows that those countries (and Australian states) that have built a lot of wind and solar capacity have much higher electric rates than those which have built less: The intermittent nature of wind and solar have also led to frequent blackouts and brownouts where wind and solar have been heavily built.
https://stopthesethings.com/2018/04/01/renewables-are-cheap-myth-busted-full-cost-of-wind-solar-simply-staggering/
And you still refuse to acknowledge the millions of birds and bats killed by renewable energy.
Another solar and wind energy issue not yet raised here is the impending decommissioning of these “clean energy” facilities.
Carolina Journal covered these concerns in 2015, https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/lawmakers-warn-of-solar-farm-cleanup-costs/
I predict that as these solar farms’ panels expire (and wind generators well), the operating companies will fold and declare bankruptcy, leaving the hapless land owners, & the taxpayers holding the bag for the cost of cleanup. Abandoned wind generators have already become issues in other states.
No solar or wind farm permit should ever have been issued without the contractor posting a bond for eventual disposal costs.