He does, he really does (Via The Lonely Conservative)
(Washington Examiner) President Obama admitted today that he does not have a “silver bullet†solution for skyrocketing gas prices, but he proposed alternative energy sources such as “a plant-like substance, algae†as a way of cutting dependence on oil by 17 percent.
“We’re making new investments in the development of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance, algae — you’ve got a bunch of algae out here,†Obama said at the University of Miami today. “If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we’ll be doing alright. Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in America.â€
As I wrote over at TLC, I can attack this from a political, an economic, an energy, an environmental, and even a greenhouse gas point of view (though I really believe that a simple quadruple face palm picture would suffice).
- Political: he’s simply saying you people are idiots, and that he’s not to blame. This should play well as average citizens feel the pain of high energy prices affecting them directly and through rising consumer prices for food, clothing, everything. And, let’s consider, Democrats have been saying for 40 years that drilling for oil won’t help, because it’ll take 10 years to develop. Um, how long would it take to make biofuel out of algae? A decade? Multi-decades? Cause it really only exists as an experiment at this point.
- Economic: looking at some pie in the sky unicorn based energy platform which might exist decades down the road sure won’t help in the near future. Some say rising gas prices show that the economy is getting better. There is some truth to that. But, there is a tipping point when gas and energy prices cause the economy to tank, and the prices do true harm to the finances of people and companies.
- Energy: refer back to “it take a buttload of a long time to even get to that 17%”. Thanks, Democrats!
- Environmental: what is the effect in turning algae into a synthetic fuel? We already know that corn based ethanol uses vast amounts of water to create, and wastes huge tracks of land instead of growing food, driving up prices, and, it is still bad for the environment, because it is still a fuel. And that’s not even considering how it puts more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than gasoline. What happens if these vast vats of algae based fuels enter the biosphere? No one is sure. These biofuels always seem to come with a cost. For palm oil, large swaths of jungle are being clear cut and the animals, such as orangutans, are being intentionally hunted to create palm seed plantations for fuel.
- Greenhouse gases: again, we already know that most biofuels tend to create just as much, if not more, greenhouse gases for less power output than gasoline. How does this help replace easily obtainable oil?
And let’s once again consider that Democrats, including Obama, have scoffed at drilling for oil because “it would take a decade.” They’ve been working on biofuels for decades, and it’s still only in its infancy.
We could also get into the other types of alternative energy sources, and the current and future environmental damage being done/will be done. But, really, do we actually need a guy who is constantly taking unnecessary fossil fueled flights all over the country for campaign events and vacations, who drives around in 17 car motorcades in vehicles that get terrible fuel mileage, and keeps the thermostat set about 75 in the White House, to lecture the rest of us? Someone Else is paying for all his energy usage. The rest of us aren’t so lucky.
[…] ironic that her husband, President Obama, regularly serves up a diet of junk food for the mind. He really does think we’re all stupid, and that if he just keeps serving it up the stupid masses will gobble it up like free candy. He […]
[…] our friend at The Pirate’s Cove, we have this story about President Obama’s magical mystery tour down to Miami, Florida today […]
That is only true when the gas prices fall to a below-normal value clearly due to loss of economy and then rises with the economy. For example, when gas prices crashed … was it 2009? Prices were $4 to $6 a gallon, and then the economy started its next decade-long (yeah, i said it) dive in to misery and stagnation. Gas prices fell to $1.65 here. That, according to most folks was the normal price anyway.
Now, 3 years later without an economy on the mend, our gas prices are back up to $4 here and $5 in LA. This is not indicative of our economy. If the above statement were true, we should be seeing robust economic growth and low unemployment. Yet, unemployment remains near 20%. It is nearly 50% for some economic groups.
Yet, our Chancellor deigns to tell us that unicorn farts will save our economy after he has even refused to allow the unicorns to be created, grown, or even corralled.
Yet, 50% of this nation believes this twaddle. Our nation is full of illiterate unconscious brain-dead floating bags of waste gas.
Obama: “yes, I know my peeps idiots. you know you are idiots. Let’s just get on with you voting for me again while I throw out illogical unicorn farts mars pig horse philosophy doctor words that sense make incoherent. Because we all know, you people are idiots and will vote for a democrat anyway.
If you don’t, then a republican will rape the child you could not abort while forcing you to drink dirty mercury laden water from an abandoned and burning oil well that is polluting the house that your grandmother was kicked out of because she was unable to afford because they forced her to take out a Quintbillion dollar loan for.”
OMG – the stupid in this article is neck-deep. What is with you rightwingers? If you spent 1/10 of the time that you spend ranting on actually trying to understand the issues, it would make an enormous difference.
Lets just take one small (but huge) issue.
You seem to not understand the most basic issue with greenhouse gasses. Here, I will type slowly for you….
Carbon is a dynamic presence in our environment. It exists in the atmosphere as CO2. Plants take it in, use the carbon to make sugars and to build their tissues, and release the oxygen. The plant material is then either eaten by animals or broken down by microorganisms – and thus the carbon moves on. Animals exhale carbon in CO2, as do microorganisms, and we all die and decompose and the carbon is thus released. It is a CYCLE. It can go on forever with no bad environmental effects. The sum total of the carbon remains the same – it just cycles through the atmosphere, plants, animals, microorganisms, and back to the atmosphere. That is why biofuels are NOT A PROBLEM for global warming.
FOSSIL FUELS are different. They are made up of carbon that is “new” to the existing cycle. It is not actually new, of course, it is very old. It used to be part of the carbon cycle, but it has been sequestered away deep underground for millions of years. Digging it up and burning it ADDS to the carbon in the cycle, and thus in the atmosphere.
This is junior-high level environmental science. How can you follow the issues of the day and not understand this?
Ferrchrissakes man, take yourself a bit more seriously before you expect anyone else to….
It’s like Obama was having a moment of crazy drug flashbacks when he gave this speech.
ALGAE??
HUH?
It’s a bad idea to drill… for oil?
HUH?
Wind and solar?
After all the failed wind and solar businesses we’ve watched this year?
Republicans are the ones stopping him?
HUH?
…
…
Algae?
God help us, this man is an utter buffoon.
Yeah, you just lost your argument there.
You hype the Carbon cycle then you deny carbon being part of the Carbon cycle. Oh, yeah, SOME types of carbon are not part of the Carbon cycle.
If you understand English really slow, then this will help. Your brain is slow. It doesn’t matter what emits GHGs, its the fact that GHGs are being emitted. At least that is what we are being told by the leftist enviro-socialists.
Oh, and by the way.. Carbon exists in the atmosphere in more ways that just.. CO2.
Slow enough for ya?
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Yes. Specifically the type that oil rigs pull out of the ground. The types that were last above ground when it was in the form of dinosaurs. The fact that these carbon chains haven’t been part of the atmosphere since then should be quite obvious, if you’re capable of thinking about it.
Yes, you’re quite a specimen.
[…] Teach, Commander of The Pirate’s Cove, delivers a righteous Fisking of our Bio-Douche-In-Chief that is both organic in it’s reasoning and tasty as […]
Historians will mark the simultaneous rise in pump prices and general implosion of the Mideast as the beginning of the end of Barry’s regime.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressiveâ€
Except, CO2 has been present in the atmosphere at varying levels for the entire history of the Earth. Goes up, goes down.
Furthermore, CO2 is, sad to tell you, not the only greenhouse gas. I know, shocking, isn’t it? They didn’t tell you that over at Warmist web sites. And biofuels have been shown to put just as much in the atmosphere as fossil fuels.
But, since you are so against fossil fuels, you’re practicing what your preach, and have stopped using all modes of transportation that rely on them, and power that relies on coal, right?
Of course it matters what emits GHGs. You seem not to understand what a cycle is. The same elements go into the atmosphere, into plants, into animals, and back out into the atmosphere. No net change.
Its not really that complicated.
I guess you are not paying attention. Why do you think that the lefties are pushing biofuels ferchrissakes? Its because they utilize carbon that is already in the cycle. This is the whole point of biofuels.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? You really can’t figure this stuff out? Coal, oil, natural gas, etc are buried deep below ground. They do not cycle through the atmosphere, plants, animals etc. The carbon just sits down there, for tens of millions of years. We dig it up, burn it, and then it does become part of the cycle, raising the total amount of carbon. That is why the CO2 levels in the atmosphere have gone up so dramatically (data which no one seems to dispute).
Actually, algae could be a mass producer of fuel.
But, not if we keep researching it in the way we are. What is the object of researchers? To say more study is needed so they can get more grant money for research…
Prize fund. $50 million to the first company to build an algae to fuel plant that produces the energy equivalent of 5 million gallons a year of gasoline, in the form of butanol, bio-diesel, ethanol or methanol.
Don’t subsidize ahead of time- subsidize success only.
Well, really, biofuels emitting GHGs is rather a moot point, since we are decades away from them being a viable alternative.
Of course. No one denies that. In fact, you know that precisely because climate scientists (warmists) have told you so.
No William, it is not shocking to anyone who has spent more than half an hour trying to learn about all this.
Once again, the whole point here seems to be slipping between the cracks in your brain. It is not a question of how much is put in the atmosphere – the point is whether that carbon is part of the normal carbon cycle, or it represents carbon that is “new” to the system.
You could have twice as much carbon emissions as today and have far less of a greenhouse gas problem, if the carbon being emitted is the same carbon that has been cycling through the system all along. That is why the use of biofuels is not inherently limited. Thats why the “leftie” vision is not doomed to be limiting to our economic growth.
Using fossil fuels is simply a crude, old-fashioned technology for extracting energy from chemical compounds. It was the best that we knew how to do back in the nineteenth century. It is rather pathetic to see people like you fight so hard against technological progress. We are at a crucial point in learning many different ways to extract energy in clean and sustainable ways – it is the most exciting and interesting field of techno-progress out there.
Despite what the propagandists on your side have probably convinced you of, environmentalism is not some new religion. I don’t see fossil fuels as “evil” – that must be avoided. They are, plain and simple, a dirty, out-of-date technology. One that is going to be replaced over the coming decades. I still read newspapers even though they too are an example of a dying technology. I even have some nostalgic feelings about them. But that doesn’t lead me to champion their cause, or to trash the very idea of online news delivery.
What is the source of your antagonism for technological progress in the energy field?
JCitizen,
I see and understand your point. You believe in a static amount of “carbon” in our atmosphere at one certain point in time. You call that point\amount the “carbon cycle”.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
For one thing……. our whole earth is carbon based. At what timescale do you cut off an atom of carbon from the carbon cycle? As I stated before, there are no means-testing for carbon atoms to become part of the carbon cycle club.
So, the fact that it once used to be tied to the atmosphere or ecology doesn’t enter in to the historical calculations? What part of “it used to be MUCH warmer than now” and “the CO2 used to be MUCH higher than now” is a foreign concept?
Do you not know that through man’s actions, the percent of CO2 emitted towards the atmosphere is minuscule compared to natural sources?
And, we do dispute your word of “dramatically”. Very few people dispute that the amount of the trace gas CO2 in our atmosphere is going up. What is in GREAT dispute is what is the cause and to what extent man is responsible.
Oh yeah, back to our original issue. For all you geniuses who mock and ridicule the idea of using algae for fuel – who think it is some rainbows and unicorn thing from Obama – here is a little fact sheet from some folks who are actually putting their money with their brain is….
LINK – and gee, its ExxonMobil, whaddayaknow….
What on earth are you talking about? Carbon which is in the form of coal is sitting hundreds of feet below the surface. Those particular molecules are NOT being ingested by animals, they are not being exhaled, they are not entering the atmosphere. They are sitting underground entirely dormant, and have been doing so for millions of years. Until we dig it up and burn it.
Why is this such a difficult concept for you?
None of it is a foreign concept. It used to be much warmer precisely because there used to more carbon in the atmosphere. And that is precisely the carbon which has been removed from the atmosphere and is now in the form of fossil fuels buried underground.
This is basic stuff- you seem to think it is some sort of a revelation. The climate models that you trash were built around the understanding that the temperature and the carbon dioxide levels were both much higher in the past (and sometimes lower). It is the climate scientists who you oppose who are the ones who told us all about these historical facts.
No one is claiming that burning fossil fuels will make the atmosphere more carbon laden and hotter than ever before in the history of the earth. The problem is that the increase in temperature will be relatively RAPID. Far too fast for plants and animals to adapt to. Far too fast for even human cultures to adapt to (the fact that such a large percent of our population and infrastructure is in coastal regions, for example).
In the past, the shift from temperate climates to hot climates and back took place over the course of millions of years. That is plenty of time for all life forms to adapt. We are now in danger of making the same scale of a change over the course of decades or hundreds, rather than millions of years. That is the problem, as the scientists have been trying to tell you for years now.
Before the industrial revolution, CO2 in the atmosphere was 280 ppm. This year it is 392. That is a 40% increase. That is huge.
It is a phony dispute. The cause is rather obvious. You really think that you can spend a couple hundred years burning hydrocarbons and not have any effect on the carbon loading in the atmosphere? Where, pray tell, do you think all those molecules are going? They just disappear???
This so reminds me of the attitudes that people used to have about dumping waste products into rivers and streams. When we were engaged in small scale business, the notion of dumping unwanted stuff in a river, and it just being taken away, was very compelling. No one really cared what happened, because the effects were pretty small. As we started in with huge businesses, generating tons of toxic waste, suddenly we realized that this stuff doesn’t just disappear. And as it accumulates it has terrible consequences, such that we cannot even eat the fish or swim in many of our waterways.
Same thing with the atmosphere. Many people seem to get stuck on thinking that it is just so big, and we are just so small, that we cannot really cause any harm. But that is very obviously not the case.
Of course there are also lots of people who have a financial interest in pretending that there is no problem, and they have a lot of money to spend protecting their special intersts..
And, no one bemoans an energy company from trying to branch out to other areas of potential revenue. Heck, did you know that one tobacco company also produces food!?!?!?!? GASP.
However, if you notice, that is 2010 (rather a late-comer to the algae field of biofuel) and yet we have heard nothing and have seen nothing in the way of USABLE fuel.
Everything is “proposed” or “has the possibility” of success. But like windmills, until it is proven, don’t believe the hype.
“if”, “expects”, “potentially”
That is all we ever hear of “green” energy sources.
And before you say it, no we realists do not bemoan the attempt to generate new energy sources. What I, and others, have issue with is the direct federal subsidization, and the sheer demand that it be implemented now, despite proof of feasibility.
FYI
and more importantly:
That last sentence is very scary sounding. And full of PR.
Of course. We are obviously in the stage of developing the technology. That is the only reason there is any talk of government assistance. If the technology were profitable now, then of course there would be no reason for gov’t involvement.
That is obviously not true. There has been considerable progress in both the technology and the actual implementation of wind and solar. Of course it is still a relatively tiny part of the mix, but it is steadily growing.
How many decades did it take from the appearance of the first horse-less carriage to the disappearance of the last horse-driven carriage from out streets?
Oh, is that why you refuse to use the internet? Because it was developed by the wicked government?
No one is forcing implementation of technologies that do not work. You should try to restrain your ranting. It is perfectly appropriate for we the people, acting collectively through the government, to help develop this industry, because there are very important benefits to our society to be gained by a shift to renewable energy sources and clean technology.
The free market is simply not adequate to addressing an issue like global warming. The scale of the issue is too large for any single corporation to deal with, the investment costs are too large for even the industry as a whole to do on their own, the payoff is too far down the road for businesses that focus on the next quarter’s earnings, the risks that are entailed with developing new technologies are too great for individual companies, and the negative consequences of doing nothing are years or decades in the future. Thus corporations make rational decisions not to invest in these technologies, or not to do very much. In situations like that, it is a perfectly appropriate thing for us to use the government to make these investments, to take on these risks.
Why is it scary? I think everyone has known, or assumed that the microorganisms that will be used to generate fuels will be genetically engineered. This is nothing radical – genetically modified bacteria are used extensively today in many fields – including the synthesis of drugs.
They were. Cyclical?
They were. Cyclical?
They were. Cyclical?
And thus the cycle continues.
Try to keep up. The atmosphere’s thermal heating is in no way caused by CO2 loading. Have you heard of out-gassing? And please pray-tell, what is bad about higher levels of the minute trace gas of CO2 in the atmosphere?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.. no they were not.
…again I laugh out loud. No, it was not climate scientists.
Just about every person who is decrying man’s use of hydrocarbon as fuel. Have you not been hearing about “the debate”?
So, its bad that our farm belt will expand? Its bad that fewer people will die from cold like the near 500 that died this past winter?
Your statement is meaningless. For you are claiming that the entire increase is due to man burning hydrocarbon for fuel. This is utter nonsense and an impossibility. Did you know that in the last 200 years, the amount of forested area in America has increased, while at the same time the oceans have risen by @6cm?? Your statement about CO2 shows just as much causality.
Except for those who examine the unbiased data.
I’m sorry, weren’t we just talking about a cycle of some sort? Were you not just talking about the sequestration of carbon? hmmmmm
Yes. Because we all know there are clean hands on the pro-catastrophic climate warming side.
Would you care to explain, since you believe that CO2 causes all of our warming, how we have had cooling spells while CO2 percentage increased?
Would you care to explain the linkage between temperature and glacial and inter-glacial periods? Was CO2 the cause of ice ages as well?
Would you care to explain how changes in temperature always leads changes in CO2?
Are you also of the belief that our sun plays no role in our atmospheric heating like many other so-called “climate” scientists?
Ok? And what relation do horses have to do with the federal gov’t subsidizing private industry?
What does that have to do with anything? Oh, I see what you did there. You are trying to equate the federal government’s creation of a small and isolated backbone of a couple of interconnected mainframe systems to what the world of “internet” is today. I see what you did there. Jumping off that cliff must have hurt.
Yes, DARPA was involved in the initial creation of an interconnected group of computers. But, let me ask you this? Did they continue to subsidize it when they handed it off to private industry? Do they continue to subsidize it? Did they show preference to one company over another? Did they mandate by fiat which company or product would “win”? Or, did private industry get together on their own and with the support of private companies and services sold to private individuals – and back to the government – help develop what is now the backbone of the global economy?
I could list off a hundred other things that our federal gov’t created and then released to the private industry. They did not subsidize or pick who to subsidize.
Ummmm.. you are. You are trying to suggest that the subsidization of an unknown untested unproven future-potential energy resource, while at the same time punishing current energy production, stopping expansion of currently viable and cheap energy production is NOT forcing an implementation?
Have you not heard a thing that your beloved “climate” scientists are saying and pushing in the political realm? Where they don’t belong IMHO. Have you not seen their activism? Are you not even reading your own posts?
You obviously did not read the full sentence.
I have no qualms with and even foster the GM era we live in. As you say, there is nothing radical in producing synthetic products to enrich and benefit our lives. But to claim that doing so will cause a “disruptive change” leads me to think he has other motives and outcomes in mind.
Amusing back and forth from Jcitizen and all.
Most large oil companies et al are in fact doing R&D into renewables. They can see the need for it, definitely want to be in at the cutting edge of it when it’s viable, but in the near future, we are dependent on fossil fuels and on these energy companies.
Giving tax dollars to Green companies is not a solution, it is a huge waste of our money. We’ve already witnessed the bankruptcy of a large number of the companies we’ve given tax dollars to.
Exploring algae as a substitute for oil, is along those same lines. When a company makes it tangible and it’s usable, it will come of age. If we artificially enhance it, it will fail.
Liberals can’t stand reality when it interferes with their ideology.
Duh…
You think this is some revelation???
You are repeating back to me the basics of this system but acting as if this were news.
So you have no clue as to why these are called “greenhouse” gasses? Go do some basic homework gumball-brain (good name for you btw).
yes they were. Who do you think did the science to discover that temperature and CO2 were higher in the past?
It was…..???
Let me guess. Rightwing propagandists….? Is that going to be your argument?
Yes, I have heard about a phony debate between climate-change deniers and the strawmen that they create. You are the people who are defining both sides of this phony debate. Meanwhile, out in the real world, scientists have understood for decades the historical variability of the climate. Hell, even biologists (like me) learned about the widespread tropical climate of the past when we were in highschool, decades ago. If you study even the most superficial explanations of biological evolution, you learn that the earth’s climate has been very variable and that we are not at any of the extreme values now.
Expansion into previously inhospitable areas is good. Existing agricultural areas becoming deserts is bad.
Lets hear your alternative explanation. Remeber, this is additional carbon, not just the existing surface-level carbon cycling.
Oh, you think that we burn carbon, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, and then those molecules magically re-sequester themselves back underground as new coal? Really?
OF all the BS that deniers put out, this is perhaps the most ridiculous. The sun provides, on an ultimate level, ALL the energy on this earth. Everyone knows this. It is a basic feature of every climate model ever built. Of course variations in solar output have important impacts on global temperature. That is one of the many reasons why there is such variability in global temperature. There are many factors that affect temperature. If you graph out temperature, you find a lot of peaks and valleys reflecting all these factors at play.
Man-made global warming tilts the entire graph upward slightly. You still obviously have peaks and valleys. You still have periods with little or no net warming, and other periods with considerable warming. Whereas without GW, the ups and downs would cancel out (on the scale of the centuries), with GW the net regression line is slightly upward. 0.7 degrees in the last century. It is not a lot in one sense, but it can have very considerable consequences if it continues.
You should spend a little time actually reading what scientists say about this issue, rather than just surfing on the propaganda wave from people who think this is just some political issue. It is a real-world issue. The question of whether the climate is warming through human activities is an objective issue. It either is or is not and the determination has nothing whatsoever to do with politics. So go study the science to whatever extent you are capable of doing so. At the very least you would not waste everyone’s time make ridiculous and specious arguments.
JCitizen,
Thank you for a lively debate. And I’m glad to see that you agree with me that coal and oil are part of the carbon cycle.
I mentioned above that CO2 is a GHG, but it is a trace gas and a minor component in our greenhouse heating.
We realists, do not deny our global system of cycles, changes, and fluctuations. We believe in them and yes, place our stake in them. We see from our recorded history, written, oral and data-logged, that our climate has gone up and down. CO2 was not responsible for higher global temperatures. CO2 was not responsible for ice ages.
So, we are hyping both sides of the debate? Does that mean you are a hypothetical figment of my imagination?
I am glad you know this. This puts you in to the so-called “denier” camp. The so-called vaunted “climate” scientists do not believe this. They believe that climate is static and that it wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that our earth began to overheat. Welcome to the club of climate realists.
I again, welcome you to our club. As we say, “nothing new to see here. Move along.”
So, we are not to believe in adaptation and change? Didn’t you just get through mentioning that the past was a vast tropical climate? And yet we are not now. Hmmmm.
Wait, I thought we already agreed that coal and oil were part of the carbon cycle? How can it be additional when energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
Again, welcome to the club. And no, the vaunted “climate” scientists who created and make their careers off of the global-warming models do not believe that the sun plays any significant role in the warming of our planet. And no, the sun does not provide all of earth’s energy as the earth itself provides some of its own warmth.
I am finding it harder and harder to find any bone of contention with you when you continue to move towards the climate realists point of view.
I think we need to get back on the track of arguing if it is economically valid for the gov’t to subsidize a private company’s research into unknown, untested, failed, non-viable, uneconomical, and non-self-supporting alternative fuel sources.
What does that mean? They are out of the carbon cycle so long as they remain sequestered away underground. Have you figured that out yet?
So exactly what effect does it have? Do you think that, just maybe, there are people who study these things for a living, who have managed to quantify exactly what role CO2 plays amongst all the greenhouse gasses? Or are we to rely on your assertions as to what role is plays – you who don’t know as much about this subject as a first-year science undergradute? Where would you go to find peer-reviewed scientific information on this subject?
That is exactly how you deal with people like me – at least until we spend hours working our way through all the misconceptions and distortions that you bring to the discussion.
That is just beyond stupid. Have you ever learned about how these climate models are built – what goes into them? I have never heard of a single human being who believed that climage is static.
I barely know where to begin with you. Here is a LINK to the evil federal gov’t (NOAA) with a discussion of paleoclimate – one site out of dozens you could easily find within five minutes to disabuse you of this absurd notion of yours.
Look, I really do not like going around calling people morons, but if I resist here, I would be rendered speechless. The truth is exactly opposite of your claim. Go learn the basis, then maybe we could have a meaningful discussion.
So there may be hope for you. What I am telling you is exactly what any climate scientist would tell you – if you actually spoke to them to find out what they think instead of believing now the Rush Limbaughs of the world characterize them.
What is the argument? If the technology were profitable today there would be no need for the government to help out. If the technology is doomed to inevitable failure, then it is a bad investment. If the government can stimulate what will become an important and profitable technology in the future, then it is a good investment. To decide which of these two situations are the actual case, one would need to know a lot more about the economics and science of these technologies than you do. Don’t count on the red-team propagandists to give you a fair minded assessment.
Ok, I’ve been a little cheeky with you and made fun of your flip-flops, but like you said of me, I don’t want to call you a moron.
Have you read any of the IPCC reports? There is very little mention of solar impact on warming.
And thus speaks the Socialist part of you. There is absolutely positively without a doubt NO reason for the gov’t to be involved at all in the business of supporting\subsidizing private industries.
As you say, if the technology were sound and there was profit in it, then leave it to the private industry and free market to work that out. Our gov’t was not created to “invest” or make money off of private industry.
I take it then that the govt’s bail out of GM and the unions was a good thing in your eyes, along with their special bankruptcy treatment. Should gov’t bail out the local pizza shops that are going out of business as well?
Y’all do know that Algae is the very beginning of the world’s food chain, right?
Just think about what other alternative fuels we’ve been using have done. Ethanol from Corn has driven up food prices all over the world.
Mucking about with Algae, in my view, has consequences we can’t even begin to imagine. And I’m no fan of GM foods and other substances.
Wind and Solar are not commercially viable. If they were, Exxon and BP would have solar and wind farms all over the place and government wouldn’t have to screw the taxpayers to subsidize them.
After reading a Wiki article on Algae for bio fuel, an expert stated that for bio fuel from Algae to be economically feasible, the price of fossil fuel would have to go up to around $800 per barrel.
So yeah…lets get the government to subsidize it…are you freakin’ nuts?
And, after years of being subsidized, they are now finding out the reality – that reality never lives up to hype.
Yet Papa Obama wants to continue spending valuable (and limited) tax dollars on stupid energy plans when it costs the gov’t nothing to allow oil companies to drill and pump.
Ummm.. does the situation in Greece tell you anything Sir? Stop wasting money and keep your promise you made 3 years ago, and just recently, to cut the deficit and the budget. Live UP to something.
One should begin to wonder why NMP wants taxes, debt and energy prices to go up while our economy stagnates.
Good point about the $800 competitive rate. 4 more years of Obama, and we might be there.
That said, I’ve been reading up on it, and it seems more R&D is aimed at producing biodiesel, rather than a substitute for standard gasoline. There are not that many diesel vehicles out there, and the use of them is low, mostly big pickups and commercial vehicles.
It sure as hell was. The US government has been subsidizing industries that were deemed important for just about the whole of US history.
Damn straight. A million or so extra people unemployed? You think that would have been a good thing? The bailout was a one-shot deal, to save an industry that was hammered by a grave financial crisis that it did not cause. The midwest would be in a total economic depression today if that bailout had not happened, and the US-owned auto industry would have been dead. Yeah, even Ford, which needed no bailout may not have survived, given that all of its parts suppliers would have probably gone under.
Of course not. Nobody thinks that businesses should be bailed out in normal circumstances. But when a very large business gets in trouble for reasons not of its own making, and to let it go would cause economic devastation to real people and many small businesses that depend on them….then it would be absolutely insane to take the ideologically pure position that nothing should be done.
I think a fair case can be made that Mr. Romney and/or Mr. Santorum have guaranteed President Obama’s reelection over just this issue.
Ferchrissakes man, the point is not to subsidize the uneconomical production, the point is to subsidize the further research and development to see if the industry can achieve profitability.
The price comes down dramatically once the technology is developed – is this so strange new concept for you???
STOP IT.. OMG>. I can’t stop laughing. THAT was HILARIOUS!!!
Yes.. socialism is a very strange beast to us Americans who fight to preserve capitalism and free market ideas. You know.. like screwing a failing pizza shop while bailing out your union buddies. That sort of thing.