Losing Hope in the Green Intermittent Unreliables

Green sources of energy -- such as the intermittent unreliables big wind and big solar -- are ruinously expensive in many ways. The cost of installation is just the beginning. Then there is the huge cost of installing new power transmission infrastructure. And there is the gigantic cost of building and maintaining instant-backup power generation -- which is costly to maintain, and wears out more quickly due to the capricious nature of wind and solar. Finally there is the giant taxpayer subsidy that never seems to go away. It is like a constantly screaming child that never grows up, or a bicycle that can't be ridden without the training wheels.

But several countries -- and now US states -- are beginning to see a diminishing return from their rapid and enthusiastic buildup of big wind and big solar. Germany, Spain, Denmark, and other countries are cutting back on government subsidies. People are losing hope in green.

In the US, Hawaii's rapid buildup of solar is running into a stone wall of reality. The same problem is likely to hit California and other states who have jumped over the green energy cliff blindfolded.

Obama's green energy bankruptcies continue to mount. A123 is one of the most recent green failures to be put under the microscope.

The total cost of attempting to accomodate the power grid -- one of the most important foundations of modern industrial society -- to the green intermittent unreliables, is essentially infinite past a certain point.

In other words, Obama and other green crusaders are gambling with the futures of their societies. All of their well-intended mandates, taxes, subsidies, grants, and other gestures to the gods of green energy are all wasted resources, lost chances to invest in more reliable sources of power.

And despite the many and continuing failures of the green revolution of intermittent unreliables, the idiots have not even admitted that there is a problem, much less have they begun to learn the lessons of their failures, or begun to turn to better policies. Some fools never learn.