Chances are you haven’t seen the video on youtube titled “If I wanted America to fail” which has the tagline: “The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it’s become an economic suicide pact. And we’re here to challenge it. ” It was produced by a group called Free Market America which is a project of ... continue reading]]>

Chances are you haven’t seen the video on youtube titled “If I wanted America to fail” which has the tagline: “The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it’s become an economic suicide pact. And we’re here to challenge it. ” It was produced by a group called Free Market America which is a project of Americans for Limited Government and Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy.  The narrator of the video lists off all of the things he would do if he wanted America to fail; which largely focus on energy and environmental regulations.  The producers of the video believe that America should be unshackled from the chains of energy and environmental regulations, and only then can we prosper.  Well I’m here to tell you they’re wrong.

First, let me say that there is a very fine line between too little and too much regulation, but it is an important line that deserves intelligent debate and decision making, not right-wing populist propaganda videos. I’m not an environmental extremist, nor do I consider myself a liberal.  But I am observant enough to realize that if fossil fuel energy companies operated without any regulation, the great nation of the United States of America would be a much dirtier, nastier place to live.   Even with some regulation, the true cost of coal is much more than what is revealed with our cheap electricity rates.

To call for simply doing away with regulation is ignorance.  Those who lament the lack of a “free market” obviously don’t understand energy policy and the nuances of externalities.  Do you think utilities operate in a free market?  Do I and many Americans have a choice where they buy their electricity from?  Can I choose to buy electricity that doesn’t pollute the air I breathe or scar the Appalachian mountains?  No, I can’t, because the utility has a monopoly on customers in my region.  That is far from a free market.  And yet this video would have viewers pity the poor utility harmed by evil environmental regulations (that make our air cleaner to breath and limit the days children with asthma spend in hospitals during smog alert days in the summer).

The funniest and most ironic (unintentional as it was) piece of the video is this little gem:

(If I wanted America to fail…) I’d devise fictitious products like carbon credits and trade them in imaginary markets. I’d convince people that this would create jobs and be good for the economy.

While I’m not a huge fan of carbon credits, let me tell you about a little free market fictitious product that was much bigger player in the global financial meltdown that we’re currently living through than any environmental regulation will ever be: synthetic CDOs. The fat cats on Wall Street fought against any regulation of these complex financial derivatives.  Alan Greenspan, the chief of the Fed and free-market maven, stated: “The regulation of derivatives transactions that are privately negotiated by professionals is unnecessary. It hinders the efficiency of markets.“  Ha!  How can someone labeled as a genius be so foolish to think that financial professionals will always operate ethically and with the good of the American public in their hearts.  Who knows if more regulation would have prevented the meltdown of mortgage derivatives.  But it may have prevented mortgage brokers to sell loans to people who knew they couldn’t pay them back or bankers from packaging up groups of mortgages that they knew were crap in a way that the idiots in the ratings agencies couldn’t see through.  What we do know is that it wasn’t regulation that brought down the global financial system.  It was greed.

And that’s the issue at the heart of it all isn’t it?  There would be no need for regulation if individuals and companies weren’t greedy and operated ethically at all times.  But we are greedy.  We all are.  It’s human nature.  When it comes between preventing a little more pollution or saving a few more dollars, most of us are going to opt to save more dollars.  What’s a little more pollution anyway?  It’s a big earth.  We don’t care what happens to pollution once it’s out of our view.

I love the free market.  I love it as long as it accounts for all the externalities it creates.  But it doesn’t, and that is why regulation is needed.  The goal is to figure out the right amount of regulation that protects the environment and the public but also allows private companies to prosper.  “If I wanted America to Fail” is a farce that preaches idealism that doesn’t exist in the real world.  Hopefully you are smart enough to realize this.

I recently purchased the Philips Ambient LED bulb at Home Depot for $24.97 but you can buy the Philips Dimmable AmbientLED 12.5-Watt A19 Light Bulb on Amazon for 72 cents cheaper!  While I’ve voiced my opinions on why the Philips L Prize LED bulb is overpriced, I really like the lower cost version.  It puts ... continue reading]]>

I recently purchased the Philips Ambient LED bulb at Home Depot for $24.97 but you can buy the Philips Dimmable AmbientLED 12.5-Watt A19 Light Bulb on Amazon for 72 cents cheaper!  While I’ve voiced my opinions on why the Philips L Prize LED bulb is overpriced, I really like the lower cost version.  It puts out a great color light and will supposedly last me 22.8 years (3 hours/day, 7 days a week).

I purchased the bulb as a direct replacement for 60 watt incandescent.  I originally thought it could be used in my kitchen in place of the incandescent bulb I’m using as a resistor in my occupancy sensored lighting circuit with almost all CFLs.  You can read about my experience with why the incandescent is needed in our post Occupancy Sensor and CFL lights.  But as soon as I screwed the LED in the lights started flickering so my plan was dead.  Then I actually read the back of the box where it states: “This lamp is not compatible with photo controls, occupancy sensors, or timing devices”.  Although it is suitable for use with dimmers.

You can see use the lighting calculator in our post best lighting cost comparison to see that LEDs are a better value against incandescents over the long term. It is harder to justify the current price of LEDs vs. CFLs on a lumens/watt basis, but if you don’t like CFLs, then it’s almost a no-brainer to make the investment and switch to LEDs as they are a much better investment when compared to incandescents.

Check out the Philips LED bulb on the Department of Energy’s LED Lighting Facts website.

The model number on the bulb I purchased is 12E26A60-1.

Additional Data:

Watts = 12.5

Life – 3 hrs/day = 22.8 years

Color Temperature = 2690 K

Brightness = 805 Lumens

Dimmable

A little under a year ago we wrote about the Best Residential Wind Power case study in the U.S. out in Reno, Nevada.  After analyzing some of the wind energy production data from Reno’s installed residential wind turbines,  I stated in the end of the post: “The thing ... continue reading]]>

The production of this turbine is laughable

A little under a year ago we wrote about the Best Residential Wind Power case study in the U.S. out in Reno, Nevada.  After analyzing some of the wind energy production data from Reno’s installed residential wind turbines,  I stated in the end of the post: “The thing I found most interesting is that the wind turbines just don’t seem to be producing that much energy.  This is something I chronicled in our post, Residential Clean Energy: Solar PV vs. Wind“.

Well, some others have finally caught on to the fact that residential wind turbines aren’t performing so well in Nevada.  The Las Vegas Sun put up an article on March 30th with the title, “NV Energy windmill (sic) program generates rebates, little electricity” (Mapawatt note: windmills use the force of the wind to turn a shaft to do mechanical work – i.e. mill grain.  Wind turbines use wind to turn a shaft to generate electricity)

From the opening paragraph of the Las Vegas Sun article:

A year ago, a Reno clean energy businessman warned the Public Utilities Commission that if it didn’t set a few standards for NV Energy’s wind rebate program, its customers could end up footing the bill for turbines that rarely produce electricity.

One reason behind his concern: To be eligible for rebates, customers didn’t need to prove that the wind actually blows enough to justify installing a turbine on their property.

“This could allow unscrupulous developers to sell turbines to unsuspecting customers who will not generate electricity from an installed turbine because there is no wind to power the turbine,” Clean Energy Center managing member Rich Hamilton told the PUC last May. “This problem is especially vexing because ratepayer money could be contributing to the cost of such turbines, which could give the Wind Generations program and the wind industry a black eye.”

But this isn’t a new issue. In fact, we wrote a post in January about the folks in California who dealt with something similar when they realized the DyoCore SolAir wind turbine didn’t even come close to living up to its energy production claims.  In that case, the California Energy Commission realized it made some huge errors in the program, mainly that it allowed manufacturers to provide their own, unverified operating data, and put the wind turbine generator rebate program on hold for awhile.  It’s back now, with only 4 approved wind turbine generators.

We aren’t a fan of residential wind turbines, because there just aren’t many homeowners in the U.S. who can make use of them, but we have stated that if you’re planning on installing a wind turbine, make sure you use an anemometer first.  This is the same advice recommended to improve the Nevada wind turbine rebate.

So is the problem that states and utilities just don’t know how to give incentives for residential wind turbines or that residential wind turbines don’t deserve incentives?