Your Future – Australian Electric Bills Rise 75% in 2 Years

This is what the ecoNazis have in mind for you – as currently being experienced in Australia:

HOUSEHOLDS face even higher power prices from January 1 as electricity retailers recover the $360 million cost of the federal renewable energy scheme.

About 370,000 AGL electricity customers will be the first hit.

From next week a 3.8 per cent increase in charges will push up customers’ annual bills by $54.

It’s the first case of a NSW provider jacking up charges to recoup the cost of buying small-scale technology certificates, or STCs, which the Federal Government is introducing to help fund a shift towards green energy.

Can’t you just hear the green weenies saying “hey its only 3.8 Percent.  Everybody can afford that to SAVE THE PLANET!”.  Of course, the media in Australia is even more liberal than that in the US (if that is actually possible).  The actual, real news is in the last sentence:

By next winter, electricity will be about 75 per cent more expensive than just two years ago, meaning a typical family’s annual bill will be more than $1000 higher.

How many people would lose their homes to foreclosure if their electric bill came close to doubling in 2 years.  And this is just the start of a long, long list of ecoFantasy energy wishes.  The Ozzies still want a carbon tax and all the other green fantasies.  Soon they will all be living like the aborigines who were there in the 1700s when Europeans first came to the continent.

Bribing You With Your Own Money

Aren’t you just so excited that the Energy Secretary announced spending another $34 million bucks we are borrowing from our great-grandchildren?

Colorado will get more than $34 million in federal stimulus money for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.Of the total, $9.5 million will be used to expand the Renewable Energy Rebates and Grants Program, Chu said. The other $24.6 million will go to the State Energy Program.

I know that in the context of federal spending $34 million is peanuts, but take a minute to think about it.  If you assume the average family in Colorado has an income of $50,000 that would mean that this is the equivalent of taking the entire working wage for a whole year of 680 families (assuming they actually netted $50,000) just to pay for this silly scheme.  And what will it buy this wonderful $34 million?

“This funding will allow Colorado to make major investments in energy solutions that will strengthen America’s economy and create jobs at the state and local level,”

Without the political baloney please

Part of the money will be used for rebates that will reimburse homeowners for a portion of the cost of activities such as energy audits or the installation of attic insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, and high-efficiency furnace replacements.

Energy audits, insulation, and furnace replacements.  Just how many furnace replacements will this buy?  At $5000 per for the highly efficient ones they will subsidize – believe me I know since we were forced to replace our furnace – and assuming they took the entire $34 million and paid for the whole thing that would be 6800 furnaces!  That would also assume none of this will go to the bureaucrats and bean counters and porn surfers in the state government.  So at max 6800 homes affected in this way – with approximately 2 million total homes in the state.  A whopping .34% of Colorado homes could be helped with your tax money!

What is that?  People will replace their furnaces without government subsidies?  Oh you silly goose.  People would sit in the homes and freeze to death without the government coming and telling them that their furnace needed to be replaced.

But it isn’t all being spent on furnaces what about all those energy audits and insulation and duct tape – so that .34% overstates the impact a bit.  And don’t forget that there’s much more:

It will also be used for incentives for residents and businesses that use onsite renewable energy technology, particularly home heating systems, and the state will also offer $400 rebates for the purchase and installation of efficient biomass-burning stoves that can make use of the state’s wood-pellet resource.

Biomass burning stoves?  There is an EPA restriction on the whole of Denver that pretty much outlaws the burning of anything in order not to offend Mother Gaia, so Denver and its surrounding counties don’t get this lovely benefit.  And I think the ecoFreaks consider the cutting of any tree as the equivalent of murder.  But I know I want to get in line for my $400 stove subsidy.  Well, except for the fact that putting it into my house would mean completely redoing the heating system and putting in a chimney and it would probably end up costing me thousands of dollars to actually get my $400 bucks.  So I guess I will pass – as will anybody who actually has a brain and thinks will also do.

And there’s even more:

The money will also be used for programs to help state agencies, including public schools, reduce their energy use and carbon emissions. The state says it will promote greater energy efficiency in new and existing homes with programs such as a “whole house tune up” that bundles efficiency incentives.

Note that first sentence there – state agencies will use it.  How they will use it is not specified, but it will be used I’m sure.  But somehow you just know that when it comes time to actually account for how this money is used (and we all know that will happen when pigs develop the ability to levitate) all these wonderful audits, and insulation programs, and wood pellet stoves, and furnace replacements will be a drop in the ocean.  This money is going to help keep your state government running and interfering in your life.

This isn’t about energy or carbon credits or anything.  Its just a transfer of your federal tax dollars to the state government for them to pay people to run around piously proclaiming their green credentials.  Aren’t you so glad your taxes are being used in this way?  Because children unborn will be paying interest on this useless waste of money.

Democrats Number 1 Priority

Trojan House: New poster-child of solar failure

Yeah, but shouldn’t the first clue of failure have been the very idea of building an 800 square-foot house in Troy, MI that cost $900,000 — that is, $1,125 per square foot? The median price of homes in Troy is about $159,000 and that’s for an 1,800 sq. ft home — about $88 per square foot.

Even if the solar system hadn’t malfunctioned, who in their right mind would consider the house a success?

I suppose it’s fitting that this tragi-comedy occurred in a place called Troy — the greens are trying to deceive us in adopting their nutty policies and goofy technologies with a Trojan House.

Beware of greens bearing grifts.

clipped from greenhellblog.wordpress.com It was supposed to be a shining example of the green movement — a completely independent solar-powered house with no gas or electrical hookups. Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot. But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed. Frozen pipes during the winter caused $16,000 in damage to floors, and city officials aren’t sure when the house at the Troy Community Center will open… “The system was designed to kick a heater on to keep water from freezing,” [the superintendent of parks for the city] said. “The heater drew all reserve power out of the battery causing the system to back down and the pipes froze.”

Wind Power Blows

clipped from www.energytribune.com Wind has been the cornerstone of almost all environmentalist and social engineering proclamations for more than three decades and has accelerated to a crescendo the last few years in both the United States and the European Union. But Europe, getting a head start, has had to cope with the reality borne by experience and it is a pretty ugly picture. Independent reports have consistently revealed an industry plagued by high construction and maintenance costs, highly volatile reliability and a voracious appetite for taxpayer subsidies. In the journal Energy Policy gas turbine expert Jim Oswald and his co-authors, came up with a series of damning conclusions: not only is wind power far more expensive and unreliable than previously thought, it cannot avoid using high levels of natural gas, which not only it will increase costs but in turn will mean far less of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions than has been claimed.

Energy Nonsense

In an April 4 Newsweek guest editorial, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu also proved that — his Nobel Prize notwithstanding — common sense and rudimentary knowledge are lacking. First he did not offer one sentence on securing the 87 percent of energy supplies that the US needs other than to discuss “advanced biofuels.”

Not to be outdone in slogan-style exaggeration, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar chimed in…Salazar, the Wall Street Journal reported, “raised eyebrows when he said offshore wind farms could replace 3,000 coal-fired plants.” Never mind that the US only has 600 of them. He also claimed that offshore wind in the Atlantic could deliver 1,000 gigawatts of capacity – approximately equal to the entire electric generation capacity of the US…Salazar’s statement should raise a lot more than eyebrows.

clipped from www.energytribune.com The Obama Administration seems to be unmoved by the fact that according to almost all estimates, by the year 2030, while the world energy demand will increase by 50 percent, oil, gas and coal will still account for 87 percent of world energy. The EPA of course does not offer solutions to the 87 percent problem and defers to Congress to do so. Surely Congress will find the right solution from a position of knowledge as demonstrated by the honorable Nancy Pelosi who on NBC’s Meet the Press said “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” and lest one thought she misspoke, she went on to say in the same interview that natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels.” Let me make two predictions which for most who understand energy may generate chuckles for the dearth of daring: By the end of Obama’s first term, oil consumption in the US will rise and the imported portion of that consumption will increase.

New Zealand’s Biofuel Requirements To Be Axed

Gerry Brownlee says there is no way to prove imported biofuels are sustainably produced and he says the government’s view is that using the current arrangement could cause more environmental harm.

Brownlee sees a future for locally produced biofuel but says importing it to create a problem is not what the government wants to do.

Biofuel requirements to be axed (0:45)

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/2416055

clipped from tvnz.co.nz Mandatory biofuel requirements are to be axed by the government. The Energy Minister says legislation passed in September forcing oil companies to use proportional levels of biofuel in their products will be repealed. The Biofuel bill was been passed into law in September with the then-government aiming to increase the amount of biofuel such as dairy and beef by-products to power motor vehicles. The bill passed with a 20 vote majority and meant biofuels would have to make up 0.5% of oil companies’ sales this year. Related Air NZ first to trial biofuel Kiwi company to make algae biofuel Biofuel bill becomes law Biofuels: an acceptable alternative? � watch FACTBOX – Biofuels, NZ and abroad

Global Warming Hits England

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Wonderful news: Comrade Obama will has promised the USA will play a leading role in the struggle to “save the planet” from global warming, even if it means committing economic suicide. In other global warming news: Icy winds and heavy snow storms swept across Britain today, causing chaos for drivers and closing hundreds of schools. Thousands of children got a day off school as sub-zero temperatures and heavy snow forced around 200 schools in the North-West to close. … The first snow of this winter fell in England in October. Meanwhile, society presses forward with plans to plunge itself into a long-term depression as a token gesture to avert a crisis that does not exist. Future generations will be left to figure out what made so many of us go so tragically insane.

90,000 Renewable Energy Colorado Jobs?

The Colorado Governor is touting research (paid for by…The Governor of Colorado) about hwo specatularly wonderful renewable energy is and how its provising food for 90,000 families and:

Gov. Bill Ritter made the startling claim this week that “the renewable energy industry is creating directly or indirectly 90,000 jobs” in Colorado – in other words, 20,000 more than the estimated employment associated with the booming oil and gas industry.

Let’s put the figure of 90,000 jobs in perspective. It’s nearly twice the number of cops, firefighters, security guards and prison guards in Colorado – combined. It’s more than the combined total of every teacher in K-12 schools together with every lawyer and paralegal. Ninety thousand is twice the waiters and waitresses in this state, twice the number of fast-food workers, and only 10,000 or so less than the total for all major health-care occupations (see the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the occupational employment totals).

Here’s another reality check: After the legislature increased the renewable energy standard for utilities last year from 10 percent to 20 percent for 2020, the League of Conservation Voters – not known for soft-pedaling the impact of green energy – told its members that the measure would create a grand total of 4,100 jobs.

Well, how do you get to a figure that there are more renewable energy jobs than teachers, firemen and policemen?

The report admits that the energy efficiency business is “much more nebulous and difficult to define” than renewables, but that doesn’t stop it from trying. For openers, its definition includes “partial segments of large industries such as vehicles [those considered energy efficient], buildings, lighting, appliances, etc.” And don’t sneer at that “etc.” because it covers a lot of ground, too, including “insulation sales” and the recycling industry.

Never mind that people have been blowing insulation into walls for decades: That activity has now been drafted into the New Energy Economy, where it can be displayed by politicians as a trophy of their economic leadership.

Of course, this will be touted as an example of the wonderful leadership provided by the Dummycrats in Colorado who are working to ensure that every single person either works for the government or is dependant on it.

Your UN Mandated Future – Eat Rotten Food and Crap in a Bucket

This is what your overlords at the United Nations would mandate for all Americans if given a chance:

For the most part, the top contestants frequently rode bikes instead of driving, kept the heat down in the winter, grew some of their own food, went without air-conditioning and airplane travel, and spent little on clothes and entertainment. Dunn pulled ahead of the others in part because he uses a wood-burning furnace, which produces local air pollution but lowers carbon emissions significantly. He also had an advantage in that he eats expired and discarded food he acquires from stores and restaurants in his work as a recycler and composter.

Dunn beat out second-place finisher Sayre Vickers, 32, in part because of his living arrangements. Dunn, who is divorced with three grown children, didn’t live with his current partner and their two young children during the period covered by the contest. But he shared his home heating bill—and split the associated carbon emissions—with three people who live beneath him. Vickers lives solo.Vickers, of Garfield Park, grows tomatoes, basil, wild spinach, kale and peppers in front of the sunny windows of his apartment and makes his own furniture from discarded wood. With no running water, he hauls his 3 gallons a day from the bathroom one floor below.

The toilet is a bucket, with a 30-gallon garbage can nearby for storing human waste layered with sawdust. Vickers has a friend in the suburbs who allows him to park the cans when they fill up. The contents decompose, forming compost.

and how do we know this is what we would be required to do if the idiots in the ecoNazi movement were given half a chance?  Well, they come right out and say so:

Dunn is already living at roughly the level of carbon emissions that scientists at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say the average human must achieve by 2100 if we are to avoid dangerous effects of global warming.

Yes, the reach of the Green Overlords.  No running water, burn logs for heat, no ac, no car, no travel, no new clothes – just be glad they allow you to live I guess.  What they really want to do is turn back civilization.

Its articles like that which make me turn up the ac just a little bit more.

And what about people who don’t have nice friends – like Vickers – who allow them to stack up buckets of human waste in their yards?