This makes no sense to me.

Millions of Americans are going to have to borow money from credit cards and banks to pay their taxes. A large portion of these tax dollars will go to TARP and to bailouts. This money is being given to financial instutions - supposedly so they can loan it out - so people can pay their taxes…
<blockquote><em>Isn’t this like giving ourselves a blood transfusion with a leaky hose?</em></blockquote>
As far as bailing out companies like GM, it sounds good — to keep tens of thousands of people employed. The fact that they’re making products that people aren’t buying seems to be ignored. Wouldn’t it make more sense to give them the money directly and ask them to do something more useful?
For example: Tom Friedman in "The World is Flat" suggests that the dot-com crash made billions of dollars worth of fibre-optic cable available for pennies on the dollar when the companies that invested in them went bankrupt. This meant that these assets that were a bad investment at the original cost were a ‘gold-mine’ at pennies on the dollar and helped create our marvelous communications system.

In other terms: If I were to get a bunch of investors together and build a huge office park in a place that didn’t need one, my ’stupidity’ would cause me to go bankrupt and the office park which I had intended to sell for 500 million might sell at auction for 5 million. The investors, who took the risk, would lose. The town which now has a beautiful new building for a great price, would win, by being able to attact new business into a building at rock-bottom prices.

As far as a company like GM - if they were to go bankrupt then investors (who took the risk) would lose but there would be an incredible group of car-building assets available, cheap, for another company who could use it it to build cars that people want.

The losses, which investors agreed to risk, are instead being spread among all taxpayers. Any investments that those same investors made that are working, of course, they get to keep.

That relates to:
<p align="center"><em>"If I win, I get to keep my money — if I lose, we’ll all chip in to pay my losses." </em></p>
<p align="left">or — socializing losses while privatizing gains.</p>
<p align="left">I don’t know how this is going work. Hopefully our new president and his administration do. I just hope that they keep in mind that when an investor makes a bad decision, he loses money.  His community or government can help — I’ll chip in to help people who lost their life savings — but not when a large portion of my support goes to underperforming high-paid executive who drove the company into the ground.</p>

I recently read about a new energy technology thet produced power by igniting salt water. The technology was being debunked by the writer because it took more energy to ignite the salt water than it produced. Here is my reply…

Every form of of creating power takes more energy than it returns. That’s a law of physics.

The energy required to produce fossil fuels; gas or coal, requires large amounts of solar energy over a huge amount of time… the theory being that it’s economical to use it because the ‘more energy it took to produce it’ was consumed long ago.

And as far as gas and coal, we don’t even take into account the political energy and human energy it takes to produce it with wars, lives, etc. 

Fuel is about taking energy that it stored somewhere and releasing it for use now. If the cost of releasing the energy is greater than the value of the energy then we have a problem until the cost of energy increases… which it is doing every day.

Fact is, we have all the energy we need. It’s abundant and omnipresent. We just waste almost all of it. The two most important technologies are storage and efficiency.

Storage: During times of peak electricity use (summer 4-6 pm), we use at least 5 times more electricity than at night. The concept of ’spinning reserves’ means that utilities are producing huge amount of electricity that go nowhere just in case everyone turns on their air conditioning at the same time. It’s like idling your car with the clutch disengaged so you can zoom off if you have to. If we could generate energy at night and store it (efficiently) for use during the day we’d be on track to a solution.

Efficiency: The California small appliance efficiency standards enacted about 15 years ago leveled consumption during a huge high-growth period. Refrigerators, Air Conditioners were required to become more efficient… and did… while reducing retail prices of the products. We could do everything we are doing now at a fraction of the power. The barriers are economic, not technological.

Conservation: (Oh No! Not That again!). Grocery Stores that enclose coolers, public air conditioning systems set at reasonable levels (Airports: Brrrr), occupancy sensors on lighting, Variable Frequency drives on motors… please don’t get me started (too late). Conservation is the ultimate good news because the very day we wake up to the need we can probably trim our energy use by 10%. It’s our built-in buffer.

We have the technology, just not the desire.

The newspaper Clarin says it’s the first snowfall here in the capital since 1918 and only the second snowfall in the city’s history. You can see Clarin’s coverage, including some video footage, here.

What it will mean for the energy grid if this latest cold wave sticks around a few days? It’s a holiday there today, but tomorrow everyone will be back at thier offices and Argentina, which has had energy shortages for over a month, may be hard-pressed to prevent rolling blackouts.

Solar PV vs. Everything Else. A large number of our potential clients can’t use PV. Restrictive net-metering environments, shading, and other considerations make it unworkable. What do we offer them instead?

DC systems from NextekPower.com, even though grid-connected, do not require net metering or utility interconnect agreements. Thin Film Panels and Solar Heating panels like the ones from SunMateSolarPanels.com don’t mind a litle shade. Some experts claim that Solar Hot Water is far superior, as a solution, than PV. Fiberoptic solar lighting is beginning to get some buzz as well. The discussion is happening here. Please add your comments.

Originally, this post was written because, on May 4th John Stossel intended to tell the world that Global warming can safely be ignored. Before that message was to air, we wanted to prepare compelling counterpoints and, possibly, mitigate the damage he caused. For unannounced reasons, this segment of the show was canceled.

Please discuss the points below. I will compile your comments into a comprehensive message and submit it for publication. Please try to keep your comments brief, to the point, and include references where appropriate. Please let associates know that this blog is open for comment at http://www.TheEnergyGrid.com/blog.

“Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity” on a special edition of “20/20″ Friday, May 4th at 10 p.m. EDT, has a terrifying message; “Global Warming Can be Safely Ignored.”

Quoted from John Stossel’s article at:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3061015&page=1

1. The fundamentalist doom mongers ignore scientists who say the effects of global warming may be benign.
2. CO2 in the atmosphere may actually benefit the world because more CO2 helps plants grow. Warmer winters would give farmers a longer harvest season, and might end the droughts in the Sahara Desert.
3. The fuss over Kyoto is absurd.
4. Nuclear power is the most practical alternative
5. Building solar panels burns energy, as does trucking them and installing them. Not to mention taking them down again to repair them.
6. To think that solar energy could stop the predicted temperature increase is nonsensical.
7. Windmills are giant bird-killing Cuisinarts, and we’d have to build lots of them to produce significant energy
8. Kyoto would decimate just about every Third World country’s economy, and deliver a catastrophic blow to our own.
9. If the world is warming, it is much more reasonable to adjust to it, rather than try to stop it.
10. Farmers can plant different crops or move north.

Comments will be reviewed before becoming visible. If you have trouble posting your comment, please email them to me at Mark@TheEnergyGrid.com

Thank you!

Mark Robinson

TheEnergyGrid.com

The surge in public awareness about renewable energy comes at a time of rising energy costs and an improving political environment. The demand for solar, wind, and efficiency systems is changing our industry and the companies that serve it. Selling renewable energy systems is going to get tougher as competition, and the sophistication of the competition increases. Your website can be a key to success.

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