It's not political. It's a mental health thing. The ability for higher cognitive functioning is a necessary prerequisite to grasp logical intricacies. As far as the old goats plan. I see he has no qualms collecting massive tax-payer subsidies for his so called "plan". His advertising campaign promotes a logical fallacy since he likes ( as do bush and his supporters) to talk about the "greatness" of capitalism. Engaging in logical fallacies are a trademark trait of the average bush supporter. So back to the mental health issue.
ok , so we get it. You don't trade for a living, so fundamental capitalistic concepts elude you. That's why paying massive welfare subsidies to guys like him are a non-issue. Sending Boone large welfare checks does not solve the fundamental issue of fossil fuel addiction. My solution would be to issue those same subsidies to 1/ home owners so they can install solar panels. 2/ Manufacturers of the above panels ( law of mass production. The more you sell, the less the technology will eventually cost to produce. More competition equals better innovations in technology ) 3/ increase gas guzzler penalties on SUVs ( homes-on-wheels) 4/ use those tax collection to subsidize purchase of electric cars. You see, I'm not a pure capitalist either. Anyone who thinks he is, has issues with their basic cognitive faculties.
Finally some actual substance. Picken's plan makes sense because it gives us about 20-30 years to get the technology together to make even more drastic changes than he is proposing. Vehicles can run on natural gas right now. All we need is the infrastructure. We have plenty of natural gas right now if we can use other energy sources (wind, solar) to supplement. It makes sense. Solar works very well out west but the midwest has hail storms and dreary winters. Wind has to mix in there too and Pickens is getting the ball rolling. Politcal inaction is the problem. (You are right, I don't trade for a living. I make about 7-10 trades a day and have been very successful for years but have a business that pays my bills.)
"What we need are for our congressional morons to open up drilling to put more oil SUPPLY into the marketplace and existing oil infrastructure. Why aren't they doing it?" Wrong...It is well known that the usa has little oil to drill.At 140$ a lot of companies would love to drill what little there is of it ergo their bs about how drilling will solve our problems. We dont need more oil we need less and we need to decrease our use of it.When will conservatives familiarize themselves with the concept ' to conserve' ?Ironic aint it? Its funny how nobody on any side of the fence dares broach the subject of conservation that will require this radical concept called sacrifice-as in ditching the suv or turning off the AC. You dont cure an addiction by providing more supply you cure it by removing the demand. BTW,natural gas extraction is extremely toxic and damaging.The 4 corners area is being ravaged by it and the locals are not so friendly to it-and these are very right wing folk. The emissions produced by it also arent clean like many claim.
He will create a movement and one of the two candidates will jump on board and ride the wave. Anyone care to guess which candidate that will be?
My parents live in the 4 corners area and have visited frequently and have never heard of the locals being ravaged by natural gas extraction. So are you saying that it is worse than oil extraction? The bottom line is we have lots of nat gas, don't have to import it and cars trucks can run on it easily.
Really? So which part of the capitalist system points to the heavy government subsidies & grants? For someone who complains about taxes, I hope you feel good that a chunk of it is going into Boone's pocket. I know that very few on here if anyone else besides me knows the real deal behind wind. What Boone is doing is a scheme to enrich himself under a fake pretenses. His wind plan is a myth, it will never reach it goals or even come close to it. There are enough case studies to show that. And for anyone who thinks that a man his age does not care about money cause he is a billionaire already, please. You obviously do not know the type of personality these people are. They don't ever stop, in fact, their greed & drive only grows.
This post shows how little you seem to know about the energy situation generally, or wind power specifically. Or for that matter, Boone Pickens. Lets start with Pickens. As of last year, Pickens was worth an estimated $3 Billion. To put this into perspective though, recently, he bought 667 wind turbines from GE. The cost was $2 Billion. With those turbines he is building a large wind farm on the Texas Panhandle, the cost of which ultimately may be something like $12 Billion. So when you start to use terms like "taxpayer funds as seed money", you start to show you really haven't done your homework. Here's a link to help you out: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20080602&id=8716988 Next, as with most renewable energy investments, the federally government gives a tax credit. That tax credit amount to 2 cents per kilowatt hour. This tax credit is about to expire. Pickens has made his investment without knowing whether this tax credit will in fact be renewed. Presumably it will be. The government isn't just subsidizing Pickens. It subsidizes virtually anyone who does anything with alternative energy. If it's solar there's a credit, etc etc. In fact, you may be familiar with the tax credit for ethanol. The only way ethanol could be brought to market was with tax subsidies. So I guess what your point is is that you would like to subsidize ethanol, but not wind. Is that it? Or you just would like to disqualify Pickens from being eligible for a tax credit? The US tax code currently creates provisions for all kinds of activities. For instance, we give a favored treatment for trading commodity futures. We pay famers a subsidy not to grow crops. We have depletion allowances, investment tax credits, etc etc etc. But in this case, there are large upfront investments required, which due to a variety of uncertainties, might not be attractive unless the government provided incentives. Most of the alternative energy forms fall into this category. In terms of wind though, there are other complications such as the need for transmission lines to get your power "downstream". Pickens has said he is going to pay for his. But this type of investment is going to be necessary to use wind in a large scale, since most of the wind would come from the midwest corridor. http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalc...-asks-feds-to-help-distribute-his-wind-power/ Meanwhile, this country clamors about the need for "green power". We don't want to drill off our coasts. And yet, we spend $700 Billion on imported oil per year. But you don't want to encourage wind power because Pickens might benefit? Even though he's just spend his net worth on wind turbines? And eventhough the tax credit for wind has been in existence prior to his investment? OldTrader
Feel free to inject some facts at any point hydroblunt. Start by providing a few links to some of these studies. A guy like you who "knows the real deal behind wind" might be very helpful in this thread. LOL. OldTrader