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Friday, August 10, 2012

Olympic Medals for Ideas Gone Bad -- Actually, Bad Ideas Gone Worse

Gold Medal: Food for fuel. Corn to ethanol. Crazy idea from the beginning. Now it really looks like a bad idea. UN asking US to suspend ethanol program immediately. Case in point: Guatamalans will starve so large industrial growers can convert corn to ethanol. -- NY Times, January 6, 2013.

Silver medal: Killing Keystone XL.

Bronze medal: Slicers and dicers.

Copper medal: Solyndra.

Honorable mention:
  • $26 diesel for US Navy via biofuels -- what were they thinking? Coal would be cheaper
  • Permitorium following the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill -- what were they thinking?
New category: bad ideas that can only get worse with time  

Bakken reality show 

France bans office lights after 1:00 a.m. to cut down CO2 emissions; crime will run rampant

Tesla charging stations good for Tesla only; Leaf and Volt -- you're out of luck. Actually, it's worse than that: Tesla is a car company. Now it's becoming an infrastructure company. This is like GM building its own gas stations but only allowing GM cars to refuel there.

California mandates that 15% of all cars sold in the state must be "emission-free" by 2025

2 comments:

  1. Why is Solyndra higher than $26 diesel? i thought you were a numbers guy. politics aside, we have billion in loans out for solar companies and china has 30 billion in _grants_. wtf? I wouldn't even put solyndra in the top 10 bad ideas. I'd rather have my tax dollars fund a couple more solyndra bombs before i see the next generation of solar panels in america having the "made in china" stamp on them.

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    Replies
    1. The $26 diesel for the US Navy was a "one-off." Won't happen again. It was up-front, out in the open, transparent.

      "Solyndra" is short term for everything solar. The math doesn't work for solar. Period. Dot. "Solyndra" was not transparent, was probably illegal in minds of some, including mine.

      Solar is a great niche for a few cronies, a few venture capitalists, but other than that, nada, zip, zilch. It's a scam. There's not enough real estate for all the panels (regardless of where they are made) to make a dent in energy needs worldwide.

      Even Europe has figured this out: Spain, Netherlands, Germany, et al, have suspended wind, solar energy projects. Solar is still costing consumers 6 to 7 times what conventional energy (natural gas, coal) costs to provide electricity, despite years of study, and years of subsidies.

      So much more could be written, but not worth the time or effort.

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