Obviously, that's bad news for EVs, which brings us back to Tesla. Tesla's made a name for itself as the future of "green" cars, and as of the time of this writing, its stock price is trading as if that's true. However, according to Climate Central, in 46 states Tesla's Model S is the least climate-friendly EV, and it's worse than all but two hybrids when it comes to CO2 emissions over 100,000 miles of driving. When you couple that with the above information from the EPA, it's clear that Tesla isn't nearly as "green" as it wants you to believe.I remember all the grief Apple used to get regarding its environmental footprint. It appears the issues folks brought up regarding Apple and the environment pale in comparison to Tesla.
EVs sound promising on the surface, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, they're not nearly as environmentally friendly as they seem, nor do they help America become energy independent. Further, thanks to its battery, the Model S is even less environmentally friendly than most other EVs. As such, it doesn't meet the requirements for "green car of the future."
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How's that renewable energy working out for Germany? Worse than you think. Merkel really stepped in it. AFP is reporting this via Yahoo!News. The story gets worse and worse, the deeper you get into it. Germany prided itself on its renewable energy program, but it was costing consumers a heck of a lot of money (it seems like the West Germans love spending money -- before renewable energy, it was bailing out Cyprus, Portugal, and Spain, trying to save the EU. Before that, it was "repatriation" of East Germany into West Germany).
Following the Japanese nuclear disaster, Merkel made a knee-jerk decision to kill nuclear energy in her own country, hoping renewable energy could take up the slack. Not!
Generous state incentives for solar, wind and biogas that have driven up prices, now among Europe's highest, would be trimmed from this year under Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel's much-anticipated proposals.
Gabriel, a Social Democrat who is Merkel's vice chancellor and also economy minister, is mulling a new law encapsulating the energy changes that would take effect from August 1.
Speaking on ZDF public television, he sought to dampen any consumer hopes that the proposals would lead to a reduction in electricity prices, according to early excerpts of the interview to be broadcast Sunday.
Correcting earlier mistakes with worse mistakes, Germans will not be lucky to see their incredibly high utility rates stay flat. Everything suggests Germans will see already record utility rates increase.
So, got renewable energy?
More from the story:
"Falling electricity prices there will not be, but we will finally put the brakes on the increase," Gabriel told the "Berlin Direkt" programme.
Subsidies for new producers of wind energy would be reduced while those for biogas would practically disappear.
As usual, with these types of stories the comments are always the best part. One such comment:Producers would also gradually be forced to sell green energy competitively on the market from next year rather than enjoying priority treatment with guaranteed prices.
Amazing. No matter how many times it's shown that there is no global warming, the left demands more. If wind and solar was such a great idea, why would Siemens, Germany's single largest power management firm dump that entire division? Without the government funding them, there is no way they'd exist. They produce power 20% of the time. It's so dirty, when it comes to the harmonics, they can't even run the basic PLC processors in the wind machines. They need conventional power plants to make them work. Well, boutique won't work, you don't like nuclear, that pretty much leaves a bunch of coal plants.I believe I posted this "companion story" a couple of days ago. SpiegelOnLine is reporting the same for the entire EU:
It seems that the climate is no longer of much importance to the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, either. Commission sources have long been hinting that the body intends to move away from ambitious climate protection goals. On Tuesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported as much.
At the request of Commission President José Manuel Barroso, EU member states are no longer to receive specific guidelines for the development ofrenewable energy. The stated aim of increasing the share of green energy across the EU to up to 27 percent will hold.
But how seriously countries tackle this project will no longer be regulated within the plan. As of 2020 at the latest -- when the current commitment to further increase the share of green energy expires -- climate protection in the EU will apparently be pursued on a voluntary basis.The US will go it alone, and following his presidency, President Obama will move to center stage, Climate Control, ousting Algore.
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Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment decisions based on anything you read here or what you think you may have read here. From Bret Jensen, contributing over at SeekingAlpha today:
Quick, name the investment firm that has had the best annual performance from its "Top Stock Picks" lists over the past decade. Would you guess Merrill Lynch? Credit Suisse? Citi? UBS? Actually it is little known Raymond James. Its annual 'Best Picks' list, has outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 8.5 percent over the past 10 years including producing a return of 44% in 2013.A return of 44% last year and beat the S&P by an average of almost 10% over the past ten years. And the North Dakota Legacy Fund is invested in cash. Raymond James provided its top 13 picks for 2014; here are three, according to Jensen: Copa Holdings, JP Morgan, and Apple.
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President Obama uses the "race card" to account for his low popularity. To the best of my memory, I believe most presidents have had popularity ratings this low; certainly George W. had popularity ratings this low. I guess their ratings were low because they were white. It seems to be forgotten that President Obama's mother was ..., well not African-American.
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I'm probably mis-reading this story, but the Motley Fools note that California had the largest number of folks enrolling in ObamaCare: 499,000. Well, duh. California leads in US population. California has a population of 40 million; New York State, 20 million. An enrollment of less than 500,000 in a state of 40 million is barely 1% -- and, of course, this does not include the millions of non-US-documented "residents" living in California. The Fools did note that the "wrong" type of folks overwhelmingly enrolled in ObamaCare.
But, of course, this is all background noise. The only important metric will be the new (2015) premiums announced for calendar year 2014. Those numbers will be released in October, 2014. President Obama will, however, by executive order, a) cap premiums and perhaps even drive them down, or increase the subsidies; b) cut the annual deductibles in half; and, c) ensure that the health insurers are bailed out. A stroke of the pen in September, 2014, is my hunch when and how it will be done. The insurers will simply become "pass-through" entities for the national healthcare system. Congress will come to love it.
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The year of the crude oil and natural gas pipeline story, yet to be written.
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We hear a lot about the well-publicized increases in oil production in America’s top two oil-producing states: Texas (2.752 million bpd in October, and now as a separate country would be the 9th largest oil-producer in the world) and North Dakota (973,280 bpd in November, on its way to the one million bpd milestone). But the recent breakthroughs in advanced drilling technologies have also brought dramatic increases in shale oil output over the last three years (October 2010 to October 2013) to the five oil-producing states of: Oklahoma (73%), Utah (38%), Colorado (96%), Wyoming (26%) and New Mexico (50%).
Note the low percentages in Wyoming (26%) and Utah (38%) where most of the land is controlled by "all-of-the-above-energy-sources-Mr Obama. What a crock. The state of North Dakota was incredibly fortunate that Teddy Roosevelt did not make the entire state a national park, with the exception of two private enterprise zones: Bismarck and Fargo. Can you imagine? And I think he could have done that, had he wanted. The Poppers would have been happy. Same with Jane Nielson.
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Chris Matthews may get tingly feelings up his leg when he talks about President Obama, but I still get goosebumps up my spine whenever I view this video. Thank you CarpeDiem for posting. Forunately presidents and go, but Apple will be here "forever."
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