I’ve been reading and writing about energy professionally for 3 years now. I regularly see experts in the arena saying things, coming to grand realizations, that we here on CleanTechnica were covering 1, 2, or even 3 years ago.

Not sure what you mean by “ambassador of the environment,” but yes, my bachelor’s degree (from the Honors College of Florida) was a double major in environmental studies and sociology, which covered many of the things I’m writing about today. You don’t often see a lawyer criticized for studying law in college, so it seems odd to think that my educational background doesn’t match what i’m writing about.

as for all the other info you copy & pasted in here, it looks like Bob has done a good job spending his free time debunking your myths (i won’t call them lies, since i don’t know if you actually believe them or not).

as Bob noted though, if you’d like to retain your commenting privileges on this site, you should be careful to check completely absurd claims before posting them.

The national debt increased $11 trillion under Bush.  It increased $5 trillion under PBO.

To claim that PBO has “managed to do everything possible to prevent its recovery” is a blatant lie.

You want to participate in conversations here?  Then follow the rules.  You are not allowed to make shit up.

The CEO of Solyndra was a Republican.

George Kaiser was not an investor in Solyndra.  A non-profit corp that his family had established did have some money invested but neither George nor any other member of his family stood to gain from Solyndra.

At the time, of the loan guarantee Solyndra made sense, both within the renewable energy field and to the financial industry.  PV panels were very expensive and Solyndra had a way of getting more from less photosensitive material and cutting installation costs.

But after Solyndra started manufacturing and building a larger factory (loan guarantee) the price of solar panels plummeted.  No one saw that coming.  No one predicted the extremely rapid price drop.

That price drop undercut Solyndra and put them out of business.

Everything else is right-wing spin.

Let me address one little claim on your part and then get on with pouring some concrete….

Here’s you – “The “trouble” lies in the infinite government regulatory hurdles of environmental impact to some protected newt, uninformed watchdog groups, and an endless list of others. The “trouble” is not in the reactor itself or its design.”

Here’s the news –

“Southern Nuclear notified the commission in March that minor settling beneath the reactor’s “mudmat” made it a few inches off level and would require changes.The mudmat lies beneath the concrete “basemat” on which nuclear buildings will sit. The current license allows a 1-inch variability in the levelness of the basemat, and the requested amendment would increase that leeway to 4 inches, allowing engineers to level the surface by using more concrete when the basemat is poured.A second issue, involving rebar that is not consistent with the design standard, is also being corrected this week. Workers began corrective actions Friday that include welding the rebar fasteners to bring them into compliance.”http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2012-06-26/vogtle-foundation-change-can-proceed-nrc-ruling Screwups = slowdowns = higher costs.

The crusade of this administration’s
“green” initiatives has fallen short. The most recent addition to the
long list of flailing or failed is Nevada Geothermal Power. After avowing that
this would “put Nevadans to work” and Nevada would be the “Saudi Arabia of
geothermal energy”, the pugilistic progressive from Nevada (Harry Reid) and
Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave their cross our heart and hope to die
endorsements to the Obama administration. Of course, this was all the blessing
needed for a 98.5 million dollar loan guarantee to a company that had an
existing facility up and running. The 98.5 million did not add any new
construction or create a new job. A little FYI, when they guaranteed the loan NPG’s
credit rating was BB+ (a.k.a. speculative, junk, below investment grade). That
being said, let us take a look (and some blood pressure medicine) at the Obama
administration’s record (and over 6.5 billion taxpayer dollars from those of us
that still pay taxes) for all this wonderful touchy feely green initiatives.

Solyndra

Days
before this California based company (hoorah for Feinstein, Boxer, and Pelosi-more
on her later) received a 535 million dollar loan guarantee Obama administration
officials warned that the loan was a bad move. The thinkers in the group were
budget analysts Mathew Mosk, Brian Ross, and Ronnie Green, and Biden’s chief of
staff, Ronald A. Klain. As we all know Solyndra went belly up in August 2011.
Surely there were no hands in the presidential cookie jar, so how did the
surgeon of spin attempt to remove any accountability and responsibility?

Stage
one was to state they had no idea that Solyndra was in bad shape. This is tough
to sell when you have White House emails from the three analysts. This alone is
enough to elicit the liar liar pants on fire retort. Stage one is officially
debunked. Stage two is, wait for it, wait for it,…….blame Bush. During an
October press conference Obama said that the loan guarantee was a Bush
initiative under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and “all of them (Congress) in
the past have been supportive of the loan guarantee program”. Well at least
there is an ounce of truth buried in this one. The following comes directly
from the DOE website. Section 1703,
Title XVII, of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was created to provide self-pay
credit subsidy loan guarantees to U.S.
(not Finnish aka Fisker Automotive) companies developing “a new or
significantly improved technology that is NOT a commercial technology”. A
self-pay credit subsidy loan charges the borrower the amount the government
would lose over the life of the loan including lost interest, application,
facility, and maintenance fees. The loan also guarantees that your tax dollars
will pay the loan if the borrower defaults. These costs can range from 1-30% of
the loan. However, Solyndra’s entire loan came from the amended Section 1705 (not 1703), Title XVII, of
the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The amendment was created under the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus law, for “commercially
available technologies,” This amendment provided more funding and had no
credit subsidy fees meaning the company didn’t have to secure any money for the
loan guarantee. Since it was his bright idea to spend us out of debt, it definitely
did not predate Obama. Stage two is officially debunked. For the sweeping
bi-partisan support claim, in 2005, the Republican controlled House and Senate
passed the Energy Policy Act. The House vote was 275-156 with 31 Republicans
voting nay, and the Senate vote was 74-26 with 6 Republicans, Biden, and
Hillary, who criticized the bill as too generous to the oil industry, voting
nay.

Now
for some dirt behind the Solyndra deal. First we have billionaire
George Kaiser, a private investor in the Solyndra deal who just happened to be
a fundraiser for Obama during the 2008 presidential election cycle. Up next we
have another presidential backer, Steve Spinner. Ole Stevie boy raised about
$500,000 for candidate Obama back in 2008 and subsequently got a top job in the
Energy Department, where he was now able to influence the $535 million loan
guarantee for Solyndra. By sheer coincidence Spinner’s wife worked for a law
firm representing Solyndra at the time.

Beacon Power

This gem had allegedly had a Standard & Poor
(S&P) rating of CCC-plus, which is the same as being rated as a junk bond,
before it was doled out 43 million in unsecured taxpayer money. When asked
about personally investing in Beacon Power, economist Peter Morici (the bow tie
sporting fella in the Kyocera commercials) said he wouldn’t do it on purpose
stating that it wasn’t even good junk bond (oxymoron anyone). When it went
belly up with our tax dollars in Oct. 2011, those not financially hurt by it
were CEO William Capp (a 2008 Obama donor) and lobbyist Steve Wolfe (former
aide to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy).

BrightSource

These
guys received 1.4 billion, yes with a B. These entrepreneurs were neck deep in
debt to the tune of 1.8 billion losing 71.6 million to their 13.5 million in
revenue. For those of you possessing the ability to balance your family
checkbook, more goes-outs than come-ins equates to you living beyond your
means. No B.S. flags to be thrown here, despite the fact that the company’s
largest shareholder is Kennedy’s VantagePoint Partners. Who pushed to secure
this loan guarantee? None other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr. You remember him.
The guy that got busted for heroin possession back in 1983 and got 2 years
probation. Who else was a big player in this firm you ask? Let’s talk about
former venture capitalist Sanjay Wagle (or vampire capitalist when talking
about Romney). Sanjay, a big player fundraiser for Obama in 2008, left the
private sector for a position in….you guessed it the Department of Energy. Since
his appointment 2.8 billion dollars have been steered to companies that
Sanjay’s old firm, Vantage Point Partners, have investments in.

Fisker
Automotive

Remember
that awesome electric car that was going to be built here in the USA and all
the jobs that would be created in Delaware all for a paltry 528 million.
Evidently what we weren’t made privy to was the confusion of Delaware sounds an
awful lot like Finland. What firm is behind Fisker? Well that would be Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers a venture capital firm in which Al Gore is a
partner. But hey remember this project had the full support of Gilbert Grape.
This was half of the 1 billion dollar wheel spin lumped in with Tesla motors
backed by Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It may have been worth
it though. If you want, look at the Consumer Reports test of the Fisker Karma
where it died on the test lot.

First Solar

            After dropping 73% on the S&P
500 index, these guys won the label of worst performer in 2011 by BusinessWeek.
With millions spent on lobbying that pesky moniker wasn’t going to stop Obama
from awarding a mere 3 billion of our dollars in grants on its slow death.

            I know enough already, “no mas”. We
could continue on with the Pelosi connection to Tonopah Solar Energy, her board
sitting brother-in-law, and the 737 million there. If you still want to keep
going research the 1.4 billion going to Project Amp. The undisputable fact is
this president has amassed more debt in just over three years than the previous
president did in eight. While he may have inherited the recession (aka Bush’s
fault), he has managed to do everything possible to prevent its recovery.
Remember, he had the numbers and friends to do/undo anything he wanted from
2008-2010. All of this money has been wasted on profiting donors and friends
for energy sources that when combined supply less than 2% of America’s energy
(and that’s only if the sun is shining, wind blowing etc.). I do have a little
knowledge and insight into this as I have been in the business of producing
power for over 20 years. Of course it sure doesn’t help when you have a
Secretary of Energy that wants to boost gas prices to the levels seen in
Europe. By the way, that’s in the neighborhood of 8-10 bucks a gallon, and that
is one expensive neighborhood.

Do you have a point to make?  

*Nuclear Fascism
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuclear+fascism

Time will show that by the time this nuclear turkey is finished the Energy will be too expensive to afford giving that the cost of Solar (of all flavors) is dropping monthly!

“Could” save a couple of billion. “If”….

And, as I pointed out, it’s not clear if they added in the cost of an extra 8 months of financing caused by the announced delay.

Georgia rate payers are likely to take it in the shorts for this move. It’s going to be interesting to see if some people take themselves off the grid as solar prices drop and batteries improve.

Loosing customers, even loosing peak hour demand could be a big problem for Vogtle. And, in Georgia, the utility companies seem to be able to pass their pain on to customers.

But wait there is more, lets us look at how the power company could get much more for its money. Take 1/2 and say that for anyone in they service area they will match the 1/3 Fed tax credit on roof top solar. Now the amount spent on the solar is not 7.5 billion it is 22.5 billion (11.25 GW) plus the power is distributed so they don’t have transmission loses (say 10% => 12.5GW), plus less power over local lines so less maintenance cost there. Okay maybe a portion on the best energy eff projects.

Which means they also don’t need to buy another couple coal/nuclear plant.

We seem to be unable to learn from things that happen outside our boarders. We dismiss the rising costs and extending time lines in Finland and France. This will be data that will hard to dismiss.

All the promises of “We know how to do it right, now.” are showing to be hollow.

People who don’t care about the risk of nuclear are going to be influenced by the cost of nuclear.

The downside of that is that it’s likely we’ll build more natural gas generation in order to get the power we want. But at least NG is dispatchable and cheaper wind/solar will force it off the grid over time.