Well written.

PURPA does need to be changed, so Idaho Power can decide which alternative sources work for its customer demand. They should not have to buy overpriced power from anyone who has an idea.

BG- Those corn prices are only going up in the immediate future. The Midwest is in the worst drought in over 60 years. It is being compared to the Dust Bowl.

I wonder how competitive hydro, natural gas, coal etc would be were it not for the government handouts those industries received in their infancy.

Is it naive to subsidize the oil industry long after they have reached a commercially sustainable and profitable posture? Should I have to pay for CEO bonuses? Or is he a corporate welfare freeloader? Nuclear energy is far better for the base load power than artificially low priced natural gas. We run our current legacy power infrastructure at about 30% efficiency. Compared to other country’s greater than 70%, so we “Don’t” know how to burn them. Shouldn’t money be invested to fix that? Natural gas is already being exported for profit value without getting the country near self sufficiency. Our archaic power distribution system is too manual and 45 years old/stagnant.

Yes ‘grumpy’ old electrical engineer.

Your editors comment about ethanol is right on target. I see that the bastion of conservatism the Idaho Dairyman’s association is thanking our entire congressional delegation for asking the administration to lift the requirements on corn for ethanol. This comes after their plea for continued subsidys for renewable energy which are currently being debated by the Idaho Public Utilitys commission. Guess it depends on which en of the cow you are lookong at . An unintended consequence of all of this is going to be instability of the price of good sipping whiskey

@Calvin Jones, Tell us more. List some welfare numbers when those power sources got started. I think you make a good point, but coal, NG, and Hydro were solid ideas.

The issue is that wind is 3x the cost of base-coal power with the govt welfare, without welfare the cost of wind will go nuts. This inability to compete is why the welfare is fading away and they are canceling wind projects. The middle man made a fast buck, just like a baseball stadium we don’t need. The workers building it think it’s a great idea too. Thinking ahead a few years, those wind farms are huge with lots of moving parts so the future upkeep will be huge too. Wind will make a comeback after the power companies have managed to creep the rates 3x higher and after they’ve figured out a better way to store energy.

It’s very hard to beat the current system of BASE-power from Coal, Nuke, Hydro (all huge steam boilers), and PEAK-power from Natural Gas (huge jet engines). North America has the Worlds largest reserves of coal and gas and we are nuke and hydro experts too. The stupidity of the American voter having let D.C. and the green freaks turn this into a crisis is amazing to me. D.C. will fix nothing, they just tax and regulate industries until demand falls. That’s why utility and phone bills are 2x-3x ten years ago… Taxes and regulation, not a fuel shortage. D.C. will not explore using Natural Gas as a surface fuel because the raw product is so plentiful nearby that they will not be able to have a gasoline crisis and related taxes.

By the way, America is a net exporter of refined gasoline and other fuels. Your gas price is so high because D.C. has allowed the oil companies to index your gasoline price to the World market even though they make it a few miles away. Forced ethanol mixing E-10 is also contributing and raising staple food prices.

So this is what ya get when you elect sales people to run the country. Just think what would our economy look like if gasoline/diesel was $1/gal.

I guess we all missed this presentation of Pete Johnson(Dyanmis) at last year’s Harvest Clean Energy conference in Boise.

http://wacleantech.org/2011/11/john-martin-goes-to-idaho/

“Another speaker was Pete Johnson of Dynamis Energy, which develops high-efficiency incinerators for eliminating landfill of municipal solid waste (MSM) by burning the rubbish to generate energy. Johnson said that while Northwest energy costs are among the lowest in the world, and demand for incineration power is low here, Brazil will be prohibiting MSM landfill by mid-decade and has skyrocketing energy demands. There, the market for responsible incineration is strong.”

It also looks like Dyanmis has some energy venture capitalist funding them. http://www.potomacenergyfund.com/portfolio.

EDITOR NOTE–thanks again for the research.

http://www.tiogaenergy.com/press/tioga-energy-and-energy-finance-company-go-to-the-beach-solar-power-for-wildwoods-convention-center

Let’s not forget to take the roads and highways off the subsidy too. People should pay tolls to privately owned roads so we don’t have to pay taxes because the govmt does such a crappy job of building and maintaining them. What about the military? Can’t really put my finger on the product they produce ie , freedom? Can you feel the freedom from the wars in Vietnam, Grenada (we won !), Iraq, Afghanistan? Love my Marmot, made in (commmunist) Vietnam ski jacket, so yeah, cozy warm feeling of that freedom. What about the communist made Chinese shoes you are wearing right now?

Has there ever been one watt of nuclear power created and sold to the public without a government subsidy? If so, very insignificant.
Most large hydro dams in the US were built with government money. Shasta was a defense project. All BPA hydro was built by the government.
Are you ready for private power in private hands? How quickly we forget what ERON did to rate payers.
Lets do the ERON thing again and monopolize even more utilities.

I worked for the Dept. Of Energy right after the energy crisis of the late 70’s. That was a manufactured crisis and did not resolve itself from drill baby drill. The alternative energy industry was effectively killed the day Reagan took office and we jumped in bed with Saudi Arabia in a big way since we got cut off the oil spigot with the hostage crisis in Iran under Carter. I was on one of the last planes out of Teheran in 78. Cheap imported oil killed the industry in the early 80″s.
Now cheap NG is killing the alternative energy industry. When Israel starts the hot war in Iran you will be paying dearly for every drop of fuel you use.
Since Reagan set us on the path of globalization, you can expect your wages to stagnate or go down as global wage equalization slowly evolves.
As long as oil companies can make big profits exporting US gasoline and NG, isn’t it anti capitalist to prevent them?

Bottom line is everyone wants cheap power except the power companies. If gas was $1.50/gal right now and heavily subsidized no one here would be complaining except that your taxes were too high. Never in history has anyone complained the their taxes were too low.

BTW, taxes paid for a large portion of G-mans career income. Soldier, cop, photos for school books. All subsidized by good old Uncle Sam and we appreciate that.

NG Super Cheap!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444223104578036403362012318.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories