If you're in PA, I'm sure you're well aware of Fast Eddie Rendell's push for "green" energy in PA and "green jobs", in particular, a big push for windmills.  Of course you're all aware that green power facilities usually require massive subsidies just to get built.  cbullitt notes that Fast Eddie's going around to different cities and pimping Porkulus and green jobs, and the crock it is.  And I'm not totally shitting on windmills as energy sources, there's no doubt that there are places where there's good steady wind, and putting up a windmill is actually a clever way to produce some energy.  But that's not what this is, most of this is feelgood stuff, stealing from Peter to pay Paul, and an excuse to grow government and suppress enterprise, and it'll take a looooong time to even break even on the investment, if you even do break even.  It really is neat technology, but it just has limited application in the broader energy grid.

But I thought I'd note too, right now we're producing a traditional source of energy in PA, and no, it's not coal, though certainly we still have coal mining in the state.  It's been discovered that are major deposits of natural gas in PA, in particular in Northcentral PA.  We've seen a lot of people locally working natural gas extraction, or supporting, supplying or advising, this is energy producers themselves, contractors, subcontractors, and probably consultants too.  The Texas accent is usually a dead giveaway.  In fact, saw a Halliburton (ZOMGTEHEVUL!!!1!1eleventy!1) truck a few days ago.  And let me tell you, if you let these guys set up shop on your property, they compensate you very well, and from what I'm hearing, most, if not all agree to take on costs of environmental damage on your property in their contracts.  There's no doubt that the gas producers probably see something for setting up shop here, but I doubt there seeing what Fast Eddie's windmill producers are seeing.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 11:10 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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