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http://abcnews.go.com/Internat...on/story?id=12160354

Reporter's Notebook: China Goes Green

quote:
In the race to be the world's leader in green technology, China is speeding ahead of its global competition.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the ****pit of one of China's high-speed bullet trains, where you can see trains screaming toward you at speeds up to 230 miles per hour. Next year, the Chinese plan to test a train that could top 300 miles per hour.

We joined the crush of passengers in Beijing boarding a high-speed train to Tianjin, a nearly 80-mile trip that takes just 30 minutes. Traveling the same distance on America's fastest train line would take nearly an hour and a half.

On top of the speed, the Chinese say their rail technology is better for the environment.

"It is energy efficient, which is quite significant when it comes to our growing dependence on oil," the train's conductor told me.

Green Energy Spending Reaches $12 Million Per Hour

The trains are just one example of China's green wave, which moves as quickly as the view out the window.

China spends a staggering $12 million every hour on green energy, according to the Center for American Progress.

On the ground in China, you can see the effect of that spending nearly everywhere. The landscape is lined with the largest number of wind-powered turbines in the world. In rural farming towns, solar-powered street lights are evidence that the green infrastructure reaches far from the big cities.

Even the escalators are different. Instead of moving non-stop all day long, they remain frozen until they sense that a passenger is about to get on. Then, they use just enough energy to carry the passenger before automatically shutting off again.

There's a reason for this focus on green technology, but it's not global warming. For China, it's all about the math.

"China does not have a choice," said Cheng Li, director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations at the Brookings Institution. "As a country, it's dealing with serious resources scarcity. China needs to find a better way to survive."

China already has the world's largest population, and as it continues to grow, it's being forced to change.

"China is rapidly changing from the factory of the world to the clean tech laboratory of the world," said Peggy Liu, chair of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Energy. "The thing they are really beating the U.S. on is not the manufacturing of these parts, but the mentality of how we're tackling this issue."

It's believed that China spends 10 times what the U.S. does on green energy, but the spending is fueling something else -- huge profits.



Wait, wait, wait! Sorry, that's not the good old US of A, that's China. We're just providing the funds. Silly me.

Here's us:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics...ve/story?id=12069591

GOP Wave Could Sidetrack High-Speed Rail Projects

quote:
In the wake of Tuesday's election results, yet another one of the administration's flagship programs may now be in jeopardy. At least two newly elected Republican governors are taking aim at high speed rail projects in their states.

President Barack Obama promised to develop America's first nationwide program of intercity high-speed passenger rail. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has called the plan "a game changer" that "will help change our society for the better." The administration has already awarded $10.5 billion dollars in stimulus money to help pay for 54 rail projects in 23 states. $2.5 billion of that was doled out just last week.

But not everyone is eager to climb aboard. In Ohio, Governor-elect John Kasich has been quoted as saying, "Passenger rail is not in Ohio's future." Ohio was slated to get $400 million in federal funds for passenger trains between Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. Kasich minced no words in talking about the project. "That train is dead," he said.



Wow! We really know how to "get 'er done" in this country, don't we? With progress like that, China will be the world leader in innovations by 2012, not 2015 - like we'd feared.
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Want to go live in China?

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/hr_facts.html

Human rights violations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) remain systematic and widespread. The Chinese government continues to suppress dissenting opinions and maintains political control over the legal system, resulting in an arbitrary and sometimes abusive judicial regime. The lack of accountability of the government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) means that abuses by officials often go unchecked. This fact sheet identifies the most common types of abuses, including arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association and violations specific to women.

1. Controls on Expressions and Associations
2. Torture and Ill-Treatment of Prisoners
3. Lackof Judicial Independance and Due Process
4. Death Penalty
5. Tibet
6. Women
7. Resource List
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Want to go live in China?

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/hr_facts.html

Human rights violations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) remain systematic and widespread. The Chinese government continues to suppress dissenting opinions and maintains political control over the legal system, resulting in an arbitrary and sometimes abusive judicial regime. The lack of accountability of the government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) means that abuses by officials often go unchecked. This fact sheet identifies the most common types of abuses, including arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association and violations specific to women.

1. Controls on Expressions and Associations
2. Torture and Ill-Treatment of Prisoners
3. Lackof Judicial Independance and Due Process
4. Death Penalty
5. Tibet
6. Women
7. Resource List


I never said I wanted to go live in China.

Are you satisfied with the fact that soon China will surpass the United States as the world's largest economy? To quote Donald Trump: "They're eating our lunch!"

I live in reality world, b. If you want to deny facts, go ahead, but that's not going to stop China's high-speed ingenuity train from leaving the United States in the dust.
quote:
When the Japanese and European companies that pioneered high-speed rail agreed to build trains for China, they thought they'd be getting access to a booming new market, billions of dollars worth of contracts and the cachet of creating the most ambitious rapid rail system in history.

What they didn't count on was having to compete with Chinese firms who adapted their technology and turned it against them just a few years later.

The progression of China's rail business reflects a national economic strategy of boosting state-owned firms and obtaining advanced technology, even at the expense of foreign partners. It's an approach that is challenging the U.S. and other powers, and fueling a broader angst among multinational firms doing business in China.


http://online.wsj.com/article/...l?mod=googlenews_wsj

This happens again and again. US auto makers have built plants in China, and taught the Chinese to make cars, good cars, that they will be selling in the US in a few years. Boeing is learning the same lesson. Companies have to do business in China, and China will continue to ignore foreign copyrights and patents.
And why have they built plants in China?
Corporate taxes.

Who props up our government? China

I live in the real world butter. The liberals have demanded that those rich corporations pay out the wazoo to operate in the US. They leave. Then the libs complain they left.

How exactly is a high speed rail train going to help our economy? It would cost billions, need co-operation between fed, state, and local government (impossible), be built by union only labor(massive payouts), run over budget, waste all the money, takes decades to do, and will end up dead in the water.

Hell butter, we haven't even built a memorial for 9/11 in NY yet, 9 years after the attack.
http://www.thisamericanlife.or...es/episode/403/nummi

Back in 1984, Toyota teamed up with General Motors to train American workers how to build reliable cars. Now, back then, Toyota was considered the most reliable car on the road. (Not so much now, after all the recent recalls.) They taught the workers that if they found any little mistake happening, they were to stop the line, and find a fix so that they didn't build a bunch of cars with these mistakes. The GM workers were shocked because under no circumstances were they EVER to allow the line to stop.

There were a lot of things that were done differently. The end result was that this plant started building more reliable cars, it cost much less to build them, and on top of that, the workers were happy.

GM, instead of implementing this new system in all of their plants, just let it go. Now that plant has been shut down, Toyota wants to get paid for training the workers, and we all know what happened to GM.

I don't know exactly what this says about American companies, or Americans in general, but I DO know that unlike China, who DOES put any foreign technology they can steal to use, in this case anyway, Americans won't even use good technology that they were GIVEN.
They build plants in China to sell them cars. GM will sell more cars in China this year than in America. International companies have no trouble avoiding taxes on income earned outside the US. The real cost to America will be the brain drain as China continues to do more engineering, design, and development for companies that were originally US-based.

quote:
BEIJING—General Motors Co.'s sales in China set a monthly record in March, helping to cement China as the U.S. auto maker's biggest market so far this year.

GM said Friday it sold 230,048 vehicles in the country in March, a 68% gain from a year earlier, compared with 188,011 vehicles in the U.S., a rise of 21%. Last year, the U.S. market was still the biggest for GM, with about two million vehicles sold, compared with China's 1.83 million vehicles..

For the full first quarter, GM's sales in China rose 71% to 623,546 units, compared with 16% growth to 475,253 units in the auto maker's home market, where it is gradually recovering from the credit crisis and a bankruptcy-protection filing last year.


http://online.wsj.com/article/...159133084357568.html
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
And why have they built plants in China?
Corporate taxes.

Who props up our government? China

I live in the real world butter. The liberals have demanded that those rich corporations pay out the wazoo to operate in the US. They leave. Then the libs complain they left.

How exactly is a high speed rail train going to help our economy? It would cost billions, need co-operation between fed, state, and local government (impossible), be built by union only labor(massive payouts), run over budget, waste all the money, takes decades to do, and will end up dead in the water.

Hell butter, we haven't even built a memorial for 9/11 in NY yet, 9 years after the attack.


Corporate taxes aren't the problem. Companies have been making record profits in this country for years - with average CEO compensation to average worker pay around 400 to 1. So corporations still have lots of cash and are still operating in the U.S. - in name only in many cases, but they have money; they'd just rather invest that money in other countries.

And it took years for China to build its high-speed rail system and wind-powered turbines. The Republicans were in power at some point during the planning and building of these things; like everything else, they just weren't paying attention.

High speed rail would help our economy by greatly cutting down on commute time...allowing business to get done, faster, and save money. And it's environmentally friendly (which I realize means very little to most Republicans).

But what about the wind-powered turbines? Wind is free and can be captured with good efficiency. A cost-effective way of generating electricity is bad? Then, there are the public escalators that only move when they sense a passenger is about to get on; that saves energy, and money...and those savings can then be invested in something else.

The point is, they are thinking ahead, way ahead. They're investing in their future with infrastructure while ours is crumbling, along with our economy.
Bashing the reps won't help your case, butter.

If high speed rail is so great, why have none of the train companies done it?
Amtrack went broke before the government bailed them out. Why, no customers.

Wind power is inefficient, unpredictable and costly and nobody like the noise the turbines make. Look it up.

Solar panels are alos expensive, produce very little power and need huge amounts of space and bright sunshine. Also unpredictable.

Why not just convert all vehicles to diesel? It get twice the gas mileage, cost less to produce (even though it cost more at the pump due to regulation), engines last longer, and could cut oil consumption by half not to mention refineries would no longer be needed for the high tech fuels.

WHY?
Actually high speed rail is a great example of wasteful government subsidized nanny-state-ism.

quote:
After examining a representative sample of European Passenger Train Operations over a multi-year period, we found that:
a) When all revenues and expenses for the entire passenger train system are taken into consideration, European Passenger Train Operations operate at a financial loss and consequently require significant Public Subsidies, and
b) The average annual subsidies for European Passenger Train Operations are much higher than those for comparable Amtrak services.
http://www.amtrakoig.gov/reports/E-08-02-042208.PDF

The same subsidized stupidity would also hold true for wind energy from the Danish experiment.

FROM: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...ergy-revolution.html

quote:
Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe's highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark's ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

"Since 2005 alone, 5.1 billion kroner [£621 million] has been paid to the wind turbine owners. That cost has been borne by businesses and private consumers," says the party's environment spokesman, Lars Christian Lilleholt. "It seems to have become a political fashion to say that there should be more support for wind. But we have to look at other renewables. We cannot go on with wind power only."


quote:
"I would interpret the [export] data as showing that the Danes rely on their fossil-fuel plants for their everyday needs," says John Constable, research director for the London-based Renewable Energy Foundation, which has commissioned detailed research on the Danish experience. "They don't get 20 per cent of their electricity from wind. The truth is that a much larger unit, consisting of Denmark and Germany, has managed to get about 7 per cent – and that only because of a fortuitous link with Norwegian and Swedish hydropower."
quote:
Originally posted by Buttercup:
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
And why have they built plants in China?
Corporate taxes.

Who props up our government? China

I live in the real world butter. The liberals have demanded that those rich corporations pay out the wazoo to operate in the US. They leave. Then the libs complain they left.

How exactly is a high speed rail train going to help our economy? It would cost billions, need co-operation between fed, state, and local government (impossible), be built by union only labor(massive payouts), run over budget, waste all the money, takes decades to do, and will end up dead in the water.

Hell butter, we haven't even built a memorial for 9/11 in NY yet, 9 years after the attack.


Corporate taxes aren't the problem. Companies have been making record profits in this country for years - with average CEO compensation to average worker pay around 400 to 1. So corporations still have lots of cash and are still operating in the U.S. - in name only in many cases, but they have money; they'd just rather invest that money in other countries.

And it took years for China to build its high-speed rail system and wind-powered turbines. The Republicans were in power at some point during the planning and building of these things; like everything else, they just weren't paying attention.

High speed rail would help our economy by greatly cutting down on commute time...allowing business to get done, faster, and save money. And it's environmentally friendly (which I realize means very little to most Republicans).

But what about the wind-powered turbines? Wind is free and can be captured with good efficiency. A cost-effective way of generating electricity is bad? Then, there are the public escalators that only move when they sense a passenger is about to get on; that saves energy, and money...and those savings can then be invested in something else.

The point is, they are thinking ahead, way ahead. They're investing in their future with infrastructure while ours is crumbling, along with our economy.


Typical liberal thinking. Spend money we don't have for something we can't afford.

China can afford to spend on their infrastructure because they have plenty of money, we don't. We spend our money on social programs and military. They spend their money on military and industry. Social programs don't make money, industry does.

If you believe the Chinese are going green, I've got some ocean front property in Tennessee to sell you.
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Bashing the reps won't help your case, butter.

If high speed rail is so great, why have none of the train companies done it?
Amtrack went broke before the government bailed them out. Why, no customers.

Wind power is inefficient, unpredictable and costly and nobody like the noise the turbines make. Look it up.

Solar panels are alos expensive, produce very little power and need huge amounts of space and bright sunshine. Also unpredictable.

Why not just convert all vehicles to diesel? It get twice the gas mileage, cost less to produce (even though it cost more at the pump due to regulation), engines last longer, and could cut oil consumption by half not to mention refineries would no longer be needed for the high tech fuels.

WHY?


A lot of companies have gone broke in this country. So what? And the government bailed out a lot of other companies, including some of the too-big-to-fail ones on Wall Street whose top execs still received $1.6B in bonuses, but that's another story. Just a few that were bailed out: JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler...

I can find plenty of information about wind power's efficiency, including this link about offshore wind power. How could the noise bother anyone if the wind is being generated offshore?

http://na.oceana.org/en/news-m...-energy-off-the-us-a

quote:
An Oceana analysis released today shows that offshore wind potential is so high off the U.S. Atlantic coast that investments in offshore wind power in Atlantic waters could generate about 30 percent more electricity than economically recoverable offshore oil and gas in the same region combined. In fact, Oceana found that a modest investment in offshore wind could easily supply nearly half of the current electricity generation of East Coast states....

Oceana’s research also reveals that offshore wind developments off the U.S. Atlantic coastline could create between 133,000 and 212,000 jobs annually in the United States, more than three times the jobs estimate from proposed future expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling....

Delaware, Massachusetts and North Carolina could generate enough electricity from offshore wind to equal current electricity generation, entirely eliminating the need for fossil fuel- based electric generation.

New Jersey, Virginia and South Carolina could supply 92 percent, 83 percent and 64 percent of their current electricity generation with offshore wind, respectively. In all these states, wind could provide more energy than the states currently get from fossil fuels.

The wind-rich Atlantic states could easily supply nearly half the current electricity generation of the U.S. East Coast.

Atlantic offshore wind energy could be produced for less money than corresponding oil and gas and will create more jobs....

Wind Power Benefits Easily Trump Fossil Fuel Benefits

For example, in the South Atlantic, offshore wind could heat more homes than offshore oil and natural gas resources combined, for less than half the price.

In the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, offshore wind could generate more electricity than currently generated by fossil fuels, produce three times as much power, heat seven times as many homes or fuel four times more electric cars as the region’s estimated offshore oil and gas resources combined.

In the North Atlantic region, offshore wind could generate as much electricity as currently generated by oil and natural gas or as generated by coal. The electricity generated by offshore wind could heat nearly four times as many homes as the region’s estimated offshore oil and gas resources combined....



Solar Panels:

http://www.guide4home.com/rem-himp/solar-panels.htm

quote:
What are the advantages of solar panels?

Many of us worry about our fuel bills and the environmental impact of our fuel consumption, while a free and clean source of energy is shining down on us all day. In one minute, the sun gives the earth enough energy to meet the earth's power needs for a year. If you install a solar panel in your house, you are tapping into this massive source of free energy, and slashing your fuel bills. There are also great environmental benefits to solar energy, as it produces no pollution.

Will a solar panel in my home save me money?

You will save money in the long-term, but the financial benefits of installing a solar panel are not immediate. Cost savings depend on several factors:

How much sun there is where you live. This is measured in peak hours, i.e. the number of hours during the day that your solar panel is working to full capacity.

How much electricity you currently use

The capacity and cost of the panels you purchase. For example, a new solar panel producing 120 watts costs around $700. Used panels are cheaper, but usually only about 90 per cent as efficient as new ones.

The price of other forms of energy. If other forms of fuel are at a premium, then solar panels represent greater savings. For example, during 2000-2001, average Americans spent 4.6 per cent of their income on energy. However, such prices fluctuate depending on many factors, and it's impossible to predict what will happen to fuel prices over the next few years.

As a general rule, it will take at least five years before your solar panel pays for itself. This represents an excellent investment if you're planning to stay in your home for a long period. If you're planning to move out of your home in the next few years, you need to think about whether the solar panel will add a sufficient amount to the value of your property. Some potential buyers find the appearance of solar panels unattractive, but others will see dollar signs when they hear the words "free electricity".



The point is, there are alternatives to everything that are better for the environment and more cost-effective, especially in the long run. We don't have an unlimited amount of natural resources on this planet, you know.
quote:
Originally posted by Mr. Hooberbloob:
quote:
Originally posted by Buttercup:
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
And why have they built plants in China?
Corporate taxes.

Who props up our government? China

I live in the real world butter. The liberals have demanded that those rich corporations pay out the wazoo to operate in the US. They leave. Then the libs complain they left.

How exactly is a high speed rail train going to help our economy? It would cost billions, need co-operation between fed, state, and local government (impossible), be built by union only labor(massive payouts), run over budget, waste all the money, takes decades to do, and will end up dead in the water.

Hell butter, we haven't even built a memorial for 9/11 in NY yet, 9 years after the attack.


Corporate taxes aren't the problem. Companies have been making record profits in this country for years - with average CEO compensation to average worker pay around 400 to 1. So corporations still have lots of cash and are still operating in the U.S. - in name only in many cases, but they have money; they'd just rather invest that money in other countries.

And it took years for China to build its high-speed rail system and wind-powered turbines. The Republicans were in power at some point during the planning and building of these things; like everything else, they just weren't paying attention.

High speed rail would help our economy by greatly cutting down on commute time...allowing business to get done, faster, and save money. And it's environmentally friendly (which I realize means very little to most Republicans).

But what about the wind-powered turbines? Wind is free and can be captured with good efficiency. A cost-effective way of generating electricity is bad? Then, there are the public escalators that only move when they sense a passenger is about to get on; that saves energy, and money...and those savings can then be invested in something else.

The point is, they are thinking ahead, way ahead. They're investing in their future with infrastructure while ours is crumbling, along with our economy.


Typical liberal thinking. Spend money we don't have for something we can't afford.

China can afford to spend on their infrastructure because they have plenty of money, we don't. We spend our money on social programs and military. They spend their money on military and industry. Social programs don't make money, industry does.

If you believe the Chinese are going green, I've got some ocean front property in Tennessee to sell you.


Gee, wonder where China gets all that money.

Yes, we do spend a lot on social programs and the military - both budgets need to be cut. The Defense Department has an annual budget of nearly $700 billion. That's just incredible!

And the article clearly states that China is not making these investments due to environmental concerns. Since you missed it, I'll post that part again.

quote:
There's a reason for this focus on green technology, but it's not global warming. For China, it's all about the math.

"China does not have a choice," said Cheng Li, director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations at the Brookings Institution. "As a country, it's dealing with serious resources scarcity. China needs to find a better way to survive."

quote:
Originally posted by Jennifer:
U N I O N S


I agree that union demands have helped cause the downfall of American industry. But why was there a need for labor unions in the first place?

They were created to ensure worker safety, a liveable wage, protection from undue firing, and to protect workers from being forced to do labor off the clock. If there weren't abuses in the workplace to begin with, there would have never been a need for unions. It all goes back to greedy business owners and corporations who'll do anything to cut corners. (Proof that regulations are needed for some industries because, left unchecked, people will try to get away with a lot of evil deeds.)

The problem is, union demands got out of control. So here we are today, with most manufacturing being done in countries with little or no worker protections.

They (unions) shot themselves in the foot on that one.
Now for a few facts from Wiki.

Relative cost of electricity by generation source
See also: Relative cost of electricity generated by different sources
Growth and cost trends

In recent years, the US has added substantial amounts of wind power generation capacity, growing from just over 6 GW at the end of 2004 to over 35 GW at the end of 2009.[4] The U.S. is currently the world's leader in wind power generation capacity. The country as a whole generates just 2.4% of its electrical power from wind, but several states generate substantial amounts of wind power.[4] Texas is the state with the largest amount of generation capacity with 9,410 MW installed.[4] This would have ranked sixth in the world, were Texas a separate country. Iowa is the state with the highest percentage of wind generation, at 14.2% in 2009.[55] California was one of the incubators of the modern wind power industry, and led the U.S. in installed capacity for many years. As of mid-2010, fourteen U..S. states had wind power generation capacities in excess of 1000 MW.[4] U.S. Department of Energy studies have concluded that wind from the Great Plains states of Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could provide enough electricity to power the entire nation, and that offshore wind farms could do the same job.[56][57]

Wind power has negligible fuel costs, but a high capital cost. The estimated average cost per unit incorporates the cost of construction of the turbine and transmission facilities, borrowed funds, return to investors (including cost of risk), estimated annual production, and other components, averaged over the projected useful life of the equipment, which may be in excess of twenty years. Energy cost estimates are highly dependent on these assumptions so published cost figures can differ substantially. A British Wind Energy Association report gives an average generation cost of onshore wind power of around 3.2 pence (between US 5 and 6 cents) per kW·h (2005).[88] Cost per unit of energy produced was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to the cost of new generating capacity in the US for coal and natural gas: wind cost was estimated at $55.80 per MW·h, coal at $53.10/MW·h and natural gas at $52.50.[89] Other sources in various studies have estimated wind to be more expensive than other sources (see Economics of new nuclear power plants, Clean coal, and Carbon capture and storage). A 2009 study on wind power in Spain by the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos concluded that each installed MW of wind power destroyed 4.27 jobs, by raising energy costs and driving away electricity-intensive businesses.[90] However, the presence of wind energy, even when subsidised, can reduce costs for consumers (€5 billion/yr in Germany) by reducing the marginal price by minimising the use of expensive 'peaker plants'.[91]
quote:
Originally posted by b50m:
Now for a few facts from Wiki.

Relative cost of electricity by generation source
See also: Relative cost of electricity generated by different sources
Growth and cost trends

In recent years, the US has added substantial amounts of wind power generation capacity, growing from just over 6 GW at the end of 2004 to over 35 GW at the end of 2009.[4] The U.S. is currently the world's leader in wind power generation capacity. The country as a whole generates just 2.4% of its electrical power from wind, but several states generate substantial amounts of wind power.[4] Texas is the state with the largest amount of generation capacity with 9,410 MW installed.[4] This would have ranked sixth in the world, were Texas a separate country. Iowa is the state with the highest percentage of wind generation, at 14.2% in 2009.[55] California was one of the incubators of the modern wind power industry, and led the U.S. in installed capacity for many years. As of mid-2010, fourteen U..S. states had wind power generation capacities in excess of 1000 MW.[4] U.S. Department of Energy studies have concluded that wind from the Great Plains states of Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could provide enough electricity to power the entire nation, and that offshore wind farms could do the same job.[56][57]

Wind power has negligible fuel costs, but a high capital cost. The estimated average cost per unit incorporates the cost of construction of the turbine and transmission facilities, borrowed funds, return to investors (including cost of risk), estimated annual production, and other components, averaged over the projected useful life of the equipment, which may be in excess of twenty years. Energy cost estimates are highly dependent on these assumptions so published cost figures can differ substantially. A British Wind Energy Association report gives an average generation cost of onshore wind power of around 3.2 pence (between US 5 and 6 cents) per kW·h (2005).[88] Cost per unit of energy produced was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to the cost of new generating capacity in the US for coal and natural gas: wind cost was estimated at $55.80 per MW·h, coal at $53.10/MW·h and natural gas at $52.50.[89] Other sources in various studies have estimated wind to be more expensive than other sources (see Economics of new nuclear power plants, Clean coal, and Carbon capture and storage). A 2009 study on wind power in Spain by the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos concluded that each installed MW of wind power destroyed 4.27 jobs, by raising energy costs and driving away electricity-intensive businesses.[90] However, the presence of wind energy, even when subsidised, can reduce costs for consumers (€5 billion/yr in Germany) by reducing the marginal price by minimising the use of expensive 'peaker plants'.[91]


Again, I can find just as much information that states otherwise but I don't care to...not right now, anyway. Right now, or in a little bit, I'm going Christmas shopping with my family and then we might just go see a movie - lots more fun than researching wind turbine technology.
Long distance high speed trains are a money loser in Europe, including the French TVG. Why the leftists want to saddle the US with another turkey requiring taxpayer support is beyond me. There may be an argument that short line commuter trains will save time and fight pollution. The commuter trains into DC from Maryland and Virginia are a joke. But, nationwide lines will never even break even.

Wind power, like solar power can be an adjunct to our power supply. However, as a continuous power supply is needed, coal fired, natural gas, nuclear power or a combination of the three must be kept on notice 24/7.

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