What is "Big Solar?"

It all started with a phone call that started, “Did you know John Bradford (my state representative,) is in the pocket of Big Solar?”  At that point, I reflexively clicked off like I do with all robocalls. A little later, I started thinking about this. What the heck is “Big Solar?”

For the past couple weeks, I have been getting multiple calls every day from organizations with names like Americans for Responsible Energy Choices (I made that one up, but they all have warm and fuzzy names like that.)  These calls claim that solar energy is either a big boondoggle or essential to the future of America.  I get calls telling me that I can get solar panels on my roof (I live in a condo) and that Duke Energy will pay part of the cost and then I can sell surplus energy to Duke to help pay for the rest. That would be unlikely since my electric company is Energy United, a co-op.

Now I’m putting it all together. The NC state legislature is ending its short session and on the table are hydraulic fracturing in NC, offshore drilling and debating the end of tax credits for solar energy in NC. Even my friends in the solar panel business admit that solar is not cost effective without government subsidies, and with the reduced cost of oil and gas as a result of fracking in the US, it will not be cost effective in the foreseeable future.

I now I understand the BIG. This past week Jim Rogers, the former CEO of Duke Energy said in a speech that the solar energy subsidies are essential to NC businesses. (I wonder what’s in his portfolio.) And, yesterday the Charlotte Business Journal reported that Google, Apple and Amazon have “warned” the legislature against ending the tax credits. Those three are among a dozen or so companies that have large data centers with massive solar arrays in Western NC.

Millions of dollars are at stake and millions are being spent in lobbying. Big Solar wants tax credits for the politically correct solar energy AND they want to stop fracking because cheap oil and gas makes solar energy even less cost effective.

In my humble opinion, cheap and abundant energy is essential to get NC and America growing again. Hydraulic fracturing and the proposed gas pipeline can provide that. Solar energy can be a good idea if and when it can compete. If we are going to invest in solar, let it be in the form of research grants to universities to develop solar collectors that are inexpensive to produce and don’t degrade over the years.

The Science is Settled?

 

“The Science is Settled.” We hear that statement frequently from politicians. Lately, we have heard this in regard to measles vaccination and climate change. Politicians who do not understand science will latch on to a theory, or the results of one scientist and run with it until the public actually thinks the theory is true. In fact, science is never truly settled. A scientific conclusion is accepted and adopted until someone comes along and disproves the conclusion or creates an alternate hypothesis with equal validity.

An example is the measles vaccine. In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a report in The Lancet, a British journal of medicine, linking the MMR vaccine to autism. This report was widely received and resulted in a large drop in the use of the vaccine in Britain and the United States. This was accepted as settled science until other scientists were not able to reproduce Wakefield’s results and it was later found that Wakefield had conflicts of interest and had manipulated data to produce his desired result.

In 2003, The University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit published report that greenhouse gas had reached levels that were making the Earth’s temperature graph look like a hockey stick and would shortly become irreversible, causing hurricanes, tornadoes and economic collapse. This panicked the environmentalists and the politicians like Al Gore used it to enrich themselves by hyping it and funneling money to cronies in the green industry, like Solyndra. Later, emails were leaked that showed that the research team had manipulated data to get these results. This theory was so discredited that the proponents had to change the name of the crisis to Climate Change. Now when they say “97% of climate scientists agree the climate is changing,” they are stating the obvious. The archeological record shows the Earth’s climate is and always has been changing.

The climate change theory is two stage. The first is that man’s activity on the planet can cause a big enough impact to be measurable. The next stage is that the impact will be large enough to create the feared climate destruction?”  There is scientific theory on both sides of that question, but the data so large that they can’t do a reliable model. The studies on the amount of temperature rise accountable to man’s activity in the last century ranges from 0.02 degrees to significant (no number stated) based on what the study assumes to be man caused activity.

They can prove parts of it, but not the entire theory. In field experiments, scientists have difficulty showing a long term rise in CO2. They can measure the amount of CO2 being put into the atmosphere, but they cannot reliably predict the long term effect.  When the CO2 levels rise, plants grow faster and increase the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere. This runs counter to the theory. Some alarmists are now adding uncontrolled plant growth to the fears. As for methane, termites and cows create more methane than man. The University of San Diego has done research on cows and have determined that corn fed cows produce significantly more methane than grass fed cattle and is even trying to develop grass pellets for cattle feed to keep down the methane level.

So, when someone tells you the science is settled, they are really telling you their mind is made up and they have found a report that backs up their preconceived notion. My best advice is recycle, don’t waste things, drive a fuel efficient car, don’t pollute and above all, DON’T PANIC. Oh, then there is that Middle East thing. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, we might have to dig up the late Carl Sagan’s speeches on nuclear winter.