Green Hell Blog

The Great Light Bulb Robbery has been called off in Ohio due to consumer outrage.

In early October, Akron, OH-based First Energy planned to force consumers to buy two compact fluorescent lightbulbs for $21.60 — bulbs for which the utility paid only $3.50 each.

The utility then planned to charge consumers $0.60 more per month to make up for lost electricity sales due to the bulbs’ energy efficiency.

But as Akron’s WYTV reported,

After taking a huge public relations hit when it tried to force all its customers to buy energy-efficient light bulbs, First Energy is making a new proposal.

The electric company is now asking the Public Utilities Commission to approve a voluntary program so that those who don’t want or need the mini-florescent lights don’t have to pay for them.

The scam would have netted First Energy $7.6 million — more than the $7 million (in 1963 dollars) netted during the August 1963 Great Train Robbery.

Green is the 21st century term for “stand and deliver.”

The United Nations says in a new report that unless we (meaning U.S. taxpayers and consumers) cough up $10 trillion to the world’s renewable energy rentseekers and carbon abatement scamsters, the planet will be destroyed by UN-fabricated global warming.

UN chief Ban (Dr. Evil) Ki-moon

Click here for Wall Street Journal coverage.

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt must be channeling SNL’s Chico Escuela these days as:

Obama stimulus been berry, berry good to GE.

GE announced today that utility giant American Electric Power (AEP) will purchase 110,000 smart meters from GE. And just how is AEP managing to buy all these smart meters? President Obama and Congress are making us pay for them.

On Sep. 1, AEP applied to the Department of Energy for $75 million in federal stimulus money for the smart meter purchase.

It’s a good thing that GE’s Immelt sits on Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board — how else would the Department of Energy know to direct smart meter purchases to GE?

Of course, AEP isn’t the only conduit for sending federal stimulus money to GE. So far about 50 utilities have applied to DOE for a piece of the almost $4 billion in stimulus money earmarked for smart meter projects. Did we mention:

Obama stimulus been berry, berry good to GE.

BTW, the $75 million will create about 500 jobs over a three year period, says AEP — why that’s only $150,000 per job in Ohio where the average income is slightly less than $48,000.

Obama stimulus been berry, berry good to GE.

The Treasury Department released today the unredacted documents related to CEI’s recent FOIA request.

The formerly redacted portion of the docs puts the taxes potentially levied by cap-and-trade at an astounding $300 billion per year!

The office that created these docs was created by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, whose nomination we opposed since it was obvious that he would use his position to advance the global warming ball for the greens.

As it turns out, good ol’ Hank may have sowed the seeds of cap-and-trade’s destruction.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has announced plans to strong-arm France into adopting a carbon tax in order to “save the human race” from global warming.

According to the AP:

The tax would be initially based on the market price for carbon dioxide emissions permits, which is now euro17 ($24.74) per ton of carbon dioxide, Sarkozy said. At that level, the government expects to raise euro3 billion, which will be entirely returned to households and businesses through a reduction in other taxes or repaid via a so-called “Green Check,” Sarkozy said.

The result would be a shift of the tax burden from other revenue sources to energy derived from fossil fuels in an effort to discourage their use.

Gasoline, diesel fuel, coal and natual gas will be subject to the tax, but not electricity, Sarkozy said. France generates most of its electricity via nuclear power, which doesn’t emit greenhouse gases.

The tax would add 4.5 euro cents to each liter of diesel, 4 cents to each liter of gasoline and 0.4 cents for each KWh of natural gas consumed, Sarkozy said. The tax is intended to rise gradually from this level, Sarkozy said.

France emits about 1.4% of global manmade CO2 emissions.

If France stopped emitting CO2 altogether for the next 90 years, the total amount of atmospheric CO2 avoided would be on the order of 1.8 parts per million.

Sacre bleu!

First Solar, Inc. will build the world’s largest solar field in Mongolia, reports the Wall Street Journal. A few interesting points:

• The field is slated to produce 2 gigawatts of power — equal to the output of two coal-fired power plants.
• The field will take up 25 square miles (16,000 acres), as compared to about 200 acres for two coal-fired plants.
• Unlike coal plants, however, no electricity will be produced at night– so the field will need to be backed up by conventional (most likely coal-fired) power plants.
• The estimated cost of such a field in the U.S. would be on the order of $6 billion — twice as much as the cost of two coal-fired power plants. Keep in mind that back-up coal plants (at additional cost?) would be needed to back up the solar field. But First Solar expects the costs to be much lower as it would be using “lower-cost Chinese” (slave/child?) labor.
• First Solar expects China to place a $0.15 – 0.25 tariff (tax) on the electricity produced by the plant — about tripling to quintupling the consumer price of electricity in China.

Is this considered renewable because there seems to be an endless supply of green chicanery?

The Wall Street Journal reports how Wall Street wind investors get a 30% cash rebate on the building of renewable energy facilities in addition to accelerated depreciation deductions — with no government spending cap on the program.

A spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said:

“We are concerned that this may evolve into a cash-for-clunkers version 2.0.”