A bold new report has been released showing how Maine can become energy independent – if, by “energy independent,” we mean heavily dependent on government subsidies.
Also, sort of chilly.
Under the proposal put forth by respected researchers at the Rodentia Institute, we should abandon our current efforts to build more wind farms, and instead underwrite an electrical generating mechanism that, unlike wind, is capable of supplying us with predictable quantities of clean power, while also filling vacant mills with an innovative new business and creating thousands of jobs, most of which will be permanent, and some of which will be well-paying and a few of which won’t involve having to do anything disgusting.
If this seems unbelievable, the institute assures us it is no more so than similar assertions made by the Maine wind industry, which – although it claims it has invested $1.28 billion in the state over the last dozen years – has already sucked up more than $2 billion in taxpayer and ratepayer funding in order to offer us intermittent spasms of electricity in quantities that have yet to prove sufficient to keep the state’s supply of marital aids fully charged.
There’s a good reason we’re irritable.
In the interest of accuracy (no, really), it should be noted that what little power the state’s wind farms do produce isn’t directed to Maine bedrooms. It all gets shipped to southern New England, which, not surprisingly, reports a higher level of sexual satisfaction.
Somehow, neither the power’s destination nor its ultimate use got mentioned in a report the wind industry released last month detailing all it had done for Maine, such as creating an average of more than 1,500 jobs a year. Of which, the report also doesn’t bother to note, less than 200 are permanent. And that figure includes the continued employment of people like me, who don’t do anything except complain about what a rip-off wind turbines are. If they stopped building those suckers, I’d have to earn my keep by finding something else to gripe about. Like, I dunno, politics.
Somehow, the wind industry’s propaganda further neglected to include state officials’ estimates of how much renewable energy costs us each year, which comes to approximately $60 million in extra charges on our power bills. If we could save that money by ending our dependence on wind turbines, we could use it to cover the cost of revenue sharing for cities and towns or to fire up wacky psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich’s old orgone box (it’s still in a museum in Rangeley) and give every adult in the state a couple of cosmic tingles.
Or we could go with that idea from Rodentia.
The institute, as its name indicates, studies rodents, of which Maine has an abundance, from mice in our closets, to rats in our basements, to squirrels in our attics, to politicians in our Legislature. If only we could find some way to turn these annoying creatures from pests into power producers.
Rodentia proposes to use a massive state and federal subsidy of, say, $60 million a year to rent all the state’s vacant mills and fill them with zillions of little exercise wheels hooked to generators that feed directly into the grid. Every unemployed person in Maine will be set to work capturing rodents to run on those wheels (no porcupines, beavers or bats, please), while thousands more will be hired to feed and clean those furry little power plants.
In no time, the state would have full employment and all the pricey alternative energy we could possibly want. Which admittedly won’t be much, what with rodent mortality, shutdowns due to PETA protests and competition from cheap overseas rodent mills that don’t have to abide by strict U.S. standards of animal welfare, and can employ non-union species, such as the South American capybara and the giant rat of Sumatra.
But, as the wind industry is fond of pointing out as it tramples through the Maine wilderness despoiling our pristine mountains and peaceful vistas, think of how green we’re being by not polluting the planet with foreign oil or, in this case, foreign rodent poop.
Speaking of poop, wind industrialists have promised to double their capacity in the state by 2018, so long as we keep providing them with huge subsidies. This will allow them to continue buying their turbine parts from overseas manufacturers. Not only can the exercise wheels for Rodentia’s plan be made right here in Maine, but rodent ranchers (and it won’t be long before we’ll have a need for such specialists) could triple the amount of farmland in the state, while more conventional agriculture will benefit from the increased demand for grain to feed the little beasties.
The rodent industry can’t promise you connubial bliss, anymore than the wind industry can. But your lovemaking may be enhanced by the knowledge that while you’re going at it, there’s a lot less chance a rat is crawling into the baby’s crib.
Or the Legislature.
If you think I’ve gone squirrelly, email me at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
I thought this was going to be a sequel to your “Sausage Party” column, with its mention of new legislation to establish the Official State Rodent. Of course, we already have an OSD. You can see them scurrying around Augusta almost any day when the legislature is in session, each carrying with his tail a rolled up piece of paper on which is written a new law that the State o’ Maine just can’t continue without.
After reading this column, I now understand that the Rodentia Institute seeks to establish something else entirely: the Official State Windbag. This effort is somewhat redundant, since the office was created quite some time ago, but it’s been vacant ever since we sent the first occupant to the US Senate.
None of this, not the windmills, the subsidies, the discussions, none of it- would have ever happened if people hadn’t gotten so freaked out over nuclear energy.
Exactly Al! Exactly…Liberal Corporate welfare . How many of the beautiful people are lining their pockets on this taxpayer funded scam?
Re: Nuclear power plants:There are any number of things to be freaked out about. Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island are/were colossal sources of contamination. Even without “leaks”, explosions, ,etc., the waste products of nuclear power plants have to go “somewhere”. Who’d want it in his backyard? Or traveling through his backyard to a disposal site? Not I!
Well, hello my fellow Americans,
As to the comments above, in no particular order, and directed: I think the biggest problem with nuclear is that it’s a PR disaster. At heart, the technology running cars is bomb technology. Ignite something as fast as possible, create a shock wave with the power to shift a half ton lump of metal. But it’s not a bomb powered engine, it’s an internal combustion engine; so very neat and sanitary. If only people realized that nuclear reactors have less in common with the Hiroshima bomb than cars do with TNT, they might stop thinking with their endocrine glands and start to examine the situation rationally.
Also, the turbines slaughter 100s of bats and birds per unit per year…multiply that by the number of turbines? And then there is the matter of the units themselves, once the are no longer useful from wear or if the company(s) go bankrupt or leave due to there profit margins are not high enough to continue operations? What then with these manmouth structures towering over our mountains and hills?
Al, as to your PETA comment, assuming the other PETA, not the one I am most familiar with (People Eating Tasty Animals); since the majority of birds being killed by the turbines are raptors, and the fact the companies are getting a pass both by the PETA people, and the government, (I have not seen or heard of any fines, commercials, marches or outcries, etc.), do you think I would be extended the same pass if this spring the same retailed hawk that hangs around my place picking off my local grouse and potentially my chickens I plan to raise or the Eagles that make me very nervous as I walk the fields with my dogs, or the Heron that almost finished all the small brown trout I stocked in my pond, have an early retirement due to lead flying in their path? (PS: just for illustration purposes only, the Heron, Hawk and the Eagles are doing just fine and quite fat and healthy)
JL, not so sure about the actual numbers of birds and bats caught in turbines, but otherwise, we seem to be on the same wavelength!
I recently read a fun book, ” What If?” by Randall Monroe. He also has a website XKCD. He applies real scientific answers to what can be silly hypothetical questions.
In it, he answers a a question, could you swim in a reactor cooling pool? with yes, you could. In fact, divers do go into them.
As Jl states, nuclear power is not the same as a bomb.
So, yes, nuclear energy has it’s risks. Yes, there have been some horrible incidents. But, we have learned from those, just as we have learned to make air travel extremely safe. A Chernobyl would never again occur, nor would Three Mile Island. Fukushima was a once in a thousand year occurrence, and we now know better how to deal with an incident such as that.
When you compare the damage done to the environment and people by the Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three mile island incidents to the Exxon Valdez, the Deep Water Horizon spill, and all of the tankers that have leaked oil, the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster, the recent pipeline rupture in the Yellowstone, and- add to that, all of the pollution from Oil fired power plants, coal fired power plants- not just in America, but world wide; when you add it all up, nuclear looks to be pretty darn good. And- it doesn’t contribute to global warming.
With all the current debate about the safety of vaccines, people miss that proven fact that it’s environmental pollution that causes most of the increase in allergic reactions and has been linked to autism as well.
No argument that coal and oil-related energy have wreaked havoc with the environment. But to say that nuclear power plants have such redeeming
features and that they won’t ‘ever again’ have horrible breeches of safety is, at best, misleading. And what about the disposal of radioactive waste?
It doesn’t just go away.
Throughout the world, we need every energy source we can get – including nuclear. As one can see from the table above, all energy sources have BOTH advantages AND disadvantages. Nuclear has a number of advantages that warrant its use as one of the many methods of supplying an energy-demanding world. Even with conservation efforts, energy demand has been and will continue to increase. Other factors can accelerate that increase, e.g. the proposed shift to electric cars to meet environmental air quality goals. In using each and every one of these forms of energy production, we need to make sure we conserve as much as we can so we leave sources for future generations. Energy suppliers need to ensure that they do not contribute to short and long-term environmental problems. Governments need to ensure energy is generated safely to that neither people nor the environment are harmed.
In the United States, many of the existing nuclear plants will reach the end of their currently authorized U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission license during the next 25 years. If nuclear is not used, other energy sources must be obtained.
In response to questions on my numbers; The numbers and species are well documented from Ontario to FL and out west to CA. I kept my number on the low end, because as one can predict, they vary depending on location and habitat range, etc. I read and research multiple sources, and when I mention a number it is backed by too many numerous sources to waste type and space on this forum. My suggestion is not to take my take on anything as anything but a well founded truth and factually backed statement with very little wiggle room for opinion. Rest assured though that I have found that too many times I have read or argued with individuals that read one thing or heard something once and run with it as gospel. I myself especially move on as soon as I notice that it is politically generated, funded by one source or the famous statement on the paper or article states, “…the consensus of the scientists have concluded…” Any scientist that is ethically and truly unbiased, will tell you that there is never a consensus on anything they work on, only repeatable scientific methodology. Ponder that thought the next time you listen to our dear leader, POTUS, repeat that form of speech, or when you hear a board meeting with a bunch of yes sirs, agreeing to everything the CEO sai
Sorry about the lack of the table, it did not attach to the script…just look it up on your own…
Elmira:
No, it is not realistic to believe that we could make nuclear power plants that will never have incidents. But, we can learn how to make them as safe, or safer than any other alternative. In fact, we already have.
Wind mills will never provide enough power for all our needs. I am a proponent of wind power, I believe we should develop all alternative power sources. But the best chance way we have to produce clean energy is nuclear.
Why didn’t the nation get freaked out about what to do with all the old nuclear weapons we created? The bomb level fission material is far more dangerous than that used for power production.
There never has and there never will be a way to produce energy that makes everyone happy. Hydro power upsets those who want the rivers to flow free, Oil wells, pipelines, fracking- oil tanker and LNG ships, coal mines, windmills; all of them pose problems and issues.
The safe disposal of nuclear waste is a political problem, not a scientific one.
It can be sealed and stored in a manner to render it harmless until it decays, however long that may be.
Pollution and greenhouse gases on the other hand, will be creating havoc for us for centuries.
We really have no choice. Most of mankind is not willing to regress to the living standards of the 18th century. Nuclear power is the only way for us to power the future.
“Why didn’t the nation get freaked out about what to do with all the old nuclear weapons we created?” A very good question, snowman.
I’d guess the nation hasn’t really thought about it. If you don’t live in or near New Mexico (or Nevada), maybe you just wouldn’t care.
Hey I have a good Idea. Lets take away all the subsidies of all energy production! That should includes all the incentives, health care, pipe line construction, environmental damage and risks, displacement of productive farmland….etc…That could never happen as everyone could never agree on the numbers (and no one in Washington or Augusta would be able to raise enough money to run for office again.) But we could evaluate them better. Best thing going is to diversify and use less energy. Energy has been way too cheap for way too long as we have never paid the true cost. We waste way too much energy and we have not looked ahead to see the damages we have caused.
Maybe all the exercise treadmills could be hooked up to the grid. Making power while losing fat, a win win situation. I get a kick out of the anti nuke comments, as if the newer technology has not changed at all in the last 60 years. There are designs which use the radioactive waste we are now storing for fuel!! Solving climate change will not happen by building millions of wind turbines which do not even make enough energy to power their own needs 80% of the time. Any state can be energy independent. Just pull the plugs. I bet we would all survive.
Accident at Nuclear Site Points to Lapses
“Now Mr. Alvarez says that he is not so sure that burial at WIPP is safe. “I feel like I drank the Kool-Aid,” he said.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/us/in-us-cleanup-efforts-accident-at-nuclear-site-points-to-cost-of-lapses.html?ref=topics&_r=0