The Hammond Report

Back in July 2006, I read an article in the Missoula Independent about political bloggers.  Of course, the Independent being the far left liberal paper it is, focused 90% of the story on the liberal Montana bloggers of the day.  I had thought about blogging for quite a while and decided to jump in and bring myconservative voice to the Montana blogosphere. 

I love blogging and love using The Hammond Report to express my conservative values.  It's therapy for me especially living in the crazy town of Missoula.

So anyway, here it is - three years later and I will continue on.

Greenpeace is upset that BP has recently closed up their alternative energy headquarters.  What they never seem to understand is that there is $0 profit in wind and solar.  Seriously, don't you think if a huge company like BP honestly thought they could make a profit out of alternative energy, they would?  Seriously.

The lunatics at Greenpeace think all big corporations are evil and bent on destructing destroying the planet.  That their business model is destruction.

 We've been skeptical of BP's green marketing claims all along, but reports out of London today confirm that BP's new motto should be «Back to Petroleum».

Earlier this year the company shut down solar operations in the US and Spain.

Meanwhile, BP is still moving into more destructive oil operations, such as Canada's tar sands.

Greenpeace and their equally ignorant supporters foolishly thinks there is a future for alternative energy.  There can never be a legitimate future and it will never be profitable.  It's physically impossible.

Did the folks at Greenpeace ever once consider why we use fossil fuels for our energy?  Oil, Natural Gas, Coal, Uranium are the only reliable and profitable sources of energy there is.  That's why we consume them to produce over 90% of our energy.  It actually works and in a market based economy, it actually earns a profit for the companies willing to do the work prospecting, developing, extracting, processing, refining, etc. 

Frankly, Greenpeace and their supporters are the ones bent on destroying our way of life.  We will never, ever be able to sustain our power and energy needs with alternative energy.  The more we try, the more backwards our way of life will become.

I don't.

Madoff promised ridiculous returns and all of his «victims» wanted a piece of that.  While I never heard of Madoff before his Ponzi Scheme collapsed, I did hear many fund managers promising returns in excess of 20% if one invested with them.  I would bet many of them invested their funds with Madoff's.  Sure, I was tempted but I am and always have been conservative and responsible with my money and am far more comfortable utilizing conservative and traditional financial vehicles and products.  I always go back to the old but true saying «If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.»  And, my friends, returns in excess of 20% are too good to be true.

These «victims» were just as greedy as Madoff.  They saw the huge promised returns either directly through his funds or through funds invested in his.  They took a gamble and lost.  That's life.  Now they want us to feel sorry for them.  I just can't do it.  Yes, I sit here smugly and with all my money (until Obama taxes most if it away and redistributes it) and wonder why I should have any sympathy for them. 

I see Madoff's «victims»  as no better than him.  Only a little dumber for falling for his scheme.

For trying to board a private Tuna fishing boat.  Can you believe the nerve of the sailors on that private fishing boat?  Don't they know that Greenpeace is trying to save the planet? 

Greenpeace is all worked up about one of their female lunatics activists getting punched out when she tried to «peacefully» board their boat and inspect it for illegal blue-fin tuna.  Greenpeace, as you know, are those self righteous left wing loonies who feel it is up to them to protect the planet from evil human activities like fishing, ranching, and eating meat. 

Funny thing is, the police came and inspected the boat and guess what? (emphasis mine)

We refused to leave the pier, which is private property, until the two vessels were inspected.  The police came, and boarded the two vessels.  They reported to us that they did not see tuna on board, and that Malta fisheries inspectors were on the way.

There was no tuna on board! 

Well the Greenpeace folks got their little video and set up a female to try to board in hopes that she would be assaulted. 

Last year, we overheard one tuna vessel owner complaining that it was not fair that Greenpeace activists were often women, as it's awkward to beat them up.  Apparently, times have changed – these thugs did not hesitate.  Of course, their violent attack has already backfired, turning what could have been a simple (and frankly not very interesting) inspection into an international incident.  Footage of the attack has already traveled widely, and the story – and the fight to save bluefin tuna - continues to gather momentum.

I'm going to find out if a Missoula sushi restuarant serves blue-fin tuna and have myself a nice dinner tonight.

I've done some research into the realities of our country's energy generation mainly because I was considering joining a company who will be mining for the minerals that go into solar panels.  It was a very lucrative offer but I needed to establish whether the solar power industry has a legitimate and realistic long term future.  I had to do a lot of digging around, searching and talking to people and this is what I discovered - wind and solar will never, ever be a viable and legitimate energy source and here's why…

Let's look at the percentage each power source provides us with electricity. First is coal at 52%, next is nuclear at 19%, next is gas and fuel oil at 18%, then hydro at 6%, and finally wind at 1% and solar at .1%.   It looks like a tremendous opportunity for growth in solar and wind industries.  But there are more concerning facts to consider.

There is what's called the capacity factor of a power plant.  The capacity factor is basically the amount of time the power plant is actually producing electricity.  The average capacity factor for solar power is 15-20% and for wind is 25-35%.  This means a solar power plant is producing electricity 15-20% of the time and a wind farm is producing electricity 25-35% of the time.  A solar plant can only produce when the sun is shining and a wind farm can only produce when the wind is blowing.   Where does electricity come from the 65-85% of the time a solar or wind plant is not producing?  It comes from a rapid-start power plant  that would need to pick up the load to keep the grid stable.  These plants can be coal, nuclear, or most commonly, natural gas.  So the more wind and solar we build, the more natural gas plants need to be built.  What sense does it make to rely on energy sources that can, at the very best, produce electricity only 35% of the time??

Coal, nuclear and natural gas all have capacity factors of 95% where the 5 % down time is usually for scheduled maintenance and refueling.  These plants don't need the backup support that solar and wind need. 

Power plants need to be built close to the population centers they are serving.  To build them in sunny and windy remote locations like Eastern Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and New Mexico would require massive transmission lines to the large population centers significantly increasing the cost of the electricity.  Not to mention the people in these states not wanting their beautiful open spaces dominated and covered with transmission lines, solar panels and wind turbines.   So realistically, solar and wind farms need to be near their population centers where, in most cases, the sun shines and wind blows less than average which negatively affects their capacity factor and requires more backup.  And as I mentioned before, the more wind and solar that's built, the more rapid-start natural gas plants need to be built to «support» the 65-85% down time.

There is also the capital and operating costs of each source of power to consider.  Capital costs are those onetime set up and construction costs of a plant after which there will be the operating costs which are those costs related directly to operating a plant.  These costs are measured in kilowatts per hour (kWh).  A solar plant's capital cost is 17.12 cents per kWh and its operating cost is 1 cent per kWh. A wind farm's capital cost is 2.45 cents per kWh, operating cost is 1 cent per kWh.  A coal plant's capital cost is .9 cents per kWh, operating cost 1 cent per kWh.  A nuclear plant's capital cost is .9 cents per kWh, operating cost 1.4 cents per kWh. A natural gas plant's capital cost is .42 cents kWh, and operating cost .5 cents per kWh.  As you can clearly see, solar and wind have significantly higher capital costs than coal, nuclear and gas. With solar and wind contributing only 1.1% of our energy production right now, a lot of very expensive construction would be neccessary to build up to the levels of the fossil fuels.  Of course, subsidies will bring those costs down but subsidies come from us taxpayers so we pay for it one way or the other either through higher taxes or higher energy prices.  With Obama spending us into oblivion, I can't see him being able to increase taxes even more without running into serious opposition. 

In conclusion, I decided to stick with the fossil fuel industry. It is the only realistic way to produce the electricity we need to run our country.  There is no way solar and wind can replace coal, nuclear and gas.  They are extremely inefficient, unstable, costly, and take up a significant footprint of land compared to coal, nuclear and gas.  If our country decides to move backwards and give up our comfortable way of life, sure it might work but I doubt that will ever happen.