Enough Already

May 31

Enough already with my seemingly open complaints about government not doing (barely) anything to spur the growth of alternative energy and energy saving measures that we need here in the U.S.

As I was thinking of ways for government to strongly encourage private, corporate entities, and individuals to do the right things on their own, I started thinking tax incentives. Since there are so many tax deductions for big business and the rich, why not for the regular guy/gal?

Then today as I was pouring over the Financial Times; in the Thursday edition I spotted an article with the header: Solar energy investor presses for extension of US tax credit
In summary, a leading US private equity group last November said it would team up with Lockheed Martin, the defense company, to develop solar energy fields in the southern U.S. They figure the solar market could be worth $30bn in 10 years but the deal hinges on the extension of a 30 percent tax credit for solar investments.

Again, why can't our government take lessons from Germany who has been doing so since the middle of the 1990's? Why can't it be a semi permanent part of the taxation policy until our country is well entrenched in solar and other alternative energy solutions? This week, Germany announced it would peel back a small percentage of incentives. Far from eliminating or severely curtailing the incentives. Why is it so hard to do the very same thing here? Is it the overly generous salaries and pensions paid to our government leaders? Is it some ridiculous program that we are funding? Is it just the war and the billions/trillion we are wasting in the name of "national security" over-seas because a handful of men and a woman have some sort of twisted plan to play out?

Why is it we don't offer complete tax deductions for putting energy saving light bulbs in our homes, meaningful deductions for going to hybrid vehicles over our 100lbs. per week carbon producing gasoline powered vehicles. Why should property owners pay higher taxes for erecting wind energy mills on their property and feeding electric back onto the power grid? It seems in this last example that the savings are reduced greatly through additional taxes. Where is the logic in that???

Enough already...

Who Killed the Electric Car? parts 1 - 9

May 30

I have been telling people about this for a couple years now and for some reason, people don't believe me and won't even rent it from Netflix (NFLX)to see for themselves. Yeah! what the frack! its a SciFi film. WHAT?!!?

NOTE: if you find that the videos sound funny, scroll down to the next article "You Gotta Love 42 MPG With Today's Gas Prices and click the stop button on the video in that article. Also you can hit the pause button on the video and wait for the whole thing to get downloaded to your computer's cache before playing.

from FreeGlobalEnergy:
The GM EV1 had a $4000.00 incentive to buy this car forced to build by congress yet (GM) gave $100,000.00 tax incentive to buy the largest most gas guzzling vehicle on the road, the Hummer, otherwise this would have been merely impossible to sell such a rediculous concept.
An electric car is 35% - 97% cleaner than a comparable gas car, including the pollution generated by the electric power plant. The 35% number applies to states using a lot of "dirty" power, such as coal-fired plants. The 97% number applies to states like California that use a lot of "clean" power, including hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar.
Also, there is ongoing research to make flywheel energy storage systems that can replace conventional chemical batteries for mobile applications, such as for electric vehicles. Proposed flywheel systems would eliminate many of the disadvantages of existing battery power systems.

They started out with defective Delco batteries when they already had access to better batteries, after many complaints they switched to the better batteries, everyone who leased them loved them, GM almost always builds superior American cars and built this one too good, it was definitely a threat to oil as a solar charging infrastructure was already being built. When GM pulled the plug so did Toyota's Rav-4 EV which gets equivalent to 154MPG comparing grid KW to gas at 2005 prices.

Also check out this supporting site from Sony (SNE). It gives the whole time line and data seen in the film for more ponderous reading and exploration. Click Here

You Gotta Love 42 MPG With Today's Gas Prices

May 30

I went from a Chrysler New Yorker to a Toyota Echo, the one all gasoline car from the same company that competes with the Toyota Prius (TM) which gets somewhere between 52 - 60 MPG depending on who you talk to. I'd love a Toyota Prius if it were not for the $25,000 plus price tag. I'll keep my $10,500 42 MPG Toyota Echo for the time being. Its no wonder that Toyota discontinued the Echo for the heavier, more expensive, lower MPG replacement.

Little did I know that in North Carolina, a company of a little over 300? employees is making all electric vehicles. Perhaps we should start focusing on them and also put them on our watch list or in our stock portfolio.

Hybrid Technologies Inc OTC BB:(HYBR)

This company just announced it is working on a new supercar using a gas-electric hybrid engine and that should hit 220 mpg. Hybrid Technologies is aiming for a 150 to 180-mi. range per charge from the all-electric model, while its lithium-ion model meets gas hybrid needs to hit 220 mpg—minimum.

You will be able to purchase this car the company says in either late 2009 or early 2010. We can't wait!

HT1

HT2

Indiana Wind Farm Set To Be Largest In the Nation

May 30

At 462 wind turbines; the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Fowler, Indiana may be the largest in the nation when completed by 2011. That is unless the 667 turbines of the Pampa Wind Farm in Texas get there first.

The Pampa Wind Farm is just a first phase in the T. Boone Pickens saga. When all four phases are completed, it may be the largest in the world. However I hope that everyone else doesn't just sit back and watch.

The Texas project is a (GE) and Mesa Power one whereas the Indiana project is a (BP) and Dominion Power one. It is great to see projects now on the road or in the field so-to-speak. Just yesterday we wrote about the John Deere (DE) projects in Missouri. And lets not forget the solar farm project in the Mohave Desert. If our own government is too greedy and stubborn to do the right thing, at least we have our big business who now have the blinders off and are leading the pack. Sad though, for if our government would take the lead when it should, we would have had this activity long ago. Look at Germany for example, by far one of the world's leaders in alternative energy usage. To think that Germany was a country we defeated in war and now they are one of the clear winners in this race for a better world. Is the U.S.A. only good for making war and depressing innovation and technologies now?

e2 energy — Harvesting the Wind with Suzlon..one of the big players today

As BP North America President Robert Malone pointed out: "the United States has 5 percent of the world's population but uses 25 percent of its oil." It costs our government and every tax paying citizen far more than it should for our energy. The government refuses to implement effective mass transportation while Europe, Japan, and now China lead by example. The company claims: If 10% of the world’s energy was generated by wind it would be equivalent of replacing all cars in the world with hybrids. Wind is an abundant domestic resource and is among the most cost competitive sources of low-carbon power. The company also thinks that it can develop 100 wind energy sites in the U.S. alone but it does not give a time frame. It too has a project in the great state of Texas, some 80 miles southwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. It expects the project to be completed in the second half of this year.

Its a long time over-due; our leaders must step out from their comfort zone and make positive and substantial steps for our future. Run, don't walk or stop on GO! says both the Chance and Community cards...

Good for the community, Good for the Farmers

Germany teaches...will the U.S. learn??