Global Warming, Energy
Environment, Science

In 2010, fuel cell manufacturer Bloom Energy unveiled its “Bloom Energy Server.” The unveiling and subsequent press attention claimed that these “Bloom Boxes” were green, efficient and represented the future of energy production. But three years later it appears that Bloom Energy’s success can be attributed to savvy PR and government subsidies—not a superior product. After reviewing Bloom’s products in the real world, it appears that not only are Bloom Boxes functionally the same as natural gas power plants, but they are less efficient.

WASHINGTON D.C. — The Institute for Energy Research (IER) released today a white paper entitled “Evaluating Voluntary Consumer Adoption of Green Pricing Programs.” The result of the analysis by IER policy experts examines information gathered from 31 utility companies across the nation that offer “opt-in” green pricing initiatives as a way to expand the adoption and utilization of renewable energy sources. IER’s analysis found that customer willingness to pay for Green Pricing Programs is directly correlated with the ability to pay and afford the added costs of a program which offers no immediate tangible benefit in exchange for a promise of future environmental gain. Additional findings include:

Ray loves to tell stories about his childhood of long ago America - his eyes twinkle with excitement. He was a teen in rural West Virginia of 1950, carefree and happy. His parents’ farmhouse lacked indoor plumbing, not that it bothered the boys that much. They bathed every Saturday evening before church in the family washtub in the kitchen after the adults in the household.

Churchville, VA—I just took part in a remarkable event: a public debate over manmade global warming in which both sides appeared—and the Associated Press reported on it!  I have been invited to many of these events over the past six years, but the warmists always canceled when they found a skeptic was part of the deal.

We are told, incessantly, that carbon dioxide is the main cause of global warming – it is not.

While the nation tries to come to grips with the cascade of scandals involving the Obama administration, a significant phenomenon has been occurring. It is the demise of the global warming/climate change hoax that has driven national and international policies since the 1980s.

Directed from within the bowels of the most corrupt international organization on planet Earth, the United Nations, the hoax originally generated the Kyoto Protocols in December 1997 to set limits on the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The UN’s climate charlatans claimed that CO2 was causing the Earth to dramatically warm. It was a lie. The U.S. Senate unanimously refused to ratify it and, in 2011, Canada withdrew from it.

Spiraling costs in Germany for developing renewable energy sources could damage the country’s economic competitiveness and need to be scaled back, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday—without elaborating much on how. Energy policy has become a hot issue in campaigning for Germany’s parliamentary elections in September, with households and businesses alike complaining about big energy bills. Many European companies are also concerned that high electricity costs at home are becoming increasingly unsustainable, particularly as their U.S. rivals benefit from lower energy prices resulting from the shale gas boom.—Jan Hromadko, The Wall Street Journal, 14 June 2013

Last month, U.S. Rep. David McKinley (R.-WV) hosted an unbiased climate change panel discussion in Fairmont, West Virginia. Experts from both sides of the climate debate participated without restrictions of any kind.

In a book review of Brilliant Blunders in the June 9th Washington Post by Mario Levin headlined “Colossal mistakes by towering geniuses,” Outlook contributor Marcia Bartusiak writes:

Darwin, of course, demonstrated that species on Earth were not independently created; instead, the diversity of plants and animals arose over time with adaptations to their environments through natural selection.

Asteroids, comparatively small interplanetary bodies anywhere from a hundred yards to a few miles in diameter, are always whizzing around the solar system. Some of those asteroids come close to Earth and other planets. Do you need to worry about them?