The government is really good at establishing mandates. As the current administration moves to take over everything in your life, rest assured, there will more mandates. And, they will get more personal.
Green energy mandates are so successful.
Let’s look at biofuels. The mandated amount of biofuels for 2010 is 100 million gallons. If every plant being planned met projected capacity in 2010 they would produce 39 million gallons. So, quietly, under the dark of night, another highly touted mandate will be adjusted down. Probably to 25% of the original requirement. Meanwhile, the DOE will provide $787 million for biofuel research. Can’t you just see all those labs with state of the art equipment being put up in congressional districts where Democrats need help in 2010? Can’t you just see all those PHD’s who can’t get a job in the private sector, selecting their new office furniture? Can’t you just see all the staff being hired to cater to the PHD’s every need. Most important, can’t you just see the DOE dropping another $787 million on top of the billions they have already dropped pursuing this goal with no results.
Chasing biofuels from other than corn has been going on for 25 years. Making fuel from sawdust, wood chips, corn cobs, switch grass or any form of cellulose is just one of the big dreams. Don’t forget algae. There has been a long list of alternative energy that has supported the research community for three decades. Still, less than 2% of our energy comes from renewable sources.
Cello Energy LLC was to provide 50 million of the 100 million mandated gallons in 2010. But, they are involved in a fraud case and will produce none, probably ever. Fraud cases seem to be prevalent in the government mandated energy businesses.
California, in an effort to accelerate their ultimate bankruptcy, leaped ahead of the rest of the country and set power mandates they will never reach.
T. Boone Pickens spent millions telling us of the merits of wind. Then, he stopped his big project since he can’t get financing. Why? The quiet oil producers have been busy drilling and finding natural gas right here in America. The gas price has dropped due to the economy and the new supplies of gas in the lower 48. Power plants can now substitute gas for coal. Obviously, the auto makers could be producing cars that run on CNG( compressed natural gas). You could fill your car at night if you have natural gas in your home with a device that hangs on the garage wall and costs less than $3,000.
So our governments go about the business of establishing mandates that are to mess with the free market and force the use of exotic new products that are yet to be produced at any reasonable commercial price, the private sector is drilling in tough places to extract natural gas, a clean fossil fuel that does not pollute and no one notices.
Mandates, like campaign promises, are made to be broken. Billions will be spent chasing false hopes, all of it your tax dollars in one form or another. If cap and trade passes, there will be added billions for the government to waste. They can set mandates even higher, spend even more, and depend on the private sector to bail them out when the mandates are recalibrated down.
