A partial list of the "smartest" states is provided for those of you who do not read smarmy lists created by Ivy League graduates.
1. Vermont
2. Massachusetts
3. Connecticut
4. New Jersey
5. Maine
12. New Hampshire
14. Rhode Island -Source
It is with great pride that these bastions of "really smart people" will soon pass North Korea in another socialist metric. They are running out of power.
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| Picture from HERE |
North Korea faded to black in early 1990s. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had propped up its old Communist ally with cheap oil, North Korea's creakily inefficient economy collapsed. Power stations rusted into ruin. The lights went out.
North Koreans beyond middle age remember well when they had more electricity (and for that matter food) than their pro-American cousins in South Korea, and that compounds the indignity of sitting in the dark...They cannot read at night (16 hours of darkness during the winter!) They can't watch television. "We have no culture without electricity."... Source
Even more than the North Koreans, the NEngs will be able to point with pride that their privation was entirely due to the purity of their ideology.
In a hell-bent campaign to rid itself of any form of dirty, messy “non-renewable” energy, New England has been closing down coal and oil plants for the last decade. In 2000, 18 percent of New England’s electricity came from coal and 22 percent from oil. Today it’s 3 percent coal and 1 percent oil. Meanwhile, natural gas — the fuel that everybody loves until you have to drill for it — has risen from 15 percent to a starkly vulnerable 52 percent -Source of all remaining quoted material
There’s only one problem. New England doesn’t have the pipelines to bring in the gas. Nor is anyone going to allowed to build it, either....a proposal by Sempra Energy of Houston to expand its existing pipeline from Stony Point, New York, has already met fierce resistance from people who want nothing more to do with fossil fuels and construction is highly unlikely.
Last winter, when record low temperatures hit, there just wasn’t enough gas to go around...(Spot) Prices skyrocketed from $4 per mBTU to an unbelievable $79 per mBTU and electricity prices spiked to ten times their normal level.
No problem, I will just heat with electricity...except
New England is now limping along with 33,000 megawatts of electrical capacity, which barely meets its needs. At one auction last winter, the New England Independent Systems Operator, which manages the grid, came up 145 megawatts short — an almost unheard of occurrence. Yet in the next two years the region will be closing down 1/10th of its capacity in a bid to rid itself of anything that does not win favor with environmentalists.
So the only “clean energy” left in New England these days is hydroelectricity — generated in Canada. The Canadians are indeed developing huge dams in James Bay and are eager to sell to Americans. But that means building transmission lines down from the north and everyone is opposed to that as well.
So what is likely to happen? Another cold winter is certain to bring skyrocketing prices and possible brownouts. New Englanders already pay 45 percent higher electric bills than the rest of the country and that figure can only grow. The first region of the country to industrialize is about the drive away the last of its blue-collar workshops.
It is a good thing they are so smart! Maybe one of them will invent mittens that supple enough to wear while reading Braille in their cold, dark schools.
But they'll blame Bush... sigh... Idjits...
ReplyDeleteMy brother is a Vermonter. He's been there for 20 years, having married a gal from there. He speculates in home heating oil, buying all he can during the summer months when prices are low, then selling it in the late winter, when supplies are low and prices are high.
ReplyDeleteOld NFO: Incredible that they would blame Bush. He was a "pro-energy" president. They only thing they can hang on him is that New England is now at a competitive disadvantage because the rest of the country was able to pursue a rational course....because of Bush.
DeletePawpaw: Fuel oil is well suited to New England. Unlike natural gas it is a stable liquid at normal temperatures and is easy to store. It has enough net energy density that it is economical to transport compared to, say, green chipped wood.
Sadly, the liberal New England mindset considers fuel oil to also be evil. Art Ludwig has an outstanding essay (http://oasisdesign.net/faq/green4000ft2home.htm) explaining why 4000 square foot, single family dwellings cannot be "green" but logic gets in the way of magical thinking.
http://www.urbansplatter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mcmansion.5.jpg
That magical thinking is that they can have their cake and eat it too because they are pure of heart. They can have their 4000-to-8000 square foot McMansions.
Somebody else, somebody who is less perfect than themselves will have to bear the costs.
I think one of the first lessons we teach our children is that winners in life see an endless loop of choices-and-consequences; the winners assess the probable consequences and then place their bets.
The losers in life see an endless loop of consequences-and-choices. Unfortunately, victimhood has become a lucrative profession.