Green jobs a waste of our money and hell on the environment

This is a guest post by an individual who prefers to remain anonymous. As always, I will honor their request. What he is saying here about our rates is 100% spot on.

We here in this part of the state have many surcharges(taxes) added onto our electric bills for dam removals, meeting the asinine renewable energy mandate and more.

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‘Green’ jobs merely consume tax funds and raise power costs

My, oh my. Has it started to sink in for many of you? At least I hope so. I enjoyed The Bulletin’s articles on the green jobs goal. It left me finally understanding that there is no hope whatsoever of understanding what “going green” really means. If you take the articles at face value, can anyone tell us just what a green job is?

Let’s see. If you work in the wind industry that’s a green job, correct? Never mind that you produce a product that results in bird grinding, huge footprint, vista besmearing, noise-producing, extremely inefficient power production that results in exceedingly high power costs. It’s still green, correct?

If you work in the solar industry, that makes your job green, I suppose. We cannot efficiently produce solar cells here in the United States because of our inane laws. We send those green jobs to China, where those folks can pollute the air and water at their pleasure. Out of sight, out of mind, I think. You do realize that the air we breathe was in China recently? It’s been cited that China’s industrial pollutants are showing up on the West Coast of the U.S., and the rate is increasing.

Large solar projects have some of the same problems as the wind farms, except for killing of the birds and the noise. You can get a small project done for your home. All you have to do is have the money and be able to wait until you get your tax rebate. With the economy in a shambles, it’s really tough to carry that off for the larger part of our folks, including me. The promoters will only claim a small offset to your energy costs, even with the tax rebate. The full payback may never materialize. Do you really want those ugly blue things on your roof?

The biomass power plant proposed in La Pine? How in the world could something like that ever be considered green? Those plants produce the same set of junk that is produced by a coal plant. I know the folks in La Pine want the jobs and the tax revenue, but give me a break. Those are not green jobs. If you have lived in Central Oregon for any length of time you may have experienced our sometimes infamous temperature inversions. The air gets really stinky from all the wood-burning stoves in town. Wait until that stupid green plant goes on line in La Pine. You ain’t seen nothing yet, as the old saying goes. Is this not going backwards?

The folks that work in the ethanol industry. Those must be green jobs. We put ethanol in your gas that reduces the efficiency of your motor fuel. You have to buy more fuel with ethanol to go the same distance with fuel that doesn’t have any. The offset gain, due to the loss of efficiency and this stupidity, is a net zero, unless you are the state that collects fuel taxes from more sales. Even the self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet admitted ethanol was a mistake. Green this is not.

Green buildings are probably the biggest farce of all. If you called them high-efficiency buildings, I think you could support that notion, but green? So if they are green, where did the lumber, nails, concrete, glass, insulation, wire and such come from? Did it just fall out of the air with a green stamp on it?

Our power rates are going up thanks to the so-called renewable mandate. Twenty-five percent of all our power must come from sources deemed renewable.

The problems are that those available sources cost three to four times as much. You will be paying double in the not-too-distant future because the 25 percent will cost as much as the 75 percent you pay today. Did you notice Pacific Power and Central Electric Cooperative rates went up? I will guarantee they are not done yet.

Just wait until you get your smart meter. Who do you think it’s going to be smart for?

Looks from here we just changed the lenses in our glasses from the ’70s from rose to green and still can’t see.