Moonbox

I'm not shifting any goal posts. I'm using basic, fundamental math and logic. If you say the program will cost X amount of dollars for Y number of planes, it's pretty simple to come up with a price per plane. If the next year you say the program is going to cost 1.5X and the number of planes remains unchanged, the price per plane increases dramatically. The politicians and political hacks, however, prefer to put their heads in the sand and insist on their original per unit price. It's insane.

That's not even worth answering. Look up what implication means in your dictionary.

Irrelevant. When was the accounting method decided on? If they told us the plane would be $75M, and then it turned out to be $133M, the only reason the accounting time span would matter is if it changed somewhere in between. Is that the case? From what I understand, they've had a 50 year time horizon for this program for many years now. Unless you can somehow show us that they decided to change the accounting time frame recently, the numbers would dictate that a 50% increase in overall program costs translates into a significantly increased per unit cost, given the same estimated delivery orders.

The estimates were bumped up by 50%. From $1T to $1.5T. What sort of logic are you using that accepts that a 50% overall program cost doesn't translate into a more expensive plane? There have been cost overruns and deadlines missed over and over and over again, and yet LM and people like you are STILL insisting that the end price of the plane doesn't really change...

The implications of climate science are extremely political.

You're right. They're doing exactly what they're designed to do. What they're designed to do, in this case, is prop up a fundamentally broken value proposal and make a certain few rich while fleecing taxpayers. The magic of the whole thing is that the taxpayers have been tricked into feeling good about it!!! We don't want the current tech in the market. It's enormously inefficient, fundamentally flawed and has ZERO hope of solving our energy needs. Let me highlight the ZERO hope part for you. If the tech was good and it was a simple matter of industries of scale etc, the short-term pain wouldn't be a problem. This isn't the case. This tech is in its infant stages and is nowhere the stage it needs to be at for widespread production and adoption. The reason we shouldn't be rolling this crap tech out right now is the same reason we're not building industrial-scale fusion reactors. We've been able to generate net energy via nuclear fusion already, but the tech's not ready for commercial use. New materials/methods need to be put together to make it work, not economies of scale. It's interesting to see how the argument has shifted now. First you were trying to say that wind/solar should be adopted because it's cost efficient, and now that you've been shown otherwise you're trying to tell us why cost shouldn't matter. I'll tell you why it does matter. We're diverting resources that could be better used elsewhere to achieve superior immediate and long term results. Instead of lining the pockets of rich people who had the foresight to know how stupid the average taxpayers are, we could actually be measurably reducing our emissions with nuclear and spending extra money on research for future viable sources of electricity, whether that be solar, wind, fusion or whatever.

I don't disagree with subsidies in theory. Fossil fuels are subsidized when the market (ie. energy prices etc) doesn't support profitable business. The idea is that a utility provider isn't going to build a natural gas plant unless they can run a profit. Why would they bother? The alternative to this is to re-privatize the power industry. Given the 'debt-retirement' surcharge added to my electricity bill every month, that doesn't seem any better. Your implication, however, is inane. The subsidization of fossil-fuel electricity generation is a variable that will increase or decrease depending on energy prices and market forces. The subsidies can end up being insignificant or non-existant, and even in a worst case scenario, the amount of subsidy required is nowhere NEAR what's required for wind or solar. By nowhere near I mean not even in the same ballpark, or even approaching that ballpark. Do I believe that renewable energy is a requirement going forward? I've already gone over that with you. I do believe that, but only when the tech is available to make it work. Spend the money we're pissing away on subsidies and direct to research instead. I don't care. The overall goal and the amount of money being spend is NOT my issue. My issue is the idiotic insistence on spending billions on USELESS tech.

Not at all. This one, however, is a giant failure. Try to wrap those numbers around your head. 15% of my electricity bill was to subsidize 3% of what I actually used. Did this lower our carbon emissions noticeably, or even statistically relevantly? Nope. I paid a 15% premium on my energy bill to support the wind/solar lobby and the wealthy individuals/corporations like Samsung who were smart enough to see there was money in it and that it would be easy to dupe our politicians and brainwashed electorate. Regardless, the point of the post was to show you how BS the numbers you were claiming actually are. Wind/Solar is NOT cost-competitive right now. Wind isn't even close, and Solar is so far off the mark that it's not even in the same dimensional plane.

Was it sarcasm? If so...well done.

I have to go back to my last post: Ontarians pay a 15% premium on their overall energy bill to subsidize the 3% of their total electricity that's generated by wind/solar. That's insane.

lol...what?

Yes, he was part of the exclusive club I like to call, "The Real World." It's a shame the federal NDP is so stuck in lollipop land.

The economists created the recession? Hahahaha! You have about as good an understanding of the world, if you're having a good day, as a 10 year old does.

Not according to the CAPE office at the Pentagon...they were estimating program costs now at +$1.4 Trillion now with an overall average unit cost of $133M back in March. This program has been bungled pretty badly. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-lockheed-fighter-idUSBRE82S03L20120329

They really need to get the message. Nobody trusts them with the economy because they can never make any sense of it. If they held more rational views then maybe economists wouldn't laugh them off every time they say anything.

First, that's the whole point of shifting to renewables. We wouldn't even be entertaining them as an option if not for that. I'm willing to accept those costs, but they have no bearing on whether we should be going nuclear or pissing away money on useless wind/solar equipment.

Uh huh...care to give us a credible source on that? While you're at it, try addressing some of the other links I posted, particularly the cost of renewable subsidies in Ontario on the average energy bill. Either you put your head in the sand and didn't want to read them, or you didn't like the conclusions drawn for them and just don't want to discuss them. It's pretty interesting how you skipped all of that. Like I said already, by all means let's spend the money on renewables. Take the money we're wasting on the useless tech we're currently running, however, and spend it on researching materials and methods to MAKE renewables efficient. I don't have a problem with the aim of the programs in place, nor the amount of money we're spending. I have a problem with throwing the money down the toilet on an almost certain failed outcome.

8 years really isn't that long pal. It's not like in that time period they've reduced the cost in half. Here's a paper explaining some of the problems with wind generation: http://docs.wind-wat...s-windpower.pdf Here's another interesting article: http://www.energytri...-when-cold-hits explaining Britain, Europe's leading supporter of wind power, and they're poor experience. There's also: http://www.energytri...-when-cold-hits explaining that when it gets cold the wind turbines basically shut down! That's a great idea for Canada isn't it!?! I'll ask this question again though, and let's see if you answer it this time: If wind power was economically feasible at the moment, why does it need to be subsidized so heavily? For Ontario, here's a little tidbit from a the environmental commissioner from Ontario telling us that $0.02 of our $0.13 cost per kwh (15% of our energy bill) was the cost of subsidizing renewable energy for Ontario in 2010. Guess how much power wind and other renewals generated out of Ontario's total bill? About 3.5%. http://www.eco.on.ca...d-conservation/ http://www.ieso.ca/i...a/md_supply.asp Do the math. We paid a 15% premium on our overall energy bills to subsidize 3.5% of our energy consumption. You don't need any more proof than that.

I told everyone months ago this would happen. He'll beat Harper. Canadians are that stupid. I mean, I have nothing against the guy (except his father was our worst PM ever), and I'd consider voting for him if I knew anything about him. Fact is that his credentials begin and end with his father's last name and his good looks. What are the chances he'd have even been LOOKED at for even an MP had he not had the Trudeau name? Close to zero.

We've been over this, and you never responded to my earlier posts. The only alternative right now is nuclear, and that's one that our enviro-crusaders are also decrying. Wind/Solar isn't economical. It's not even close. I've sourced you the conclusion of the Royal Academy of Engineers, to debunk your lame South African online article, but you didn't see or chose to ignore it, so here you go: http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Cost_of_Generating_Electricity.pdf Best case scenario has them pegged at double the cost of existing technologies.

No it doesn't. Burying it in bedrock deep in radioactive shield leaves it out of our atmosphere, so we don't have to deal with it, either now or in the forseeable future. I'd rather have nuclear waste holed up safely somewhere in the ground than emissions in our atmosphere for everyone to breathe and to warm the climate. If we want to clean up the atmosphere, we need to look at our options. Wind/Solar can't generate nearly enough energy to meet our current needs for anywhere near a reasonable price. Our alternatives, therefore, are to axe our energy consumption to a fraction of what it is now and go back to living in the early 1900's, continue burning coal/oil/gas and maintain the status-quo, or ramp up nuclear and phase out coal etc. Wind/Solar isn't an option yet. I sincerely believe it will/could be one in the next 15-20 years, but right now the tech just isn't there. That leaves us with nuclear or coal, so pick your poision (literally). Given the impact of carbon in our atmosphere and the apparent impending climate disaster, the choice should be simple, but a lot of people insist on the one option that doesn't exist. It's the sort of thinking that brings us "Pay down the debt, don't raise taxes and increase social services" logic that leads our election campaigns into monkey-poo flinging.

The PM doesn't really have any responsibility to be interviewed. The press can research and write whatever they want, but the PM doesn't have to speak with them directly. The outrage of the MSM is noted, and ignored. Harper holds them in contempt, and I don't think that's unreasonable considerning how sensational it's become in NA over the last couple of decades.

That's a rather peculiar logic-twist isn't it? GMO research is unreliable because of the short time-frame, but climate science, and its similarly short-time frame, is perfectly reliable? I mean, we're told over and over again that it's the trends that matter when it comes to global warming, but the science itself is still in its infant stages, has only been going on in earnest for the last 10-15 years, and that's apparently enough to account for all of the trends?

That gave me quite the chuckle. I can understand why you might be in favour of wind if those numbers were true. I obviously would be myself. Unfortunately, your source is complete bunk. What did you do, Google "Wind Power Cheaper than Coal." ??? Here's a better source, from the Royal Academy of Engineers. http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/cost_generation_commentary.pdf Anyways, ask yourself this: If wind power was cheaper than coal, why the hell aren't our energy bills going down? Why are we still burning coal at all? The answer is obvious, but blind, naive ideologues have decided that the simple answer is not the right answer. No, it's not that wind power is prohibitively expensive, it's that the evil oil industry has bribed everyone into somehow thinking that it's BETTER to use coal, which is apparently more expensive, and pollute the environment rather than use this magical source of cheap new power....

I'm not sure what this article does to 'prove' anything. I actually think it's written far better and more intelligently than most, but all it's really doing is highlighting the bad things that have happened in certain areas over the last few years and attributes them to climate change.