Category Archives: burning behavior

Rich Lowery And Energy Policy – Conservatives never met an alternitive fuel source they like

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I am not a huge fan of biofuels. In fact I am not a big fan of liquid fuels, including natural gas. The real problem all along has been methane and then CO2.  So in terms of farm policy recycling all of the farm waste into energy would solve so many problems at once that we should have mandated it a long time ago. But what do the conservatives proposes? 100 more nuclear power plants or clean coal technology?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_aNND91JX7VkQaLxCx5WhYO

CANDIDATES & CORN

HOW IOWA’S STAKE IN ETHANOL DISTORTS OUR POLITICS & POLICY

Last Updated: 5:00 AM, August 11, 2007

Rich Lowry

REPUBLICAN presidential candidates flocked to Ames, Iowa, for the Iowa straw poll this weekend, an event that is both an early winnowing process for the GOP presidential field and an object lesson in how one state can hijack the nation’s energy policy.

Ethanol is to Iowans what marijuana is to Rastafarians: a substance that is considered quasi-holy, but only because it delivers really good times. Presidential candidates become fanatical supporters of the corn-based fuel as soon as they begin to compete in the Iowa caucuses. Before it’s over, Mitt Romney might have to promise to use ethanol as pomade and Mike Huckabee – in a naked play for the religious right – to baptize people in the stuff.

We will produce 6 billion gallons of corn ethanol this year, on the way to meeting a mandate of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. The Senate has passed a mandate for 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, although the additional fuel is supposed to come from sources other than corn – so-called cellulosic ethanol, made from switchback grass and the like. When the agricultural firm Archer Daniels Midland first coaxed ($$$) Congress into subsidizing ethanol a few decades ago, it was just a perversely amusing example of rank corporate welfare. Now, with ethanol distorting markets in America and around the world, it’s not so amusing anymore.

Prior to the Civil War, Southerners genuflected before King Cotton. Now, we live in an era of King Corn. It is our most heavily subsidized crop.

We will plant 90 million acres of it this year, up 15 percent from last year. Still, the price of a bushel of corn jumped from $2 to $3 in the past year, thanks to the demand for more ethanol. This is increasing the price of corn-based foods – tortillas have become as much as twice as expensive in Mexico – and meat, poultry and dairy products, since livestock traditionally has been fed corn.

“In some parts of the country,” Jeff Goodell writes in Rolling Stone, “hog farmers now find it cheaper to fatten their animals on trail mix, french fries and chocolate bars.” The higher cost of raising livestock is naturally passed along to consumers. So, with its ethanol mandate, Congress has effectively passed an indirect tax on food. The big winners are agricultural firms that have locked up lots of land, since the price of cropland has gone up 14 percent in the past year. (If your local real estate is slumping, it’s only because you can’t plant corn on it.)

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For more of this slop please read the rest of the article. More tomorrow.
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Karl Rove – Cheney’s demon spawn on the darkside

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This is an excerpt of an article written the day after the fall elections. This is klassic Karl krowing.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/business_breaking/20101103_Rove_to_drillers__Expect_sensible_regulation.html

Posted on Wed, Nov. 3, 2010

Rove to drillers: ‘Expect sensible regulation’

By Andrew Maykuth

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

PITTSBURGH – Karl Rove, the Republican operative and former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, today told an appreciative Marcellus Shale natural gas conference that the sweeping Republican victory on Tuesday would put an end to most of the industry’s legislative threats.

Rove said a new Republican House of Representatives supportive of the energy industry “sure as heck” would not pass climate-change legislation that the outgoing Democratic Congress had been unable to pass.

“Climate is gone,” said Rove, the keynote speaker on the opening day of a two-day shale-gas conference sponsored by Hart Energy Publishing L.L.P. And Rove told the trade show, “I don’t think you need to worry” the new Congress will consider proposed legislation to put the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing under federal rather than state regulation. The procedure, known as “fracking,” is responsible for the dramatic growth of shale-gas drilling in formations such as Pennsylvania’s vast Marcellus Shale.

“I think we’re back to a period of sensible regulation,” said Rove, a commentator on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal.

While Rove spoke, several hundred colorfully dressed anti-drilling activists protested outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, but their drum beats could not be heard inside the conference as about 2,000 people dined on steak and potatoes, followed by Rove’s analysis of Tuesday’s election.

dot dot dot says he

This  man (Obama) can not try to pass a major piece of legislation without demonizing some group of people and making them a target,” said Rove, citing Obama’s targeting of the health insurance industry, Wall Street bankers and energy companies to advance his agenda.

more dots

Rove lavished praise on the gas-drillers, who he said were bringing prosperity to parts of Pennsylvania.

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For more Republican juvenile giggles and fart jokes please see the entire article because in a very short speech he manages to offend almost everyone. More tomorrow.

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Michelle Malkin(tent) And Energy Policy – Green means you’re a thief

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Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/michelle-malkin-dems-lame-duck-land-grab-wont-pass-without-fight#ixzz1BgnnDjMF

Michelle Malkin: Dems’ lame-duck land grab won’t pass without a fight

By: Michelle Malkin 12/15/10 8:05 PM
Examiner Columnist
Environmentalistshate sprawl — except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill. In a last-ditch lame duck push, eco-lobbyists have been furiously pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to pass a monstrous 327-page omnibus government lands bill crammed with more than 120 separate measures to lock up vast swaths of wilderness areas.Despite the time crunch, Senate Democrats in search of 60 votes are working behind the scenes to buy off green Republicans. House Democrats would then need a two-thirds majority to fast-track the bill to the White House before the GOP takes over on Jan. 5.

Yes, the hurdles are high. But with Reid and company now vowing to work straight through Christmas into the new year (when politicians know Americans are preoccupied with the holidays), anything is possible. The Constitution is no obstacle to these power grabbers. Neither is a ticking clock.

The Democrats’ brazen serial abuse of the lame-duck session is as damning as the green job-killing agenda enshrined in the overstuffed public lands package.

Earlier this month, Reid assigned worker bees on three Senate committees — Energy and Natural Resources, Commerce, and Environment and Public Works — to draw up their public lands wish list. All behind closed doors, of course.

House Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., rightly dubbed it a “Frankenstein omnibus of bills” and pointed out that the legislation “includes dozens of bills that have never passed a single committee, either chamber of Congress, or even been the subject of a hearing.”

The sweeping bill bundles up scores of controversial proposals, including:

— A stalled land transfer and gravel mining ban in Reid’s home state of Nevada.

— The designation of the Devil’s Staircase Wilderness in Oregon as a federally protected wilderness where logging and road development would be prohibited.

— Multiple watershed and scenic river designations that limit economic activity and threaten private property rights.

— The creation of massive new national monument boundaries and wilderness areas along the southern border opposed by ranchers, farmers, local officials and citizens.

One New Mexico activist, Marita Noon, said the federal plans to usurp nearly a half-million acres in her state would result in an “illegal immigrant superhighway” off-limits to border security enforcement. Security analyst Dana Joel Gattuso pointed to a recent General Accounting Office report on how environmental permitting rules and land-use regulations have hampered policing efforts at all but three stations along the border

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I actually left out the energy part. It is near the bottom. If you can bear the the Washington Toiletpaper for even a moment, go see. More next week.

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Robert Samuelson And Energy Policy – It is just pork

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That is right, spending public money to make public transport via trains more effective and competitive is just government waste and fraud. Kinda like the 500 billion $$$ we spend on the military every year or the billion $$$ we just waste on the high tech wall for the Mexican Border.

From here:

http://reason.com/blog/2010/11/01/robert-samuelson-on-high-speedTo here:

To here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/31/AR2010103104260.html

 

 

Monday, November 1, 2010

Somehow, it’s become fashionable to think that high-speed trains connecting major cities will help “save the planet.” They won’t. They’re a perfect example of wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause. They would further burden already overburdened governments and drain dollars from worthier programs – schools, defense, research.

Let’s suppose that the Obama administration gets its wish to build high-speed rail systems in 13 urban corridors. The administration has already committed $10.5 billion, and that’s just a token down payment. California wants about $19 billion for an 800-mile track from Anaheim to San Francisco. Constructing all 13 corridors could easily approach $200 billion. Most (or all) of that would have to come from government at some level. What would we get for this huge investment?

Not much. Here’s what we wouldn’t get: any meaningful reduction in traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, oil consumption or imports. Nada, zip. If you can do fourth-grade math, you can understand why.

High-speed inter-city trains (not commuter lines) travel at up to 250 miles per hour and are most competitive with planes and cars over distances of fewer than 500 miles. In a report on high-speed rail, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service examined the 12 corridors of 500 miles or fewer with the most daily air traffic in 2007. Los Angeles to San Francisco led the list with 13,838 passengers; altogether, daily air passengers in these 12 corridors totaled 52,934. If all of them switched to trains, the total number of daily airline passengers, about 2 million, would drop only 2.5 percent. Any fuel savings would be less than that; even trains need energy.

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More tomorrow.

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Michael Barone And Energy Policy – We are addicted to coal so get over it

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Apparently Mike Barone believes the tautology that we use a lot of coal now, so we always will. He believes that politicians are gutless when it comes to environmental damage. We shall see.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/barone/2009/03/25/obama-cap-and-trade-will-meet-coal-fired-energy-political-opposition

Michael Barone

Obama Cap-and-Trade Will Meet Coal-Fired Energy Political Opposition

By Michael Barone

Posted: March 25, 2009

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Bill Galston at the New Republic‘s blog provides some clear thinking on the prospects for the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade legislation. His conclusion: ain’t gonna happen. Galston notes that national polls show that on the question of balancing economic against environmental considerations, voters have switched and are now more concerned about the economy—as in holding down utility costs—and less concerned about the environment.

And, as Galston points out, a cap-and-trade system would substantially increase the price of electricity produced by coal. Nationally, we get 49 percent of our energy by coal (these are 2006 figures, from the 2009 Statistical Abstract of the United States), but reliance on coal varies widely by state. The following table may help you to understand the political implications. It shows the percentage of electricity produced by coal in each state above the national average and the number of Democratic senators and representatives from each of those states.

% of electricity produced by coal in each state above the national average senators representatives
Alabama 55 0 2
Colorado 71 2 5
Delaware 69 2 0
Georgia 63 0 6
Indiana 95 1 5
Iowa 76 1 3
Kansas 73 0 1
Kentucky 92 0 2
Maryland 60 2 7
Michigan 60 2 8
Minnesota 62 1 5
Missouri 84 1 4
Montana 60 2 0
Nebraska 65 1 0
New Mexico 80 2 3
North Carolina 60 1 8
North Dakota 93 2 1
Ohio 86 1 10
Oklahoma 50 0 1
Pennsylvania 56 1 12
Tennessee 65 0 5
Utah 89 0 1
West Virginia 97 2 2
Wisconsin 65 2 5
Wyoming 94 0 0
TOTAL 26 96

Do the math. That leaves only 32 Democratic senators from less-than-average coal-reliant states and only 157 Democratic House members from less-than-average coal-reliant states. Now I’m not saying that every member from such states will vote against cap-and-trade, but I think an awful lot would. And I don’t think many Republicans are going to vote for cap-and-trade. In his press conference last night, Barack Obama seemed to accept the Senate Budget Committee’s Democrats’ decision to jettison the money for cap-and-trade and expressed a wistful hope that something might be done later. But even in better economic times, the numbers tend to work against any such proposal.

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More tomorrow.

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Walter Williams And Energy Policy – Just putting their words up so you can see what we are up against

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I should say first that I detest this man and the “university” that he claims to teach at if he is still there. George Mason University is just a front group for corporate and christian evil. The real malfeasance is that they dress it up as “higher education” and “graduate learning programs”.

This is a rich black man who drives a $70,000 car and shills for oil, gas and coal.

Oh, and I have been neglecting to mention where I get my list of the 30 top conservative columnists from:

http://rightwingnews.com/2009/09/the-30-best-conservative-columnists-for-2009-version-3-0/?p=1207?comments=show

Here is Walter in all his ignorance the day before Christmas.
Walter E. Williams

Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet. Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil. The Washington Post asserted on May 28, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of manmade climate fears. Bill Blakemore on Aug. 30, 2006 said, “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such (scientific) debate on global warming.” U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was “criminally irresponsible” to ignore the urgency of global warming. U.N. special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland on May 10, 2007 declared the climate debate “over” and added “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the U.N.’s scientific “consensus.” In July 23, 2007, CNN’s Miles O’Brien said, “The scientific debate is over.” Earlier he said that scientific skeptics of manmade catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.”

The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet. Recently, more and more scientists are summoning up the courage to speak out and present evidence against the global warming rope-a-dope. Atmospheric scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”

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More tomorrow.

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While We Are In The Midst Of A Meditation On Conservative Talking Heads

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The Illinois Statehouse is in full swing. So I am going to take a break here and post this relatively import piece of information. PLEASE call your representatives.

https://www.ilenviro.org/news/

Taylorville and Leucadia Proposals Heard by the Illinois Senate
January 5, 2011

Tonight, two energy bills were voted on in the Illinois Senate.  There are no additional bills related to the environment expected to be heard this week.  Each of these bills previously passed the Illinois House.

Taylorville Energy Center (SB2485)

Tenaska’s Taylorville Energy Center (SB2485) has so far failed to pass the Senate following the Senate’s adjournment tonight.  Outgoing State Senator Deanna Demuzio presented the bill to the Senate.  Several senators expressed concerns about the increased rates to businesses.  Senator Kirk Dillard explained his concerns, “When you do the mathematical analysis of this project, it doesn’t make sense.”  He also expressed concern over what he called the “legal pledge that binds the state of Illinois to Tenaska for three decades” contained within the bill.

A few senators expressed concerns about the appearance of a subsidy to a particular business.  Senator Don Harmon expressed concerns over the way the bill “allocates the costs and risks over what is supposed to be a competitive market.”  Harmon, who stated that he would be voting for the bill, described it as a “prudent experiment on how to deal with coal in an environmentally responsible way.”  Many speaking for the bill referred to the facility as a very clean way to process coal.

When the question was called, the vote was 25 voting NO, 29 voting YES and 3 voting PRESENT.  The bill’s sponsor, Senator Demuzio, postponed consideration of the bill, which means that the bill can be called for a vote again.  This bill failed in the House at first, but the same mechanism was used to call the vote for a question again, when it passed.  The Illinois Sierra Club and several business groups opposed this legislation.

Leucadia Energy Facility

The Leucadia Energy Facility (SB3388) passed the Senate tonight and will move to the Governor’s desk for his signature.  Senator Trotter introduced the bill in the Senate.  Only one senator spoke about the bill in addition to the sponsor; Senator Risinger rose in support.  This bill passed the Senate with 36 voting YES, 13 voting NO, and 4 voting present.  View the votes here.

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More tomorrow.

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Thomas Sowell On Energy Policy – The conservative illiteracy continues

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This  continues the meditation on conservative (read: right wing) public statements about Energy Policy.  According to Thomas Sowell global warming isn’t happening. For conservatives who don’t like facts they either make up their own or claim others are making them up.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell022808.php3

Jewish World Review Feb. 28, 2008 / 22 Adar I 5768

Cold Water on ‘Global Warming’

By Thomas Sowell

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

It has almost become something of a joke when some “global warming” conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.


But stampedes and hysteria are no joke — and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming “crisis.”


They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all “scientists” and then claim that “all” the experts agree on a global warming crisis.


Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.


A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching.


Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days?


A new and very different conference on global warming will be held in New York City, under the sponsorship of the Heartland Institute, on March 2nd to March 4th — weather permitting.


It is called an “International Conference on Climate Change.” Its subtitle is “Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?” Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions.


They come from universities in England, Hungary, and Australia, as well as from the United States and Canada, and include among other dignitaries the president of the Czech Republic.


There will be 98 speakers and 400 participants.


The theme of the conference is that “there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming.”

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More tomorrow.

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Mark Steyn – Ethanol is starving people

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A direct comparison between George Will’s love of coal (reportedly he sleeps with it) and Mark Steyn’s hatred of Alternative renewal energy shows that conservatives are big business shills. Plus it shows how long ago the conservatives hated Barack Obama.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/162162/corn-you-can-believe/mark-steyn

Corn you can believe in

Who to blame for the biofuel madness that’s starving people from Haiti to Burkina Faso to Indonesia? Well, Senator Obama’s still boasting about it:

In 2005, Obama passed amendments to the 2005 Energy Policy Act which would double the amount of ethanol used in our gasoline supply by 2012 (from 2 billion to 8 billion gallons*); provide a tax credit for the retail purchase of E-85 fuel; and established an applied research program to improve technologies for the commercialization of a combination hybrid/flexible fuel vehicle; or a plug-in hybrid/flexible fuel vehicle. The Chicago Sun-Times reported, “Hastert, meeting with reporters on Friday, praised the “incredible teamwork” of the delegation, singling out freshman Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for his work on the House-Senate committee, which cut the final deals on the transit bill and ethanol tax breaks. The energy bill included an incentive for the use of what is called E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas that can be used in “flexible fueled” cars and is supposed to be cheaper than conventional fuel. The bill calls for gas companies to get a tax credit to cover 30 percent of the cost to install E-85 pumps at service stations, up to $30,000.”

*Does “2 billion to 8 billion gallons” count as “doubling”? Hey, this is government math.

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Only 28 conservatives columnist and bloviators to go. More tomorrow.

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George Will And Our Energy Future – It’s boatloads of coal

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Can you imagine a world where not only are there oil and natural gas supertankers circling the globe but coal supertankers too? George Will can. Wonder who pays this guys paycheck?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7362049.html

King coal’s staying power now and into the future

By GEORGE F. WILL
Washington Post

Jan. 1, 2011, 4:03PM

Cowlitz County in Washington state is across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore., which promotes mass transit and urban density and is a green reproach to the rest of us. Recently, Cowlitz did something that might make Portland wonder whether shrinking its carbon footprint matters. Cowlitz approved construction of a coal export terminal from which millions of tons of U.S. coal could be shipped to Asia annually.

Both Oregon and Washington are curtailing the coal-fired generation of electricity, but the future looks to greens as black as coal. The future looks a lot like the past.

Historian William Rosen (The Most Powerful Idea in the World, about the invention of the steam engine) says coal was Europe’s answer to the 12th-century “wood crisis” when Christians leveled much forestation in order to destroy sanctuaries for pagan worship, and to open farmland. Population increase meant more wooden carts, houses and ships, so wood became an expensive way to heat dwellings or cook. By 1230, England had felled so many trees it was importing most of its timber and was turning to coal.

“It was not until the 1600s,” Rosen writes, “that English miners found their way down to the level of the water table and started needing a means to get at the coal below it.” In time, steam engines were invented to pump out water and lift out coal. The engines were fired by coal.

Today, about half of America’s and the world’s electricity is generated by coal, the substance which, since it fueled the Industrial Revolution, has been a crucial source of energy. Over the last eight years, it has been the world’s fastest-growing fuel. The New York Times recently reported (“Booming China Is Buying Up World’s Coal,” Nov. 22) about China’s ravenous appetite for coal, which is one reason coal’s price has doubled in five years

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More tomorrow.

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