Category Archives: economics

Cheap Energy Is The Problem – Until we change that more disasters await

Posted on by
Reply

This is an excellent article on why we have had the disaster in Japan.

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/03/17/how-much-are-you-willing-pay-nuke-free/

How Much Are You Willing to Pay to be Nuke-Free?

Posted by Robert Rapier on Thursday, March 17, 2011

A Plan to Phase Out “Dirty” Energy

After the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, someone said to me “We have to stop all offshore drilling.” My response was that I could get behind that idea, but I wanted to know what sacrifices the person was willing to make. That turned out to be the end of the conversation, because usually the people campaigning against these sorts of things believe that the consequences will be all good (no more oil spills) with no real downside (like less energy available). I can tell you with absolute certainty that we can live with no offshore drilling, but I can also tell you that the price of your fuel would be greater — and probably far greater — than it is today.

Nuclear power plants fill a need — cheap energy — that consumers demand. Are you willing to give it up?

I believe that the reason we have so much “dirty” energy is that we demand cheap energy. I spoke to a reporter in Japan this week about the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and he said he couldn’t help but notice that despite some rolling blackouts now, Japan remains very much a country with all of the lights on.

Root Cause: Consumers Demand Cheap, Abundant Energy

This gets right to the heart of why we have nuclear power: We demand cheap energy; energy so cheap that we can afford to leave all of the lights in the house on all day long. Both coal and nuclear-generated electricity are viewed as cheap relative to many other options — admittedly debatable given charges of government subsidies and the occasional environmental calamity — as well as reliable (again, environmental calamities notwithstanding).

My response to the reporter was that I love lobster, but I rarely eat it because it is so expensive. If they served $2 lobster at McDonalds, we would all consume much more lobster and of course the supply of lobsters would be under pressure. If we all demanded cheap lobster and got angry when our lobsters became more expensive, politicians would work to give us what we want lest they be voted out of office. We would see all sorts of lobster-related subsidies designed to bring us all cheap lobsters (which have to be paid through taxes and/or deficit spending). Consequences of our cheap lobster demands — higher deficits and possibly no more lobsters — would be pushed onto another generation.

:}

What he does not say is why we were sold cheap energy. That is sold on the idea instead of sustainability. It’s because resources are seen as free. Buy them, dig them up and sell them. More next week.

:}

Oil Prices, Gas Prices Sky Rocket – Just in time for the weekend

Posted on by
Reply

Needing no introduction…

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/market-turmoil-as-iea-warns-age-of-cheap-oil-is-over-2230581.html

Market turmoil as IEA warns ‘age of cheap oil is over’

Unrest in the Middle East drives Brent crude above the $117 per barrel mark

By Nikhil Kumar

Thursday, 3 March 2011

Growing fears of an enduring oil crisis prompted huge volatility on investment markets yesterday – with shares in the world’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, slumping to a 22-month low – as a top energy official warned that the “age of cheap oil is over”.

Concerns about the turmoil in Libya triggered sharp sell-offs in stock markets across the Gulf, with shares in Kuwait and Dubai sliding to six-year lows. Oil prices also remained volatile throughout yesterday, with Brent crude futures for April delivery breaching the $117 (£72) per barrel mark in late afternoon trading.

In London, the FTSE 100 fell sharply in the morning, declining by more than 2 per cent at one point, before recovering to close only slightly lower on the day.

The nerves among investors were evident in the movements in the gold price, which touched a record high above $1,440 per ounce. The yellow metal, the traditional destination for investors seeking to preserve their wealth during times of turmoil, was up 6 per cent in February, recording its biggest monthly rise since August.

Last night’s swings came as the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, warned that the world may have to face up to the prospect of high oil prices over the long term. “The age of cheap oil is over, though policy action could bring lower international prices than would otherwise be the case,” he said.

:}

http://www.suntimes.com/business/4012230-418/gas-prices-in-chicago-climb-17-cents.html

Gas prices in Chicago climb 17 cents

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Staff Reporter/fknowles@suntimes.com

Feb 26, 2011 04:45PM

Ouch! Gasoline prices in Chicago spiked 6 cents a gallon from Thursday to Friday and jumped 17 cents this past week.

The average price of unleaded regular gasoline in Chicago was $3.50 a gallon Friday, up from $3.33 a week earlier and up from $3.44 Thursday, according to AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.

Blame it on continuing political unrest in Libya, which has caused the price of oil to spike, even though the country supplies less than 2 percent of the oil consumed globally.

“Everyone’s a nervous wreck,” PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn said. “What we’re seeing is perhaps the greatest threat to global oil supply since the Persian Gulf War.”

The Libyan rebellion has all but shut down exports from the oil-rich nation, and traders say it’s hard to gauge how much world supplies — and prices — will be affected as similar uprisings unfold in North Africa and the Middle East.

:}

As always, go there read more. More next week.

:}

Kites And Big Boats – Cargill returns to sailboats

Posted on by
Reply

I first read this here:

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/02/28/cargill-cuts-co2-emissions-worlds-largest-kite-powered-ship

But it is just a lift from Cargill’s website.

http://www.cargill.com/news-center/news-releases/2011/NA3040908.jsp

Cargill propels shipping forward with largest kite-powered vessel

Date: 28 February 2011

Contacts:

Cargill:
Francis De Rosa, +44 1932 861174, francis_derosa@cargill.com
Corinne Holtshausen, +44 1932 861174, corinne_holtshausen@cargill.com

SkySails:

Anne Staack, +49 40 702 99 444, anne.staack@skysails.de

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — 28 February 2011 — Cargill has signed an agreement with SkySails GmbH & Co. KG (SkySails) to use wind power technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the shipping industry. SkySails, based in Hamburg, has developed innovative, patented technology that uses a kite which flies ahead of the vessel and generates enough propulsion to reduce consumption of bunker fuel by up to 35 percent in ideal sailing conditions.

Next December Cargill will install the 320m2 kite on a handysize vessel of between 25,000 and 30,000 deadweight tonnes, which the company has on long-term charter, making it the largest vessel propelled by a kite in the world. Cargill and SkySails aim to have the system fully operational in the first quarter of 2012. Cargill is currently helping SkySails develop and test the technology and has identified a ship-owner – supportive of environmental stewardship in the industry – with whom it will partner on the project.

The SkySails kite will be connected to the ship by rope and is computer-controlled by an automatic pod to maximise the wind benefits. The kite functions at a height of between 100 to 420 metres and flies in a figure of eight formation. The SkySails system is automated and requires only minimal action by the crew. An automatic control system steers the kite and adjusts its flight path. All information related to the system’s operation is displayed on the monitor of the SkySails’ workstation on the ship’s bridge.

“For some time, we have been searching for a project that can help drive environmental best practice within the shipping industry and see this as a meaningful first step”, said G.J. van den Akker, head of Cargill’s ocean transportation business. “The shipping industry currently supports 90 percent of the world’s international physical trade. In a world of finite resources, environmental stewardship makes good business sense. As one of the world’s largest charterers of dry bulk freight, we take this commitment extremely seriously. In addition to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, the SkySails technology aims to significantly reduce fuel consumption and costs. We are very impressed with the technology and see its installation on one of our chartered ships as the first part of an ongoing, long-term partnership.”

“We are delighted that Cargill is the first company to embrace our technology on a vessel this large as part of its commitment to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the shipping industry”, said Stephan Wrage, managing director of SkySails. “We are excited that our technology will shortly be used on a handysize vessel for the first time and see great potential to incorporate it on larger ships in the future.”

According to a United Nations (International Maritime Organisation) study, up to 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) could be saved every year by the broad application of the SkySails’ technology on the world merchant fleet.1 This figure would equate to 11 percent of the CO2 emissions of Germany.

Cargill is a significant global transporter of agricultural, energy and industrial commodities. Although the company does not today own or operate ships, its ocean transportation business ships more than 185 million tonnes of commodities each year, in the process connecting supply from areas of surplus with demand in areas of deficit.

Photos are available for download at http://www.skysails.info/english/information-center/press-lounge/photos-graphics/

:}

More tomorrow.

:}

Maumar Gaddafi – Mercenaries strike protesters and oil goes over 100 $$$

Posted on by
Reply

I hope the lunatic rots in hell.

http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/02/libya-oil-updates.html

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Libyan Oil Grinding to a Halt

Here’s the latest:

At least 300kbd-400kbd of oil production are shut-in already, and likely more, but the situation is still confusing.

As much as a quarter of Libyan oil output has been shut down, Reuters calculations showed on Wednesday, as unrest prompted oil companies to warn of production cuts in Africa’s third-largest producer.

Austria’s OMV said on Wednesday it might be heading for a full production shutdown in Libya. Total, Repsol, Eni and BASF have also said they are either slowing or stopping output.

The latest comments point to a growing impact on oil output from Libya, which produces 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of high-quality oil, or almost 2 percent of world output. About 1.3 million bpd is exported, mainly to Europe.

According to Time Magazine’s Robert Baer, anonymous sources close to Gaddafi say he is now giving orders to sabotage Libya’s oil industry:

There’s been virtually no reliable information coming out of Tripoli, but a source close to the Gaddafi regime I did manage to get hold of told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.

Libyan ports are shutting down:

Libyan cargo port operations have shut down due to increasing violence sweeping the country, Reuters has reported.

Operations at Tripoli, Benggazi and Misurata Mediterranean ports, which handle general cargo and container shipping, have closed.

In particular, oil exports appear to be halting completely:

Operations at Libyan oil ports were disrupted by a lack of communications, trade sources said, and flows from marine oil terminals in Libya were halted on Tuesday, an Italian government source said.

“The situation is worrying. This morning the oil terminals were blocked in Libya,” the government source said.

It was not possible to get through by phone to Libyan oil ports or shipping agents on Tuesday.

“Everything is out,” said a source with a major oil company. “We can’t get through to anyone. Our operations people say contact is impossible with the shipping agents, port officials, anyone. The lines are all down.”

The country appears to be descending into civil war:

Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya kept his grip on the capital on Wednesday, but large areas of the east of the country remained out of his control amid indications that the fighting had reached the northwest of the country around Tripoli.

Libyans fleeing across the country’s western border to Tunisia reported fighting over the past two nights in the town of Sabratha, home of an important Roman archeological site 50 miles west of Tripoli. Reuters reported that thousands of Libyan forces loyal to Col. Qaddafi had deployed there.

“The revolutionary committees are trying to kill everyone who is against Qaddafi,” said a doctor from Sabratha who had just left the country, but who declined to give his name because he wanted to return.

Of course, as for the oil production losses, the Saudi’s say they stand ready to make up the difference:

:}

Go there and read the rest. More tomorrow I am afraid.

:}

“There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources,”

Posted on by
Reply

Key word here is nothing.

http://www.greencarreports.com/blog/1055509_rearchers-100-percent-green-energy-possible-by-2050

Researchers: 100 Percent Green Energy Possible By 2050

John Voelcker February 16th, 2011 John Voelcker By John Voelcker Senior Editor February 16th, 2011

wind farmwind farm 

Enlarge Photo

We approach energy policy with care here, since GreenCarReports is largely about … well, cars.

But a recent article claims it could take just 40 years to convert the bulk of the world’s global energy usage from fossil fuels to renewable energy, primarily wind and solar power.

That’s not only vehicle fuel, but also electric-power generation, home heating, and the many other global activities that rely on the remarkably high energy density of the hydrocarbon molecules in coal, oil, and natural gas.

Beijing smogBeijing smog 

Enlarge Photo

Researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis published their analysis in the journal Energy Policy.

Measuring costs vs benefits

The main challenges, say the authors, will be summoning the global will to make the conversion. “There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources,” said author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor, saying it is only a question of “whether we have the societal and political will.”

Another challenge: accurately accounting for both the costs (which are comparatively easy to tally and project) and the benefits (which are tougher).

Power lines by Flickr user achouroPower lines by Flickr user achouro 

Enlarge Photo

When looking at the cost of junking half a century’s worth of existing power plants, for example, how can electric utilities benefit from the tens of billions of dollars in public health costs that will be avoided in the future once those emissions are no longer being generated?

Those public-health benefits might include saving 2.5 to 3 million lives each year.

And then there’s the benefit of halting climate change, not to mention reductions in water pollution, and increased energy security as more of each nation’s energy is generated from within its own borders.

Step One: New generation from renewables

The authors assessed the costs, benefits, and materials requirements necessary to convert the bulk of the world’s energy usage to renewable sources.

Nissan lithium-ion battery pack plant under construction, Smyrna, Tennessee, Jan 2011Nissan lithium-ion battery pack plant under construction, Smyrna, Tennessee, Jan 2011 

Enlarge Photo

Just as it will do over the next few decades for cars, electricity will play an increasingly large role, with 90 percent from wind turbines and various forms of solar generation.

Hydroelectric and geothermal sources would each provide about 4 percent of the total, with another 2 percent from wave and tidal power.

Vehicles would run either on electricity provided by the power grid, or hydrogen stored under high pressure and converted to electricity in a fuel cell. Airplanes would be fueled with liquid hydrogen. But, crucially, the hydrogen would all be produced electrically, with the electricity coming from those same renewable sources: wind, sun, and water.

Geothermal Power Plant in IcelandGeothermal Power Plant in Iceland 

Enlarge Photo

The analysis shows that the land and raw materials needed won’t pose a problem. What will be needed is a much more robust electrical grid.

;}

Have a great weekend. More next week.

:}

I Get The Updates From Da-energy-mon From Time To Time

Posted on by
Reply

Advanced Energy Solutions
We Empower You to Get Energized ™
February 2011

You are subscribed as dougnic55@yahoo.com

Businesses Go Solar:
New Solar Incentives for 2011

aes-urbana.jpgChanges in tax laws, combined with a new utility incentive program, and bottoming out prices on solar equipment, have set up 2011 to be an excellent time for businesses to install solar.

The 2010 tax-cut extension bill shortens the schedule on depreciating a solar asset, now allowing for 100% depreciation in the first year after installation.

For example, new for 2011 is a solar incentive from Ameren Missouri for the purchase of Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs). Combining this new incentive with the existing Solar Rebate, 100% Depreciation, and the Federal Treasury Grant, businesses will realize an approximate 85% reduction in the first year cost for solar!

For businesses small and large, solar can be a strong investment: positive cash flow every year, short breakeven, increased Net Operating Income, and a double-digit Internal Rate of Return. Energy costs went up over 20% last year and will continue to go up, so no longer is energy incidental to your Balance Sheet. Establishing an ongoing energy strategy that includes renewable energy and efficiency can help manage “utility risk” while offering improved financial performance for facilities.

This is the best time of year to make plans for solar installation. A number of solar incentives are scheduled to sunset at the end of this year.  Even though it is cold up on the roof, planning and scheduling now can ensure you get the system installed this year before the tax laws change again for 2012. Contact AES Solar to learn about the incentives and the improved financial picture for solar.

This Year Only:
100% Depreciation Bonus for Solar Systems

This year is THE YEAR to invest in solar energy if you own a business!  Now, in addition to the 30% federal income tax credit already available, the federal government is providing an unheard of depreciation-based incentive to businesses that install a solar system.  The newly updated incentive offers a 100% depreciation bonus for systems installed during 2011 and a 50% bonus for those installed in 2012!

What does this mean for you?  It essentially means that it is possible to write off 85% of the cost of a solar system as an expense in the FIRST YEAR while still taking advantage of half of the 30% federal income tax credit!

This incentive was added to the mix in December of 2010 as part of The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.  For more information, check out:

The facts:
http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=US06F
How to calculate how it works for you:
http://www.sunmath.com/solar-blog/files/calculate-macrs-depreciation-solar.html

To take advantage of this super opportunity contact us at 1 800 229 0453 or chris@aessolar.com

Have a sunny day,

Chris Klarer
Technical Sales
Advanced Energy Solutions Group, Inc.

To stop receiving these emails please unsubscribe. 

CORPORATE OFFICE: Advanced Energy Solutions Group, Inc., 192 Gates Road, Pomona, IL 62975
MAILING & SHIPPING: Advanced Energy Solutions Group, Inc., 416 S. Graham, Carbondale, IL 62901

TECH:  618.893.1717
SALES: 800.229.0453
St. Louis:  314.956.7153
Northern IL: 309.229.1041

:}

True High Speed Rail – Could make the trip from Chicago to St. Louis in 2 hours

Posted on by
Reply

OK, so we spent the last 30 posts showing what the rightwing and the leftwing talking heads have been talking about. Now onto real news. This was forwarded to me by Andy Martin of Phat Andy’s Barbecue fame. Thanks for that man.

http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/smart-takes/amtraks-high-speed-rail-vision-for-2040-new-york-to-washington-in-96-minutes/11144/

Amtrak’s high-speed rail vision for 2040: New York to Washington in 96 minutes

By Andrew Nusca | Sep 30, 2010 | 37 Comments

Amtrak on Tuesday unveiled its vision for high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor by 2040, and it’s a doozy.

According to the train operator’s “A Vision for High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor” report (.pdf), progress in the next 30 years could bring trips from New York City to Washington, D.C. in 96 minutes and trips from Boston to New York in just 84 minutes.

Amtrak is thinking “world class” rail, and the plan involves speeds of up to 220 miles per hour (about 354 kilometers per hour) that, all said and done, would slash existing commute times between the aforementioned cities in half.

But no plan is without a price tag, and Amtrak hangs that vision on a peg of $117.5 billion.

Here’s a statistical rundown of how that adds up on the ground:

  • Deadline: 2040.
  • Ridership by 2040: 18 million.
  • Capacity to expand beyond that: up to 80 million annually.
  • Frequency: one to four trains per hour in each direction, with additional trains for peak demand. Today: 42 per day. Tomorrow: 148.
  • Plan would generate an annual operating surplus (yes, you read that correctly) of about $900 million.
  • More than 40,000 full-time construction jobs each year for 25 years’ worth of building track, tunnels, bridges and stations.
  • More than 120,000 permanent jobs benefit from “improved economic productivity” along the corridor
  • $4.7 billion investment each year over 25 years, or $117.5 billion in total.

:}

Next up, cheaper more efficient solar pane. More tomorrow.

:}

Helen Thomas And Energy Policy – I found a massive void

Posted on by
Reply

I know what it is like when Steven Hawking discovered Black Holes. Helen Thomas was a journalist for 55 years. The dean of the Washington Press core. The author of several books and a columnist for the Hearst Press Organization. To top that off – She IS Lebanese or more properly of Lebanese extraction. She is also very outspoken as a result about the middle east. You would expect that the word oil or the word energy would have been penned by her at some point. However I spent 2 hours looking and this column on the auto industry was all I found. There were thousands of articles about her “anti-semitic” remarks and her resignation. Even articles about politics but nothing else and I wouldn’t  have even found this is if it wasn’t for the nice gentleman at Slate.

http://www.slate.com/id/2080034/

It is not even really on topic because she doesn’t even mention CAFE standards or electric cars. But it is all I got.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/19067580/detail.html

Obama Tough On Automakers, Workers

Wall Street Higher Priority For President

Helen Thomas, Hearst White House columnist

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama seems to be more interested in propping up Wall Street than saving the car companies and the auto workers in Detroit.He displayed his “get tough” side when he laid down the law to General Motors and Chrysler, whose restructuring plans had displeased the White House auto task force.The president gave the car makers a choice of coming up with tougher plans or face bankruptcy. GM was given 60 days to produce a plan for Obama, who has never ran a company, and Chrysler was given 30 days, with a threat to end its federal aid unless it merged with Fiat, the Italian automaker.

Bailout funds were Obama’s price for their concessions.Although he has allowed a few financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers to go down the drain in the current economic crisis, the administration’s financial advisers said other banking houses were too big to be allowed to fail

If only the Obama administration also had said that the thousands upon thousands of jobless auto workers and suppliers were too important to be allowed to drift into poverty.The bankers and big investors are taking big bailouts while the blue collar workers are left out in the cold. So what else is new? In an extraordinary government intervention, Obama forced Rick Wagoner, GM’s chief executive, out of the company as a symbol that times were changing, dramatically.Though he was picked to take the fall, Wagoner won’t go hungry. His retirement package at G.M. is reportedly worth more than $20 million as he heads out the door.

In rejecting General Motor’s proposed make over, Obama’s auto task force said GM had been “far too slow” to adapt and needed a more aggressive restructuring blueprint.Obama, who wants it both ways, said GM ’s proposed plan wasn’t tough enough but that he was “absolutely confident that G.M. can rise again.”The White House’s handling of the auto situation raises the question of whether the government has a role in dictating to business in a free society. In my opinion, the current state of the economy calls for more regulation of banks and businesses, if only to save them from their own rapacious stupidity.

If the Obama administration has its way, GM will have a new look. The giant company would have fewer models, brands and dealers. Thousands more jobs would be cut and more concessions will be asked of the thousands of bondholders and the United Automobile Workers union.

The 100-year-old once-mighty GM may be reduced to producing only Chevrolets and Cadillacs. Its European division may have seen its last days. James Womack, chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute of Cambridge, Mass. — a company that promotes efficiency — declared: “The old GM is dead and that needs to be said.”

:}

More tomorrow.

:}

Christiane Amanpour Chats With A General – Candidly or not

Posted on by
Reply

This speaks for itself, but is this leftist?

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/gen-hugh-shelton-bush-administration-offic

October 25, 2010 03:00 AM

Gen. Hugh Shelton: Bush Administration Officials Pushed to Go to War With Iraq ‘Almost to the Point of Insubordination’

This Week’s Christiane Amanpour talked to former Joint Chief Chair Gen. Hugh Shelton about the rush to invade Iraq by members of the Bush administration which he described as “almost to the point of insubordination.” Color any of us that were paying attention at the time not surprised by this latest revelation. The PNAC crowd surrounding him in the White House were pushing to invade Iraq long before Bush was selected by our Supreme Court to be president or becoming members of his Cabinet.

AMANPOUR: Let’s go back to when you were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and even slightly afterwards, when President Bush decided to go to war in Iraq. You talk about it was based on faulty intelligence and indeed on lies and deceit, but you also say something about insubordination. You say, for instance, during meetings, “some people were kept on after Bush had tendered his opinion and issued an instruction based on that opinion. Yet certain strong-willed individuals seemed to disregard him and forge ahead with their own agendas, almost to the point of insubordination.” That’s a very strong indictment.

SHELTON: Well, there was a very strong push in those days for us to go into Iraq, and there was absolutely no intelligence, zero, that pointed toward — pointed toward the Iraqis. It was all Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. And yet there was an element there that was — that was pushing to go into Iraq at the same time.

AMANPOUR: But what do you mean by insubordination?

SHELTON: The fact that the president says himself, we’re not going to do that right now, let’s focus on Afghanistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Yet below the surface, we still had the sentiment that said, let’s keep planning for Iraq just in case we can convince him that we can go.

AMANPOUR: And you think they could have convinced him?

SHELTON: Not at that time. I think that, as President Bush told me at Camp David, you know, I just don’t see it. You know, we may go get Saddam and take him out, but it will be at a time and place of our choosing. It won’t be as a part of the Afghanistan operation. He got it from day one. When he was briefed by the CIA…

AMANPOUR: So you’re saying he was pushed into it?

SHELTON: I think eventually that that same drumbeat continued, and Afghanistan, remember, was going very, very well. The drumbeat back here in Washington was still pushing, coming out of the Pentagon, let’s go to Iraq, let’s get — take him out. And he finally said, let’s go. We walked out on the limb before we could build a coalition of the — either the United Nations or NATO, one of the two.

AMANPOUR: You’re very — you have some harsh words about then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Is he part of the group that you are targeting here?

SHELTON: Well, I personally like Secretary Rumsfeld, but he was part of the group, he and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, that continued to push to go into Iraq. And I think that’s been documented on a number of occasions.

And making me wonder how much this interview was edited, I transcribed the portion of the video above. It’s not included in ABC’s transcript. The portion below however, is in ABC’s transcript but missing from the video.

AMANPOUR: But you also say that in terms of dealing with defense secretaries that Secretary Rumsfeld was more in the (INAUDIBLE) mold, which you said was, you know, based more on sort of heavy pushing and on those kinds of relationships.

SHELTON: And those were my observations. I’ve had the opportunity to work for a number of secretaries of defense while I was in Pentagon. And, for example, Secretary Bill Cohen, great team-builders, tremendous leader, (INAUDIBLE), made you want to do things because they were the right things to do and because we all pulled together to get it done.

But the leadership that Secretary Rumsfeld brought was totally different.

:}

More tomorrow.

:}

Hendrik Hertzberg And Energy Policy – Seems pretty neutral to me

Posted on by
Reply

What struck me the most about the posts and the material the right wing columnists produced was how consistently it was industry biased and really right wing sentiment. What is striking about the left wingers is how balanced they appear. Of course as far as I am concerned Ted Rall is the biggest lefty around in print and he made NEITHER list that I have been using. Never actually heard of this guy but then I don’t get out much.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/03/22/100322taco_talk_hertzberg

Some Nukes

by Hendrik Hertzberg March 22, 2010

(dot dot dot)

There has always been something intuitively disproportionate about nuclear power plants, which, like coal-fired ones, use steam turbines to generate electricity. Converting mass to energy by atomic fission in order to achieve temperatures normally found only on the surface of stars like the sun and then using that extraterrestrial heat to boil water—well, it smacks of (to borrow a term from the nuclear dark side) overkill. To be fair, boiling water by burning black rocks made of petrified vegetable matter from the age of the dinosaurs is a little strange, too. And nuclear power plants have one great advantage over the fossil-fuel kind: they do not emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is hastening the world toward climatic disruption and disaster.

President Obama, in his State of the Union address, after talking up innovations in battery technology and solar panels, said, “To create more of these clean-energy jobs we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” Last month, he backed that up with a federal loan guarantee of $8.3 billion to build two new reactors near Waynesboro, Georgia. And in his budget request for 2011 he has asked for $46 billion more. The applause

for his State of the Union line was louder on the Republican side of the aisle than on the Democratic, and his words and actions have prompted loud grumbling from environmental organizations. But global warming has punched some holes in the green wall. Such founding fathers of the environmental movement as Stewart Brand, the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, and Patrick Moore, an early stalwart of Greenpeace, now support nukes. James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a climate-change prophet, favors the so-called fourth-generation nuclear systems, which would substantially reduce the amount of nuclear waste. Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector, is another supporter. So, within limits, are liberal senators like John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. And so is President Obama.

“We were hopeful last year—he was saying all the right things,” Erich Pica, the president of Friends of the Earth, said after Obama’s loan-guarantee announcement. “But now he has become a full-blown nuclear-power proponent—a startling change over the past few months.” Actually, Obama has been a nuclear-power proponent ever since he was a state legislator, but in the context of an energy regime that underwrites conservation, promotes renewables like wind and solar, and, crucially, puts a price on carbon. Nuclear power plants are unbelievably expensive to build, but once they are up and running the electricity they generate is cheap to produce. In the United States, coal plants (there are six hundred of them, as against a hundred nuclear ones) get a kind of subsidy, too, and it’s huge: the right to dispose of their most dangerous waste by sending it up the chimney, free of charge.
:}

Please see the rest of article for a great summary of the past and a largely noncommital ending. More tomorrow.

:}