Ugly SB 1562 – This is the worst utility legislation I have seen

When it was SB14 I said here that it was a huge rip off and that it stood 150 years of utility regulation on its head. The change in number has not changed the essence. Lisa Madigan will probably sue. As will the ICC. I may never vote for Governor Quinn again. Both my State Rep and my State Senator voted FOR it I am sure. But I didn’t vote for them anyway. This makes dumb and dumber look like Steven Hawking and Einstein. I am not the only one who thinks so.

http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/06/01/illinois-smart-grid-legislation-faces-opposition/

Illinois smart-grid legislation faces opposition

By

Gloria Shur Bilchik

The Illinois legislature is considering a bill that allows electric companies to raise rates for consumers in exchange for infrastructure improvements. Ameren and ComEd are pushing for passage of SB 1652, which would allow yearly rate increases to consumers. Electric companies claim that the improvements listed in the bill would save customers money down the line, in exchange for rate increases now.

The improvements specified in SB 1652 include implementation of a “smart grid” to the Illinois system. The smart grid would allow better monitoring of electricity produced and demand by consumers. This allows the electric grid to support the addition of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, from companies separate from the electric company. The bill states that such additions of renewable energy to the grid would count towards electric company requirements by the state for renewable energy. The smart grid would give second- party producers, consumers and the electric company real- time updates on usage, production and current price of electricity.

The Citizens Utility Board (CUB) initially opposed the measure as being over-generous to the companies, vague on improvements to be performed and expensive for consumers. Improvements to the bill currently include a five- year sunset clause, limiting rate increases to 2.5% annually, and removal of gas utilities from the bill. CUB has recognized the potential of smart grid implementation to save money for consumers, provided implementation is done right. Even with these improvements, CUB states that further changes are required to specify exactly what improvements will be done by the companies. Correct implementation can save consumers money.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Governor Pat Quinn are on record as opposing the legislation, due to the increased costs for consumers. Madigan points out that ComEd recently received approval for a rate hike worth $156 million. Lobbyists for ComEd started pushing for the new legislation the day after the rate hike had been approved. In a written statement, Madigan said “their legion of lobbyists continues to push legislation that will require consumers to fund billions more in guaranteed profits. This new proposal is just more of the same: a plan that hits consumers where it hurts the most — their wallets.”

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Back to beautiful tomorrow.

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The Week After Earth Day – Chernobyl

I have wanted to say some things about the situation at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant for awhile. The content you see in the Media are just so bogus. First they want to prattle on about a melt down and the chances of an explosion “like Chernobyl”.

I scream at the television, “The reactors scrammed or were off line”. Ten Mile Island and Chernobyl were both online when their catastrophes occurred. Shutting down 10 mile was their big challenge. Chernobyl was an atomic explosion that sent material 4 or 5 miles in the air. Their big challenge was preventing a China Syndrome. Fukushima was always going to be a local nonthreatening event. Dramatic – Tragic – Fool hearty but nonetheless local.

The media want to prittle prattle along about reactor types and containment vessels. They never talk about powerhouse design. Reactors do one thing they generate steam. That is it. And that is why I am opposed to nuclear power in general. There are so many simpler and safer ways to generate steam that nuclear power is a joke. Once promoted by national governments because they wanted to piggy back their nuclear weapons programs on to “local power programs”. So we will use US powerplants an example of power house design and then compare disasters.

Yes, 10 powerplants in the US use the Mark 1 reactors like what were in 4 of the reactors at Fukushima. But in the US there is “triple containment” and “plain water” steam turbine loops. That means that when 10 Mile Island malfunctioned they simply vented a bunch of radioactive steam which immediately killed about 100 people and eventually killed about 300 babies and then turned the reactor off (scrammed). The temperatures soared to 5000 degress, the fuel melted, the cooling system worked and there it sits today with a puddle of melted fuel in the bottom of the reactor vessel. That should have been the end of Nuclear Power as we know it. At Fukushima they have “double containment” powerhouses that uses radioactive water to drive their turbines. All nuclear reactors have to be shielded or sheathed  for people to be able to get close to them to operate them. So even Chernobyl had a “single” containment vessel. In Fukushima they had that and a containment pad. Actually the pad was kind of ingenious. It consists of varying layers of concrete, steel, boron and lead. This was supposed to make a China Syndrome impossible because it would self seal the waste if it tried to melt through. BUT they used that argument to actually cheapen and make more dangerous their powerhouse designs. They provided no exterior containment system and they drove their turbines with radioactive steam. Additionally they built the cooling systems on one pad and their power generation systems on a separate pad guaranteeing that the cooling systems would break in an earthquake. So yes, there were explosions at Fukushima but not at the dynamite tonnage level that happened at Chernobyl. Fukushima was like a fire cracker.

While Fukushima is a local event that was a disaster waiting to happen, Chernobyl was a momentous international disaster waiting for someone to pull the trigger. It was a graphite reactor with a single containment wall, sitting by a lake right at the water table with an inadequate cooling system. Pull the trigger they did. The point being the Media does not understand Nuclear Power any better than the public does and yet this “magic genie” produces 20% of this countries electricity. Things have gotta change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Chernobyl disaster

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Changes must be reviewed before being displayed on this page.show/hide details
This article is about the 1986 nuclear plant accident in Ukraine. For more, see Chernobyl (disambiguation).
Chernobyl disaster
Chernobyl Disaster.jpg 
The nuclear reactor after the disaster. Reactor 4 (center). Turbine building (lower left). Reactor 3 (center right).
Date 26 April 1986
Time 01:23:45 (Moscow Time UTC+3)
Location Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, now Ukraine
 

Location of Chernobyl nuclear power plant

 

The abandoned city of Pripyat with Chernobyl plant in the distance

 

Radio-operated bulldozers being tested before use

 

Abandoned housing blocks in Pripyat

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine). An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western Russia and Europe. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima I nuclear incident, which is considered far less serious and has caused no direct deaths).[1] The battle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles, crippling the Soviet economy.[2]

The disaster began during a systems test on 26 April 1986 at reactor number four of the Chernobyl plant, which is near the town of Pripyat. There was a sudden power output surge, and when an emergency shutdown was attempted, a more extreme spike in power output occurred, which led to a reactor vessel rupture and a series of explosions. These events exposed the graphite moderator of the reactor to air, causing it to ignite.[3] The resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive smoke fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area, including Pripyat. The plume drifted over large parts of the western Soviet Union and Europe. From 1986 to 2000, 350,400 people were evacuated and resettled from the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine.[4][5] According to official post-Soviet data,[6][7] about 60% of the fallout landed in Belarus.

The accident raised concerns about the safety of the Soviet nuclear power industry, as well as nuclear power in general, slowing its expansion for a number of years and forcing the Soviet government to become less secretive about its procedures.[8][notes 1]

Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus have been burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident. Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[9] A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. Estimates of the number of deaths potentially resulting from the accident vary enormously: the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest it could reach 4,000;[10] a Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more;[11] a Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 excess deaths occurred between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination.[12]

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More tomorrow.

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Mercury Is Good For Us – Just like the other coal pollution

There are times when I wonder WHY is this a story? I have been leery about running articles about the environment because the state of it is so bad that any comments would be dreary. What with the Gulf Spew, Russia catching on fire and the nuclear accident in Japan, is there anything left to say? I saw this article earlier this morning and I thought, Ok this is a little different and I love Albatrosses. They are such  magnificent birds. Then I read the article and could not grasp the point of it. The headline seems pretty clear, but the body of the article seems not to support it. Read the whole thing at the site below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13121088

18 April 2011 Last updated at 17:07 ET

Feathers tell century-plus tale of mercury pollution

Richard Black By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Albatross feathers from museum specimens have allowed scientists to construct a record of mercury pollution dating back more than 100 years.

The feathers, from the black-footed albatross, contain traces of mercury that the birds picked up when they fed.

The species is endangered; and although fishing is the main cause, the team suggests mercury levels may have been high enough to impair breeding.

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team analysed feathers from 54 birds kept in museums at Harvard University and the University of Washington in Seattle, US.

The oldest samples are 120 years old.

There was no trend in overall mercury concentrations over time.

But the level of methylmercury – a toxic form of the metal, formed often by bacteria, did show a rise.

Methylmercury is easily absorbed by marine lifeforms such as small fish; and predators of those lifeforms, such as birds, can end up with big concentrations in their tissue.

It can cause developmental defects in humans, and there is evidence that it can damage reproduction in birds and fish.

“People have looked at mercury levels using museum specimens before, but mostly in the Atlantic,” said Scott Edwards, a biology professor at Harvard who also curates the university museum’s ornithology collection.

“Ours is one of the first to look at patterns in the Pacific basin; this has the largest number of seabird colonies, has the most endangered colonies, and is under severe threat from mercury emissions from Asia.”

“They’re fantastic birds, and a very tractable species to study” Scott Edwards Harvard University

About half of the mercury going into the atmosphere comes from natural sources such as volcanoes.

Of the other half, the biggest source is coal-burning, with mercury ocurring as a trace element in many coal deposits.

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More tomorrow.

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The Nuclear Industry In Japan Is ____ – Well you pick the word

Stupid, Criminal, Out of control. Whatever. But first some sensible facts. The reactors SCRAMMED. OK 3 Mile Island was operator error that involved an online reactor. You know where fission is occurring.  Chernobyl was an operating plant with no containment where fission was occurring. There is no fission at Fukushima. So while they may irradiate 2 -300 miles of Japan, which is a bad bad thing. There will be no China Syndrom. There will be no massive explosion. Things will just get hot. And think about what they faced.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5781566/this-is-the-scariest-first+person-video-of-the-japan-tsunami-yet

Gizmodo
856,940 views, Mar 13, 2011 10:58 PM

This Is the Scariest First-Person Video of the Japan Tsunami Yet

Jesus DiazThis Is the Scariest First-Person Video of the Japan Tsunami Yet This first-person view is the most terrifying and astonishing video I’ve seen of the Japan tsunami. Initially everything seems ok, just a mild wave coming towards the camera. But keep watching—the sea goes Godzilla and destroys everything.

By the end of it, the raging water is taking entire buildings off the streets of Kesennuma, in the Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. It’s horrible. Almost unreal. This is the exact point where this video was taken, before the catastrophe.

To watch more first person videos of the tsunami, click here.

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More tomorrow.

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Gulf Coast Residents Dying – Same thing happened in Alaska

When they tried to find anyone who helped with the Alaska oil spill in Prince William Sound, they could not find anybody. Part of that was natural because it was 20 years ago. But part of it was not. See below.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201138152955897442.html

Gulf spill sickness wrecking lives
Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick, and dying from BP’s toxic chemicals.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 09 Mar 2011 15:42 GMT
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National and State Parks along the Gulf Coast have posted health warnings along the coast [Erika Blumenfeld/AJE]

“I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. “Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn’t know how I even got there.”

Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

“I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me,” Aguinaga said. “At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good. I’ve been extremely sick ever since.”

BP’s oil disaster last summer gushed at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest accidental marine oil spill in history – and the largest environmental disaster in US history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons toxic dispersants, including one chemical that has been banned in the UK.

According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.

Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick, Naman said. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.

“The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf,” Naman told Al Jazeera.

“I’m scared of what I’m finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren’t good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA’s danger list. This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”

Aguinaga’s health has been in dramatic decline.

“I have terrible chest pain, at times I can’t seem to get enough oxygen, and I’m constantly tired with pains all over my body,” Aguinaga explained, “At times I’m pissing blood, vomiting dark brown stuff, and every pore of my body is dispensing water.”

And Aguinaga’s friend Vallian is now dead.

“After we got back from our vacation in Florida, Merrick went to work for a company contracted by BP to clean up oil in Grand Isle, Louisiana,” Aguinaga said of his 33-year-old physically fit friend.

“Aside from some gloves, BP provided no personal protection for them. He worked for them for two weeks and then died on August 23. He had just got his first paycheck, and it was in his wallet, uncashed, when he died.”

National health crisis

Many of the chemicals present in the oil and dispersants are known to cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, kidney damage, altered renal function, and irritation of the digestive tract. They have also caused lung damage, burning pain in the nose and throat, coughing, pulmonary edema, cancer, lack of muscle coordination, dizziness, confusion, irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, difficulty breathing, delayed reaction time and memory difficulties.

Further health problems include stomach discomfort, liver and kidney damage, unconsciousness, tiredness/lethargy, irritation of the upper respiratory tract, hematological disorders, and death. Pathways of exposure to the chemicals are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact.

Al Jazeera has talked with scores of sick people across the Gulf Coast who attribute their illnesses to chemicals from BP’s oil disaster.

Paul Doom, 22, from Navarre, Florida, was training in preparation to join the US Marines, until he became extremely ill from swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I stopped swimming in July because I started having severe headaches that wouldn’t go away,” Doom told Al Jazeera. “But each time I went to the doctor they dismissed it.”

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More tomorrow.

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Food That Is Genetically Modified – Yuck on a stick

OK, so I am the first one to admit that humans have tinkered with animal’s and plant’s genetics for a 100,000 years before we even knew what genes were. The most famous was the creation or the domestication of wolfs. If you feed them and they did not bite you they got to stay. If they bit you, you killed it and got another one. Made sense when a friendly wolf bred with another friendly wolf, the puppies would be more friendlier. Same with cattle. Breed a big cow with another bigger cow and you get bigger stronger cows. But this process many times took 100s of years and you had time to figure out whether it was safe or not. This is now happening in a single year’s time. There is no telling what we could be unleashing on ourselves. Worse yet, the big players in this area are some of the worst players on the planet. Monsanto, Dow, BSF. Companies known to be rapists of the planet.

http://www.good.is/post/feast-your-eyes-the-atlas-of-genetically-modified-crops1/

Feast Your Eyes: The Atlas of Genetically Modified Crops


Yesterday, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a nonprofit organization funded in large part by the biotech industry, issued a new report on the status of genetically modified crops around the world.

The Economist has used ISAAA’s data to make a map showing where in the world GM crops are grown. As you can see, the United States is by far the leader in the field, with 165 million acres (66.8 million hectares) of GM crops under cultivation, an increase of nearly 7 million acres on 2009 levels.

Clive James, ISAAA’s director and founder, told the BBC that more than 15 million farmers grow GM crops, and that, “during 2010, the accumulated commercial biotech plantation exceeded one billion hectares [2.47 billion acres]— that’s an area larger than the U.S. or China,” and equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s arable land.

Meanwhile, The Economist pointed out an interesting trend:

Developing countries are planting GM crops at a more rapid rate than rich countries. Brazil has added some 10m hectares [24.7 million acres] since 2008 and overtook Argentina as the second-biggest grower in 2010. India, too, increased its area by over 10 percent last year. The most popular crop is soya, while the most common modification is tolerance to herbicides.

With the European Union having just voted to allow animal feed imports containing up to 0.1 percent GM seeds (previously shipments found to contain any trace of non-approved biotech crops were turned away upon arrival at port), it does indeed seem—for better or for worse—as though GM crops are here to stay.

Chart via The Economist.

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Howard Fineman And Energy Policy – The right wing loves coal

The Left wing hates coal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36132029/ns/politics-howard_fineman/

Obama’s energy challenge is coal, not oil

45 percent of the nation’s electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants

By Howard Fineman

msnbc.com msnbc.com
updated 4/14/2010 10:09:22 AM ET 2010-04-14T14:09:22
ANALYSIS

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama touched off a new environmental skirmish with his decision to open vast new areas of the American coastline to offshore oil drilling. But as loud as that battle is going to get, it is nothing compared with the real energy war to come.

I speak, of course, of the Coal War.

Forget whatever else you hear about energy policy, the real fight — and the real political problem — this year in Congress will be how to deal with our nagging reliance on the most abundant component of our carbon-based patrimony.

We can talk until we’re blue in the face about offshore drilling, wind power, natural gas, and energy conservation … but the short-term drift of history still dictates a heavy reliance on the dirtiest and deadliest of all fuels: coal.

The big question in the energy bill — if there is one — is how and whether Congress will ask the American people to pay for the cost of controlling the environmental consequences of that reliance.

At its core, the president’s energy vision calls for switching our transportation system from oil to plug-in electricity. But 45 percent of all electricity in the country is still generated by coal-fired power plants. In other words, we run the real risk of merely replacing one polluting and increasingly scarce fuel, petroleum, with an abundant but even more environmentally troublesome one, coal.

An energy bill that, among other things, would tax pollution caused by burning fossil fuels was passed by the House last year. It’s gotten nowhere in the Senate. Obama’s drilling announcement was designed to get the Senate’s attention — and garner some Republican support.

But opening up offshore drilling prospects is politically, the easy part. I think the president can get that piece of the puzzle.

The hard part is going to be convincing senators from coal-producing and/or electricity-exporting states to go along with any sort of carbon tax.

States with power plants that generate electricity from coal read like a roster of presidential swing states. Among them: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri and North Carolina. And other states with major coal commitments include: Georgia, Arizona, Kentucky and Wyoming.

Getting 60 votes for some kind of carbon-pollution tax, even if it’s in the most attenuated “cap-and-trade” form, will be next to impossible.

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Go read the rest. It is pretty good. Everyone have a great weekend. More next week.

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Karl Rove – Cheney’s demon spawn on the darkside

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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John Stossel And Energy Policy – He fosters the misuse of the word independence

All right wing conservatives have to pick there own facts or their own definitions to win arguments. Winning on the merits is never an issue. Family values of course has nothing to do with modern families. It is only about modern christian families. In this Stossel piece, independence is replaced by dependence on the cheapest source. What he side steps is the idea that a country with a balanced portfolio of wind, solar, geothermal, micro hydro, bio and natural gas energy sources is both its own producer, so it is independent from foriegn manipulation and independent in that it is not overly depended on one source of energy, thus insulated from natural interruptions.

August 20, 2008

The Idiocy of Energy Independence

By John Stossel

It’s amazing how ideas with no merit become popular merely because they sound good.

Most every politician and pundit says “energy independence” is a great idea. Presidents have promised it for 35 years. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were self-sufficient, protected from high prices, supply disruptions and political machinations?

The hitch is that even if the United States were energy independent, it would be protected from none of those things. To think otherwise is to misunderstand basic economics and the global marketplace.

To be for “energy independence” is to be against trade. But trade makes us as safe. Crop destruction from this summer’s floods in the Midwest should remind us of the folly of depending only on ourselves. Achieving “energy independence” would expose us to unnecessary risks — such as storms that knock out oil refineries or droughts that create corn — and ethanol — shortages.

Trade also saves us money. “We import energy for a reason,” says the Cato Institute’s energy expert, Jerry Taylor, “It’s cheaper than producing it here at home. A governmental war on energy imports will, by definition, raise energy prices”.

Anyway, a “domestic energy only” policy (call it “Drain America First”?) is a fantasy. America’s demand for oil is too great for us to supply ourselves. Electricity we could provide. Not with windmills and solar panels — they are not yet close to providing enough — but coal and nuclear power could produce America’s electricity.

But cars need oil. We don’t have nearly enough.

That doesn’t keep the presidential candidates from preying on the public’s economic ignorance.

“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lexington Project — named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before,” John McCain said. “This nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025”.

Barack Obama, promising to “set America on path to energy independence,” is upset that we send millions to other countries. “They get our money because we need their oil”

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Wonder who is picking up his tab. More tomorrow.

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Ann Coulter And Energy Policy – Ann supports just about everything that is wrong with this country’s energy policy

Poor Ann. She has ranted a raved for so long that she, like Sarah Palin, has become a parody of herself. She once said that , “when the democrats talk about new forms of energy they don’t actually create any new form of energys, they talk about old forms of enenrgy like solar power, wind power and barley power”. Did she miss physics in college or what?

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=262

THIS IS NOT A DRILL
by Ann Coulter
July 16, 2008

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or as she is called on the Big Dogs blog, “the worst speaker in the history of Congress,” explained the cause of high oil prices back in 2006: “We have two oilmen in the White House. The logical follow-up from that is $3-a-gallon gasoline. It is no accident. It is a cause and effect. A cause and effect.”

Yes, that would explain why the price of oral sex, cigars and Hustler magazine skyrocketed during the Clinton years. Also, I note that Speaker Pelosi is a hotelier … and the price of a hotel room in New York is $1,000 a night! I think she might be onto something.

Is that why a barrel of oil costs mere pennies in all those other countries in the world that are not run by “oilmen”? Wait — it doesn’t cost pennies to them? That’s weird.

In response to the 2003 blackout throughout the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada, Pelosi blamed: “President Bush and Rep. Tom DeLay’s oil-company interests.” The blackout was a failure of humans operating electric power; it had nothing to do with oil. And I’m not even “an oilman.”

But yes — good point: What a disaster having people in government who haven’t spent their entire lives in politics! That explains everything. A government official with relevant experience or knowledge about an issue is obviously a crisis of gargantuan proportions.

This must be why the Democrats are nominating B. Hussein Obama, who finished middle school three days ago and has less experience than a person one might choose at random from the audience of “American Idol.”

Announcing the Democrats’ bold new “plan” on energy last week, Pelosi said breaking into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “is one alternative.” That’s not an energy plan. It’s using what we already have — much like “conservation,” which is also part of the Democrats’ plan.

Conservation, efficiency and using oil we hold in reserve for emergencies does not get us more energy. It’s as if we were running out of food and the Democrats were telling us: “Just eat a little less every day.” Great! We’ll die a little more slowly. That’s not what we call a “plan.” We need more energy, not a plan for a slower death.

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She claims to be a comedian. But she declared that an attempt to toss a pie in her face, an age old comedic twist was attempted assault. Soupy Sales where are you? More tomorrow.

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