Category Archives: fossil fuels and the United States’ Future

One Of The Best Articles Ever On Green Automobiles – The ins and outs of biofuels and electric cars

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US News is my hero:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/your-money/2008/01/11/the-pros-and-cons-of-8-green-fuels.html

The Pros and Cons of

8 Green Fuels

Our dossiers detail which fuels

are overrated—and which

could power your next car

By Rick Newman

Posted January 11, 2008


 

After years of talk, rising oil prices—combined with global-warming concerns and a disdain for foreign oil—have finally set the stage for breakthroughs in alternative fuels. To see how the hottest new technologies stack up, click on each fuel for a rundown of its attributes and flaws, or click on the topics on the left to see how various fuels compare:

  • What is it?
  • What’s good about it?
  • What’s bad about it?
  • Where would it be most useful?
  • How much will it cost?
  • When’s it coming?
  • What’s taking so long?
  • Who’s doing it?
  • Could it be a silver bullet?

What is it?

Corn Ethanol
A fuel derived from the sugars in corn and other plants. Pure ethanol is usually blended with gasoline. “E10″—10 percent ethanol—is common today. E85—85 percent ethanol—is the highest practical blend; some gas is still required for combustion in most climates.
Cellulosic Ethanol
A biofuel refined from cellulose, the fibrous material that makes up most of the plant matter in wheat, switch grass, corn stalks, rice straw, and even wood chips.
Biodiesel
A renewable fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fats, including soybeans, canola oil, and even used cooking oil. It’s sometimes mixed with conventional, petroleum-based diesel to help cut down on tailpipe emissions.
Clean Diesels
Diesel is refined from petroleum, like gasoline, but the pollution it produces is harder to control. “Clean diesel” vehicles burn the fuel more efficiently and trap pollutants better. New low-sulfur diesel fuel also pollutes less—much like unleaded gasoline, compared with leaded.
Hybrids
There are several kinds of hybrids. In general, today’s models have a battery-powered electric motor that drives the car at slower speeds and a gas engine that kicks in at higher speeds. The engine also helps recharge the battery, along with energy captured from the rotation of the wheels during deceleration.
Plug-In Hybrids
Same principle as for ordinary hybrids: There’s an electric motor and a gas engine, except that the battery powering the motor would be recharged from an electrical outlet, at home or someplace else. The motor would power the car until battery power waned. Then the gas engine or another secondary power source would kick in.
Electric Vehicles
Any car with a battery-powered motor—including every variety of hybrid—is an electric vehicle to some extent. A pure electric vehicle would be run entirely by the battery-powered motor.
Hydrogen/Fuel Cells
The concept is similar to hybrids: an electric motor would drive the car much of the time. In this case, the motor would be charged by something under the hood called a fuel-cell stack, which converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity that flows to the battery. The on-board fuel would be hydrogen.

Top

Primary sources: Automotive News, Union of Concerned Scientists, dieselforum.org, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, American Automobile Association, Renewable Fuels Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Biodiesel Board, Center for Automotive Research.

 

Please note, I did not include ALL of the article here but each link for the topic should take you to a longer article which takes you through each category list at the top of the article. For the attention challenged please click on the main US News link at the beginning of this post. Each category is laid out in linear bullet fashion. Either way its one hell of a piece.

Wind Electrical Generation In Illinois – #1 in 2007

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We installed the most generation capacity in the nation in 2007! Yahoo

http://www.illinoiswind.org/news/index.asp

wind.gif

News

Section 9006 Program Funds for Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements
Posted 3/7/2008 1:56:33 PMThis message is from Molly Hammond, USDA Rural Development- Illinois, April 7,2008USDA published a notice yesterday (4/6/08)in the Federal Register announcing it is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2008 to purchase renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements for agriculture producers and rural small businesses in eligible rural areas. Funding will be available in the form of grants, guaranteed loans, and combined guaranteed loans and grant applications. For FY 2008 there is approximately $15.9 million in funding for competitive grants and $205 million in authority for guaranteed loans. Funding for grant and loan combination packages will be funded from the same allocation as loan guarantees.I have attached the Federal Register document to this email. Please read it carefully. Pay particular attention to the mention of the Environmental Assessment. The environmental process should begin right away. Please contact me for information on environmental requirements for specific projects. This year there will be two competitive grant cycles. The first deadline is April 15, 2008. Applications that are not funded in the first competition will automatically be considered under the second competition. Grant applications in the second cycle are due no later than June 16, 2008. Loan applications and grant/loan combination applications will be evaluated on a bi-weekly basis until June 16. These will be funded on a first-come first-serve basis. I would suggest submitting a combination application as soon as possible. Please note that combination applications must score at least 84 points to remain eligible.

Please see the following websites for more information on the program:

http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/farmbill/index.html – Section 9006 website

A copy of the regulation can be found at the above website, but a more reader-friendly version is available at this link: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/regs/regs/pdf/4280b.pdf

Application templates and other useful items can be found at the Environmental Law and Policy Center website. Please note that this is not a USDA Rural Development website.

www.farmenergy.org

http://www.agmrc.org/agmrc/provider_search.asp – Link to a list of grant writers.

I look forward to working with you, and feel free to contact me with any questions.

Molly K. Hammond
USDA Rural Development – Illinois
Business Cooperative Specialist
Phone: 217-403-6210
Fax: 217-403-6215

But Illinois is not without resistance.

Rail splitter project may

 `

be caught in turbulence

By TIM LANDIS

BUSINESS EDITOR

tim.landis @sj-r.com

One of the nation’s largest developers of wind energy hopes to have 67 turbines churn­ing out electricity by the end of this year along a stretch of interstate highway about 50 miles north of Springfield.

The $175 million to $200 million Rail Split­ter Wind Farm would produce enough power to meet the annual needs of 30,000 homes.

“Assuming we get approval, we hope to begin construction in May and to have the project online by the end of this year,” Bill Whitlock, a project manager for Horizon Wind Energy, said Wednesday.

Whitlock said the company plans to file for a construction permit in Logan County or,-Monday, and already has filed in Tazewell County for the right to build on 11,000 acres of farmland shared by the two counties.

The site is on both sides of Interstate 155 near the community of Delavan, between Lin­coln and Peoria. Whitlock said 38 of the 380-to 390-foot towers — the state Capitol, by com­parison, is 361 feet to the top of the dome — would be in Tazewell County and 29 would be in Logan County.

Whitlock said the company also continues to negotiate leases with farmers whose land is needed and is exploring markets for the power.

Horizon Energy’s first major project in cen­tral Illinois, the 240-turbine Twin Groves Wind Farm near Bloomington, ran into a va­riety of legal challenges, including from landowners, before it began producing elec­tricity last year.  The U.S. Department of Energy r nois at 16 among the top 20 states for wind-energy potential.

But the head of the Illinois Wind Working Group — a consortium of utilities, rural elec­tric cooperatives, farm organizations and eco­nomic development agencies — said Wednes­day he expects commercial wind farms to re­main controversial.

“There are probably going to be lawsuits, and counties really have to be careful to make sure they follow legal procedures,” said David Loomis, who also is an associate professor of economics at Illinois State University in Nor­mal.

Even on a residential scale, wind turbines can be a touchy subject with neighbors, ac­cording to Bill Fabian, owner of Midstate Re­newable Energy Services in Champaign. The home-based business has sold about a dozen residential turbines the past two years.

“You always have the proximity issue with neighbors who may not be as enthused about wind power as you are,” Fabian said.

He said the typical home unit costs $15,000 to $19,000. The tower is usually 60 feet, tall enough to get above most treetops.

“I think it’s going to remain mostly a niche market for residents who can not only afford it, but have the commitment to make it work,” he said.

Officials in Logan County have estimated the Rail Splitter project could generate about $234,000 in tax revenue the first year. The Tazewell County Zoning Board of Appeals has set three public hearings in April on the pro­posal.

GateHouse News Service contributed to this report. Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536.
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But Sangamon County? The leader in all things innovative? Not so much…

Flat ground won’t work

By TIM LANDIS

BUSINESS EDITOR

tim.landis@sj-r.com

It isn’t for a lack of wind. But Sangamon County is considered too flat in most spots when it comes to commercial wind development.

Nearly a year and a half since the county approved rules for wind-tur­bine construction, exactly two per­mits have been approved. Both were for what amounted to do-it-yourself home projects in the wind industry.

“It was for two mini-systems,” said county zoning and building ad­ministrator Randy Armstrong.

The wind rules were approved in the fall of 2006 after a commercial developer approached the county about the possibility of a local wind firm. After the initial inquiry, noth­ing more was heard, Armstrong said.

“They said they were interested, so we thought maybe we’d better get something on the books,” he said.

The director of the Illinois Wind Working Group at Illinois State University explained that potential turbine sites are graded ,m a scale of 1 to 7. The higher the number, the more suitable the area for com­mercial wind development.

“Most of Illinois is a class 3-plus or a 4. Usually, a class 3 or 4 is the minimum they’d consider to be commercially viable,” David Loomis said.

Loomis said Illinois also has the advantage of large population cen­ters that make it financially feasible to build projects at lower wind speeds compared to sparsely popu­lated states such as North Dakota that rank at a “6” or higher.

But he said the suitability of ter­rain varies considerably, even from county to county.

“If you look at McLean County (Bloomington-Normai), you’d say, ‘Gee, it’s as flat as Sangamon County. But in reality, there’s a slow rise upward, and it ends in a ridge on the eastern side of our county,” he said.

The Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative, based in Auburn, is waiting for equipment to begin con­struction of a single wind turbine on a reclaimed coal-mine site about 30 miles south of Springfield, along Interstate 55 at Farmersville.

The turbine would supply about 500 homes.

Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536.

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Amerin and Commonwealth Edison’s Energy Conservation Programs – soooo 1980’s

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I know that this post is about 2 months 2 late. But when these programs were announced, I eh yaaaaawned. Why is it that Illinois is mired in the past? These programs were all the rage in the 1980’s. Most intelligent utilities established them in the 1990’s. OH never mind…

February 22, 2008 Business section, the State Journal Register:

http://www.sj-r.com

Utilities offering incentives to cut power usage


 

By TIM LANDIS

BUSINESS EDITOR

tim.landis@sj-r.com

That old refrigerator could be worth $35 this summer. Provided it was made prior to 1993.

A refrigerator-recycling program is among a laundry list of consumer incentives that will

be offered in Illinois starting June 1 to encourage reduced power usage. The state’s two

 largest utilities, Ameren and ComEd, both were required to submit the plans as part of a

 $1 billion rate-relief package approved by legislators and the gover­nor last year.

Ameren customers will pay on average another 36 cents a month to cover the cost of the

 programs, according to the utility.

“The idea is to reduce usage during the periods of peak demand,” said Beth Bosch of the

Illinois Com­merce Commission, which just approved energy-savings programs for both

Ameren and ComEd in Chicago.

Last year’s rate-relief plan resulted after power bills for some consumers doubled and

tripled with the lifting of a 10-year freeze on rates Jan. 1, 2007. The freeze was part of a 1997

utility reform bill intend­ed to encourage more compe­tition in Illinois power mar­kets.

As part of the rate-relief package, the utilities were re­quired to devise incentive programs

for reducing cus­tomer use.

The 13 energy-saving meas­ures in the Ameren program range from refrigerator recy­cling

to a voluntary initiative that would allow the utility to remotely switch off residential central-air

units for a few minutes during peak demand.

Large industrial customers have long had the option of interruptible service.

Florida was among the early states to set up volun­tary interruption-of-service programs

for residential elec­tric customers, said David Ko-lata, executive director of the Citizens Utility

Board, a Chicago-based consumer ad­vocacy group.

CUB also played a key role in devising last year’s rate-re­lief plan.

“The way these programs work, is when prices get real­ly high, you cycle the air con­ditioner

off for 15 minutes (each hour). The consumer usually gets paid $20 to $30 a year so the utility

 has that op­tion,” Kolata said.

He called the energy-sav­ing programs a “good start,” but said CUB also remains concerned

that utilities are largely responsible for imple­menting the programs.

Ameren spokesman Leigh Morris said details still must be worked out, including for the

refrigerator recycling. He added that the voluntary in­terruption of service likely would attract

only a small percentage of customers.

“All of these programs are aimed at reducing usage without sacrificing comfort,” Morris said.

Ameren has set a goal of reducing electricity demand equal to the usage of 7,700 single-family

homes in the first year, 23,300 homes in the second year and 46,700 in the third. The utility

just filed a similar energy-savings pro­gram for natural gas cus­tomers, which still must be approved

 by the ICC.

Tim Landis can be reached at 788-1536.
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CES is underwhelmed.
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Cars That Kill – How the gasoline powered car has destroyed the planet.

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Most people when considering the Automobile as an environmental plague think mainly of oil and its various impacts. While it’s true that the vast network of oil drilling platforms, the refineries and the gasoline spewed by billions of internal combustion engines from D13 Catepillars to Leaf Blowers has befouled the world. But lets not forget that the refining of oil led to the creation of plastics which now bob up and down all over our oceans. The creation of Rubber Tires led to the enslavement of huge tropical regions of the world. The energy consumed just to make the damn things is incredible. But what about the impact of the world’s population commuting to work?

Suburbs and Bedroom communities have been called the single largest misallocation of resources since the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China. We all know what happened to those folks…..

http://www.howestreet.com/articles/index.php?article_id=6219

In preparation for doing a post on the locals that are competeing in the Progressive Automotice XPriz here is another look at the world ending car:

Originally published here:

http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/

By:

Whiskey and Gunpowder is your source for up to date financial editorial and insight into the effect finance has over the world of commodities.

Together, with Jim Amrhein (personal liberties), Byron King (economics with historic and geologic intertwinings), Dan Amoss (macroeconomic trends and institutional analysis), Adrian Ash and Ed Bugos (gold markets), and Jamie Ellis who covers everything in between. Plus a rotating cast of characters that keep up the standard of excellence in both content and delivery that Whiskey & Gunpowder insists on providing its readers.

Featuring insightful articles that explore a range of topics including commodities, politics, technology, nature, history and anything else our writers could possibly dream up, Whiskey & Gunpowder offers the kind of analysis that the mainstream media will never give

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Turn the Curve”By Byron King
April 16, 2008

Every automobile on the roads of the world reflects a long and complex chain of industrial production and energy usage. Yet we live in a world where many of the highest quality resources and energy supplies have already been exploited. And lower quality resources are more expensive to extract and exploit, if they are even available. So the world’s automobile industry is in the midst of a revolution in both resource availability and energy consumption.

Thinking about Basic Materials and Energy

Today the automobile business is vast. It is a global industry that has evolved by leaps and bounds in the 100 years since Henry Ford made his famous remark in 1908 about building “a car for the great multitude.” The worldwide customer base includes at least a billion people — spread over six continents — who have income sufficient to buy a car or small truck. According to figures assembled at the MIT Sloan Automotive Laboratory, there are about 700 million automobiles and light trucks in the world. About 30 percent of those vehicles are in North America.

Every car requires steel, aluminum, copper and lead. Each car requires rubber, plastic, and myriad of other petroleum and natural gas by-products. And there is much else in the long industrial ladder of automobile production. Just think in terms of the energy that goes into processing materials, fabricating parts, building components, assembling a finished product, and all the transportation along the way. In addition to the basic energy and material resources that go into manufacturing an automobile, the sheer number of vehicles reflects a lot of fuel tanks to fill with gasoline and diesel. And this does not even touch on the energy and resources that go into building road systems.

While America dwaddled,

There has been even more progress in the fuel efficiency of diesel engines over the past 25 years. Diesel power trains are no longer the sooty, “knock-knock” devices that they were back in the days of disco. Most cars sold today in the European Union (EU), for example, are powered with clean-burning, fuel efficient, smoothly running diesel engines. In fact, the demand for diesel fuel in Europe is such that EU refineries routinely ship surplus gasoline to sell into the North American market. And in North America the relatively low prices for gasoline throughout the 1980s and 1990s discouraged the use of diesel engines.

So there have been significant improvements in automobile power train efficiencies over the past couple of decades. But have these improvements translated into any overall reduction in demand for fuel? No. In 2007 motor fuel consumption in the U.S. was high as it has ever been. (Although according to the American Petroleum Institute, demand for motor fuel may be at a plateau due to price increases at the pump in 2006 and 2007.) In the past 25 years we’ve seen more people driving more cars for more miles. But compounding the fuel issue, the cars that people are buying and driving tend to weigh more and offer higher performance.

The Future of the Automobile

(sad but true even these folks think there is one)

It helps to view the age of the automobile — and its future — as a systemic whole. And some social critics are out in front of the broad discussion, with a sharp focus on the automobile and what it has brought us as a society. James Kunstler, for example, author of highly regarded books such as The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency, believes that the car-dependent suburban build-out of the U.S. may be “the greatest misallocation of resources in all of human history.” That is, in an era of expensive energy and scarce resources, a car-dependent culture has no real future and is in fact a hindrance to progress in other directions. That is quite a viewpoint, well-presented by Kunstler in his writing. It’s depressing, but it sure gets your attention.

And criticism of the automobile culture is not confined just to social commentators like Kunstler. Another remarkable indictment comes from no less an automotive insider than Prof. John Heywood, the director of the MIT Sloan Automotive Laboratory. He has stated that “cars may prove to be the worst commodity of all.” According to Prof. Heywood, cars are “responsible for a steady degradation of the ecosystem, from greenhouse emissions to biodiversity loss. What’s worse, even if we improve vehicle efficiency, turn to fuel hybrids or make rapid advances in hydrogen-based fuel technologies, the scale for slowing down the degradation may run to the decades. Turning the curve won’t be easy.”

You can agree or disagree with the broad themes of Jim Kunstler or John Heywood. But there’s no argument with one of Prof. Heywood’s points. Wherever we are going, it will not be easy to “turn the curve.” Looking forward, the oil just is not there to fuel cars in the future in the way that we did it in the past. So a lot of people are going to have to do things differently.

Worldwide, the automobile industry has seen the handwriting on the wall. Fuel is expensive, and is getting more so with each passing year. So the industry has invested tens of billions of dollars in improving engine and power train efficiency. In addition, auto designers are coming up with new ways to eliminate weight and drag. (At higher speeds, up to 70 percent of the energy used to turn the wheels on a car goes just to push the air out of the way of the chassis.) The auto industry is looking towards different sorts of fuels, and moving towards what is called fuel-flexibility.

Hopefully this will lead us to a great new investment in the car of the future.

Until we meet again…
Byron King

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State Journal Register – They publish a very good editorial calling for efforts to combat Global Warming

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I like this approach as an educational tool.

Our opinion: It’s foolish to do nothing about climate change

 

Published Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Last week, representatives from more than 160 countries started meeting in Bangkok to discuss an international climate treaty to replace the decade-old Kyoto Protocol. Again, the United States is shying away from a leadership role. Some of our concerns have merit — we can’t commit economic suicide while China goes sprinting by.“The primary concern is the so-called leakage issue,” U.S. negotiator Harlan Watson told The Associated Press. “If you take commitments and you have energy intensive industries, they might want to move to other countries which don’t have commitments.”

Signing on to an agreement that then sends our industry fleeing to countries that don’t commit to pollution control would make no sense. Yet arguably our grumbling isn’t getting us anywhere, either.

Which makes us wonder: If an asteroid was hurtling toward Earth would the Bush administration likewise sit on its hands? Would it argue that since the asteroid is a naturally occurring event there’s nothing man should do to prepare for, or mitigate, its impact?

Of course not.

So I wrote this letter trying to support their point, sigh….they did not publish it so I’m putting it up here.

:}

Editor

State Journal Register

One Copley Plaza

Springfield, IL 62701

 

Emailed – 04/14/08

 

Dear Editor:

 

Thanks for your recent Editorial supporting attempts to help prevent Global Warming. There is no need to apologize for supporting such efforts though, because when America stops doing things that make no economic sense, America makes money and produces jobs every time. We do 2 things that are creating Global Warming.

 

The first thing that we Americans do that is leading us to Global Warming is we “throw things away”. How much economic sense has that ever made? Think about it. We pay good money for stuff and then throw part of it away. We buy things in packaging and we throw it away. We buy food and we throw part of it away. We buy coal and then we throw part of it out the smoke stack. We buy gasoline and throw part of it out the tailpipe. So if we quit throwing things away we automatically make money and I might add create jobs to deal with all that stuff we now throw away.

 

The second thing we do that is leading us to global warming is we “burn stuff up”. Plain and simple, we strike a match and burn something up that we paid good money for. Why not just stack some paper money on the ground, pour a little gasoline on it and strike a match? We burn coal, uranium and natural gas to make electricity. There are many ways to generate electricity without burning things. Yet we persist. We burn gasoline to transport our things and ourselves. We know that there are other ways to do this, and yet we persist. If we stop burning things up, we would save money and create jobs. Conservation is not bad for any economy.

 

So the next time you throw something away or you “strike a match” look at your hand and ask yourself, “Do I really want to do that?” Join us at www.censys.org.

  

Doug Nicodemus

948 e. adams st.

riverton, IL  62561

629-7031

dougnic55@yahoo.com

McCain’s Gas Tax Proposal – So the time for us has just about ran out

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John McCain like every other Republican in America wants to avoid what their 30 years of dereliction of duty has wraught. Nixon, Regan and Bush (my version of lions and tigers and bears, oh my!) all increased our dependence on oil and easy Chinese money. Bush in particular ushered us to the brink of a world depression. Grover Norquist, who wants to take us back to the 1930s is about to succeed:

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_norquist.html

BILL MOYERS: If states refuse to raise taxes to fix some of those problems we’ve just seen, that certainly won’t bother my next guest. He’s a sworn opponent of all taxes. He’s also the most powerful man in Washington not to hold a public office.

Officially, Grover Norquist heads an organization called Americans for Tax Reform where for almost 20 years now he has crusaded for lower taxes and less government. Unofficially he’s been the linchpin in Washington for the conservative revolution that now controls the government. His weekly meetings of activists became the politburo of strategy where all stripes of conservatives bear their differences in order to bury their hatchet in Democrats. From the Christian coalition to log cabin Republicans to the National Rifle Association on whose board he sits, this Harvard graduate keeps the troops on mission and on message. His success prompted Senator Hillary Clinton to muse aloud, if only Democrats had a Grover Norquist. Welcome to NOW.

GROVER NORQUIST: Glad to be with you.

BILL MOYERS: Well, you do have it all. You have the White House, the Congress, the regulatory agencies, the courts more or less. The last time Democrats, liberal Democrats, held that kind of power, they made some mistakes like the war in Vietnam that they couldn’t sustain the support of at home, emphasized parochial interests at the expense of the sort of bedrock universal values of American society. What are the errors you think conservatives running everything could make?

GROVER NORQUIST: I think it’s very important to always make sure that you’re talking to the entire coalition and to as many Americans as possible; not to go chasing after one little group or another. The Democrats would bring new groups into their party and not notice that larger groups are going out the back door. And so what I try and do whenever I work on an issue or work with political leaders is make sure that when you’re talking about a new approach, how does that…how does the entire coalition view that new approach? Is there a better or different way to do it that irritates fewer people and that satisfies a larger constituency?

BILL MOYERS: And that’s what you did at your Wednesday morning meetings? Those meetings became famous, for all kinds of conservatives being in there hammering things out.

GROVER NORQUIST: And we now have 27 versions of that at the state capital level, including one in New York City. So we’re taking the model of the “leave us alone” coalition from the national level to the state level as well.

BILL MOYERS: “Leave us alone?”

GROVER NORQUIST: Um-hmm. Look, the center right coalition in American politics today is best understood as a coalition of groups and individuals that on the issue that brings them to politics what they want from the government is to be left alone. Taxpayers, don’t raise my taxes. Property owners, don’t restrict or limit my property. Home schoolers, let me educate my own kids. Gun owners, don’t restrict my Second Amendment rights. All communities of faith, Evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, people want to practice their own religion and be left alone to raise their own kids.

BILL MOYERS: Do you have any sympathy for those states we just saw a few moments ago? Under the president’s plan, those states do not expect any direct aid from Uncle Sam. Do you have any advice for them?

GROVER NORQUIST: Sure, two things. The most important thing for President Bush and the federal government to do is to create a pro-growth economic policy because its economic growth that brings in more revenue for states and local governments. At the state level what they really have to do is take a long run view and limit the growth of spending, put limits on how much you spend. And then California, the state owns a whole bunch of land and other things that it could sell off it doesn’t need, and it needs to figure out which of those government jobs need to be in government, and what can be privatized or contracted out.

BILL MOYERS: You’re on record as saying, my goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bath tub. Is that a true statement?

And the Holy Satanic trilogy of George Mason University, Southern Methodist University and the University of Chicago have supplied all the intellectual fire power. SMU is where George Bush, jr. will try to lock up his presidential papers and avoid jail,

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Oh but I digress…One of the finest posters at The Oil Drum JoulesBurn who Blogs at:

http://satelliteoerthedesert.blogspot.com/

Had this little cutey today:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3855#more

McCain’s Gas Pains: Gas “Tax Holidays” A Good Idea?

Posted by JoulesBurn on April 15, 2008 – 7:45pm
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: gas prices, John McCain, politics (list all tags)

For immediate release from John McCain’s campaign:

John McCain, who just hours earlier proposed a “tax holiday” in which the 18 cent federal tax on gasoline would be suspended during the summer driving season, has reconsidered and has instead proposed that the U.S. gallon be redefined to be equal in volume to the current U.S. quart. “This will immediately lower the price at the pump by 75%, providing visible relief to millions of Americans”, quipped McCain. “I rejected the idea of setting it equal to the liter, for obvious reasons”.When questioners suggested that this move wouldn’t actually change how much consumers spend to fill their tanks, McCain responded “Well, neither would my previous proposal”.

In unrelated election news, the McCain campaign announced that P.T. Barnum has been posthumously appointed as their policy director. Also, Hillary Clinton has proposed a suspension of the law of gravity, at least during the summer flying season, to help the beleaguered airline industry. Barack Obama reportedly had no comment on these suggestions, other than to say that Americans are definitely “atwitter” about gas prices.

We interrupt this vacation from reality with the following observations…(under the fold…)

  • As gasoline is a commodity for which prices are determined by supply and demand, lowering the price without increasing the supply will likely increase demand (usage). Prices will rise again to compensate.
  • The 18.4 cents per gallon that is now flowing into the US treasury, and which is then spent building roads, bridges, and mass transit, will instead flow to oil companies — particularly those in foreign countries, since the US imports over half of its oil.
  • Targeting the current gasoline tax instead for the development of alternative transportation and ways of using energy more efficiently will provide more lasting solutions to the current energy and economic crises than short-term attempts to fix the problem.

For Better Or Worse – it is true, someone should take my scanner away

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:}Its true. Our children should be worried. Our grand children? They shoul be very afraid.
 better-or-worse.jpg

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Oh to see more: http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/

Juche – a simple name for a nasty idea. Kim Il Sungism

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Jodie Foster, Pregnant Man, Iran, Prince Philip, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, American Idol, Obama, China, Beyonce, Rolling Stones. (sorry for the deception but please read below)

Normally I wouldn’t bother to cover this but since it’s on the list I felt I needed to “dis” it as much as I could. I even took the time to get Buzzes top searches for the week to punch it up a bit. I even checked every category Energy Tough Love has to publicize this human indignity. The list of “Religions” that I used to start this meditation on the relationship between Religion and the Environment placed Juche well down on the list but with 18 million adherents that still alot of folks. I had never heard of it before and I even asked a couple of people if they had heard of it. Imagine my suprise when I typed it into a search engine and up popped this Prick who claimed he was god:

www.dictatorofthemonth.com

kim.jpg

During his lifetime he forced millions of people in North Korea to worship him. Can you imagine anything more degrading or disgusting then a man who points a loaded gun at your head and demands that you treat him like a god. You must pray to him. Oh most Divine Leader. Makes me want to puke. But then he is followed by this buffoon:

www.beconfused.com

jong.jpg

Now they are “worshiping” something no better than a trained monkey. If they had an ENVIRONMENTAL group in North Korea, I wish them the best of luck but I ain’t gonna publish it. I ain’t even gona type it into a search engine. If anybody ever deserved to get a nuke shoved up his poop shoot. This would be it.

Some Of My Favorite Energy Blogs Are Going Silent

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Where the Rubber meets the Road
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What Some of My Favorite Blogs are Thinking Today

 thefraserdomain.typepad.com/ 

The Energy Blog


The following are the posts that define The Energy Revolution. They describe the causes and solutions as I envision them. I hope that you will find them useful in providing a background for your journeys in exploring The Energy Revolution.

Consumer technology

March 18, 2008

FYI: GE Demonstrates World’s First ”Roll-to-Roll” Manufactured Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs


Press release – GE Global Research and GE Consumer & Industrial in conjunction with ECD announced the successful demonstration of the world’s first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting devices. This demonstration is a key step toward making OLEDs and other high performance organic electronics products at dramatically lower costs than what is possible today.  . . .OLEDs have the potential to deliver dramatically improved levels of efficiency and environmental performance when compared to traditional products.

GE researchers provided the organic electronics technology and were responsible for developing the roll-to-roll processes, while ECD provided its unique roll-to-roll equipment-building expertise to build the machine that manufactures the OLED devices.

When commercialized this technology will make possible low cost high, efficieny lighting. Lighting currently comsumes about 22% of the total electricity generated in the U.S. and about 25% of the average homes electric bill.

Thanks to Tyler at Clean Break for the tip.

Sadly one of  the only true commenters on CES’ blog has not up date his blog since August. So disappointing to see a commenter to go quiet.

alt-e.blogspot.com 

Then there is the ever present and all encompassing:

www.energyblogs.com 

1-20 of 348 items listed     

Most Commented and Most Viewed 03/21/2008 at 05:03 PM   |   Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio – Electricity Without Price Controls Blog   This is a take of a snapshot of today’s EnergyBlogs stat. Most Commented (7 EWPC articles) Response to Professor Banks (46) I… 

Missing From Gridwise 03/21/2008 at 04:30 PM   |   Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio – Electricity Without Price Controls Blog Missing from the GridWise approach is the need to restructure as soon as possible the power industry to eliminate the barriers imposed by “the … 

MON DIEU – FRENCH HYPOCRISY 03/21/2008 at 06:48 AM   |   Martin Rosenberg – From the Editor’s Desk Blog With the world shrinking and all, I have made it a policy of keeping an eye on what goes on in Europe. Some of if is fascinating. New technologies are… 

Again sadness, another one has not been updated since December 2007, but I missed it so here it is:

www.energyplanet.info/blog 

Central Florida Homebuilder Goes Solar

Sebring Builders, a privately owned Builder/Developer is hoping to become a trendsetter. In 2006, Sebring Builders started planning to build Stone Ridge, a private, gated community in the small central Florida town of Sebring. With single family homes starting just under $200,000, they thought this development had everything to offer, great location, clubhouse with many amenities, maintenance fee that included lawn care, wireless internet and cable TV, etc. Then, in early 2007, Florida Solar Innovators contacted owners, Rick Bennett and Randy Bean, about using one of the model homes in Stone Ridge to install a Photovoltaic System and possibly offering this as an option to home buyers. Read more…

December 12th, 2007

Last one for today:

curtrosengren.typepad.com/alternative_energy

Support from an unlikely source. This place hasn’t been up dated since February. Maybe I need to get some new best friends.

T. Boone Pickens voices alternative energy support

In another indication of the momentum building behind alternative energy development, T. Boone Pickens, a man who made his billions in the oil biz, recently voiced his support for alternative energy.

…Pickens, who heads the $4 billion BP Capital Management hedge fund, also voiced some support for alternative energy development, saying a half-trillion dollars a year is leaving the United States economy to buy oil.

Pickens said solar power technology is “almost there,” and there could be “corridors” of wind power developed from Texas through the Great Plains and west to California.

The Peak Oil People Are Unsure – Is this their halcyon dream or their worst nightmare?

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The cost of oil is hovering around $110 per barrel and Gold is at $1000 a troy ounce.

http://www.peakoil.com/

http://www.theoildrum.com/

And this is the AP’s take on it:

http://www.ap.org/

OPEC blames U.S. for

–

 fueling record oil prices


 

By WILLIAM J. KOLE

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS____________

VIENNA, Austria — OPEC on Wednesday accused the U.S. of economic “mismanagement”

that it said is pushing oil prices

to record highs and rebuffed calls to boost output, laying the blame on the Bush administration.

Oil prices surged after the OPEC announcement and the re­lease of a U.S. government report

showing a surprise

drop in crude oil stockpiles. Light, sweet crude for April delivery jumped $5 to

settle at a record $104.52 per bar­rel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said it would maintain current

production levels because crude supplies are plentiful and demand is expected to weaken

during the second quarter.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil said the global market is being af­fected by what he called

“the mis­management

of the U.S. econo­my,” and that America’s problems were a key factor in the cartel’s

decision to hold off on any action.

“If the prices are high, definite­ly they are not due to a lack of crude. They are due to

what’s happening

in the U.S.,” Khelil said. “There is sufficient supply. There’s plenty of oil there.”

Khelil’s comments came one day after President Bush lashed out at the organization,

warning Tuesday:

“I think it’s a mistake to have your biggest customers’ economies slowing down as a

re­sult of higher energy prices.”

White House spokesman Dana Perino said Wednesday that Bush

was “disappointed” OPEC didn’t do more to rein in prices, which some say are pushing

the U.S. economy into recession.

Analyst John Hall, of John Hall Associates in London, said OPEC probably should have

added oil to the market as Bush had asked.

“But in this time of intense geopolitical tension, it would be difficult for Saudi (Arabia) or

any other producer to

acquiesce sim­ply because President Bush had asked them to,” he said. “In the short

term, any true respite for the

 consumer is still out of reach.”

The Net result is without dispute, Gasoline Prices Skyrocketed:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-04-19-world-gas_N.htm

Gas prices on April 17 or 18 2007. Data for EU countries were provided by the AA Motoring Trust. Prices are listed in U.S. dollars
United Kingdom

$8.37

Netherlands

$7.52

Norway

$7.33

Belgium

$6.95

Denmark

$6.95

Germany

$6.72

Portugal

$6.65

Finland

$6.57

France

$6.50

Sweden

$6.50

Hungary

$5.63

Poland

$5.63

Slovakia

$5.59

Austria

$5.40

Ireland

$5.40

Slovenia

$5.36

Switzerland

$5.17

Spain

$5.14

Czech Republic

$5.10

Greece

$4.91

Italy

$4.80

Lithuania

$4.72

Latvia

$4.61

Estonia

$4.30

Luxembourg

$4.27

Japan

$4.16

United States

$2.88

Kazakhstan

$2.75

Russia

$2.68

Mexico

$2.38

China

$2.19

Nigeria

$1.92

Saudi Arabia

$0.45

Venezuela

$0.19

Joel Lou from the EPA cites these prices for Europe as of March, 2008

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/gas1.html

(U.S. Dollars per Gallon)

Date Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands UK US
3/10/2008 8.37 7.95 8.24 8.07 8.91 8.10 3.44

Did the Saudi’s really blame our Mortgage Fraud Scandal and Economic Collapse for the high price of Oil? No matter what, however, our shattered Economy and resulting dollar devaluation will do nothing but drive up the price of oil further. 

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