T-Boone: Nobody Opposes Me

Well, maybe nobody in the Obama administration. The Texas billionaire just got a free ride to exploit us taxpayers because Obama’s group of green weenies will hand him anthing he wants. But there has been opposition.

T. Boone Pickens said in an interview this morning on CNBC that,

… but know this… we’ve never had a person that stands up and says your plan is not good. Nobody has said that… I don’t know… there’s not many op-ed pieces or any thing…

But Steve Milloy has written six FoxNews.com columns critical of the Pickens Plan — one of which Pickens’ team responded to on FoxNews.com.

The Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor has been critical of the Pickens Plan here and here.

Reece Epstein and David Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research have a lengthy critique here.

Here’s a Wall Street Journal article about Pickens’ critics, who include FedEX CEO Fred Smith and former Kansas governor Bill Graves, who now heads the American Trucking Association.

There are plenty more who have stood up against the Pickens Plan. Yet Pickens denies their existence in his effort to “swiftboat” America into his make-Boone-richer-scheme.

Visit the new Green Hell Blog from JunkScience.com

Burning Bodies for Enviro-Friendly Heat

You just can’t make this stuff up. Nobody would believe you. It’s from Gore Lied.

Not even two weeks has passed since GORE LIED linked to a post from The People’s Cube regarding a satirical proposal to burn dead people as an alternative fuel:

Comrades, we all know that the dead workers and peasants of the USSA have voted many times for our socialist fraternal brothers and sisters in government. However, other than voting, these dead comrades do nothing for us. Is there not a way we can reanimate these corpses and put them to work? Perhaps feed them into one of Algore’s new zero emission clean power plants? NecroPower anyone?

Kinda funny. Until today. Cleantechnica.com reports:

If you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax. The Swedish town of Halmstad has a solution. After an environmental review showed that Halmstad’s crematorium was pumping too much smoke into the air, the facility’s director decided to re-use heat from the cremations to warm up the crematorium’s buildings.

The plan will both eliminate the crematorium’s heating bill and allow it to save money on cooling smoke before it is released into the air.

Locals in the town of 55,000 approve of the crematorium’s system, so it should be up and running soon. If the plan is successful, the crematorium eventually wants to pipe heat from its facilities to area homes. And while some may protest Halmstad’s plan on moral grounds, I’m sure that the potential monetary savings for the town will ultimately keep them quiet.

This is so far over the top, I have nothing left to say.

Hatchet Ridge Wind Project Approved

Enhanced Photo Showing Turbines on Hatchet Ridge (click to enlarge)

After you read this post, please see the update.

!UPDATE! 12-1-08 PG&E Buys Into Hatchet Ridge Project

First the good news.

BURNEY – Shasta County officials Thursday night unanimously approved plans for a 6 1/2-mile-long string of wind turbines along a ridge overlooking Burney.

County planning commissioners voted in favor of the 100-megawatt project atop Hatchet Ridge after listening to three hours of testimony during a public hearing that drew about 200 people to the Mt. Burney Theatre. Commissioners approved the electricity-generating project on a 5-0 vote.

“Overall we believe it is a good project,” said David Rutledge, the commission’s chairman.

The project’s developers were happy with the vote and will move forward in building the 43 turbines, said George Hardie, senior developer for Babcock and Brown, the project’s lead financier.

“We hope to start next spring,” Hardie said.

And of course the NIMBY’s must have their say.

But the project likely isn’t finished being reviewed by county officials just yet.

Opponents of the project, whose combined turbines and towers would reach 418 feet skyward, said just after the vote that they will appeal the decision to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors.

Ken Archuleta, a Burney man and project critic, said the commissioners’ quick vote after a short amount of discussion once the public microphone was turned off Thursday shows commissioners didn’t completely weigh the arguments against the project.

“They didn’t listen to a thing they heard,” Archuleta said.

The deadline for an appeal is Tuesday.

During his time before the commission, Archuleta questioned why the developers didn’t look at nearby ridges that aren’t visible from downtown Burney.

Other critics said the turbines would destroy land sacred to American Indians, wound and kill birds and simply be an industrial eyesore complete with red, blinking lights.

Among the critics of the project Thursday night were several members of the Pit River Tribe, who said the turbines would be put on ground they consider a “church.”

The tribe will look for a way to stop the project, possibly by filing suit in federal court, said Jessica Jim, the tribe’s former chairwoman.

“We already have an attorney,” she said.

Here’s the rebuttal.

The project’s developers want to build on Hatchet Ridge because it has the most wind energy in the area, Hardie said. They studied shifting the location to a spot on Hatchet Ridge not visible from town, but the amount of energy that the turbines would produce dropped 30 percent to 40 percent, he said.

“We cannot move the project down the hill,” he said.

Supporters of the project said the project would help the country address its need for renewable power, provide jobs in Burney and draw interested onlookers to the Intermountain area.

“I find the units fascinating to watch,” said Terry Hufft, who lives between Montgomery Creek and Burney with a view of Hatchet Ridge.

The turbines would be built on land owned by a pair of timber companies, Sierra Pacific Industries and Fruit Growers Supply Co., and would be most visible from Main Street, or Highway 299, through downtown Burney.

“I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives,” Planning Commissioner Shirley Easley said after her vote.

So here’s my take: The project is on private land, being built by private investors with their own money. It will bring jobs and money to town. That alone is enough to approve the project. Also, it is supplying extra electricity using already existing powerlines, not being used as a primary source of power. Burney needs the revenue and jobs. It’s a good deal. Oh, and did I mention, It’s on Private Land being built by Private Investors? No tax payer dollars will be harmed by this project. On the contrary, it will bring in much needed tax dollars.

And just in case you wanted to know, yes, it is virtually in my backyard. Hatchet Ridge was burned bare during the Fountain Fire in ’92. It aint much to look at anyway, the turbines won’t harm the view very much. (see photo at top)

Get the facts. Hatchet Ridge Wind

The Earth Can Heal Without Our Help

Who’da Thunk It? With all of the crying and whining about saving saving the planet, it seems it might be better to leave well enough alone. (bold is mine)

Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists.
American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958.
Many of the natives were moved to Kili Island and today are compensated by the United States government.
Code-named Castle Bravo, the hydrogen bomb was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever exploded at the time at 15 megatons, making it 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.
The massive explosion vaporized everything on three islands in the atoll, raised water temperatures to 55,000 degrees and left a crater that was 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) wide and 240 feet (73 meters) deep.
A team of scientists recently led a diving expedition into Bravo Crater and found an unexpectedly thriving coral community.
“I didn’t know what to expect — some kind of moonscape perhaps. But it was incredible, huge matrices of branching Porites coral (up to 8 meters [25 feet] high) had established, creating a thriving coral reef habitat,” said study team member Zoe Richards of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.
“Throughout other parts of the lagoon it was awesome to see coral cover as high as 80 percent and large tree-like branching coral formations with trunks 30 centimeters [12 inches] thick.”
A nearby atoll is likely seeding the coral recovery, the scientists think, and because the island is rarely visited, the coral is left to recover.
Richards said that the healthy condition of the Bikini corals was a sign of the resilience of corals after a major disturbance, if left undisturbed to recuperate.

They did have to add this however

The news wasn’t all good however, as there was a disturbingly high level of loss of coral species from around the atoll.
Forty-two species of corals are missing compared to a study made before the atomic tests were carried out.
Though ambient radiation readings are fairly low at Bikini, radioactive material accumulates in the soil and in produce such as coconuts, making them unsafe to eat.
It is unlikely that the Bikini natives will be able to return to the atoll in the near future, the scientists said.

But I wouldn’t worry too much. After all, they did say nothing would ever live there again and after only 50 years there is not only life, but Incredible and Awesome growth of the coral. There is also food on the island. And the scientists are once again surprised. Why? Because we have been brainwashed into believing the worst about America and it’s technology. So, what about nuclear power now? What about the 1000 year Half Life we have been told about? Maybe, just maybe, that was another stretch of the truth? After all, nuclear power has only been around for about 50 years, so what can we know about it’s Half Life?

The Moonbats, Treehuggers, Greenies and Gloworms still hate it, so as long as the liberals have a say we won’t have any choice. Just like the BILLIONS of barrels of oil going to waste in ANWAR and off of our coastlines that could sustain us until we can get away from the Mideast oil cartel, the liberals cannot even see the the obvious. Nuclear power is not the evil monster it was made out to be.

It’s kind of ironic that the French, which the liberals want us to be more like, get almost 80% of their power from nuclear power plants without a problem.

Source

More Evidence Against Ethanol

I’ve covered some of this already. (link) But the evidence is mounting against ethanol as an alternative energy source. The benefits do not justify the costs. In fact, I don’t see any benefits at all. Except to the special interest coalition. FOLLOW THE MONEY.

Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These are far more expensive than pipelines.

Ethanol is 20 to 30 percent less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That’s enough corn to feed one person for a year. Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel — oil and natural gas — to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers — all of which are fuel-using activities. And it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 or 12 percent.

Ethanol is so costly it wouldn’t make it in a free market. That’s why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there’s a double tax — one in ethanol subsidies and another in handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

Something else is wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar cane and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce.

Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The U.S. position as the world’s largest grain producer and exporter means the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.

It’s easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country’s largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing it would be political suicide if they didn’t support subsidized ethanol production. That’s the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

The ethanol hoax is a good example of a problem economists refer to as narrow, well-defined benefits versus widely dispersed costs. It pays the ethanol lobby to organize and collect money to grease the palms of politicians willing to do their bidding because there’s a large benefit for them — higher wages and profits. The millions of gasoline consumers, who fund the benefits through higher fuel and food prices, as well as taxes, are relatively uninformed and have little clout.

Source

Ethanol Is Not The Answer

More “greenhouse gases”, higher costs, less power and world hunger. A bad idea is getting worse.

 

“There is a right way and a wrong way to produce (ethanol),” the New York Times editorialized on Feb. 24. “Done right, ethanol could help wean the country from its dependence on foreign oil while reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change. Done wrong, ethanol could wreak havoc on the environment while increasing greenhouse gases.”

There is not, in fact, a right way to produce ethanol. But several wrong ones — spawned by congressional and presidential edicts — are already wreaking havoc on food prices and the natural environment. What we need to do is free up the ingenuity of innovators to devise a variety of approaches to biofuel production, and then permit the marketplace to decide the winners and losers.

The reality is that with current technology, almost all of this biofuel would have to come from corn because there is no other feasible, proven alternative. But because of the inefficiencies inherent in producing ethanol from corn and the relatively meager amount of energy yielded by burning ethanol, the demands on farmland would be staggering.

An analysis by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggested that replacing even 10% of America’s motor fuel with biofuels would require that about a third of all the nation’s cropland be devoted to oilseeds, cereals and sugar crops. Achieving the 15% goal would require the entire current U.S. corn crop, which represents a whopping 40% of the world’s corn supply.

In the short and medium term, ethanol can do little to affect oil consumption. But the diversion of grain from food to fuel exerts widespread and profound ripple effects on various commodity markets. It has already been catastrophic for the poor around the world.

The whole story.