PW!

Meanwhile, this week, the troglodyte Repubs of the Kansas legislature have passed a bill demanding that coal plants in western Ks be automatically approved and preventing the Sec of Health from considering any air pollution impacts. The governor will veto it, but they may have the votes to override the veto. Legislation by corporation. Watch this one in the next few weeks.

Remember that 3 a.m. phone ad the Clinton campaign ran? This is priceless.

Yes, and ten steps backward, teh “nucular” moves into the forward position.

Industries are not going to go quietly. Look at the insurers in the health industry. They morphed into HMOs and then they got caught there too. People realize they DO nothing but extract resources from the system and they surface as profits for a few and denial of care to many.

Coal is the same, it provides some jobs, oddles of profits, lots of pollution and health and environmental costs. It’s way more bad than good no matter how they spin it.

Will they go away without a fight? Na

The energy issue is not a simple one to solve, especially since human populations increase over time. This will be a long fight. A strong commitment to science research is required.

Arizona is going to build its first solar powered power plant…. the privately owned power company has been pushing the ads for the plant called “solaria” on teevee…

The odd things is we have the analytical tools to figure out what makes sense for the society and the planet.

Those tools lead us to renewable sustainable solar based technologies. Sun is the ONLY source of energy that is constant. It also drives the weather and hence wind and hydro power in its many forms are also renewable.

Extractable energy is a disaster and we are experiencing it now. Whether it is pollution, health consequences, or economic consequences, non renewables are obviously a very dumb bet. That is except if you control them and can make everyone defendant on them.

Send in the grown ups please.

Before I finish reading the post, I would like to tell everyone that I put my first diary up at Daily Kos last night. I wrote a letter as requested by Christy in her “Let’s Hit the Phones and Faxes” thread yesterday, and posted it as a comment at the end of that thread. Folks were pretty complimentary, so I did the post as a first effort. I’ve been quite shocked at how fast posts come up at Kos. Within an hour or so, my diary was buried by about twenty other posts. If you would like to read the post, here it is. Of course, if you are a member there, and you think it’s worthy, feel free to hit the recommend button. *g* Thanks.

Rob,

How right you are. We need to examine the carrying capacity of the planet and then limit population. We probably have surpassed that capacity already. That means we have to have a purpose made “die off” or a series of natural ones.

And maybe then we can address a sustainable energy system for the remaining society.

Ann, I wrote the long diatribe. Good show!

Good morning PW, good morning again dawgs -

Ok, if it’s beginning to work in the energy sector, maybe “The Invisible Hand” will give the corporatists a wake up call when it let’s them know that without a solid middle class there will be no one left who will be able to buy any of those fancy products that they are making all over the world and are jumping through hoops trying to get us to consume.

If you haven’t seen this yet, it’s worth the few minutes it takes to watch.

Freidmanesque supply-side economics have wreaked havoc with our society over the past 30 years. The world I remember in 1978 is gone. That was a time when the President of the United States had solar panels installed in the White House and pledged to be energy independent by the year 2000.

What we’ve allowed to happen to us with Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Bush is more than tragic, it’s a lesson for all of humankind for the rest of history. The Friedmans and the Greenspans and the Bushs and the Clintons will one day be sharing history with the likes of Nero.

Oh yes! It is!

Hi PW.

Thank you for covering this topic.

Bigtime frustration here. Sen. George Voinovich (R – coalhugger) is running unopposed this year, as far as I know. Surely Democrats could have found someone to oppose him! Sherrod Brown (D – stellar voting record and leadership on environmental, and progressive issues in general) was elected handily over DeWine 2 yrs ago. Isn’t there someone else like that they can find in OH???

That’s what’s happening right now, Sander. Investment banks aren’t filled with granola-munching hippies, but people who pride themselves on their hard-headedness. And the hard-headed position is to drop technologies that pollute and aren’t sustainable in favor of those that don’t pollute and are sustainable.

By the way: Google money is invested in Nanosolar, and it’s already starting to show results — Nanosolar shipped its first $1-a-watt panels to a German energy firm in December. So give a little smile to Sergey Brin next time you fire up Google .

The demise of capitalism was predicted and is inevitable. The trouble is the transition to a more stable and equitable system is not happening and is causing a lot of pain.

The worst is yet to come.

They don’t care because they have their wealth and won’t feel any real pain.

oddles of profits, lots of pollution and health and environmental costs

The mantra of the Corporatist: “Internalize profit, externalize cost.”

And yet, PW, here in New York State, the PSC is not happy with Iberdrola’s bid for Energy East(mostly because of what happened after National Grid bought Niagara Mohawk in terms of reliability and customer service). Iberdrola, from what I understand, is the largest wind powered electricity generator; they also own Community energy (also wind) in PA. I think they see a real opportunity in Upstate New York in capturing all that wind off the lakes (can we say “lake effect snow”?)but the PSC is playing the “foreign owned” thing pretty hard.

Sun is the ONLY source of energy that is constant.

The sun is the only source of energy, period.

Everything else is either ancient sunlight or weather driven by solar energy. Except for tidal (gravity) and geothermal (well, maybe that’ the sun too).

The interesting thing is when I lived on the Island of Crete (Greece) in the late 70’s, solar water heaters were starting to be a part of new construction. 30 years later, it seems that every house, apartment, business and hotel have banks of solar water heaters all with local names such as “creta sun”. When I didn’t see a solar water heater there were very large black water tanks on the roof to use the heat gain to heat the water.

Wind farms were found all over the island on the ridge lines. If this little island can do this, why can’t we?

In our home we want four things. McCain’s defeat. Obama’s victory. Hillary shutting up. HRC staying in New York.

I’ve been quite shocked at how fast posts come up at Kos. Within an hour or so, my diary was buried by about twenty other posts

Which is why I’ve stopped posting over there. No one ever sees anything there they go by so fast. Thanks for showing us yours. And you are spot on.

“That means we have to have a purpose made “die off” or a series of natural ones.”

WTF? You are talking about population aren’t you?

I saw a home improvement show a few years back where they were roofing a shed with shingles that were mini solar powers. It was obvious that this was way not ready for prime time, but also that it was such a good idea that someone would figure out how to do it.

No it’s not. There is energy inside of atoms!

We have been sitting around the breakfast table discussing Obama. Eight of us. All but two are Democrats. All of us agree with Olbermann’s recent take on HRC. We don’t like this person.

I am!

If we don’t control the population is upsets the eco balance. Any population does that when its growth exceeds the carrying capacity of its habitat.

We can’t keep up the human population growth. That’s a no brainer and we’ve know it for ages.

Adie, he’s not up for reelection until 2010, right? Expect to see some names coming out to challenge him soon.

No it’s not. There is energy inside of atoms!

I always remember them telling me in school that splitting the atom “unleashed energy equal with what is found on the sun”, or something to that effect. ;)

Exactly. It would help if the $18 billion of subsidies Big Oil gets were given to renewable energy companies instead.

Good Morning Phoenix Woman and Firedogs,

saw this a week ago, T Boone Pickens getting him some alternative energy – initially a little worried it was just some tax credit/tax break scam, but he appears to be serious about development

NYT

and I find it wildly coincidental that Steven Griles and his battalion of extraction whores leave government and the party’s over – jes sayin’

MaryRacine – some solar wonk in CO was showing ’smart voltaic paint’ on a house (Frontline ?)

The energy from the sun IS nuclear energy… It’s hydrogen bombs! Gazillions of them.

Speaking of ‘green’. We are going for a drive in a few minutes. We’re using our horses. Now that is green. No cars will be used. I’m making bloody Mary’s when we get to the north fork of the Red River for our Texas company who arrived last night.

I don’t favor artificial limits on population. And I also support capitalism (the kind of well-regulated capitalism that sustained the American middle class through much of the 20th century, starting with FDR).

I don’t believe the world can get together and determine some sort of “carrying capacity” that could be enforced.

What I favor is science education and science research, which I believe are the only things that can save us from the harsh realities of the universe.

PW, how nice to start my Saturday “nettinig” with the good news in your great post.

Taking back our future from the Carbon Lords.

I’m understand Malthus and overpopulation. I’m sort of wondering, if you think we need some sort of controlled die off, why you opposed the Iraq War or think we need universal health care. Both of those things lead to, what Dickens referred to as: “a decrease in the surplus population.” Or are you talking about some more controlled “die-off,” like Buchenwald|? I mean WTF?

No. Radioactive decay is a primary source of Earth’s heat. Without it, the Earth would have cooled down only a few hundred thousand years after being formed, and we wouldn’t be here.

hi pw!

well, that may be what the banks and the feds are SAYING, but that is not what they are DOING—there are 8, rumored 9, coal plants in the works here in se/southern ohio right now. and at least one across the river in west virginia…..

maybe they’re saying that because they HAVE already approved the plants that were on the drawing board……”we’re gonna build a better door to keep those horses in the barn”………but the horses are already outta the barn.

the first plant, they’re tacking a $7 monthly rate hike for each customer to help pay for it, for starters. they only let out the tentative ’first 4 years plan’ so far.

Hello Adie.

L.

We can’t keep up the human population growth

Think the energy crisis is bad? Worried about Global Warming?

Just wait until we see what’s in store for us when the food and water crises hit due to overpopulation of the planet.

There are more than twice as many people of the planet today as there were in 1960. And we wonder why there are all these problems, pollution, hunger, war. One answer, overpopulation.

Ann, I wrote the long diatribe. Good show!

Thanks! I wondered why you didn’t post as a new diary, but at least I know someone was paying attention. Didn’t recognize your name. There you’re defjef; here SanderO. Needless to say, I use the same name on any and all the blogs I visit. That way I don’t have to remember tons of different names.

and pw, speaking of the invisible hand——remember that they wave the one hand around to catch your attention while doing something else with the other……..

Capitalism which is very well regulated with a safety net can work a bit, but not every wins even in regulated capitalism.

Unfortunately we will have to control population some how whether it is education or disaster or willful culling of people. The planet cannot support more than its limit.

I don’t advocate those measures. I advocate birth control. If we limit our offspring for a few generations we can down size the population as is happening in Italy and Spain.

sander 0 says—No it’s not. There is energy inside of atoms!

sangemon says—I always remember them telling me in school that splitting the atom “unleashed energy equal with what is found on the sun”, or something to that effect. ;)
==============

there is an atom accelorator here, one of my friends, a physicist, runs it………..really cool stuff……..

i call it the atom smasher.

My father is a retired wildlife biologist…. we both read the book “The Hot Zone” which was a book about the ebola virus. There is a strong link between disease, epidemics and populations in history either for animals or people.

Example is that raccoons naturally have a viral epidemic around 6-8 year cycles. One cycle did not occur in the Portland Oregon area and it was over run with raccoons city, suburbia and rural.

There are only X amount of resources on our planet and so far more and more are owned and controlled by private companies. What helps with population limits is education. There is a strong and direct relationship with educating women to the decline in the birth rate in that area.

Energy and Water should be owned and controlled by a public company or a co-op. One of my favorite phone companies was a rural co-op with some of the highest tech and services. Currently my own power company is a public co-op mix which works for me.

I used to be defjef here but I screwed up something and just changes names. The court approved the name change, so SanderO I am. DefJef can rot in hell!!!!!!!! hahaha

Fine, but the term “controlled die-off?” implies something else.

I loved the Hot Zone.

Add in The Selfish Gene and you realize that the little critters run the world!

dmac,

here in texas txu had plans for 11 coal powered plants – and are now down to 3 . . .and with the invisible hand now wrapped tightly on lenders’ throats,($1T less next 12 mos alone) I wouldn’t bet on those either

link

Yupper, Kirk!

Google’s own solar installation on its California campus, which went online in October of 2006, will pay for itself in less than eight years — after which they have free, clean energy. Other Cali companies are following their lead.

Investment banks aren’t filled with granola-munching hippies, but people who pride themselves on their hard-headedness. And the hard-headed position is to drop technologies that pollute and aren’t sustainable in favor of those that don’t pollute and are sustainable.

I think the vulture capitalists have seen the handwriting on the walls in this political season. People are utterly sick of GWB destroying the protections for their kids built into the system by Dems, like the EPA mess wherein nobody is enforcing mine safety while we have had an inordinate number of mining deaths within the last few years. That and the damage caused to the earth by mining and burning coal. And doesn’t Al Gore keep saying there is no such thing as clean coal? Sometimes things just all come together and facts just cannot be avoided or overcome. Good for us.

It takes a long time to get a coal plant off the drawing board, dmac. The ones being built are the ones already funded and in the pipeline. No new ones are being funded right now — and all the funding has to be in places years before the ground is broken.

the freaky thing is that my Dad was in Africa exactly at the same time that the book story and tells a story about seeing black swags over buildings and quarantine warnings. It was OMG….. that was what I was seeing but finding it out years later.

Heck we hardly even have OSHA any more.

We are treated worse than worker bees or ants.

Exactly. We’re seeing a similar situation here in Minnesota, where we finally got an increase in our gas and vehicle taxes to pay for our rotting transportation infrastructure. The Republican Party fought it tooth and nail, and Governor Tim (Please make me your running mate Mr. McCain plleeeeezzzze) Pawlenty vetoed it — but the veto was overridden, with six Republicans voting with the Dems to override, because the state Chamber of Commerce backed the bill. Seems that it’s tough to transport goods cost-effectively when your roads and bridges are falling apart.

Compare what they in Europe fork over for gallon (or litre) of gasoline to what we in the U.S. pay.

Thanks, PW. I wondered when the financial community was going to see through the “clean coal” scam.

There’s no such thing as clean coal. Coal is mostly carbon. To get energy from carbon we must oxidize (e.g., burn) it producing carbon dioxide (aka CO2), which is green-house gas.

There are several tax limitation ballot measures that float around the country that put states in straight jackets and it becomes nearly impossible to break out. Examples like CA Prop 13, Oregon Measure 5, TABOR limit or roll back the tax base that a state can collect AND then they put in a super majority clause that is required to raise ANY future taxes or revenue.

The kicker of the super majority is not that 2/3’s have to approve it, 2/3 of the qualified voters have to show up and vote before they can consider the outcome of the election. So if voter

If you see someone gathering signatures to put one of these tax limitation ballot measures in your area….. run, don’t walk away OR fight it. Challange all the signatures, be there to refute what the signature gathers are saying to get people to sign.

cbl–thanks, i hope you’re right…….

pw says-,

”It takes a long time to get a coal plant off the drawing board, dmac. The ones being built are the ones already funded and in the pipeline. No new ones are being funded right now — and all the funding has to be in places years before the ground is broken.”

i know, i’m not a reactionary dingleberry ’rube’, pw…….geeeeeeeez…..i would think from my comment that you could see that i understood what you were saying…..what i’m trying to say is, the ones of which i speak are already in the pipeline…..been in the pipeline, that is my point…..already through the epa, wells determined, etc………
yes, that all takes years. and they’ve already done all that.
so the new rules won’t affect the ones i mentioned.

i only comment when i know something first hand.

what i’m trying to say is, yeah, they say no more money, etc, but all of the projects it would have affected here, it won’t, they made these rules too late, when it doesn’t matter down here, it’s already a done deal.

Two part post on coal at prwatch.

Coal on the Ropes: Part One

The coal industry is on the ropes, but is working hard to ensure that regardless of who wins in the November elections, coal will come out on top.

Crosstimbers, thank you for your ethical, decent reaction to the disgusting suggestion quoted below:

That means we have to have a purpose made “die off”

To clarify, the “die off” is simply mass murder.

willful culling of people.

In EarthFirst! and other eco-advocacy groups, our loose structure meant that any wingnut or mole could show up at a gathering and advocate human rights in some hazy effort towards eco-protection, deep ecology, whatever.

And they did. Some we now know were infiltrators – others were (apparently) so damaged that all they had to offer the world was the wish to kill other people.

Except for the infiltrators we discovered (and presumably those we did not) the homicide peddlers were the most destructive force I saw in eco-advocacy.

Enviro activists make an (ecological) virtue of diversity, so they hate to exclude anyone. We tended to let wingnuts repeat the same shtick over and over, and the group would roll their collective eyes and just try and ignore the murder peddlers.

The social ecology of EarthFirst! was (and is) quite tolerant – so a misanthrope who advocated mass murder could sometimes show up at gatherings for years without being formallly excluded. Those who left on their own tended to do so right after they finally got some press…for their love of the Killing Fields.

And, of course, the media take was “EarthFirst! calls for mass murder”.

FDL will suffer the same fate if commenters abuse the privilege of participating here by indulging their own love affair with murder.

Oddly enough, the proponents of mass human culling – always males – never acted on their own advice. They just stayed around long enough to try and kill the organization, and then left to live out their natural lives.

SanderO, if you want to kill yourself, that’s your business.

Your repeated use of eco-topics here to advocate mass murder affects all of FDL – and will only discredit the fine work so many do here.

At least, your advocacy of mass murder distracts from (and hence disrupts) civil discussion of useful solutions – just as you have done this morning.

SanderO, your advocacy of mass murder for any purpose is morally despicable and organizationally destructive.

And – given your continued survival – rank hypocracy.

Silence is assent – so I speak to assert that your (repeated) advocacy of mass murder is completely evil, very deeply sick, and a disgusting act in and of itself.

I reject your loathsome “solution”. Though I post and comment here, the fact of my participation in no way indicates I agree with your murderous suggestion.

I do not: your murder fetishes and the values they reflect are vile and repellent.

Here’s an idea:

It’s estimated that it would take putting solar collectors on about 1.7% of the nation’s surface to generate enough power for us. Guess what? That’s about as much of our land area is covered by roads. Why not make the roads solar?

How right you are. We need to examine the carrying capacity of the planet and then limit population. We probably have surpassed that capacity already. That means we have to have a purpose made “die off” or a series of natural ones.

And maybe then we can address a sustainable energy system for the remaining society.

Funny you should mention the carrying capacity of the planet. My last year in school, 1992, in a course called Critical Thinking, wherein they brought in teachers from several different disciplines, they said we have exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth. They said we would likely have to give up two things by 2030 that we’re not going to like: 1)cars- they said an Indian on a bicycle uses a lot less energy than a car 2) meat-we live too high off the food chain.

It made sense since I had a history professor in a totally different school in a different state that said over the course of history there have been certain periods wherein there were either less births or more deaths due to varying reasons. Those reasons amounted to war, pestilence like the plague, and famine.

To my way of thinking, this generation has climate change which is soon to become deadly. All you have to do is look around with any intelligence and you can see that all the world’s largest animals have been dying off for years (check the endangered species list), and now the smaller ones are dying off, mutating or disappearing (I’m talking frogs and bees.) Which all goes back to what they said in my last class–When Mother Nature has her fill of our antics, she will slough us off like a dog shakes off fleas. Kinda scary, I think.

Compare what they in Europe fork over for gallon (or litre) of gasoline to what we in the U.S. pay.

Like I said up top, internalize profit, externalize cost. We here in America are not paying the full cost of a gallon of gas at the pump. We are paying for our gas with our health insurance premiums (cancers and other health problems caused by the use of petroleum and it’s by-products), and through our state and local taxes (environmental cleanup, court costs, etc). The oil companies have made record profits for at least the last 7 or 8 years. They’ve internalized their profits. The oil companies also are not paying for what their products are costing society. We do. That’s externalizing costs.

cbl–
i went to the link you provided, but i got a blank screen………will try again, don’t know if it was my browser or not.

When Mother Nature has her fill of our antics, she will slough us off like a dog shakes off fleas

Exactamundo!

See George Carlin.

I love George Carlin! I’m still watching him.

“It’s estimated that it would take putting solar collectors on about 1.7% of the nation’s surface to generate enough power for us. Guess what? That’s about as much of our land area is covered by roads. Why not make the roads solar?”

That is just brilliant! It also shows what we’re capable of as a nation if we ever get serious about alternative energy sources and vehicles.

This is just one idea. Imagine if we had a White House and Congress that embraced this issue as JFK did reaching the moon.

It would but the fear of (whomever they pray to) in OPEC and immediately drive prices down for the rest of us.

As a side note, why people who live in the Southwest (that can afford it) don’t have carports with sun panels and electric vehicles that can run using this energy I’ll never understand.

and i would like to add that the companies involved in the projects i’m aware of in ohio aren’t rural cooperatives, so, they won’t be affected by the new government rules/moratorium………..perhaps they will be affected in the future by wall street, but not by the government.

all i was trying to do was point out that there is a huge gaping hole still left in the process of ridding ourselves of coal powered plants.

the new rules sound nice, but in reality, isn’t going to affect much here.

where 8/9 of them are going to be put in place, soon.

and- i forgot—isn’t funny how the rural cooperatives, which are the little guys, are getting cut, but the big guys aren’t?

more for them.

D’oh!

Mebbe that’s my problem. heh. I could have sworn he was up this year.

Well, at least we’ve got ONE terrific Senator from OH so far. Delighted with Sherrod Brown’s energy, commitment & follow-through.

Thanks for the course correction. I shall attempt to adjust my feeble brain so it can calm down a tad. ;->

dmac, it’s not just that small plant projects won’t be getting Federal funds. It’s that large investment banks will be taking the costs of carbon emissions into account before approving any new plants. They’ve never done that in the past — and suddenly, an awareness of the costs of carbon emissions means that the brakes have been slammed on funding coal-powered plants. That’s what my very first link is all about:

Natural-gas and renewable power projects have leapt ahead of coal in the development pipeline, according to Global Energy Decisions, a Boulder, Colo., energy information supplier. Gas and renewables each show more than 70,000 megawatts under development compared with about 66,000 megawatts in the coal-power pipeline.

This year could diminish coal’s future prospects even more. Wall Street investment banks last month said they will now evaluate the cost of carbon emissions before approving power plants, raising the bar much higher for new coal projects, analysts say.

“What you’re seeing is a de facto moratorium on coal power right now,” says Robert Linden, a senior oil and gas analyst at Pace Global in New York. “You turn off the money spigot, you’ve turned off those plants.”

In the US, Green and alternate energy has been the hot ticket and next bubble. Gore, the green venture capitalist, is years ahead and mucho richer. The industrialists neandrathals as usual are dragging their knuckles hoping to prolong the oil addiction. The future of coal power is as predictable as the fate of dinosaurs. China is a century late and coal companies will export there. “A Chinese energy company is poised to open a chemical plant to make liquid fuels for cars and aircraft from coal”
http://www.energybulletin.net/40833.html

Why is it many European countries are a step-ahead and a euro richer than Americans?
From NYT: The Energy Challenge
Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind
…Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.
The United States recently overtook Spain as the world’s second-largest wind power market, after Germany, with $9 billion invested last year. A recent study by Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass., projected $65 billion in investment from 2007 to 2015….Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and Oregon, states with smaller populations than Texas, all get 5 to 8 percent of their power from wind farms, according to estimates by the American Wind Energy Association.

Here’s the kicker; Much of the boom in the United States is being driven by foreign power companies with experience developing wind projects, including Iberdrola of Spain, Energias de Portugal and Windkraft Nord of Germany. Foreign companies own two-thirds of the wind projects under construction in Texas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02…..3wind.html

The US dollar Federal Reserve Note is the epitome of america’s lack of vision and insatiable greed “In GOD we (the Illuminati) trust”
Gold
Oil
Drugs