Domain: environmentalleader.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to environmentalleader.com.
Comments · 16
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Re:Now I'm kind of hoping this passes
Citing batteries in an electric car as things that destroy the ecosystem seems disingenuous at best. Can you provide references from someone other than the fossil fuel industry and auto manufacturers?
Next are you going to try to sell us on the idea that the nasty toxic chemicals used to make silicon solar cells are ruining the planet, and we need to stick to good 'ol coal fired power plants because they put 'Muricans back to work??
Coal power is used to charge the EVs and coal ash has the same problems when the coal ash lakes spill into rivers.
Here's a reference:
https://www.environmentalleade...
Here's another one:
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Re:And I keep coming back to my same question
Oh, please. Show me one person who has called for criminal prosecution of climate change deniers.
If you say "No one says X, that's crazy;" it's almost certain you will find someone crazy enough to say X.
Lest you think it's just idiots, here's a quote from a top climate scientist:CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.
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Re: Excuse to keep using oil
So herewith, some examples.
The Ivanpah "Hoover Dam of solar" plant in the Mojave Desert;http://articles.latimes.com/20...
http://calwatchdog.com/2014/04...Sunrise Powerlink, a new transmission line to bring solar and windfield power generated in Imperial Country, CA to coastal markets:
http://www.biologicaldiversity...
http://truthsayer-esther.blogs...Hawaii does not have many options when it comes to generating power in a spread-out island chain, but the best option in its volcanic environment would be geothermal. Or so one would think:
http://www.environmentalleader... -
The process is failing becuase of the spending.
Once one is shown Carbon reduction projects are only 30% effective with a situation where for every euro spent on the actual Carbn reduction, a euro goes to the investment banker class one comes to understand why reasonable people are opposed.
Further from the report:
15 percent – Shareholders of the companies putting the offset project together tend to take 15 percent in profits.
15 percent – Taxes, bank interest and fees.
10 percent – The margin normally taken by the retailer of carbon offsets, who sells them to corporations, individuals and other entities. -
30% effective
The rest of the money goes into the following channels:
30 percent – Investment banks often buy up carbon offsets before a project is up and running, and they take an average 30 percent of the total in profits and operations.
15 percent – Shareholders of the companies putting the offset project together tend to take 15 percent in profits.
15 percent – Taxes, bank interest and fees.
10 percent – The margin normally taken by the retailer of carbon offsets, who sells them to corporations, individuals and other entities. -
Re:What do you want?
Well from just making Energy Star compliant devices (Which is cake to do) GE earned itself about $200 million. . http://eyeonfreedom.com/index.php/whirlpool-parlays-obama-green-tax-credits-into-zero-tax-liability/
Here's another $25.5 Million for batteries.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/01/taxcred-20100109.htmlThis is from 2007, where they got a net profit of $250 million for BUILDING wind turbines. Just building them, not to mention the money they'll make when they're actually in use. They get a tax break on the energy output ast well.
http://www.progressivefuture.org/media-center/news-we-can-use/ge-says-tax-incentive-for-wind-power-pays-for-itselfHere's an article where GE tells congress that if they don't extend green credits they'll take jobs elsewhere
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/09/15/ge-extend-clean-energy-tax-credits-or-well-go-to-germany-china/All in all, GE receives quite a lot in tax credit in the US for green subsidies every year. Now, is it the only thing they do to avoid tax burden? Absolutely not, but it is a significant part of the equation. I can't find the total, but I believe it's in the hemisphere of about a billion dollars a year in tax credits that GE gets off of tax credits. Considering they profited $5.1B in the US, you've already knocked out over half their tax liability.
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Re:Yep
Bullshit! Compressed air as an energy recovery method makes much more sense for larger vehicles than batteries. And they're already on the road, so that's not just a theory: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/12/29/100-million-milestone-for-eaton-hybrids/
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Re:Meh
Actually, a better system does exist. You require manufacturers to price in recycling/disposal into the original product price, and use the derived money to run the program. This system tends to ensure that one recycler gets a bunch of identical units, which increases efficiency. Some companies do this voluntarily because they can refurbish turned-in units to fulfill warrantee obligations.
It's being tried as a legislative requirement in various laboratories of democracy with varying details (some do not front-load the disposal price.)
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BP can afford it
Who pays for the mistakes? Who pays for the environmental impact?
Possibly a combination of BP and the US taxpayer - though it should be 100% BP and BP's CEO has said publicly that BP would shoulder the cost. Depending on how much pressure gets put on Congress (I'm expecting a lot) I doubt Congress is going to be in much of a mood to bail out BP especially in light of the economic conditions and the fact that the Democrats are presently in power.
If BP were forced to shoulder the entire cost of this mistake, they would go bankrupt.
HIGHLY unlikely. BP makes a profit of $16-20 Billion annually and has approximately $13 Billion in cash and cash equivalents right now. The total cost of the cleanup is unknown but estimates of $5 Billion have been put forth (not including litigation). For comparison the Exxon Valdez spill was estimated to cost $2 billion to clean up (not including litigation).
That said even if it did drive BP out of business (which it won't) that is nothing to shed tears over. Companies go out of business due to greed and stupidity and poorly considered risks all the time. See Lehman Brothers if you need an example.
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Oil isn't the important part here
That was just an example. The modern world and it's economy was built on cheap oil. Once peak oil is hit, some say it has already though others say we've still got years before we hit peak oil, oil prices will skyrocket. Now economics, rational economics, says that as prices increase demand for travel and other uses for petroleum will decrease, until something else can compeat economically. Which is why the market in bioplastics is growing. Before DuPont received a patent on cracking petroleum to make a type of plastic plastic was made from plants. The old cellophane plastic wrapper got it's name from plant cellulose.
Falcon
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Re:There is money and publicity
A scheme failing to work doesn't mean it wasn't a scheme. As for the alternative energy sources making a profit, that generally only happens when energy costs are artificially high which would be the case with cap and trade in the EU as well as the bubble that busted last fall.
The EU has experienced about a 3% inflation rate over the last year. This is a little disturbing when you consider that Euro dollar is worth about 1.5 US dollars. Actually today it is 1.32 but on average over the last few years, it has been more to the point of 1.5 or so. That means the 3% inflation is more like 4.5% in the US. In contrast, the US inflation rate typically runs around 3% even though 2008 saw a 3.8% rate. Now the EU rates actually vary from member nation to member nation and I took the current average rate expressed by the HICP data availible which is measured in and adjusted to 2005 Euro dollars.
Anyways, the EU imposed several different energy tariffs and actually had a consumer rights deal worked out because their energy costs were too high for their poor to afford. Sadly, if the Obama Cap and trade system is put in place, we will see that in the US too. And yes, the US is already eyeballing tariffs to place on imports to ensure that we pay as much as possible.
Anyways, despite what you think is exculpatory evidence simply because something failed to materialize, all you have to do is ask a few questions and you can clearly see the idea isn't to stop global warming as much as it is to siphon money and alternative political agendas.
The first question might be, if global warming is so problematic and it is the human contributions to GHGs,- then why is the focus solely on limiting what people can do or by taking a sum of money from them instead of creating an international research group that does nothing but explores technology to reduce emissions, make alternative energy sources affordable, advance the state of plug in electric vehicles or perhaps small but efficient power generating systems like Fuel cells of hydrogen peroxide "on demand" charging systems, and then make those discoveries availible to any industry wishing to implement them while eventually phasing older systems out or retrofitting them as repairs become necessary.
Another question would be why aren't caps imposed on all Kyoto signatories instead of just the wealthy ones? Even if the caps settled on an over all larger amount of emissions on a world wide scale, the developing countries would be benefiting from advancements in efficiency and emissions controls from industrialized nations and we would be on a world wide effort to reduce emissions instead of attempting to punish just the rich nations.
Another question which I think is the most telling is with the caps, why isn't there a provision for one nation to implement changes in another as a means of capturing part of the carbon allotments. If the UK could contract with corporations in the US or Germany or France or China or whoever to upgrade to cleaner or more efficient systems, they should have the ability to claim ownership of some of the carbon offset by those upgrades. Lets say they can upgrade a facility and save 200 m-tons of emissions a year, and they can do that upgrade for $1000 per ton, that may be cheaper then purchasing 100 metric tons of carbon units from Tuvalu or the economic losses from exporting industry to India or China or where ever the hot spot might be that isn't restricted by carbon caps.
Finally, why isn't the goal to stop emissions. Sure, people think that is a goal but it has never been expressed in any political solution presently or previously at the table for consideration. All political solutions to date have contained only a reduction of emissions, most of them were reductions in increased emissions, and they all contained a way to buy your way out of obligations.
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Re:Walmart
Walmart is not alone, there is Google, mentioned in the article, FedEx, GM, Coke, Kohls, Target, BJs, Cosco, and Staples (articles linked here: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.ht
m l). I left out Macy's http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/06/06/macy s-installs-solar-power-in-26-stores/, Alcoa http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/24/alco a-installs-588-kw-solar-power-system/, Estee Lauder http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/04/20/este e-lauder-installs-solar-power-system/ and Meyer http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/03/22/meye r-installs-solar-power-system/.
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Save money with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html -
Re:Walmart
Walmart is not alone, there is Google, mentioned in the article, FedEx, GM, Coke, Kohls, Target, BJs, Cosco, and Staples (articles linked here: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.ht
m l). I left out Macy's http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/06/06/macy s-installs-solar-power-in-26-stores/, Alcoa http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/24/alco a-installs-588-kw-solar-power-system/, Estee Lauder http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/04/20/este e-lauder-installs-solar-power-system/ and Meyer http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/03/22/meye r-installs-solar-power-system/.
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Save money with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html -
Re:Walmart
Walmart is not alone, there is Google, mentioned in the article, FedEx, GM, Coke, Kohls, Target, BJs, Cosco, and Staples (articles linked here: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.ht
m l). I left out Macy's http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/06/06/macy s-installs-solar-power-in-26-stores/, Alcoa http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/24/alco a-installs-588-kw-solar-power-system/, Estee Lauder http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/04/20/este e-lauder-installs-solar-power-system/ and Meyer http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/03/22/meye r-installs-solar-power-system/.
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Save money with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html -
Re:Walmart
Walmart is not alone, there is Google, mentioned in the article, FedEx, GM, Coke, Kohls, Target, BJs, Cosco, and Staples (articles linked here: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/08/roof-pitch.ht
m l). I left out Macy's http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/06/06/macy s-installs-solar-power-in-26-stores/, Alcoa http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/08/24/alco a-installs-588-kw-solar-power-system/, Estee Lauder http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/04/20/este e-lauder-installs-solar-power-system/ and Meyer http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/03/22/meye r-installs-solar-power-system/.
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Save money with solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html -
Re:Sometimes I wonder....
The cost of solar is coming down quickly. Aten Solar is the retail leader at $3.15/watt http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm. In the commercial sector, Walmart, Macy's, Kohls Target and BJs are all taking on solar because it is cost effective: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/06/25/mor
g an-stanley-to-own-finance-wal-mart-solar-power-sys tems/. We are bringing the same kind of model to the residential market: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html which is also a money saver. In these cases there is no need for batteries since they work under net metering http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/03/net-metering.h tml.