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Clinton to Start $1 Billion Renewable Energy Fund
antifoidulus writes "ABC news is reporting that former President Bill Clinton has announced the creation of a $1 Billion investment fund devoted to renewable energy. This will be an investment fund as opposed to charity, and Clinton has said that 'The Green Fund would focus on reducing dependence on fossil fuels, creating jobs, lessening pollution and helping to reduce global warming, all while making a profit.' Former World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn will be managing the fund."
1. Do not fund supposedly "green" fuel ventures based on growing more palm-oil trees in endemically corrupt third-world regimes like Indonesia and Malaysia which scandalously accelerates the rate of cutting down of the last remaining rainforests in places of such extraordinary landscape and wildlife beauty as Borneo.
Clinton seems to have had sex with Argonne Labs Integral Fast Reactor... and next we'll be hearing he didn't have sex with the energy fund. He just created the problem.
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It was the Clinton Administration that shut down the Argonne Lab's IFR development program in 1994. This reactor design will do more to solve the coming world energy crisis than anything else...and Clinton did have sex with it!
Read the congressional report: Nov. 6, 1997 (Senate) Page S11890-S11891 here: http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/Argonne_News/news9 7/crtill.html
Quote:
Unfortunately, this program was canceled just 2 short years before the proof of concept. I assure my colleagues someday our Nation will regret and reverse this shortsighted decision.
If anyone wants to read the PBS interview with Dr. Charles Till - look here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reac tion/interviews/till.html
Quote from the PBS interview:
The Clinton administration, I think, firmed up quite an anti-nuclear power position....
Q: What will be our energy source, then?
A:I think that many engineers would agree that there is limited, additional gain to be had from conservation. After all, what does one mean by "conservation?" One simply means using less and using less more efficiently. And there have been considerable gains wrung out of the energy supply and energy usage over the past couple of decades. We can probably go somewhat further. But you're talking, you know, 10% or 20%. Whereas over the next 50 years, it can be confidently predicted that with the energy growth in this country alone, and much more so around the world, it would be 100%, 200%, or some very large number.
And so what energy source steps in? There is only one. It's fossil fuel. It's coal. It's oil. It's natural gas. Some limited additional use of the more exotic forms of things, like solar and wind. But they are, after all, very limited in what they can do. So it will be fossil.
Now the question, of course, immediately becomes, well, how long can that last? And everyone has a different opinion on that. One thing that is certain, and that is that the increase in the use of fossil fuels will sharply increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Another thing is certain. You will put a lot more pollutants into the atmosphere as well, in addition to carbon dioxide, which one could argue the greenhouse effect exists or doesn't exist.
So it is very clear that the consequences of short sighted anti-nuclear policies of the Clinton Adminitration were well understood in the early 90's. The lack of solutions to the problems we face now are a direct result of Clinton's administration.
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Note the Integral Fast Reactor burns nuclear wastes and will extend the existing uranium fuel stockpile (called Depleated Uranium, spent fuel, and nuclear waste) to over 60,000 years for the existing fleet of over 100 reactors in the Gigawatt range.... and this without mining any more uranium.
The IFR burns all actinides and hense there are no long term wastes... only light isotopes with 1/2 lives of a few decades at most, and which are used industrially for things like pipe line xrays.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor
When we are in the throws of the worst energy crisis mankind has ever seen, then I want everyone to look and Clinton's contribution to the problem. I think the quote from the congressional report (above) sums it up nicely.
The short of it is that its prefectly clear we need alternatives to fossil fuels and the issue is that we needed to start developing these alternatives 15 and 20 years ago. It
The concept is not new. "Green" mutual funds have been around forever. They all have the same thing in common ... poor returns.
I call bullshit. The very first green fund I found via searching google for performance green "mutual fund" was the Winslow Green Growth fund (WGGFX) which has outperformed the S&P and DOW indices by over 30%. Since most managed funds (at least 80% of them) fail to even match market indices, clearly not ALL green funds have poor returns.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
--- Jimmy Carter, from his televised speech on July 15, 1979.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Source: http://www.greencentury.com/funds/performance.aspx
E quity-Fund/index.htm
Green Century Balanced Fund 10 year return: 7.71%
Green Century Equity Fund 10 year return: 6.93%
S&P 500 Index Fund 10 year return: 8.31%
The numbers look alot worse if you consider 1, 3 or 5 year returns.
Here's another one: http://www.domini.com/domini-funds/Domini-Social-
I couldn't find their 10 year return, but their 5 year is 3.12%. The S&P 500 Index 5 year return is 4.65%.
For reference, a few well-known, "non-socially responsible" funds to look at:
Fidelity Contra 5 year: 10.09%
Fidelity Balanced 10 year: 11.30%
Fidelity Contra 5 year: 8.94%
Fidelity Balanced 10 year: 11.30%
So the first 2 examples of green funds that I found underperform a simple broad-based index, and significantly underperform some well-known broad-based equity funds (one of which is a balanced fund which sacrifices capital appreciation to boost income).
I will grant you your point, however, challenging my assertion that *all* green funds have poor returns, since you found a (rather nice) counter-example. But I believe that generally these types of socially-conscious funds inevitably wind up sacrificing returns for "principals".
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Virgin's Richard Branson has pledged $3 billion towards this initiative:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5368194.stm
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
'Cause that 9/11 commission report states "[F]ormer Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States." Which looks pretty definite. Except it continues, "Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."
But you refer to "opportunity after opportunity", so you must be talking about something else, right? It's just that the Sudan claim is the one that I see over and over again. Perhaps you could help me wade through all this "extensive documentation".
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The 9/11 commission reported that the Sudan offer wasn't credible. And as for what he could do without a Gitmo, perhaps put him on trial? I know it's old school, but it sometimes actually works.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
http://www.smartveg.com/
-- Fuck Beta
As Clinton says in both the interview in question and his autobiography, it took time for the US intelligence community to decide it was Bin Laden that was behind the Cole. Of course, the Cole was attacked a mere 2 months before Bush took office. They didn't know it was Bin Laden til just before the inauguration or afterwards.
The better question, and the one Clinton asks the interviewer, is what did Bush do after being briefed?
Here's a hint: it won't take you any time at all to tell us. Literally. No time at all.
I always get the shakes before a drop.
And I still don't see what was horrible about that speech. Could someone point out to me why that speech cost him the Presidency?
Nothing. That speech actually boosted his approval rating briefly. The reasons for the end of his presidency were a lot more complex, but the kind of pundits who love to say "good news for the Republicans" at every new development prefer to think it was this speech and it's I-Know-What's-Best tone that drove his presidency under, because it fits into the narrative they have built up about "the left."
He was beaten in the election largely as a result of Saint Reagan's skills at demagoguery and fearmongering. Oh, and the fact that Carter's negotiations for the return of American hostages in Iran suddenly broke down in late '79 and came to an abrupt halt. The hostages were later released at the precise moment of Reagan's inauguration.
Though congressional investigations hit a wall, sources in both the Carter and Reagan camps were convinced that someone in the Reagan camp had made a deal with the kidnappers to hold the hostages until after the election, so that they could use it as a political hammer against Carter, and to prevent Carter from getting the hostages released near the elections, as it initially appeared he would.