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Mideast Turmoil and the Push For Clean Energy
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Adam Werbach writes that in July 2008 oil prices reached $147 a barrel and suddenly energy prices and alternative energy was on everyone's agenda but soon oil prices fell as the economy faltered and people moved on to the more immediate concerns of keeping their jobs and businesses alive. Now with the possibility looming of $200 a barrel oil, the US has a robust field of clean energy technologies that are slowly coming online, from thinfilm solar to fuel cells to cellulosic ethanol — unlike 2008, when it seemed like we were starting our innovation engine from a cold start. 'In the last three years, as oil prices have softened, we've seen stumbles as companies like Applied Materials pulled back from the clean energy space because of operational and market conditions,' writes Werbach. '2012 will be a rich year for equity capitalizations, giving energy entrepreneurs the capital they need to build infrastructure. Even with the draconian austerity measures that are coming into effect across the country, this is a second opportunity for energy innovation.'"
Eliza's cooter has stagnated.
In our world there are innovators and there are also people that will vow to re-use existing suboptimal solutions with all their pros and cons until it is absolutely necessary to adopt something else. Unfortunately, the second type is the majority, even if it is completely obvious that the dependency of the West on the Middle East is one of its largest weaknesses. I wonder how many slaps does it take for some people to wake up from their deep oily sleep.
Why is the west still concentrating on solar and wind power while the Chinese are already into Thorium reactors?
The US oil companies can stall all they want while they squeeze as much profit as they can out of fossil fuels.. but the Chinese aren't going to wait around.
Now where can I buy these new technologies at? My wallet's at the ready. No really, I'm serious. Just give me a website and a price list with your available products. Guys? Hello?
What will the middle east be like once we run our stuff on unicorn dust or some other thing that cuts them out? That's when you'll see the turmoil.
Maybe they can pipe some of that lava over to the UK
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The cheapest and most obvious alternative to mideast oil is domestic oil. We have lots of it. It's being produced in North Dakota in increasing quantities. It's available under the Alaskan wasteland. It pollutes the Santa Barbara beaches from natural oil seeps -- pollution that would be prevented by oil drilling. And it's available in vast quantities in the Gulf of Mexico.
And in Canada, the oil from tar sands will be available to use in mass quantities. But environmentalists are trying to prevent the construction of a midwest oil pipeline to bring the oil from the oil fields to the people who would use it.
There are also vast new natural gas reserves available.
If people want to invest in "clean" energy, they're welcome to do that. But "clean" energy shouldn't be the only energy. We need affordable energy to escape the recession.
We need clean energy jobs and also traditional energy jobs. And every other kind of jobs.
We can see the putative 'energy crisis' currently when we buy gas. It gets majorly more expensive by the day. It is apparently caused by concerns about the Middle East. This is rubbish though. The gas we buy now was bought nine months ago on futures contracts. What we are seeing at the gas pump is an excuse for the oil companies to make more money. With business ethics like this, it is no surprise that renewable energy will never have much of a chance. The more interesting question though is why we are so stupid as to permit this. I'd recommend the peddle cycle as the best way of promoting sustainable ways of living and a way to let the greedy types know that their game is understood and rejected.
Most of the 'clean' energy projects are not for replacing oil (as a transport fuel) but are for replacing fossil fuels like coal and natural gas in electricity production.
Until we get a big breakthrough in battery technology we are not going to be able to run our cars on wind and solar power.
you're just spewing hot air.
Please to note, "economically viable" != "taxing everyone else to make up for the deficiencies of my proposals".
Two words....
PEAK OIL. Its all price climbs here on out, How about $500/bbl? $700/bbl?
Thanks to the left-wing party, the lack of drilling is causing the oil prices to be substantial. Allow drilling, and allow unclean energy to exist while the discovery of alternative energy is being researched and mass-produced. At the moment, not many people can afford the high-cost of energy in this dying economy and there are too many liberals thinking that we'll all die in 50 years if we don't immediately switch over, which is ironic being that many of these alternative energy sources often require energy that they claim to hate to build them.
As a product becomes more expensive, developing alternative means of production becomes more profitable. For example, extracting oil from the shale in Alberta (Canada) is more expensive than the bare costs of extracting it from wells in the middle east. If political risks make middle-eastern oil more expensive, it will now be profitable to extract oil in Alberta. But oil prices could also come down if the political situation becomes more stable, so it's difficult to tell if the investment in alternatives is worth it. It depends on the ability of the market to deal with the volatility coming from the political instability (if it can, then the fluctuations in prices don't mean much in the long run).
If you view the product more generally (energy) then again more expensive oil would make alternative energy solutions more profitable. For example, shifting from gasoline-powered to electric-powered cars tends to reduce the volatility in the cost of driving the car, since electricity can be produced by many means.
What I don't see is why the so-called "clean" alternatives to oil would be cheaper than the "non-clean" ones. Given the terrible experience with wind power in Spain and Germany, the disaster that corn-based ethanol is in the US etc, it is simply not believable that such technologies would be cheaper than, say, natural gas.
Then there's fusion reactors, a proven clean energy source that seems to always be left out of the discussion. At current oil prices building nuclear reactors should be more profitable, but given the possibility that oil prices will eventually come down, I don't think short-term savings will be enough to counter the public's irrational fears of nuclear reactors.
Now the Saudis production is slowing down the fields are going dry.
I absolutely hate both Republicans and Democrats equally when it comes down to financial responsibility. Perhaps hate the Republicans just a little bit more because they are pro Oil and pro War.
While the Democrats are pro alternate energy, they waste a ton of money on all kinds of things.
Nuclear energy in general is a sane, efficient solution as long as the nuclear waste is reprocessed like its done in France.
Wait, even the Germans aren't pro nuclear as well. Let's not focus on one party. The target needs to be the energy lobby.
If green peace and other eco organizations focused 100% of their energies on this alone, but no, they also are anti nuclear. Idiots too.
Its a huge mess.
Need to invest heavily on nuclear and wind power. With the latest and greatest huge 10MW wind turbines, wind power need perhaps just a 50% drop in turbine prices to become 100% economically viable, for places that are abundant in wind.
For instance, the entire northern Brazilian sea shore gets a ton of wind, with peak right at the drought season that limits hydro power. Perfect solution for us.
If the wave of manufactured democracy has any foundation from the US government, bravo sirs. We have been trying to artificial create democracy in the middle east for quite some time. Right before Obama is beginning the Afghan pull out, democracy not only appears, but thrives. Massive propaganda success? Maybe. Who cares. Mission accomplished. I, for one, hope that the strain on oil continues. I'm in CA atm and we're up to $4.10 for regular but the long term goal is that this forces us to reconsider alternatives: serious alternatives, seriously.
It is only when gas gets so ridiculously high that average citizens actually change their behavior that we as a nation can change. It forces us. And, as previous posters have noted, this will not solve the entire energy problem but it will allow for an ecosystem to grow in society where you can have a broad range of thoughts: robber barons, genuine captains of industry, small fixes, big fixes, fixes for cars, fixes for electricity. It allows for what Don Campbell called an 'experimenting society'. Rather, a society where everyone can (through science) solve the woes of humanity. Building that kind of society is the first step but it isn't the last.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
..let us talk about clean energy for 5min.
will do their best to cut funding for promising projects and make laws to kill the ones that are left over.
If these projects can't stand on their own merits without requiring a ton of public funding, then they aren't "promising".
Why any sane rational person would ever vote Republican is beyond me.
Currently, US voters are to a considerable degree worried about the level of spending at the federal and state levels. When Democrats, such as Bill Clinton were serious about cutting spending, they got considerable support. Currently, the only serious impetus to cutting spending is among the Republicans. If that were to change, then the Democrats would get more support.
Well, almost cheaper than water:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp
So there is really no problem. All the world needs to do is drill for shale gas and build more gas turbines for electricity production and that is exactly what is happening.
The problem with this approach is that, while all the voters are in favor of cutting spending in general, it's hard to find anything significent to cut that the voters don't actually want. Even the porkiest projects have a lot of supporters in their local area. We're having that situation here in the UK right now - our government is actually cutting spending, and heavily too, but that doesn't stop people moaning very loudly when they realise that there are fewer police on the street, the NHS is losing staff and even the road-cleaners will be coming around less often.
Some of us are working on alternatives to oil and have remained doing so since 2008. However, there is still relatively very little research being done in these areas. When one pulls patents in some of the alternative energy areas, the results are very thin.
Its funny... the US is spending about $100 million dollars A DAY (12 million barrels x $80) on oil and I doubt that there is that much investment in RAW SCIENCE for alternative energy in a year. Nobody is doing it. Lots of people talk about it and there is lots of press, but when you go look at various areas you can count the number of companies working on things on one hand.
I am very fearful that China is going to lock up a lot of the IP on batteries and, of course, the manufacturing.
Obama, when he was interviewed about his cap-and-trade plan, stated that "Under my cap-and-trade plan, energy costs would necessarily skyrocket."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
That's how they plan on making alternate energy cost-feasible...by blocking/impeding oil, natural gas, nuclear, and coal resource development domestically through regulation while simultaneously making all of it so expensive that alternate energy looks viable.
Never mind that this will cause needless hardships, deaths, and a massive drop in the standard of living. The ends justify the means to those on the left.
An All-American "Cultural Revolution" in the sense that untold numbers will likely die with the survivors living in poverty and starvation. Hungry poor people are easy to control.
Sort of like the targeted famines used by the former USSR and Mao's China, only with energy instead of food, and targeted at the whole population instead of specific geographical areas and/or ethnicitys. Of course, increased energy prices will also dramatically raise food costs as well.
All this combined with a failing US dollar resulting from our insane fiscal policies will make buying food resemble the hyperinflation in the former Weimar Republic where people were using wheelbarrows to haul enough cash for a single loaf.
It isn't about electric cars. It isn't about the middle east.
It is about infrastructure, long term planning, economy, the status quo and vested interests.
Oil is not just oil. Not all oil is equal for one. One of the problem with Libya is that its oil is very clean (low sulfur) and can be easily turned into petrol. Other oils especially those from the US are very poor. They are dirty and take a lot of processing to turn in to petrol.
But petrol is not all. We could survive without petrol far easier then we could survive without plastics. Most gas engines can be converted cheaply to run on gas or alcohol. Try making a pencil out of wind electricity or biomass. What about syringes? Our modern medicine needs a LOT of plastic. Made from oil. Lots of stuff is made from oil and there are no easy replacements available. When the last drop of oil is sucked out of the ground, nobody will mourn their car. They will be to busy mourning the collapse of chemical industry.
That is why there is a push to just keep drilling for more oil. The petrol companies got little to do with this. They can always switch. Far bigger concerns are all the industries that use oil not for burning but as an ingredient.
Another concern is that switching changes the status quo. The way things are done. What use is Englands good relation with Arab dictatorships if oil from the region doesn't matter as much anymore? Forget about the oil barons, the public service is heavily tied to the region. See where Gadaffi (or whatever he is called) son went to school. Who was in the class with him? Us knows us.
Turning over this multi-layered structure with its tentacles spread widely is insanely difficult. Good luck getting an oil free car. Oh, it might not RUN on oil, but it will have been build with it.
In the meantime, peoples limited understanding of the world means that getting them to accept new things is very difficult. One of the most complex concepts is to get people to understand FUEL is nothing more then a battery, an energy carrier. Hydrogen is an alternative. So is electricity. Wait, electricity is an energy carrier itself? Yes. If I generate electricity at say a windmill I am storing energry produced by motion and transport it via a wire to say a car where it is turned into motion again.
Lots of people claim of electric cars that generating the electricity is often polluting as well. Could be BUT an electric car can be fueled by electricity produced from a coal plant, a hand crank, solar energy and indeed a internal combustion engine running on petrol.
A fleet of electric cars will NOT solve our problem of needing fasts amount of energy but it WILL make it easier to SWITCH energy sources. No need for a conversion kit to make your Prius run on nuclear power instead of coal power. If we can replace petrol cars with electric cars we can THEN worry about new ways to produce electric power. Else it will remain a catch 22 forever. No investment in alternative energy production because there is not enough demand for it.
We have had oil crisisses before and frankly it seems a silly way to run an economy. of course to fix it, we actually have to start RUNNING the economy instead of letting speculators run rampant. Because the Libyan crisis should have no effect. It produces only a fraction of the world demand and other regions have already agreed to step up production. the price rices are just speculators hoping to strike it rich. Kill off wallstreet and there would be no oil price rice.
Now there is a way to make the world a better place. Make peace, kill a speculator.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I have a couple questions and comments about this stuff...
First, doesn't the US import most of its oil from South America? Maybe I'm remembering outdated information, but I could have sworn that was true..
Second, aren't oil prices sort of artificially controlled by OPEC? I mean, if the Middle East wanted prices to go down, they could just produce more oil. So it seems like they're trying to get to that sweet sport where prices are high enough that they make lots of money, but low enough that it seems expensive to extract shale oil or invest in alternative energy..
Personally I'm all for some alternatives. Heck, I wish there was a ton more public transit in the USA- I'm living in NYC now and I don't know how I lived without the subway system...
Not too expensive. It's too cheap!
You will not see any investment in alternative energies or more efficient engines as long as it's cheaper to just use more oil. Do you think people would care about getting 10 or 30 miles to the gallon if we still had the gas prices of the 70s? Especially if that 10 mpg car would cost quite a bit more since more R&D is necessary? Efficiency is never free, someone has to come up with a way to save fuel.
And as much as it will hurt, only with higher prices for gas other, more expensive, forms of energy will become popular. Electric and H2 cars will instantly be a hit when gas prices double.
And also, let's not forget that local production becomes quite a bit more interesting if the transport of crap from China gets more expensive...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I didn't realise you have a left wing party of any substance in the USA, similar to socialist or labour parties in Europe. I thought your mapping was Democrat = centre-right and Republican= conservative right. For example, mainstream right wing parties in Europe are in favour of public education, and public health care like I think the Obama administration has just fought for.
Maybe we have a differing terminology, what would you describe as a left wing party, a centre party, and a right wing party? Do you have examples of all three in the USA? In the UK, Labour = left wing, Liberal Democrat = centre party, Conservative = right wing.
Petrol not so cheap these days...
Here in the UK, my local petrol (gasoline) station petrol costs 1.30 a litre, that's 8.03 US dollars / US gallon
(3.79 litres to a US gallon, 1.63 dollars to the GB pound).
The rebellions in the Middle East have shaken things up but no lasting changes have yet been made. Figure heads can easily be replaced by the next dictator.
Things are happening but to say Democracy is thriving... lets wait for the first free and open elections to be held at least eh? Some of us old stick in the muds think that they are a fairly important element of democracy. Silly I know but humor us.
When not only a government has been fairly elected but ALSO one freely elected government has been freely and openly replaced by another fairly elected government can democracy be said to thrive.
Overthowing a dictator is NOT democracy. Forced free elections is not freedom either. A ruling government respecting election results that go against it. THAT is democracy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
We can make as much hydrocarbons as we want, if we have biomass (firewood).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process
If these projects can't stand on their own merits without requiring a ton of public funding, then they aren't "promising".
You mean 'if these projects can't compete with all of the direct and indirect subsidy that the oil industry receives'.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sort of tangential, but Sandia has made tremendous progress on thermal-electric conversion efficiency. Using supercritical carbon dioxide in the Brayton cycle, efficiency is 40-50% better than with the conventional steam cycle. As an added bonus, the system is thirty(!) times smaller, and will be correspondingly cheaper. The technology is applicable to existing coal, natural gas, nuclear, and even solar thermal plants.
Here's something we could do right now, that would make a big difference at minimal cost: pass the Open Fuel Standards Act.
http://www.setamericafree.org/wordpress/?p=485
At the moment, "flex-fuel" cars are available, but in limited supply. And they only work with E85 mix. A true flex-fuel car can use any combination of ethanol, butanol, methanol, gasoline, etc.. It doesn't solve the problem, obviously, but it does give us more OPTIONS when the petroleum supply gets tight.
You can convert an existing car for a few hundred bucks. But if they are built that way at the factory, the flex-fuel option only adds about $100 to the price of the vehicle.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
cellulosic ethanol is not a clean energy source, it's a bad idea. It uses food crops or food crop capable land to grow something that won't be used for food, so it cuts back on food production, causing price increases there. It's also energy negative, which means it uses more energy than you get from using it. Look at the energy density of gasoline vs. ethanol. Your cars will get less milage burning it.
You know what the answer is? Biodiesel. Algae reactors can use waste water and ultimately clean that up (solves a problem) and be set up anywhere they can get sunlight (not using crop land) and biodiesel production is energy positive. Add to that, there is a smaller gap in energy density between petrol diesel and biodiesel than between gas and ethanol, and you're moving in the right direction. Things get downright warm and fuzzy when you remember that compression ignition engines are more efficient than spark ignition engines.
What happens is :
repeat
the central bank prints money
the oil price peaks
this drives inflation up past the point people can bear
this causes a recession
the oil price falls
until (civilisation collapses or replacement energy found)
Deleted
I know, it's madness. I guess it depends on your model / philosophy of how a country should be run. Current ConDem government seems to follow the Tory line that trains should be run at a profit, they are a business. Compare to many of our European neighbours who see trains as part of the public infrastructure and to be subsidised as such.
Can't pull any figures out the hat but we definitely pay way more than a lot of other European countries for our train services. Myself, I think in the long run you're better investing in infrastructure and I believe you'll indirectly pull in profit in the long run if you have good services. Plus the current govt says we need jobs, well why not employ loads of people in building a 21st century rail infrastructure, that'll stimulate the economy. I live in a railway town and they'd love it if the government announced we need hundreds of new railway carriages built here, need to open up some mothballed steelworks and start turning out new rail lines, get loads of construction workers building improved bridges and tracks etc. People in work = people spending in shops, secondary industries benefit, end result more people working and better infrastructure. Or you could just lay off loads of people and let our trains decay to the point where you're into third world / US public infrastructure and see how that works. (rant over! :-) )
We went through all the dire predictions before. And when money freed up went back to our profits and living. This time all that expensive alternative crap will do is have consumed that nest egg that let us easily return to profit and living.
Why not just convert your cars to run on gas? We've got more of that than we could ever use.
You mean 'if these projects can't compete with all of the direct and indirect subsidy that the oil industry receives'.
IMHO while in absolute size, oil industry probably receives more, as a fraction of revenue, renewables and nuclear get more.
"2012 will be a rich year for equity capitalizations, giving energy entrepreneurs the capital they need to build infrastructure." Sounds great, but it's wrong. The financial system is sick and corrupt and the capital he's talking about is largely an illusion. The major financial institutions (Citibank, JPMorgan, etc.) only present a facade of solvency because mark-to-market rules have been suspended, so they have been allowed to hold toxic assets on their books at the values their models predict (the models that were proved devastatingly wrong in the collapse of 2008) instead of what they could actually fetch in the market. If it were ever brought in contact with reality, the world financial system would die instantly. Instead it's basically being strung along by the U.S. federal government (i.e., taxpayers) in the hope that this was a one-time thing and at some point, something like solvency will return.
The fact is we are in a deflation right now, with debt-based capital disappearing from the system at a prodigious rate, while the U.S. Federal Reserve is using quantitative easing (i.e. manufacturing more debt on its own balance sheet) to hold the process back and try to restore growth. The financial system is sick just when we desperately need capital to start rebuilding our energy infrastructure. I would refer anyone to The Automatic Earth if they want to learn more about the energy and finance predicament that we're in.
"The deep-fried Mars bar is a symptom of a wider crisis." -- Nutritionist Ann Ralph, on the Scottish diet
The problem with this approach is that, while all the voters are in favor of cutting spending in general, it's hard to find anything significent to cut that the voters don't actually want. Even the porkiest projects have a lot of supporters in their local area. We're having that situation here in the UK right now - our government is actually cutting spending, and heavily too, but that doesn't stop people moaning very loudly when they realise that there are fewer police on the street, the NHS is losing staff and even the road-cleaners will be coming around less often.
Sure. The electorate never is unified. Even now there are voters in the US who would rather add on 10% debt per year rather than cut any spending. But as long as you want a government that functions for more than a few decades (at best), you'll have to agree to a budget that has at worse a modest deficit.
And it's worth noting that many of the problems are future entitlement promises come due (note that the three largest categories, social protection, health, and education are the top items, they all have some considerable degree of future risk to them, and they're all entitlements). Everyone is in favor of government keeping its promises to themselves.
But there's a tradeoff between everyone getting their piece of the action and having a society that functions well because the government is operating on a good enough budget.
Are you trying to say natural gas? Because many cars already run on gas(oline).
Hey, I didn't name it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, "gas" gas, not "gasoline" gas. Over here we call it petrol, and only lawnmowers, motorbikes and incredibly old cars run on it. Everything else uses diesel.
I don't understand why the middle east turmoil is nothing more than a scape goat for price gouging, 40% of our oil comes from the US. Of the remaining imports 40% comes from Canada and Mexico, and another 40% comes from North and South America Countries (mostly in Central America). Of the top 12 importing countries, there are only 2 from the middle east, totaling a WHOPPING (sarcasm) 6.6% of our imports! This should be replaceable immediately with alternative energy sources. People need to WAKE UP and quite taking the crap the media and government is feeding us about why oil prices do what they do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_oil_politics
start with a 4 day work week makeing full time go to 32-36 hours a week.
that can save alot of fuel and end Saturday mail.
Still makes more sense to burn it in a power plant so you can control the CO2. The CO2 can be fed to algae using technology developed at Sandia NREL ("National Renewable Energy Labs") in the 1980s. Any gasoline engine could probably be converted to LP ("liquefied propane") but mostly it's done to carbureted vehicles because otherwise you either have to delete and block off or needlessly haul around a fuel injection system. LP is also commonly injected into diesels with the air charge for performance, often accompanied by N2O.
Diesels do produce more acid rain than gassers and the cleanest ones require urea injection, just one more thing to fill up. I think electric is a better long-term solution. I'd like to see Butanol and Biodiesel, both from algae, take over for fossil-derived fuels. Then we can use oil for making plastic; it's too valuable to burn. I have two classic diesels, a 1982 MBZ 300SD and a 1992 Ford F250 with a turbo kit. Both are pollution monsters compared to anything modern. So again, rather than finding new ways to milk the old tech along, we should be trying to adopt new tech. And anyway, electric cars are actually older than fossil fuel-powered ones. Today the battery technology exists to make them feasible.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Currently, US voters are to a considerable degree worried about the level of spending at the federal and state levels.
Currently, Americans are, first and foremost, worried about jobs and the economy. (I don't think 'US voters' differ from that, but haven't seen a poll of just them.)
Then they're worried about spending.
Currently, the only serious impetus to cutting spending is among the Republicans.
Yeah, those serious Republicans, yammering constantly about cutting...social security? Which doesn't have anything to do with spending? Hrm. Anytime anyone mentions social security, which pays its own way, as somehow being related to 'spending', they just obviously dishonest. Same with people who list Medicare.
Both those are trust funds, both those have nothing to do with our budget shortfall because they are spending only the money they've taken in, and both those are the first thing Republicans attack WRT spending. It's inherent dishonestly on the whole issue from starting premises. (Obviously, at some point, both those need fixing, because they either are, or near the point of, spending more than they currently are taking in, and operating off their reserves, and at some point will run out of money, but that's not relevant to the actual budget.)
The actual spending problem is that the Republicans refuse, and have scared the Democrats into being unable to do so (The Democrats are spineless cowards who faint at their own shadow), to cut defense spending, which is the gigantic elephant in the room.
Instead, the Republicans run around trying to cut out microscopic levels of spending, like $27 million to help communities run poison control centers. That's about how much it costs us to operate one nuclear sub for a year. So, keep three million people out of the emergency rooms...or have a nuclear sub to play around with to 'export freedom'...wait, who are we even fighting that we need nuclear subs against?
You can claim the Republicans are 'serious' about spending when they acknowledge that the military is costlier than all other militaries on the planet, combined, and maybe we should do something about that.
In fact, I have seen Republicans point that out...and then get ignored by the rest of their party. Ron Paul is an idiot on many things, but at least he's honest and consistent, and has pointed out our military spending is insane.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I've just recently encountered an interesting phenomenon when talking to some guys involved with the DoE about LFTR. The resistance to LFTR appears, to me, to be a vestigial cult-worship of Admiral Rickover. Its still alive and well in the halls of the Federal bureaucracy, its damage has spread far beyond the Navy and there appears little hope of removing its hold on the hearts and minds of the Federal bureaucracies. The origin of this cult in the Navy is reflected in the Wikipedia article on Rickover where it mentions the cult and the greatly exaggerated rumors of its death during the Reagan Administration:
Seastead this.
I power my home and my car and even my BBQ with hydrogen is so easy to do is laughable Well the PEM for the house was not so affordable. I produce most of my hydrogen with chemical reactions. and I can produce a whole month supply in about 1 hour via that method making meth is way more difficult but I think there are way more labs making meth than hydrogen.
Both those are trust funds, both those have nothing to do with our budget shortfall because they are spending only the money they've taken in, and both those are the first thing Republicans attack WRT spending.
You failed to take into account future liabilities. Social Security will only be "revenue neutral" (a state it currently isn't in BTW) in the long term with significant cuts in service. I personally think the whole program is an idiotic redistribution of wealth that helps undermine US workers so I wouldn't mind seeing the whole thing dismantled, but I recognize that won't happen, at least for some time to come.
As to the rest of your comments? So what? Yes, voters/taxpayers have higher priorities than government spending for the most part, but they still are deeply concerned. And yes, Republicans are somewhat lackluster in cutting spending and have obvious blind spots like Social Security and defense. It still remains that the Republicans are far more serious about spending than the Democrats.
In comparison the current breed of Democrats are courting suicide. I haven't seen any serious addressing of jobs, economy, and spending by Democrats. The assumption seems to be that if the Obama administration spends gobs of money on its allies and supportive special interests, then these important issues will take care of themselves. Hasn't worked in practice nor is any rational reason it should have worked.
Solar and wind is a joke compared to thorium nuclear plants which have a much higher return. Too bad we have wasted so much money developing the former when we could have more than enough electricity from the latter. Live and learn....live and learn.
You failed to take into account future liabilities. Social Security will only be "revenue neutral" (a state it currently isn't in BTW) in the long term with significant cuts in service. I personally think the whole program is an idiotic redistribution of wealth that helps undermine US workers so I wouldn't mind seeing the whole thing dismantled, but I recognize that won't happen, at least for some time to come.
No, I don't fail to take anything into account, you idjit.
Social security operates completely independent of general revenues. It can neither add to or reduce the deficit, in any manner whatsoever, as it currently set up. (Actually, this is wrong, as borrowing from it has reduced interest on the deficit, but that's not important.)
The only way that social security can start costing the government money is if someone passes a law allowing it to get access to general revenue.
Everyone hinting that social security 'might become a budget problem' is a fucking liar. Social security might become a problem in the same way that the post office might become a budget problem...if we pass a law to give it a huge sum of money. Of course, anything might be a problem by that logic...you might be a problem by that logic, perhaps we should get rid of you.
And yes, Republicans are somewhat lackluster in cutting spending and have obvious blind spots like Social Security and defense. It still remains that the Republicans are far more serious about spending than the Democrats.
Yes, if you utterly ignore the $0.7 trillion dollars spent on Iraq. And the $2.9 trillion in tax cuts from 2000-2010.
Feel free to respond with anything either Clinton or Obama did.
*crickets*
Good to know Republicans are 'serious' about the issue. They're currently running around cutting $100 billion out of the budget, as they promised...if they can do that. Of course, they just forced renewal of the giant tax cuts, so they've still made negative progress.
I haven't seen any serious addressing of jobs, economy, and spending by Democrats.
How about the fucking stimulus? Duh. You know, that thing that the Republicans made a good portion of be inexplicable tax cuts (Which don't help during a recession at all. People who do not have jobs do not need tax cuts, they are not paying taxes.), and yet still managed to create millions of jobs.
Oh, and there's the unemployment benefits that the Republicans don't want to pass and the Democrats do. Guess that doesn't count either.
And of course the Democrats aren't address spending. It's a goddamn made up issue by the Republicans. You don't fucking worry about spending in a recession, that makes things worse .(Of course, the the Republicans are counting on things to get worse to elected in 2012.)
If the Republicans cared about spending, perhaps they should have addressed it while they were in charge during an economic boom, instead of always become desperate about it when they're out of power after blowing up the damn economy.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Social security operates completely independent of general revenues.
This statement being wrong, the rest of your post associated with Social Security is a waste of your effort. Congress can change Social Security at any time. And given that excess Social Security funds are dumped general funding while Social Security deficits (such as what is expected for the rest of the life of Social Security) are pulled from general funds, your use of the term, "independent" is wrong at a fundamental level which indicates you either don't know or don't care about the true state of the US budget.
Yes, if you utterly ignore the $0.7 trillion dollars spent on Iraq. And the $2.9 trillion in tax cuts from 2000-2010.
Feel free to respond with anything either Clinton or Obama did.
Don't get me wrong. President Bush was a embarrassment for the Republicans and put lie to the claim that Republicans of that time were in any way serious about reducing spending. But only the extremely delusion would dare compare Obama to Clinton. Clinton is the only president in decades to come close to balancing the "on budget" budget. He fell a little shy in the 1999-2000 budget (by perhaps a billion dollars!).
Obama is a modern Nero, fiddling while Rome burns.
How about the fucking stimulus?
Any real Keynesian would laugh at that spending. Some of it went to special interests (lot of unions did well by the ARRA), some went to China, and the bill created at least two significant disincentives to new hiring (increasing COBRA benefits, unemployment health insurance to be paid by the employer and later reimbursed, maybe, by government) and the mockery of law that went on in the GM and Chrysler takeovers by the Obama administration.
The Obama administration also has a long history of obstruction of business such as the unofficial ban on off-shore oil drilling, several provisions in Obamacare which drive up the cost of employer health insurance (and operation of business in general), classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant (and efforts to create a cap and trade market in carbon dioxide), the continual thumbing of the nose at law and the Constitution, frequent lying that shames prior administrations, and a sullen disrespect for the concerns of business (such as Obama whining about people making too much money while ignoring that he benefited from some pretty sweet deals himself).
All that screams to business to wait until Obama is out of office and the future is more certain before they hire anyone. This is how you can spend gobs of money and fail to create any jobs or economic activity.
And of course, the Obama administration's current stance for reducing government spending is a joke. The deficit in the 2011-2012 budget proposal submitted to Congress is still over a trillion dollars.
And we ignore the $2.75 or so trillion in "quantitative easing" spent by the Fed to prop up the bond market. If spending translated into stimulus, then the US economy would have left orbit by now.
All this just goes to show that if you actually paid attention to what the Obama administration and the 2009-2010 Congress did, rather than just the labels of some of their bills, you'd see the truth of my claims.
http://www.ieer.org/fctsheet/thorium2009factsheet.pdf
NotÂaÂWasteÂSolutionÂÂ
ProponentsÂclaimÂthatÂthoriumÂfuelÂsignificantlyÂreducesÂtheÂvolume,ÂweightÂandÂlongâtermÂ
radiotoxicityÂofÂspentÂfuel.ÂUsingÂthoriumÂinÂaÂnuclearÂreactorÂcreatesÂradioactiveÂwasteÂ
thatÂproponentsÂclaimÂwouldÂonlyÂhaveÂtoÂbeÂisolatedÂfromÂtheÂenvironmentÂforÂ500Âyears,Â
asÂopposedÂtoÂtheÂirradiatedÂuraniumâonlyÂfuelÂthatÂremainsÂdangerousÂforÂhundredsÂofÂ
thousandsÂofÂyears.ÂÂThisÂclaimÂisÂwrong.ÂÂTheÂfissionÂofÂthoriumÂcreatesÂlongâlivedÂfissionÂ
productsÂlikeÂtechnetiumâ99Â(halfâlifeÂoverÂ200,000Âyears).ÂÂWhileÂtheÂmixÂofÂfissionÂ
productsÂisÂsomewhatÂdifferentÂthanÂwithÂuraniumÂfuel,ÂtheÂsameÂrangeÂofÂfissionÂproductsÂ
isÂcreated.ÂÂWithÂorÂwithoutÂreprocessing,ÂtheseÂfissionÂproductsÂhaveÂtoÂbeÂdisposedÂofÂinÂaÂ
geologicÂrepository.ÂÂÂ
Â
IfÂtheÂspentÂfuelÂisÂnotÂreprocessed,Âthoriumâ232ÂisÂveryâlongÂlivedÂ(halfâlife:14ÂbillionÂ
years)ÂandÂitsÂdecayÂproductsÂwillÂbuildÂupÂoverÂtimeÂinÂtheÂspentÂfuel.ÂÂThisÂwillÂmakeÂtheÂ
spentÂfuelÂquiteÂradiotoxic,ÂinÂadditionÂtoÂallÂtheÂfissionÂproductsÂinÂit.ÂÂItÂshouldÂalsoÂbeÂ
notedÂthatÂinhalationÂofÂaÂunitÂofÂradioactivityÂofÂthoriumâ232ÂorÂthoriumâ228Â(whichÂisÂ
alsoÂpresentÂasÂaÂdecayÂproductÂofÂthoriumâ232)ÂproducesÂaÂfarÂhigherÂdose,ÂespeciallyÂtoÂ
certainÂorgans,ÂthanÂtheÂinhalationÂofÂuraniumÂcontainingÂtheÂsameÂamountÂofÂradioactivity.ÂÂÂ
ForÂinstance,ÂtheÂboneÂsurfaceÂdoseÂfromÂbreathingÂtheÂanÂamountÂ(mass)ÂofÂinsolubleÂ
thoriumÂisÂaboutÂ200ÂtimesÂthatÂofÂbreathingÂtheÂsameÂmassÂofÂuranium.Â
Â3Â
Â
Finally,ÂtheÂuseÂofÂthoriumÂalsoÂcreatesÂwasteÂatÂtheÂfrontÂendÂofÂtheÂfuelÂcycle.ÂÂTheÂ
radioactivityÂassociatedÂwithÂtheseÂisÂexpectedÂtoÂbeÂconsiderablyÂlessÂthanÂthatÂassociatedÂ
withÂaÂcomparableÂamountÂofÂuraniumÂmilling.ÂÂHowever,ÂmineÂwastesÂwillÂposeÂlongâtermÂ
hazards,ÂasÂinÂtheÂcaseÂofÂuraniumÂmining.ÂÂThereÂareÂalsoÂoftenÂhazardousÂnonâradioactiveÂ
metalsÂinÂbothÂthoriumÂandÂuraniumÂmillÂtailings.Â
Â
OngoingÂTechnicalÂProblemsÂÂ
ResearchÂandÂdevelopmentÂofÂthoriumÂfuelÂhasÂbeenÂundertakenÂ
Adam Werbach wrote, Unlike 2008, when it seemed like we were starting our innovation engine from a cold start, we now have a robust field of clean energy technologies that are slowly coming online, from thinfilm solar to fuel cells to cellulosic ethanol.
When it comes to fuel cells, at least, this is darn misleading. Fuel cells were invented in the 1830s. There have been a few refinements over the decades, but state-of-the-art fuel cells in 2011 differ very little from those in 2008.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Or lets try not continuing business as usual.
Let the gas prices rise. Fine by me. Currently $1.30/liter in Vancouver, BC - bring on $2.00/liter, I drive a small car and fuck you if you drive a big one. Suck it up, that's the cost of your choice of vehicle. Yes, the cost of everything will go up, but you'll be amazed how fast we suddenly find solutions to problems we've been "trying" to solve for last 30 years.
Nuclear sounds good in theory but in practice there are problems, long-term residual ones. NIMBY is a term that can be an excuse to not take responsibility, it can also be used to dismiss real concerns. Just ask those who have actually, not theoretically, mined it. For example: the damage to humans and groundwater from nuclear mining in New Mexico.
which indicates you either don't know or don't care about the true state of the US budget.
Considering that social security has not caused a single dime of debt so far, and in fact reduced to by a rather large amount due to lack of interest payments, perhaps we should work on the things that actually cause deficit now instead of pretending that it's an emergency that someday in the future, if no one does anything, we'll run out of money in the fund and might hypothetically pull money from general revenue.
Don't get me wrong. President Bush was a embarrassment for the Republicans and put lie to the claim that Republicans of that time were in any way serious about reducing spending.
Just like, um, Reagan, and Bush I. And Nixon.
You don't get to pretend all Republicans have been exceptionally bad at spending, and yet also claim the Republicans are the only people serious about it.
Some of it went to special interests (lot of unions did well by the ARRA),
Only on the right are unions 'special interests'. In the rest of the population, money going to 'unions' is actually 'money paid to workers who are in unions'.
Damn those 'special interests' human beings working a job.
some went to China
[citation needed]
and the bill created at least two significant disincentives to new hiring (increasing COBRA benefits, unemployment health insurance to be paid by the employer and later reimbursed, maybe, by government)
Erm, do you even know what CORBA is? Employers do not pay it. Unemployed workers do. It is a way for them to continue their work insurance for a set amount of time, paying the entire cost, including the employer part.
and the mockery of law that went on in the GM and Chrysler takeovers by the Obama administration.
You mean the 'mockery' that's eventually going to cost us, oh, maybe $30 billion dollars? (Which, for viewers at home, is trivial, as I've pointed out.) And save an entire industry that employs hundreds of thousand of Americans.
But thanks for reminding me, I knew I left something off my list of how Obama was trying to help with jobs. Keeping the auto industry from going under is definitely one of those things.
The Obama administration also has a long history of obstruction of business such as the unofficial ban on off-shore oil drilling,
Um, are you insane? Firstly, there is no ban, offshore drilling started up again, second, there never was a ban on existing drilling, it was for new drilling.
And, most importantly, the drilling industry total has 60,000 jobs...and only 3% of drills are offshore. Only 55 of them. That's about 1800 jobs total offshore drilling jobs in the country, so there's about 30 on each drill.
The 'new drill moratorium' that existed temporarily maybe stopped the creation of 60 jobs in some sort of hypothetical universe where there were two new drills ready to start instantly. It's utterly insane to pretend that had any effect on job creation.
several provisions in Obamacare which drive up the cost of employer health insurance (and operation of business in general),
Yes, these unnamed 'several provisions'.
Perhaps we should name them. Things like 'Not dropping people who get sick', those sorts of things?
classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant (and efforts to create a cap and trade market in carbon dioxide),
Except Obama didn't do that. The EPA did.
the continual thumbing of the nose at law and the Constitution, frequent lying that shames prior administrations,
Other random made up shit...
and a sullen disrespect for the concerns of business (such as Obama whining about people making too much money while ignoring that he benefited from some pretty sweet deals himself).
Ah, yes, 'disrespect'. How dare he! If we've nicer to businesses maybe they'll hire people!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I rather doubt anyone is sitting on any old patents or will be any time soon. Sure BP and Dupont are working on biobutanol. They are probably working with Clostridium acetobutylicum. This was isolated before 1915 and was used industrially for decades.
What they are likely trying to do is mutate the beast so it will produce concentration of bio-fuel which are competitive with other sources which traditionally have been petroleum based.
I just don't know why we have all these conspiracy theories and why these theories seem to be promoted by the least informed.
Unfortunately many alternative energy projects are not viable at any price. There is a difference between chemistry and physics and wishful thinking.
A case in point is bio-ethanol from starch. While it is not true that this is an energy loss, the issue is that the energy gain is not so great. Farmers probably can produce all the bio-fuel they need... for themselves. They cannot both feed millions of hungry urban mouths as well as millions of hungry urban gas tanks.
If we see oil prices run up over $150 per barrel I'm sure we will see a lot of finger pointing at politics and so forth. The truth is the problem is not a political problem ... it is a geological problem. We are reaching the limit of our ability at this time to mine hydrocarbons from the earth.
Perhaps a new technology will come forth. If so the judgment day will be pushed back a bit. We are still facing the inevitable. We are at or near peak oil. We need alternatives which are synthetics and we don't have them. The reason we don't have them is because we haven't built the plants.
The technology exists and has existed for decades. Part of the solution is coal->liquids with Natural Gas providing Hydrogen as a feed stock. I'll demonstrate why below. This is the Fischer Tropsch process. Look it up.
The reason we need a source of hydrogen is as follows. Coal has a hydrogen:carbon ratio of say about 0.6. It varies a lot. This means our coal feedstock might be say C(n)H(0.6n).
The liquid fuels we pour into our gas tanks are alkanes and they have a hydrogen:carbon ratio of about 2 and the chemical formula of C(n)H(2n+2). So for each carbon atom we mine from Coal or from Bitumin for that matter we need to find an atom of hydrogen. If we cannot find that hydrogen atom then we need to discard about 1/2 the carbon we mine. Well - we can burn some of it for energy... but people have their religions and they don't want that!
What they want is nirvana and it doesn't exist.
Because natural gas is still a single (ie: "non-flex") fuel. Also, butanol can be made from nat-gas VERY cheaply and easily, so it makes more sense to use it in that form anyway. It takes advantage of existing fuel delivery infrastructure.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
As you'll see from my sig, I se peak oil as a clear and present danger. If only we had a peer-reviewed energy body that actually had the top 100 questions that should be asked of any energy claims by a start up. Here's my first 7 expressed in the mnemonic SERVICE.
1. Sustainability
2. Energy Return on Energy Invested
3. Rare materials
4. Volumes
5. Infrastructure — time to implement?
6. Constant supply of energy
7. Expense
http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/alternatives/
We don't have long to get ready, so why oh why are we still mucking around with toys like wind and solar? It's time to get some baseload grunt out there. We need to electrify as many forms of transport as we can, conserve the fuels we absolutely need in sectors like agriculture and long-haul flights, convert shorter flights to fast rail, etc. And only baseload NUKES can supply the energy cheap enough. If I were Obama I'd be handing out $10 billion to the Argonne labs guys and get them to build their prototype GenIV reactor. Then I'd get them to set up the modularised FACTORY and start pumping these nukes off the production line! The reason individual nukes are so expensive is they are... individual. Like a hand crafted Rolls Royce instead of a mass produced Hyundai. GE have the S-PRISM almost ready to go: so I'd call the big boys in from Argonne, GE, and Westinghouse and have a peer-reviewed 'chat' about which way to go nuclear. FAST. Only then will we solve both peak oil and climate change (and with a whole lot of rolling suburbia back into New Urbanism, but that's my other shtick).
All excellent points, except for "We won't solve our problems by picking winners and losers..." There is a hierarchy if we're going to plan longterm. With solar, wind, and hydro near the top for providing renewable energy with the fewest longterm downsides. Obvious winners, though with currently limited capacity and smaller but not insignificant environmental concerns. Nuclear would be considerably lower because of profit-seeking mining and storage problems (see Hanford), and being a limited resource. With coal, oil, and natural gas at the bottom, for the reasons you listed.
Paramount would be cutting back on use of those bottom 3 or 4 (as there is a race between running out and cooking and polluting ourselves); which appears to be in the committee stage for the greedy industrial countries, and practiced mainly by some of Latin and South America, large swaths of Africa, and in small pockets of sensible people on bicycles, skate boards, and foot elsewhere. (Tangentially, check out the documentary Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action for examples of people doing while we're typing.)
Considering that social security has not caused a single dime of debt so far, and in fact reduced to by a rather large amount due to lack of interest payments, perhaps we should work on the things that actually cause deficit now instead of pretending that it's an emergency that someday in the future, if no one does anything, we'll run out of money in the fund and might hypothetically pull money from general revenue.
We pull money now from the general fund for Social Security and CBO is projecting that we'll continued to do so for the indefinite future, unless Social Security is fixed of course.
Just like, um, Reagan, and Bush I. And Nixon.
Not Nixon. Public debt per GDP declined under Nixon. It also declined under Eisenhower.
You don't get to pretend all Republicans have been exceptionally bad at spending, and yet also claim the Republicans are the only people serious about it.
Who on the Democrat side at the federal level is serious about cutting spending? Obama threw in a budget that was more than a trillion over. Most of the Democrat survivors drove the spending in the last Congress. So yes, the Republicans with their ever so awesome record are the only game in town when it comes to federal spending reduction.
You mean the 'mockery' that's eventually going to cost us, oh, maybe $30 billion dollars? (Which, for viewers at home, is trivial, as I've pointed out.) And save an entire industry that employs hundreds of thousand of Americans.
What other mockery could I be talking about? Bankruptcy court was adequate for that task. And no, it didn't save the industry (probably doomed Ford too). We still have three crippled auto manufacturers who will go under next time this happens.
And of course, $30 billion is trivial. That's spending $100k or so per job "created or saved", most which I might add, would have been "created or saved" anyway in a bankruptcy.
Erm, do you even know what CORBA is? Employers do not pay it.
From here:
Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, certain individuals who are eligible for COBRA continuation health coverage, or similar coverage under state law, may receive a subsidy for 65 percent of the premium. These individuals are required to pay only 35 percent of the premium. The employer may recover the subsidy provided to assistance-eligible individuals by taking the subsidy amount as a credit on its quarterly employment tax return. The employer may provide the subsidy â" and take the credit on its employment tax return â" only after it has received the 35 percent premium payment from the individual.
It was as I said. The employer pays then, maybe, gets the funds recovered from the federal government later. It's a cost for the employer because they aren't compensated for the expense of providing the subsidy.
Um, are you insane? Firstly, there is no ban, offshore drilling started up again, second, there never was a ban on existing drilling, it was for new drilling.
There we go. I wasn't insane as you confirmed.
Except Obama didn't do that. The EPA did.
EPA is directed by Obama. Further, it's actions are the responsibility of Obama.
the continual thumbing of the nose at law and the Constitution, frequent lying that shames prior administrations,
Other random made up shit...
Let's go over a few items. A vast number of people with authority who weren't appointed by Congress; two lightweights with blatant ideological leanings appointed to the Supreme Court; continuation of all the constitutional abominations of his predecessor such as Guantanamo prison, wire tapping without a warrant (in other words, he rene
Looks like the jet-streams have a good amount of energy and are more consistent that those just near the ground.
Additionally, a breakthrough in the solar domain is one potential game-changer (there is so much energy recieved from the Sun that it can power the globe).
What are you on?! Spain and Germany's renewables are doing extremely well!
We could, within two years be producing all Petroleum fuels domestically,or at least in North America. We will have pipelines from Canadian tar sands and we have an economically workable coal reprocessing technique that is still profitable if oil drops to $30 a barrel. We are a lot farther away from using electricity to replace oil as a transportation fuel. Replacing enough of the fleet to make a dent will take decades. In the meantime, I'm seeing enough interesting possibilities in Graphene research to make me optimistic that direct conversion in situ will eventually be possible and, perhaps economically feasible. ( For non-physics readers, that is generation of electricity from the products of nuclear decay.) Nuclear power without nuclear waste is at least a realistic potential, though not in the near future.
What I am seeing is that the most interesting things are happening in places we have not thought of as centers for advanced research. North and South Dakota, Finland, Canada and so on.
All who read here hope we never reach a plateau with computing where nothing much changes. Why should it be different with energy? We always work for something better, but now is the time disruptive technologies start to rumble from unexpected places.
We pull money now from the general fund for Social Security and CBO is projecting that we'll continued to do so for the indefinite future, unless Social Security is fixed of course.
No we do not. Thanks to the payroll tax holiday, Social Security pulls money from Social Security's reserve.
Social Security does not pull money from the general fund. It has no actual way to do that, although admittedly if things got that bad we'd probably pass a law allowing it to do so.
Public debt per GDP declined under Nixon. It also declined under Eisenhower.
Yes, if you make random measurements you can find ways in which it declined.
Of course, the GDP then declined under Carter, which I guess made all added debt that Nixon put on there his fault? Or, perhaps, GDP is utterly unrelated to debt. The debt is a long-term problem, and growing it less than you grow the GDP is not relevant to anything.
Who on the Democrat side at the federal level is serious about cutting spending? Obama threw in a budget that was more than a trillion over. Most of the Democrat survivors drove the spending in the last Congress. So yes, the Republicans with their ever so awesome record are the only game in town when it comes to federal spending reduction.
Yes, the people who keep increasing the budget massively while cutting microscopic amounts are the only game in town.
What other mockery could I be talking about? Bankruptcy court was adequate for that task. And no, it didn't save the industry (probably doomed Ford too). We still have three crippled auto manufacturers who will go under next time this happens.
Uh, you need to read something that's actually looked at the issue since the bailout. The auto industry is doing very well. (In a recession!) Smart money is on stock prices getting high enough for the government to sell their stock at a profit in two or three years, although they'll have to sell it slowly.
And of course, $30 billion is trivial. That's spending $100k or so per job "created or saved", most which I might add, would have been "created or saved" anyway in a bankruptcy.
Holy fuck, it was that productive? That's like ten time more productive than the stimulus, and fifth times more productive than tax cuts.
I wasn't insane as you confirmed.
EPA is directed by Obama. You do realize that the Surpreme Court, in Massachusetts v. EPA (Which I should point out, was under Bush, so the case was defended), ordered the EPA to look at carbon dioxide as a possibly pollutant, right? And said that the only decision they could make is if 'carbon dioxide either caused or contributed to air pollution in ways that endangered public health'.
The only answer possible to that is 'yes', and thus the EPA is required by the courts to regulate carbon dioxide.
The law, existing since the creation of the EPA, requires to EPA to regulate that sort of stuff, and the court decision forces them to follow the law. Obama doesn't get any blame or credit for that at all, unless you think he should have appointed someone who say 'Fuck the Supreme Court, I'm doing whatever I want!'.
Let's go over a few items.
If you want to attack Obama from the left, I have no problem with it. He is governing a lot farther to the right than he appeared to be during election.
A vast number of people with authority who weren't appoin
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Social Security pulls money from Social Security's reserve.
The Social Security reserve is an accounting fiction. Money goes to or comes from general funds.
Luckily, Obama's not in charge of treaties.
Executive agreement.
The only answer possible to that is 'yes', and thus the EPA is required by the courts to regulate carbon dioxide.
The other answer is "no". I get the feeling you frequently forget that there are other answers than the one you want it to be. The EPA had to decide whether greenhouse gases were a public health menace. The rationalizations there are remarkably weak such as claiming that global warming contributes to an increase in allergens, disease vectors, and flooding. Water also does the same thing and could be regulated by the same justification.
And once again, Obama is responsible for poor decisions made by anyone which serves in his administration.
At this point, I just want to point out that you have numerous obvious flaws in your reasoning which indicate you don't understand the important issues we discuss here.
For example, I have no idea why you repeat ancient 1930s propaganda on Social Security like it is fact. We have almost 80 years of operation of Social Security and we can see that it doesn't operate like you claim. I can't help you, if you continue to misunderstand key parts of the US government.
I'll agree that he lied about how far left he was, and is actually basically at the same point as Clinton, if that's the claim you want to make.
This is one of the few things that amuse me about leftists. How they turn on each other so easily.
Um, yes, they did force that tax cut, by filibustering every bill that didn't contain it.
You'd think the Republicans were running the show back then the way they get talked about. It's a feeble excuse. The Democrats just needed to keep their senate bloc loyal and peel away a couple of Republican senators. They failed to do that.
Almost all the things you listed are countered by tax rebates and whatnot for businesses that provide health insurance.
Yes, this was a totally insane way to provide health care, I agree, and while Obama likes to blame the Republicans, I think we've all realized we got basically the bill he wanted.
What? Do I hear a bit of disenchantment with the Glorious Leader? Did he say something again which might not have been the whole unvarnished truth?
Yes, and those exact same tax cuts have worked very well over the past decade, haven't they?
True, tax cuts aren't enough in themselves. The US could have not collected taxes at all for the past ten years and still have the recent financial crash wipe out a lot of the gain. My view is that recessions are the missing piece of the puzzle. Having to rebuild the financial system every 20-40 years is not a good idea, but the current approach of bailing out businesses in every recession builds up a lot of parasitic incompetents (using the "private profit, public risk" business model) who can't fend for themselves.
You have to cull the herd every so often, even if it means significant job loss, in order to clear space for the better businesses. This is the biggest flaw with any variety of Keynesian economics, not to mention the Obama variety which wasn't based on investment in the first place.
What - you don't work in the non-Middle East oil industry. I'll see if I can find a phone number for someone who might be interested ... try (01224) 574488 (Aberdeen Samaritans).
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"