ARCPROSPECT
07-18-2011, 05:56 PM
By: Michael Poloz
ARCPROSPECT
07/18/11
(Article with linked citations available at ARCPROSPECT)
At a glance, American politics looks to be in favor of joining the rest of the industrialized world in the field of efficient and renewable energy. At a quicker glance, the United States looks as if it may even become a strong contender. That is, the United States; but as for individual states, well, that’s a bit of a different story.
In the White House’s Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2012, the Department of Energy states that $29.5 billion of discretionary funding will go to such things as clean energy research and development, promotion of energy efficient vehicles and buildings, developing a smarter energy grid and eliminating inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Funding will also go to not-so-favorable programs, such as research in rare earth materials and loan guarantee support for nuclear power plants.
Overall, it’s a slight step in the right direction. In fact, President Jimmy Carter (who started the Department of Energy in 1977) was the last in office to propose ambitious changes of this administration’s magnitude in energy consumption. Although Carter asked for the gradual removal of the nation from fossil fuels, he also asked the citizens to do something that most were unwilling to do, which is sacrifice. Special interest groups won the battle against Carter, and although the Obama administration is not asking for the same sacrifices Carter asked for, it faces the same special interest issues, as obfuscated in the GOP’s 2012-budget plan, humbly named, The Path to Prosperity – Restoring America’s Promise. I can’t help but wonder what promise that is? The Republicans' recently coined vernacular is truly a new marvel in partisanship and non-progress.
The GOP’s plan, too, calls for renewable energy, although it spends hardly any breath on it and it mostly speaks of “responsible” energy, i.e., coal (massive smoke clouds out of massive smokestacks), oil (Golf of Mexico anyone?) and nuclear (who’s even heard of a place called Japan?). In fact, under the heading, Eliminating welfare for energy companies, it states that the “stimulus alone allocated $80 billion of taxpayers’ dollars specifically for politically favored renewable-energy interests.” Firstly, this is factual false, since about a third of it was tax benefits—something I thought they loved—in energy creation and consumption, and the rest spread amongst states and other programs, based on needs and costs. Secondly, why is it only politically favored? Isn’t it human-race-existence favored? Thirdly, doesn’t it seem to say that the GOP believes that too much money had gone into renewable energy? “Drill, Baby, Drill!” still sounds to be their scientifically researched plan for our energy and climate crises.
That’s all on the federal level, so how are the individual state’s doing on the issue of energy? Some of the greatest ideas have come from individual states, later adhered by the rest, so someone must be doing something right, right?
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wishes to continue extracting shale natural gas via high-volume hydraulic fracturing, lifting the current moratorium on the process. Natural gas sounds nice, like natural spring water, although the process of extracting highly permeable gas from the Marcellus shale is far from natural. The process described in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s preliminary draft report goes as such: “Hydraulic fracturing is a well stimulation technique which consists of pumping an engineered fluid system and a propping agent (“proppant”) such as sand down the wellbore under high pressure to create fractures in the hydrocarbon-bearing rock. The fractures serve as pathways for hydrocarbons to move to the wellbore for production.” If that was too technical, the Halliburton hydraulic fracturing website likens the use of sand, water and pressure to “the basic components of building a great sandcastle.”
That “engineered fluid” in the “sandcastle” consists of many chemicals, most harmless but some extremely harmful. The Hydraulic Fracturing Report states that between “2005 and 2009, the 14 oil and gas service companies used more than 2,500 hydraulic fracturing products containing 750 chemicals and other components. Overall, these companies used 780 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products – not including water added at the well site – between 2005 and 2009.” Harmless examples are salt and citric acid. Harmful ones are methanol and 2-butoxyethanol. Oh, yes, and there have been reports that people’s faucet water can light up in flames from gas leaks entering the water supply. The process and problems are well documented in the HBO Documentary Films’, GasLand.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed into law that the chemicals used in hydrofracking must be disclosed to the public. This is the first law of its kind. Possible adverse effects are stated in that same NY preliminary draft report quoted above. The EPA is also currently investigating several cases in hydrofracking.
This is just one example of a once-step in the right direction, but now a waver into the same muck as before, all because of an interest to please special interests and not the interests of the general population—or the human race, for that matter.
Sunrise, although, is upon the coast where the sun sets. The West Coast Green Highway project is in the process of installing electric car charging stations all the way from Mexico to Canada, allowing fully electric cars to make the entire coastal trip without worry about running out of “gas.”
One would believe that politicians could set aside politics and just do what’s right for the whole of a people. Germany, on the other hand, is in the process of phasing out nuclear power all together, the decision coming in the wake of the devastating Fukushima nuclear disaster. This is something almost unimaginable for America: to get together and make the hard, yet, correct choice, revitalizing the people, the nation, and even the world as a whole.
(Article with linked citations available at ARCPROSPECT)
ARCPROSPECT
07/18/11
(Article with linked citations available at ARCPROSPECT)
At a glance, American politics looks to be in favor of joining the rest of the industrialized world in the field of efficient and renewable energy. At a quicker glance, the United States looks as if it may even become a strong contender. That is, the United States; but as for individual states, well, that’s a bit of a different story.
In the White House’s Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2012, the Department of Energy states that $29.5 billion of discretionary funding will go to such things as clean energy research and development, promotion of energy efficient vehicles and buildings, developing a smarter energy grid and eliminating inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Funding will also go to not-so-favorable programs, such as research in rare earth materials and loan guarantee support for nuclear power plants.
Overall, it’s a slight step in the right direction. In fact, President Jimmy Carter (who started the Department of Energy in 1977) was the last in office to propose ambitious changes of this administration’s magnitude in energy consumption. Although Carter asked for the gradual removal of the nation from fossil fuels, he also asked the citizens to do something that most were unwilling to do, which is sacrifice. Special interest groups won the battle against Carter, and although the Obama administration is not asking for the same sacrifices Carter asked for, it faces the same special interest issues, as obfuscated in the GOP’s 2012-budget plan, humbly named, The Path to Prosperity – Restoring America’s Promise. I can’t help but wonder what promise that is? The Republicans' recently coined vernacular is truly a new marvel in partisanship and non-progress.
The GOP’s plan, too, calls for renewable energy, although it spends hardly any breath on it and it mostly speaks of “responsible” energy, i.e., coal (massive smoke clouds out of massive smokestacks), oil (Golf of Mexico anyone?) and nuclear (who’s even heard of a place called Japan?). In fact, under the heading, Eliminating welfare for energy companies, it states that the “stimulus alone allocated $80 billion of taxpayers’ dollars specifically for politically favored renewable-energy interests.” Firstly, this is factual false, since about a third of it was tax benefits—something I thought they loved—in energy creation and consumption, and the rest spread amongst states and other programs, based on needs and costs. Secondly, why is it only politically favored? Isn’t it human-race-existence favored? Thirdly, doesn’t it seem to say that the GOP believes that too much money had gone into renewable energy? “Drill, Baby, Drill!” still sounds to be their scientifically researched plan for our energy and climate crises.
That’s all on the federal level, so how are the individual state’s doing on the issue of energy? Some of the greatest ideas have come from individual states, later adhered by the rest, so someone must be doing something right, right?
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wishes to continue extracting shale natural gas via high-volume hydraulic fracturing, lifting the current moratorium on the process. Natural gas sounds nice, like natural spring water, although the process of extracting highly permeable gas from the Marcellus shale is far from natural. The process described in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s preliminary draft report goes as such: “Hydraulic fracturing is a well stimulation technique which consists of pumping an engineered fluid system and a propping agent (“proppant”) such as sand down the wellbore under high pressure to create fractures in the hydrocarbon-bearing rock. The fractures serve as pathways for hydrocarbons to move to the wellbore for production.” If that was too technical, the Halliburton hydraulic fracturing website likens the use of sand, water and pressure to “the basic components of building a great sandcastle.”
That “engineered fluid” in the “sandcastle” consists of many chemicals, most harmless but some extremely harmful. The Hydraulic Fracturing Report states that between “2005 and 2009, the 14 oil and gas service companies used more than 2,500 hydraulic fracturing products containing 750 chemicals and other components. Overall, these companies used 780 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products – not including water added at the well site – between 2005 and 2009.” Harmless examples are salt and citric acid. Harmful ones are methanol and 2-butoxyethanol. Oh, yes, and there have been reports that people’s faucet water can light up in flames from gas leaks entering the water supply. The process and problems are well documented in the HBO Documentary Films’, GasLand.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed into law that the chemicals used in hydrofracking must be disclosed to the public. This is the first law of its kind. Possible adverse effects are stated in that same NY preliminary draft report quoted above. The EPA is also currently investigating several cases in hydrofracking.
This is just one example of a once-step in the right direction, but now a waver into the same muck as before, all because of an interest to please special interests and not the interests of the general population—or the human race, for that matter.
Sunrise, although, is upon the coast where the sun sets. The West Coast Green Highway project is in the process of installing electric car charging stations all the way from Mexico to Canada, allowing fully electric cars to make the entire coastal trip without worry about running out of “gas.”
One would believe that politicians could set aside politics and just do what’s right for the whole of a people. Germany, on the other hand, is in the process of phasing out nuclear power all together, the decision coming in the wake of the devastating Fukushima nuclear disaster. This is something almost unimaginable for America: to get together and make the hard, yet, correct choice, revitalizing the people, the nation, and even the world as a whole.
(Article with linked citations available at ARCPROSPECT)