Oregon Man Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail -- for Collecting Rainwater on His Property

(CNSNews.com) –

A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.

Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.

“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.

“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.

READ MORE: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/oregon-man-sentenced-30-days-jail-collecting-rainwater-his-property

The Bloom Prophecy

A visit to Siem Reap in 2000, the second largest city in Cambodia, found one poorly paved two lane roadway in the entire city but lots of cell phones.  The developing world skipped the expensive infrastructure cost to develop land line based phone service and went directly to less capital intense cell phone technology.  Developing countries may follow a similar path by deploying more distributed electric generation power to dramatically reduce investment in electric transmission infrastructure.  CRI expects this trend, in part, to cause Bloom Energy to abandon plans to build a fuel cell manufacturing plant in Newark, DE. 

          

India suffers from major electric reliability issues with frequent blackouts everywhere and with no electric access at all for 40% of the population.  This is a major barrier to economic growth as reported in the Indian journal Business Today article “Companies concerned as energy crisis threatens to hit growth”.  India may need a four-fold increase in electric generation capacity by 2025.  We expect expanded use of on-site generation to compensate for these reliability issues.  The most likely fuel is natural gas from new conventional fields being developed off the coast of India near Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and from land fill gas which is just starting to be utilized.  This may open the door for fuel cell generators using natural gas  (recently declared a renewable resource in Delaware for this application) as their feed stock.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=312

Amonix closes North Las Vegas solar plant after 14 months, heavy federal subsidies

The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened.

Officials at Amonix headquarters in Seal Beach, Calif., have not responded to repeated calls for comment this week, but the company began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells, in an online auction Wednesday.

A designer and manufacturer of concentrated photovoltaic solar power systems, Amonix received $6 million in federal tax credits for the North Las Vegas plant and a $15.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 for research and development.

READ MORE:  http://www.lvrj.com/business/amonix-closes-north-las-vegas-solar-plant-after-14-months-heavy-federal-subsidies-162901626.html

Why we should look to the Arctic

Editor's note: Bob Reiss, a former reporter at the Chicago Tribune, is the author of 18 books, including the just published, "The Eskimo and the Oil Man." He can be seen this week on CNN as part of the "Erin Burnett OutFront" series on the Arctic at 7 pm ET. 

(CNN) -- Most Americans think of the Arctic as an icy, distant place; beautiful, remote and teeming with wildlife, but unrelated to their daily lives. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This summer, big doings on America's northern doorstep will have enormous consequences to the economic, strategic and environmental future of the nation. Yet we are unprepared for the challenges and opportunities.

What happens in the Arctic as ice melts there could soon cheapen the cost of the gas you buy and products you purchase from Asia. It could help make the nation more energy independent. It could draw our leaders into a conflict over undersea territory. It is already challenging Washington to protect millions of square miles filled with some of the most magnificent wildlife on Earth, and native people whose culture and way of life is at risk as a squall line of development sweeps across the once inaccessible top of the planet.

READ MORE:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/opinion/reiss-arctic-drilling/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

Alaska sues to block low-sulfur fuel requirement for ships

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The state of Alaska sued the Obama administration on Friday to block environmental regulations that would require ships sailing in southern Alaska waters to use low-sulfur fuel.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, challenges the new federal regulations, which require the use of low-sulfur fuel for large marine vessels such as cargo and cruise ships.

The rule is scheduled to be enforced starting on August 1 by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard for ships operating within 200 miles of the shores of southeastern and south-central Alaska, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit faults the EPA, the Department of Homeland Security and others for using a marine treaty amendment as the basis for the new federal regulations without waiting for ratification of that amendment by the U.S. Senate.

READ MORE:    http://news.yahoo.com/alaska-sues-block-low-sulfur-fuel-requirement-ships-025940611.html

Fairfax County Sues EPA to Challenge Stormwater Rule

 Fairfax County and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging new federal rules related to stormwater runoff in Fairfax County.

The suit was filed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. It challenges the EPA’s recently established rule governing Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) limits for Accotink Creek. The county believes the proposed TMDL limits on stormwater flow provide no reasonable assurance that targets can be attained or that they will correct the underlying problem. Left unchallenged, EPA’s new stormwater rule will require Fairfax County to sharply and substantially reduce all stormwater runoff across the Accotink Creek watershed.  

“Fairfax County has demonstrated a strong and unwavering commitment to water quality and environmental stewardship during the last six decades,” says Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova. “We are absolutely committed to maintaining and improving, water quality in Fairfax County and the Chesapeake Bay.  However, we believe that regulations, whether federally or state imposed, must effectively address the targeted problem and be fiscally sound and realistic.”

READ MORE:  http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news/2012/updates/fairfax-sues-epa-to-challenge-stormwater-rule.htm 

Tree-rings prove climate was WARMER in Roman and Medieval times than it is now - and world has been cooling for 2,000 years

• Study of semi-fossilised trees gives accurate climate reading back to 138BC
• World was warmer in Roman and Medieval times than it is now

How did the Romans grow grapes in northern England? Perhaps because it was warmer than we thought. 


A study suggests the Britain of 2,000 years ago experienced a lengthy period of hotter summers than today.

German researchers used data from tree rings – a key indicator of past climate – to claim the world has been on a ‘long-term cooling trend’ for two millennia until the global warming of the twentieth century. 


This cooling was punctuated by a couple of warm spells.

These are the Medieval Warm Period, which is well known, but also a period during the toga-wearing Roman times when temperatures were apparently 1 deg C warmer than now.

They say the very warm period during the years 21 to 50AD has been underestimated by climate scientists.

READ MORE:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2171973/Tree-ring-study-proves-climate-WARMER-Roman-Medieval-times-modern-industrial-age.html

Family slugged with 'carbon tax fee' for funeral

A Melbourne family who claim they were slugged an extra $55 "carbon tax charge" when burying a relative were told "even the dead don't escape the carbon tax".

Erica Maliki and her family were burying her father-in-law at Springvale Cemetery when she was told the price per burial plot had increased because of the carbon tax.

Her father-in-law died on June 30, the day before the carbon tax was introduced, and was buried early last week.

"I thought to myself, 'What carbon could possibly be used by putting a man in a grave?'" Ms Maliki said.

READ MORE:  http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8496121

State to streamline agency regulations

Delaware state agencies are preparing to exhaustively review regulations on their books, with town hall-type meetings scheduled to begin downstate in early August.

Gov. Jack Markell, with bipartisan support, ordered the three-month agency reviews last month, signing an executive order that targets regulations approved at least three years ago and calls for burdensome rules to be revised or removed. The regulatory reform effort comes in response to a steady drumbeat from business owners in Delaware and nationwide claiming regulations are an impediment to job growth.


Markell’s order applies to all state agencies that fall under the executive branch, including cabinet departments that oversee tax, environmental and public health regulations.

READ MORE:  http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20120706/NEWS02/307060051/State-streamline-agency-regulations?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s&nclick_check=1

'Britain's Atlantis' found at bottom of North sea - a huge undersea world swallowed by the sea in 6500BC

• Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves 8500 years ago
• Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark
• Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans
• Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed by mammoths and other giant animals
• Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe
• Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea level rises

'Britain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews

Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that stretched from Scotland to Denmark was slowly submerged by water between 18,000 BC and 5,500 BC.

Divers from oil companies have found remains of a 'drowned world' with a population of tens of thousands - which might once have been the 'real heartland' of Europe.

A team of climatologists, archaeologists and geophysicists has now mapped the area using new data from oil companies - and revealed the full extent of a 'lost land' once roamed by mammoths.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167731/Britains-Atlantis-North-sea--huge-undersea-kingdom-swamped-tsunami-5-500-years-ago.html

Lights go dim on another energy project

A geothermal energy company with a $98.5 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration for an alternative energy project in Nevada — which received hearty endorsements from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — faces financial problems, and the company’s auditors have questioned whether it can stay in business.

Much like Solyndra LLC, a California solar-panel manufacturer with a $535 million federal loan guarantee that went bankrupt, Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP) has incurred $98 million in net losses over the past several years, has substantial debts and does not generate enough cash from its current operations after debt-service costs, an internal audit said.

“The company’s ability to continue as a going concern is dependent on its available cash and its ability to continue to raise funds to support corporate operations and the development of other properties,” NGP auditors said in a financial statement for the period ending March 31.

READ MORE:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/4/lights-go-dim-on-another-energy-project/

Volt sales far under expectations

GM's Volt sales rise in June

 Washington —General Motors Co. said it sold 1,760 plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt vehicles in June, double what it sold in June 2011.

In the first half of 2012, GM sold 8,817 Volts, more than triple the 2,745 it sold in the same period last year. It already has topped Volt sales for all of 2011, which were about 7,600.

Volt sales have been boosted by California granting solo drivers of the extended-range electric vehicle access to carpool lanes. GM spokesman Jim Cain said 1 in 5 Volts are sold in the Golden State.
GM had 5,300 Volts in stock at the end of June, an 82-day-supply. About 12 percent of Volts this year have been sold to commercial and government fleets.

June sales were up over the 1,680 Volts sold in May.

READ MORE:  http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120703/AUTO0103/207030380/1361/GM%27s-Volt-sales-rise-in-June

 

The Watermelon Summit

An environmentalist is a totalitarian socialist whose real objective is to revive socialism and economic central planning under the subterfuge of "saving the planet" from capitalism. He is "green" on the outside, but red on the inside, and is hence appropriately labeled a "watermelon."

A conservationist, by contrast, is someone who is actually interested in solving environmental and ecological problems and protecting wildlife and its habitat. He does not propose having government force a separation of man and nature by nationalizing land and other resources, confiscating private property, prohibiting the raising of certain types of animals, regulating human food intake, etc. He is not a socialist ideologue who is hell-bent on destroying capitalism. He does not publicly wish that a "new virus" will come along and kill millions, as the founder of Earth First once did. More often than not, he seeks ways to use the institutions of capitalism to solve environmental problems. There is even a new name for such a person: enviropreneur. Or he may call himself a "free-market environmentalist" who understands how property rights, common law, and markets can solve many environmental problems, as indeed they have.

 
READ MORE:  http://mises.org/daily/6089/The-Watermelon-Summit

884 May Be Bloom Energy's Fatal Number

A federal lawsuit has just been filed in Delaware regarding fuel cell maker Bloom Energy, alleging that the company benefited from cronyism and special treatment by the state government. In fact, an analysis of Bloom Energy's own past admissions reveals that "cronyism" may be the least of the company's problems: the "green" energy its generators produce may, in fact, be less efficient, more expensive, and dirtier than that produced by conventional alternatives.

Who is Bloom Energy?  It is a private company, funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, a leading venture capital firm.  Kleiner Perkins has Al Gore on its team, and has Colin Powell as a strategic advisor and independent board member.  Kleiner Perkins sets the pace for what happens on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. (Editors' note: Bloom Energy failed to return request for comment.)

Bloom Energy provides "green" energy generators that use solid oxide fuel cells. The fuel cell technology used by Bloom Energy has been around for more than fifty years. However, Bloom Energy claims it has improved on its performance, through proprietary breakthroughs in materials science.

Apparently not.

READ MORE:  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/21/884-May-Be-Bloom-Energys-Fatal-Number-Fuel-Cell-Efficiency-Federal-State-Tax-Credits