David Frum: A continental energy strategy? Bring it on

Speaking in New Mexico on Thursday, Mitt Romney announced an energy plan that promised energy independence — not for the United States only — but also for Canada and Mexico.

“I’m going to establish an energy partnership with Canada and Mexico,” he said. “We need to work together with these guys, work collaboratively. And we need a fast-track process to make sure that infrastructure projects are approved. And particularly, we’re going to get that Keystone Pipeline built as one of those first infrastructure projects that take advantage of their resources.”

In the past, American talk of “continental energy strategies” provoked furious reactions in Canada. The prospect of continental energy sharing was a major argument against the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement back in the 1980s. And now the issue is being raised again, and the reaction from Canada is … quiet.

I see two reasons for this change of view among Canadians.  

READ MORE:   http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/08/25/david-frum-a-continental-energy-strategy-bring-it-on/

Financial crisis: the printing press has reached its limits

Central bankers may have averted outright disaster, but they are powerless to do more

 

Few jamborees excite financial markets as much as the symposium of international central bankers which is held annually in late August at Jackson Hole in the Rockies.

Interest this year focuses around whether, with the American recovery again running out of steam, the US Federal Reserve is about to signal a further round of quantitative easing, marking the third such burst of money-printing in that country since the crisis began.

Yet it is also fair to say that the gathering no longer holds quite the same cachet it used to. Faith in central banks as guarantors of macro-economic stability has been shaken to breaking point by the events of recent years, a crisis which they utterly failed to see coming, still less were able to prevent.

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9509106/Financial-crisis-the-printing-press-has-reached-its-limits.html

 

Sea Level Rise and Climate Change, Another View

Globally, sea level has risen 13 feet in the last seven thousand years and local Delaware tide gauges suggest the sea level rose about a foot in the twentieth century.  Planning for sea level rise is a good idea.  There should have been a rapid response plan to fill the 50 foot breach at Fowler Beach when it first occurred.  Rapid response would have saved a valuable fresh water marsh and significant damage to surrounding farm land and roads.   Repair would have also limited the risk of further damage and even death in the Broadkill Beach, Prime Hook Beach, and Slaughter Beach communities.  Now the breach is 4000 feet wide and the repair will cost dramatically more.

Coming up with a long term plan to deal with sea level rise will require a political process of give and take and the creation of a consensus by various factions.  Unfortunately, the emphasis of the recent News Journal series and reports by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control un-necessarily linking the sea level rise problem to worst case climate change scenarios has made the problem solving process more difficult.  A lot of people, particularly down state where sea level problems are more acute, reject these worst case scenarios as un-proven.  There is a risk sea level rise planning will succumb to the climate change debate.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=318

Delaware on the Dole

The University of Delaware, in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Lab, is seeking a grant from a $180 million fund established by the U. S. Department of Energy for a wind turbine research project to be built off the coast of Delaware. The effort has the full support of Delaware’s congressional delegation, the Markell Administration, and the tacit agreement of Delmarva Power to buy the electrical power output from the project, albeit it must be “competitively” priced.

The purpose of the grant is to improve technology whereby wind turbines can produce electrical power capable of competing in the market place without government subsidies, thereby stimulating economic development and jobs in the United States. Chasing federal dollars, 40% of which are borrowed, to attempt to reinvent the wheel is audacious if not immoral. 

Wind turbines are very simple devices; consisting of a prefabricated tower, a three bladed propeller attached to a gear box driving an electric generator. The problem with the current generation of mega wind turbines is that this very simple system is subjected to very large forces of variable torque due to the heavy generator load and changes in wind speed and direction.

READ MORE:  http://www.caesarrodney.org/index.cfm?ref=30200&ref2=317

Food shortages could force world into vegetarianism, warn scientists

Water scarcity's effect on food production means radical steps will be needed to feed population expected to reach 9bn by 2050

 

Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.
Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists.
"There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
"There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a … reliable system of food trade."

READ MORE:  www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/aug/26/food-shortages-world-vegetarianism

 

DC Circuit Tosses Out EPA’s Pollution Rule

Amidst Obama’s inexorable war on American energy, consumers, jobs, and prosperity, his EPA is in the process of promulgating 4 new pollution rules that will bury the coal industry and “necessarily” raise the price of electricity on American households.  They are the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for Utilities (MACT), the Cooling Water Intake Structures regulation, and the Disposal of Coal Combustion residuals.  The former two have already been finalized while the latter two are close behind.  Today, the D.C. Circuit Court struck downthe EPA’s authority to implement the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

In August 2011, Obama’s EPA imposed a cap and trade style program to expand existing limitations on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-fired power plants in 28 “upwind” states.  They claimed that they had unlimited authority pursuant to the Clean Air Act to cap emissions that supposedly travel across state lines.  The EPA admitted that the rule would cost $2.7 billion from the private sector and force many cola-fired power plants to shut down.  Priorities USA might have even run an ad against Obama claiming that his superfluous regulations cause workers to lose their health insurance and die.

READ MORE:  http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2012/08/21/dc-circuit-tosses-out-epas-pollution-rule/

Govt Grabbing Water Again: Sues New Mexico for Water Rights

The U.S. Government is suing New Mexico for perceived damages in a groundwater case, and the prize is control of the state's water. In May 2011 we learned that the EPA was beginning to change the way America's waters are controlled, and that control was to be extended to your ponds and puddles. Happening now in New Mexico:


The lawyers told the committee [New Mexico Legislature Water and Natural Resources] the U.S. government is apparently trying to take over legal management of the state's water supply.

The federal government has asserted claims for damages to groundwater in a natural resource damage case in New Mexico involving Chevron/Molycorp. The claim seeks for those damages to be awarded in the form of future water rights management. Source: Las Cruces Sun


READ MORE:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2913312/posts