Cannon Fodder for Kerry's War on Nader
By STEPHEN CONN
"The progressives and peace activists who are helping to stop Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo don't realize it but they are being used by people who represent the corporate interests, especially the military-industrial complex, of the two major parties," writes Conn.
The two-pronged attack -- to keep Nader off ballots and to attack him as a tool of the Republicans -- was planned during the Democratic convention. The Ballot Project's initial funding came from former Monsanto CEO and genetic-engineering proponent Robert Shapiro. It was started by Democratic insider lawyer William C. Oldaker, whose clients include the Bituminous Coal Association, Delta Air, Corning Glass, Equifax, and Neuralstem Biopharmaceuticals. The effort is being run in Ohio by Ken Starr's firm Kirkland and Ellis, defense attorneys for tobacco giant Brown and Williamson and General Motors. It is being run in Pennsylvania by Republican law firm Reed Smith, a favorite of the banking (29 of the 30 largest), drug (9 of the 10 largest), and advertising industries. They have battled Nader over advertising to children.
Conn points out that not only haven't journalists questioned the motives behind these and other firms committing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pro bono work to this effort, they haven't noted the complete silence from civil liberties groups who would normally oppose such activity.
United Progressives for Victory was started by Oldaker to handle the second prong of attack. The organizations use the same office space in Washington, at public relations firm Robert Brandon and Associates. Robert Brandon is a generous supporter of Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, yet progressives unquestioningly sign on to his accusations that Nader is funded by Republicans to divide them. In fact, the Center for Responsive Politics has concluded that no more than 4% of Nader's monetary support comes from Republicans.
Another spokesman for both anti-Nader campaigns is former Monsanto official Toby Moffett, now lobbyist for the Cayman Islands, Turkey, Morocco, defense contractors Raytheon and Northup Grumman, and McDermott International, a Houston oil drilling firm interested in asbestos liability immunity. Moffett was instrumental in getting British company De La Rue the contract to print Iraqi money and passports.
"Anyone who reviews the published client lists (and glowing self-promotion) on the Livingston or The National Groups web sites will discover the anti-Nader crusade by The Ballot Project and United Progressives, designed and orchestrated by the Democrats, is also a very natural extension of both Oldaker's and Moffet's clients' desires to maintain and extend their corporate influence in either a new Kerry or a second Bush administration. ... Hatred of the progressive agenda and persistent public meddling by Ralph Nader in corporate matters also could be said to create a happy coincidence of self-interest between corporate clients with their attorneys' legal wars against Nader in the courts and in the press."
That progressives sit by silently or even sign on to these projects is despicable indeed.
October 13, 2004
October 12, 2004
Cherish the Squirrels
New York Times, October 10, 2004:
To the Editor,
If the residents of Ville Platte, La. ("If Town Clears Out, It Must Be Squirrel Season," front page, Oct. 3), stopped shooting squirrels long enough to observe them, they would see that squirrels are creatures with complex lives of their own.
We have squirrels at our house and have witnessed a mother squirrel raising her young. She teaches them to climb slippery trees and steep rooftops. If she senses danger, she will carry her young to safety.
She spends lots of time hunting and gathering food and soft things with which to feather their winter nest.
It is sad to read of cruel behavior toward these small and beautiful creatures, which are merely struggling to survive, as we all are.
To the Editor,
If the residents of Ville Platte, La. ("If Town Clears Out, It Must Be Squirrel Season," front page, Oct. 3), stopped shooting squirrels long enough to observe them, they would see that squirrels are creatures with complex lives of their own.
We have squirrels at our house and have witnessed a mother squirrel raising her young. She teaches them to climb slippery trees and steep rooftops. If she senses danger, she will carry her young to safety.
She spends lots of time hunting and gathering food and soft things with which to feather their winter nest.
It is sad to read of cruel behavior toward these small and beautiful creatures, which are merely struggling to survive, as we all are.
Burlington Electric Supports Wind
To the editor, Burlington Free Press:
Patty Richards [director of resource planning for the Burlington Electric Department] (My Turn, October 12) claims that wind produces electricity 80% of the time. This is contradicted by the record at Searsburg, which produces electricity barely 60% of the time, according to audits by the Electric Power Research Institute. In Germany, grid manager Eon Netz reports that two thirds of the time, wind facilities are generating less than their annual average annual output.
Average output in Vermont is likely to be no more than 25%. Only one third of the time will a wind facility be producing at that level or above. To suggest, as Richards does, that Searsburg's fitful generation of less than 0.2% of Vermont's electricity "has increased reliability" is simply ludicrous.
Richards describes how the grid responds to a customer's turning on a light switch. Unfortunately, the wind does not cooperate in this scheme. Output from wind facilities is dramatically erratic and rarely corresponds to actual demand for electricity. Denmark's wind installations generate electricity equivalent to 20% of their consumption, but most of it has to be exported because the extra power isn't generated when it's actually needed.
It is true that in balance wind doesn't produce pollution when making electricity. Much of the time, however, wind turbines are not making electricity, yet they continue to draw power from the more polluting sources that are still working. And because of the unstable output, more reliable and more polluting backup generation has to be dedicated to cover for it.
Because of wind's low output and almost useless contribution, it is misleading to say that wind towers on the mountain ridges will stop the acid rain and global warming that threatens them. Wind towers -- with their acres of clearance, huge foundations, transformers, roads, and power lines -- represent only another form of destruction. They do nothing to mitigate acid rain or global warming.
Only a tiny fraction of Vermont's electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, none from coal. Even if wind could make a significant contribution, Richards' insistence that it would stay in Vermont therefore contradicts her threat that without wind the mountains will die.
About 200 MW of capacity would be required to match the output of Burlington's McNeil plant, which provides less than 8% of Vermont's electricity from a visually discreet location. That is three times more than the wind resource recognized as available for development. Richards' description of "wind turbines spinning gracefully in a few spots along our hill tops" either underscores their negligible contribution or is a lie.
So it comes, as Richards admits, down to a question of aesthetics. Hurling empty threats about global warming and acid rain and fossil and nuclear fuel dependence, knowing that wind power does nothing to alleviate those problems, she accuses opponents of using fear tactics! She asserts that wind turbines are visually appealing and only someone ignorant of the poisons in our air would oppose them.
Considering that the installation of wind turbines on our "hill" tops brings its own environmental and quality-of-life problems and that they will do nothing about pollutants from other sources, the aesthetics of the 330-foot-high erections are obvious: They are expensive, intrusive, destructive of rare habitat, and useless.
Patty Richards [director of resource planning for the Burlington Electric Department] (My Turn, October 12) claims that wind produces electricity 80% of the time. This is contradicted by the record at Searsburg, which produces electricity barely 60% of the time, according to audits by the Electric Power Research Institute. In Germany, grid manager Eon Netz reports that two thirds of the time, wind facilities are generating less than their annual average annual output.
Average output in Vermont is likely to be no more than 25%. Only one third of the time will a wind facility be producing at that level or above. To suggest, as Richards does, that Searsburg's fitful generation of less than 0.2% of Vermont's electricity "has increased reliability" is simply ludicrous.
Richards describes how the grid responds to a customer's turning on a light switch. Unfortunately, the wind does not cooperate in this scheme. Output from wind facilities is dramatically erratic and rarely corresponds to actual demand for electricity. Denmark's wind installations generate electricity equivalent to 20% of their consumption, but most of it has to be exported because the extra power isn't generated when it's actually needed.
It is true that in balance wind doesn't produce pollution when making electricity. Much of the time, however, wind turbines are not making electricity, yet they continue to draw power from the more polluting sources that are still working. And because of the unstable output, more reliable and more polluting backup generation has to be dedicated to cover for it.
Because of wind's low output and almost useless contribution, it is misleading to say that wind towers on the mountain ridges will stop the acid rain and global warming that threatens them. Wind towers -- with their acres of clearance, huge foundations, transformers, roads, and power lines -- represent only another form of destruction. They do nothing to mitigate acid rain or global warming.
Only a tiny fraction of Vermont's electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, none from coal. Even if wind could make a significant contribution, Richards' insistence that it would stay in Vermont therefore contradicts her threat that without wind the mountains will die.
About 200 MW of capacity would be required to match the output of Burlington's McNeil plant, which provides less than 8% of Vermont's electricity from a visually discreet location. That is three times more than the wind resource recognized as available for development. Richards' description of "wind turbines spinning gracefully in a few spots along our hill tops" either underscores their negligible contribution or is a lie.
So it comes, as Richards admits, down to a question of aesthetics. Hurling empty threats about global warming and acid rain and fossil and nuclear fuel dependence, knowing that wind power does nothing to alleviate those problems, she accuses opponents of using fear tactics! She asserts that wind turbines are visually appealing and only someone ignorant of the poisons in our air would oppose them.
Considering that the installation of wind turbines on our "hill" tops brings its own environmental and quality-of-life problems and that they will do nothing about pollutants from other sources, the aesthetics of the 330-foot-high erections are obvious: They are expensive, intrusive, destructive of rare habitat, and useless.
October 10, 2004
A Poem
Deliver Me, O Wind
by Annie Dullard
I'm glad that I have lived to see
Wind towers more lovely than a tree
Arrayed by dozens in the sea --
The tears of joy run free.
What better use of tired land,
The postcard pictures getting bland,
Than turning weary trees to sand
And making money to beat the band?
by Annie Dullard
I'm glad that I have lived to see
Wind towers more lovely than a tree
Arrayed by dozens in the sea --
The tears of joy run free.
What better use of tired land,
The postcard pictures getting bland,
Than turning weary trees to sand
And making money to beat the band?
October 7, 2004
The wind in Texas
To the editor, The New Republic:
Martin Peretz ("Evil Lesser," October 11) cites George W. Bush's promotion of "one of the largest and most productive programs of wind farms in the country," which "actually diminishes our dependency on Middle Eastern oil."
The wind power projects in Texas are indeed large and heavily subsidized (Bush just renewed their major tax break), second in capacity to California. Yet the expanses of giant windmills generated only 0.85% of the state's total electricity in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The amount actually used is much less, because wind speed (their fuel) rarely corresponds with consumer demand.
Almost all of Texas's electricity is generated from natural gas and coal. Oil generates only 0.4%. Wind power has therefore diminished their dependency on oil for electricity by about 3 one-thousandths of a percent. Electricity, of course, represents only a fraction of total energy use (for transport, heat, etc.), which wind power doesn't affect at all.
Martin Peretz ("Evil Lesser," October 11) cites George W. Bush's promotion of "one of the largest and most productive programs of wind farms in the country," which "actually diminishes our dependency on Middle Eastern oil."
The wind power projects in Texas are indeed large and heavily subsidized (Bush just renewed their major tax break), second in capacity to California. Yet the expanses of giant windmills generated only 0.85% of the state's total electricity in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The amount actually used is much less, because wind speed (their fuel) rarely corresponds with consumer demand.
Almost all of Texas's electricity is generated from natural gas and coal. Oil generates only 0.4%. Wind power has therefore diminished their dependency on oil for electricity by about 3 one-thousandths of a percent. Electricity, of course, represents only a fraction of total energy use (for transport, heat, etc.), which wind power doesn't affect at all.
October 5, 2004
Wind power creates a job!
Here are some excerpts from the story linked to in the title, which is about "windsmiths" -- the people who maintain wind turbines.
More items of note from the article:
Roughly 100 windsmiths, mostly men, work at the various wind energy companies in Tehachapi.There are more than 4,600 turbines in the Tehachapi area. That's an average of 1 maintenance job per 46 turbines. CalWind's ratio is 1 per 35, and Oak Creek's 1 per 17. Typical wind "farms" are within this range, so they are unlikely to "create" more than 1 or 2 jobs each, despite the promises of the developers.
CalWind Resources has 10 windsmiths on staff to service its 350 turbines. Oak Creek Energy has six to maintain its 100 turbines.
More items of note from the article:
"Turbines break every day," ... [operations manager at CalWind Resources Ed] Bullard said. ...
Bullard agreed with [windsmith Clayton] Swan that the most challenging part of working in the field is dealing with the elements, especially in the winter, when huge ice formations build up on turbine blades.
If those chunks fall, Bullard said, some of them could kill you.
October 4, 2004
FPL Energy to leave Kansas Flint Hills alone
Florida Power & Light has wanted to turn the continent's last unspoiled expanse of tallgrass prairie into a power plant of 1,000 400-foot-high wind turbines. Faced with broad opposition, they have been forced to look elsewhere.
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