Chris Kelly begins "Sarah Palin's $159,050 Conflict of Interest" at Huffington Post:
While you read this, Alaska's First Dude, Todd Palin, is riding a snowmobile -- I'm sorry, snow machine -- 1,971 miles from Big Lake to Fairbanks. In the course of performing this awesome feat, his Arctic Cat's powerful two-stroke engine will emit the same amount of hydrocarbons as an automobile driving from Chicago to San Francisco and back 150 times.
A small price for the rest of us to pay to honor the indomitability of the human spirit and one man's ability to sit and hold on.
It's not just a blaze of glory and aromatic hydrocarbon. A conventional two-stroke engine emits as much as a quarter of its fuel unburned, directly into the air. This week, as a participant in the Iron Dog snow machine race, Todd Palin will release as many cancer-causing and smog-forming pollutants as a Chevy Malibu driven around the Earth at its equator 28 times.
Click the title of this post for the rest of the article.
environment, environmentalism
February 10, 2009
Vt. Yankee: 2% of New England's power
Yesterday, the State Committee of the Vermont Progressive Party voted unanimously to support the following resolution, modeled after the resolutions being warned across the state for town meeting day:
"The State Committee of the Vermont Progressive Party requests the Vermont Legislature to:
"1. Recognize that the 2% of our New England region’s power grid supply that is provided by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant can be replaced with a combination of local, renewable electricity and efficiency measures, along with the purchase of hydro generated electricity, and excess power already in the New England electricity market; ..."
Note the welcome lack of hysteria or pushing of other agendas. This is in stark contrast to other campaigners for shutting down Vt. Yankee when its license expires in 2012 (it is, after all, a very old plant that has had numerous problems -- apart from the nuclear waste piling up on the site and the contamination and warming of the Connecticut river).
Most notably, Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) is proposing to replace the ~200 MW that the plant provides to Vermont with several ridgeline wind energy plants, of which it would require ~1,000 MW installed capacity (because of the variability and intermittency of the wind) -- and even then we would still need 200 MW from other sources, because the wind isn't always blowing when it's needed. In fact, 60% of the time wind turbines generate power at a rate below their annual average (which is 21% at Searsburg) and one-third of the time they are idle.
One thousand megawatts of wind means industrializing 100 miles of ridgelines, which are otherwise off limits to development. It means clearing trees, blasting for foundations, cut-and-fill heavy-duty roads, and transmission lines replacing important ecosystems and habitat. And it would not even achieve the intended goal of replacing any other source of electric power.
Therefore, it is refreshing to see the Progressive Party put Vt. Yankee in the context of the actual grid, not just Vermont's small corner of it. It is not a crisis. It does not justify blatant land grabs by profiteering developers and opening up our mountaintops to sprawl. When Vt. Yankee is shut down, Vermont's need to replace our share of it will represent 1% of the New England grid. We are also long-time customers of Hydro Quebec. We should have no trouble finding other sources. With continued efficiency and conservation, it will be even easier.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
"The State Committee of the Vermont Progressive Party requests the Vermont Legislature to:
"1. Recognize that the 2% of our New England region’s power grid supply that is provided by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant can be replaced with a combination of local, renewable electricity and efficiency measures, along with the purchase of hydro generated electricity, and excess power already in the New England electricity market; ..."
Note the welcome lack of hysteria or pushing of other agendas. This is in stark contrast to other campaigners for shutting down Vt. Yankee when its license expires in 2012 (it is, after all, a very old plant that has had numerous problems -- apart from the nuclear waste piling up on the site and the contamination and warming of the Connecticut river).
Most notably, Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) is proposing to replace the ~200 MW that the plant provides to Vermont with several ridgeline wind energy plants, of which it would require ~1,000 MW installed capacity (because of the variability and intermittency of the wind) -- and even then we would still need 200 MW from other sources, because the wind isn't always blowing when it's needed. In fact, 60% of the time wind turbines generate power at a rate below their annual average (which is 21% at Searsburg) and one-third of the time they are idle.
One thousand megawatts of wind means industrializing 100 miles of ridgelines, which are otherwise off limits to development. It means clearing trees, blasting for foundations, cut-and-fill heavy-duty roads, and transmission lines replacing important ecosystems and habitat. And it would not even achieve the intended goal of replacing any other source of electric power.
Therefore, it is refreshing to see the Progressive Party put Vt. Yankee in the context of the actual grid, not just Vermont's small corner of it. It is not a crisis. It does not justify blatant land grabs by profiteering developers and opening up our mountaintops to sprawl. When Vt. Yankee is shut down, Vermont's need to replace our share of it will represent 1% of the New England grid. We are also long-time customers of Hydro Quebec. We should have no trouble finding other sources. With continued efficiency and conservation, it will be even easier.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont
February 6, 2009
Wind Turbine Defects - Incidence and Implications
For 394 euros, you can download a September 2008 market research report on the many mishaps at wind energy facilities. Or you can click the links below to their source stories or visit the record of accidents maintained at Caithness Windfarm Information Forum.
Summary
Wind turbines have to face the irregular force of the wind. As a result, the drive train of a wind turbine is subject to very high dynamic loads. This makes virtually all components of a wind turbine subject to damage, including everything from the rotor blades to the generator, transformer, nacelle, tower and foundation.
Recent Developments
Summary
Wind turbines have to face the irregular force of the wind. As a result, the drive train of a wind turbine is subject to very high dynamic loads. This makes virtually all components of a wind turbine subject to damage, including everything from the rotor blades to the generator, transformer, nacelle, tower and foundation.
Recent Developments
- July 12, 2008: Suzlon Announces Refurbishment Of Turbines At Gentry County Wind Farm
- July 11, 2008: Suzlon Plans To Pay INR5.9 Billion To Clients For Wind Turbine Blade Defect
- Jan 07, 2008: J. Stobart & Sons Launches Inquiry On Collapsed Wind Turbine In Cumbria
- Nov 15, 2007: Enel NA Announces Wind Turbine Blade Breakage At Fenner Wind Farm
- Nov 11, 2007: ScottishPower Investigates Collapsed Wind Turbine At Beinn an Tuirc Wind Farm
- May 11, 2007: Gamesa Announces Wind-Turbine Blades Breakage On Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm
- Jan 29, 2007: Vestas To Begin Repair Work On Wind Farm At Kent
February 3, 2009
Sacred cow exploiters
Michael Colby exposes some of the hypocrisy of Vermont progressives by recalling his fight against recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) almost 15 years ago as head of the nonprofit organization Food & Water. This is on the occasion of Cabot Creamery's recent announcement that they will no longer allow its use for their milk supply.
Click here for the first article. Click here for the second.
It took 15 years for Cabot to finally hear the customer demand? No -- it took a simple request from Wal-Mart, which now accounts for one-quarter of Cabot's sales.
Colby's campaign began with Land O'Lakes, as Cabot was claiming a "wait-and-see" policy. But then an employee leaked an internal memo acknowledging that some of their suppliers were already using rBGH. So Colby brought the campaign home. And the politicians, press, and corporate nonprofits came to Cabot's defense.
Then-governor Howard Dean condemned Food & Water as a "terrorist group". Then–state senator Elizabeth Ready essentially told them to leave the state. Cabot's spokesperson, Roberta McDonald, compared Food & Water to the Unabomber and suggested that public safety would be better served by locking up its leaders.
Now Wal-Mart demands the same thing, and Cabot meekly says "OK". That's great news, of course, but it doesn't say good things about our democracy when only another behemoth can say no to Monsanto and the concerns of individual citizens are derided, mocked, and condemned -- not just by the self-interested corporations but also by those who nominally represent the people against the powerful.
((( )))
Part 2 recounts Food & Water's effort more than 10 years ago to get Ben & Jerry's to go organic, or at least to refuse milk from cows fed on grain treated with the likely carcinogen atrazine. In this case, there has been no Wal-Mart to convince them, and Ben & Jerry's, that paragon of hip capitalism, still shuns organic production for their milk supply. Food & Water met with them to explain how such a move could transform Vermont dairy farming and drastically improve the environment of this rural state, consistent with the company's own progressive activism.
In response, Ben Cohen offered Colby a job in their public relations department, and then any paraphernalia he wanted, such as the oxymoronic hippie ties. And just as Cohen said that going organic was off the table, Vermont's progressives considered Ben & Jerry's to be off limits for criticism. Food & Water lost some of their donors -- for trying to protect our food and water!
When Colby was invited to speak at an anti-nuclear rally in Brattleboro, he was told not to mention Ben & Jerry's, who funded the event -- and Ben and Jerry themselves were going to speak (and not to be challenged). After promising not to so that he could get on stage, Colby jumped right into the issue by opening a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby and intoning "Doing bad and feeling good about it" between spoonfuls. His microphone was quickly cut off. But the fire was lit, and people flocked around to learn more, ignoring the next speaker.
And Ben & Jerry's still makes no effort to make their actual product better for the planet, absolving their own contributions to dirty agriculture by supporting progressive causes that might not cause any trouble for their own bottom line.
((( )))
Enron, also, bought off environmentalists. Many of them came to its defense with kind words about their progressive energy programs as the company was revealed to be a scam from top to bottom. Unfortunately, industrial wind power continues apace, with coal giant Florida Power & Light, nuclear giant General Electric, oil giant British Petroleum, and budding natural gas mogul T. Boone Pickens, among many others of their ilk, leading the way. And the corporate environmentalists readily follow.
Progressives everywhere resort to cutting the microphone rather than hear any word against Big Wind. "Oh, it could be so much worse," they say. Except it will be so much worse, because progressives and environmentalists are letting so much pass as they "work with" developers hungry to open up our remaining undeveloped rural and wild areas. They are supporting more development, not less, more consumption, not less.
They sport hippie ties in a twisted evocation (for it is also a cautionary reminder) of what they once might have been. They are smug in their self-censorship, their self-repression, their "success", their hypocrisy. They are scared, because they don't know who they are anymore.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
Click here for the first article. Click here for the second.
It took 15 years for Cabot to finally hear the customer demand? No -- it took a simple request from Wal-Mart, which now accounts for one-quarter of Cabot's sales.
Colby's campaign began with Land O'Lakes, as Cabot was claiming a "wait-and-see" policy. But then an employee leaked an internal memo acknowledging that some of their suppliers were already using rBGH. So Colby brought the campaign home. And the politicians, press, and corporate nonprofits came to Cabot's defense.
Then-governor Howard Dean condemned Food & Water as a "terrorist group". Then–state senator Elizabeth Ready essentially told them to leave the state. Cabot's spokesperson, Roberta McDonald, compared Food & Water to the Unabomber and suggested that public safety would be better served by locking up its leaders.
Now Wal-Mart demands the same thing, and Cabot meekly says "OK". That's great news, of course, but it doesn't say good things about our democracy when only another behemoth can say no to Monsanto and the concerns of individual citizens are derided, mocked, and condemned -- not just by the self-interested corporations but also by those who nominally represent the people against the powerful.
Part 2 recounts Food & Water's effort more than 10 years ago to get Ben & Jerry's to go organic, or at least to refuse milk from cows fed on grain treated with the likely carcinogen atrazine. In this case, there has been no Wal-Mart to convince them, and Ben & Jerry's, that paragon of hip capitalism, still shuns organic production for their milk supply. Food & Water met with them to explain how such a move could transform Vermont dairy farming and drastically improve the environment of this rural state, consistent with the company's own progressive activism.
In response, Ben Cohen offered Colby a job in their public relations department, and then any paraphernalia he wanted, such as the oxymoronic hippie ties. And just as Cohen said that going organic was off the table, Vermont's progressives considered Ben & Jerry's to be off limits for criticism. Food & Water lost some of their donors -- for trying to protect our food and water!
When Colby was invited to speak at an anti-nuclear rally in Brattleboro, he was told not to mention Ben & Jerry's, who funded the event -- and Ben and Jerry themselves were going to speak (and not to be challenged). After promising not to so that he could get on stage, Colby jumped right into the issue by opening a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby and intoning "Doing bad and feeling good about it" between spoonfuls. His microphone was quickly cut off. But the fire was lit, and people flocked around to learn more, ignoring the next speaker.
And Ben & Jerry's still makes no effort to make their actual product better for the planet, absolving their own contributions to dirty agriculture by supporting progressive causes that might not cause any trouble for their own bottom line.
Enron, also, bought off environmentalists. Many of them came to its defense with kind words about their progressive energy programs as the company was revealed to be a scam from top to bottom. Unfortunately, industrial wind power continues apace, with coal giant Florida Power & Light, nuclear giant General Electric, oil giant British Petroleum, and budding natural gas mogul T. Boone Pickens, among many others of their ilk, leading the way. And the corporate environmentalists readily follow.
Progressives everywhere resort to cutting the microphone rather than hear any word against Big Wind. "Oh, it could be so much worse," they say. Except it will be so much worse, because progressives and environmentalists are letting so much pass as they "work with" developers hungry to open up our remaining undeveloped rural and wild areas. They are supporting more development, not less, more consumption, not less.
They sport hippie ties in a twisted evocation (for it is also a cautionary reminder) of what they once might have been. They are smug in their self-censorship, their self-repression, their "success", their hypocrisy. They are scared, because they don't know who they are anymore.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont, anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, ecoanarchism
January 25, 2009
Political Judaism
Questions: If political Islam is bad, why is political Yahedut, or Zionism, good? How can one be encouraged but the other damned? How can anyone be surprised that the triumph of one leads to the reaction of the other?
Tribalism is tribalism.
human rights
January 23, 2009
It's not destruction if it's "green"?
Robert Redford writes at Huffington Post ("Utah Lands Win a Reprieve at the Dawn of a Cleaner, Greener Future") that "a federal court acted last weekend to protect more than 110,000 acres of stunning Utah wilderness that otherwise would have been sold by the outgoing Bush administration to the dirty fuels industry."
He says that "What inspired me most was when Judge Urbina wrote that the 'development of domestic energy resources ... is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment.' Finally, the greater good has prevailed over the profit of the few."
Then it starts to fall apart:
How did Mr. Redford think those reserves of wind and solar would be tapped to a degree that would do something that might appear "to solve our energy challenges for the long-term"? How much of our natural heritage is he ready to see destroyed for large-scale solar and wind power development?
(10,000 MW of installed wind capacity requires at least 500,000 acres, or almost 800 square miles, plus heavy-duty roads (opening the land to more development and its flora and fauna to more abuse) and transmission infrastructure). 10,000 MW of actual production -- on average (wind turbines actually produce at or above their average rate, which is 20-30% of their installed capacity, only 40% of the time) -- would require 4 times that amount of land, to produce nominally only about 2% of the country's electricity, which 40,000 MW of wind would be nullified by 1 year of average growth in demand. Obviously, big wind is a dead end that could easily be obviated by the less photographically iconic options of efficiency and conservation.)
"The development of domestic energy resources ... is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment."
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
He says that "What inspired me most was when Judge Urbina wrote that the 'development of domestic energy resources ... is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment.' Finally, the greater good has prevailed over the profit of the few."
Then it starts to fall apart:
Destroying our natural heritage will do nothing to solve our energy challenges for the long-term, which to me, is even more reason to act. I will continue to keep a vigilant watch over these lands, while working to build a cleaner, greener energy foundation for America. With endless untapped reserves of efficiency, solar, and wind power, we do not need to choose between affordable electricity and one-of-a-kind landscapes. We can have both.Because meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management plans to establish coordination offices to expedite the permitting of renewable energy projects and associated transmission facilities on BLM-managed lands. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for the development of 10,000 MW of non-hydropower renewable energy projects on public lands by 2015.
How did Mr. Redford think those reserves of wind and solar would be tapped to a degree that would do something that might appear "to solve our energy challenges for the long-term"? How much of our natural heritage is he ready to see destroyed for large-scale solar and wind power development?
(10,000 MW of installed wind capacity requires at least 500,000 acres, or almost 800 square miles, plus heavy-duty roads (opening the land to more development and its flora and fauna to more abuse) and transmission infrastructure). 10,000 MW of actual production -- on average (wind turbines actually produce at or above their average rate, which is 20-30% of their installed capacity, only 40% of the time) -- would require 4 times that amount of land, to produce nominally only about 2% of the country's electricity, which 40,000 MW of wind would be nullified by 1 year of average growth in demand. Obviously, big wind is a dead end that could easily be obviated by the less photographically iconic options of efficiency and conservation.)
"The development of domestic energy resources ... is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment."
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
January 12, 2009
How many divisions has the Pope?
Uri Avnery, of the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, writes (click the title of this post for the complete essay):
NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured. ...
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one’s country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions. ...
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin sneered. “How many divisions have people of conscience?” Ehud Barak may well be asking.
As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.
The failure to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.
Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.
NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured. ...
War – every war – is the realm of lies. Whether called propaganda or psychological warfare, everybody accepts that it is right to lie for one’s country. Anyone who speaks the truth runs the risk of being branded a traitor.
The trouble is that propaganda is most convincing for the propagandist himself. And after you convince yourself that a lie is the truth and falsification reality, you can no longer make rational decisions. ...
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin sneered. “How many divisions have people of conscience?” Ehud Barak may well be asking.
As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.
The failure to grasp the nature of Hamas has caused a failure to grasp the predictable results. Not only is Israel unable to win the war, Hamas cannot lose it.
Even if the Israeli army were to succeed in killing every Hamas fighter to the last man, even then Hamas would win. The Hamas fighters would be seen as the paragons of the Arab nation, the heroes of the Palestinian people, models for emulation by every youngster in the Arab world. The West Bank would fall into the hands of Hamas like a ripe fruit, Fatah would drown in a sea of contempt, the Arab regimes would be threatened with collapse.
If the war ends with Hamas still standing, bloodied but unvanquished, in face of the mighty Israeli military machine, it will look like a fantastic victory, a victory of mind over matter.
What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet.
In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel.
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