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There is no source of energy that is endorsed and approved by environmentalists. Oil and gasoline are their biggest enemies, even though these are the most convenient and potent sources of energy for cars, trucks and locomotives. Environmentalists don't like nuclear energy -- the cleanest source of electricity -- becaue they say they are worried about proper disposal of spent fuel. They don't like coal, even though we have lots of it here in the U.S., because they fear air pollution, and more recently, carbon dioxide emissions. Windmills are out, because the environmentalists say they are unsightly and they kill birds. Hydroelectric dams are out, because eco-extremists are willing to weaken the power grid to save a few fish. Not only are the energy sources opposed, environmentalists also oppose transmission lines, which carry electric power to the cities; and again, the opposition is for the sake of the birds and the aesthetics. Environmentalists opposed the construction of the Alaska Pipeline in the mid-1970's. Why do left-wing environmentalists oppose energy? That's easy. Leftists can't stand it when capitalism, industry and "big business" succeed. When that happens, it takes power away from big government. When liberal activists speak about solar and wind power, they claim they want the U.S. to achieve energy independence, but these are the same people who oppose oil drilling in Alaska. The stated concern for plant and animal life is primarily a cover story, although there are people who genuinely believe that animals have rights equal to those of humans. Be sure to read The Causes and Effects of High Gas Prices, where you will see it's the environmentalists who are driving up the price of gas. The green jobs con job. The green agenda is straightforward: to replace conventional energy sources with unconventional ones — wind, solar, ethanol, etc. — that have failed the test imposed by market competition. That these unconventional energy sources must be subsidized heavily (or the conventional forms hindered) in order for them to survive is highly revealing; but the central point here is that green policies inexorably have the effect of making energy more expensive. IER: Administration's Assault on Energy Continues. In response to the U.S. Interior Department's announcement that it will add even more red tape to the already lengthy permitting process for deepwater oil and gas production, Daniel Kish, Institute for Energy Research senior vice president for policy, released the following statement: "The Administration continues its assault on US energy production, this time trying to convince us that a shortage of paperwork led to the Gulf spill. No amount of Government Green Tape would have stopped the spill, and in fact, Americans saw that it actually made cleanup harder." More about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Clean Energy: The Nuclear Solution. [Scroll down] The environmentalist lobby doesn't like nuclear any more than it does coal-fired generation, mainly because it works! The alternatives they give are non-solutions. There is no global warming and no need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The vast bulk of CO2 is natural. The Earth produces 97% of the CO2 in the atmosphere. The atmosphere is essentially and overwhelmingly water vapor. CO2 plays no role in climate change. Cap-and-Trade is a tax on energy use and Americans are constantly told that energy use in any form — coal, oil, natural gas, or nuclear — is bad. That's not just a lie, it is insane. More about carbon dioxide. Protests spew over Montana-Gulf pipeline plan. Environmental groups and landowners, upset by last month's oil spill in Michigan, are urging the Obama administration to deny a proposal for an oil pipeline that would go from the Montana-Canada border to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. Obama is Strangling Big Oil. There was no "official" announcement. Not in so many words. Connect the dots of what has occurred in just the past two weeks to deep-water oil drilling, shallow-water drilling, and oil refining. The effect is the same. Barack Obama is shutting down Big Oil. The Smart Grid Trojan Horse. For decades, utilities satisfied unbridled energy demand growth by constructing new generating plants. The concept was pleasantly simple: Predict the pace by which energy consumption would increase and build generating plants to keep ahead of it. Then came environmentalism and its evil twin, mindless anti-capitalism, both rooted in the counterculture of the 1960s. Thereafter, utilities began to evolve at the point of a gun. Every aspect of generating electricity came into question under a variety of federal energy acts and environmental regulations. Myths Associated with the 'Smart' Electrical Grid. [Scroll down] Let me be clear about one thing: generation capacity is dangerously low in some locations, and in a few specific locations, transmission capacity is stretched dangerously thin. Those are local issues, and not a national problem. And one of the largest reasons why generating capacity is dangerously low in some locations is that building has been difficult due to political and legal resistance. Environmentalists Oppose All Man-Made Power. What are we to think about a movement that makes war on industrial-scale power generation? In seeking to cut off the motive power of industry, environmentalism is attempting to destroy the Industrial Revolution by starving it to death. Such a reversal would begin a new Dark Age for mankind — a Dark Age in which Americans would be compelled to accept a standard of living well below that of the Third World — a Dark Age that would begin with the deaths of billions of human beings who would have become the "surplus" population that could no longer be supported in a world without industrial production. Obama's Affordable Energy Policy: Safe, Legal and Rare. Undermining access to abundant conventional energy sources has proved to be a key component of Barack Obama's promised "fundamental transformation" of America. To be fair, he was uniquely candid when vowing that "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." This interview received limited coverage despite also revealing plans to "bankrupt" politically disfavored industry while also raising "billions of dollars." Environmentalists Prevent Cleaner Power Plant Construction. In 2007, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation proposed a state-of-the-art coal-fired power plant in Holcomb, Kansas. This plant represented a $3.5 billion investment in one of the most rural areas of the country, $78 million in annual payroll during the construction phase, and more than 300 permanent jobs and $15 million in payroll once it was completed. The plant, with two 700-megawatt generators, would have used technology to limit emissions. It would have been a huge economic boon to an area which largely relies on the meatpacking industry, tourism, and agriculture for jobs. Then a bureaucrat on the other end of the state killed it. Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy. In the years ahead we'll need to greatly increase our electricity supply. While it is important to continue to develop renewable energy sources, they are not likely to be nearly enough to meet the growing demand. Coal is still a great resource and clean coal technology is rapidly becoming a reality. After a dormancy of nearly 30 years, it's time to bring back nuclear power, which is safe and clean. Anti-development and anti-energy activist groups are attempting to deceive the public into believing that we can wean ourselves off of oil in the near future. Perhaps in the decades ahead that worthy goal will be realized, but in the meantime there is no viable substitute for petroleum — the most powerful and versatile fuel known to man. Environmentalists Also To Blame For Exxon Valdez And Gulf Spills. Environmentalism did not cause the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, but it did help make it possible, just as 1989's Exxon Valdez disaster, which the Gulf Oil spill has now eclipsed, was also ironically made possible by a desire to protect the environment. The original plan when oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope was to build a pipeline directly to the northern border of the 48 contiguous states. Groups like the Sierra Club waged a major battle against both the Prudhoe Bay development and the pipeline. Renewable Energy: There Ain't No Free Lunch. Catch words these days for the favored form of energy include "green," "clean," "renewable," and "sustainable" — among others. Yet nobody can quite quantify what exactly "green" means. Examples pointed to by proponents include wind and solar, with a few pointing to hydroelectric power, biomass, and fuel cells. But those examples, and the logic behind them, fail the very definition of renewable (or clean, green, or sustainable for that matter). Obama's EPA stifles new energy gains. [Scroll down] This week, it's Lisa Jackson, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency head, putting another pillow over the face of the energy industry: A "comprehensive research study to investigate the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on water quality and public health." ... Jackson forgot to mention "concerns" about hydraulic fracturing come only from environmental groups seeking to stop all uses of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. Enviros play dirty on coal, natural gas. [Scroll down slowly] Environmentalists talk about how they plan to replace coal with an array of "green" alternative energy sources, including biomass, solar, wind and ethanol. What they don't want to talk about is the fact that there's no way those sources are going to replace coal-fired power production by 2030. And they don't want to talk about the fact that there's another extraordinarily plentiful and much cleaner energy source — natural gas — that can readily replace coal and lower energy costs more effectively than any alternative source. In fact, the same environmentalists who are shutting down coal plants are also opposing increased natural gas production. State Panel Calls Fort Worth's Gas Production Safe. Natural gas drilling in the Fort Worth, Texas metropolitan area is releasing few or no hazardous emissions, and producers are complying with state health standards at all locations, reports the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The commission released its findings after conducting a comprehensive study of natural gas sites in response to environmental activists' assertions the sites were endangering public health and should be shut down. It's Always "Earth Hour" in North Korea. [Electricity] is the difference between the Dark Age and the present age... but not for everyone. Much of Africa is in darkness. too. People who hate civilization and the humans who created it are welcome to live out in the wilderness or in some primitive backward country where they burn dung to cook their meals. If America doesn't start building more coal-fired plants, nuclear plants, and other generators of electricity, we too shall live in darkness when the sun goes down. Be warned, the present administration is doing everything possible to make that future happen. The Greens Hate Energy, America, and You. "There's nothing like a fresh start. On his first day in office, President Obama could make four decisions that would start 2009 with a 'clean slate' of energy policies," said Friends of the Earth[. A]t the same time, the Sierra Club announced its own "Clean Slate Energy Agenda" that — surprise — was the same. The focus of both is on energy use and accessibility. Both want a lot LESS energy use. Along with all other environmental organizations both use the bogeyman of "global warming" to demand huge reductions in "emissions." ... This is the objective of one of President Obama's earliest executive orders. Driving up the cost of owning and operating a car directly strikes at the ability of Americans to be mobile and independent. Justifying it as necessary to reduce global warming is just a big fat lie. The President's Tax Hike on Drilling. One well-publicized element of President Obama's proposed budget is the elimination of "subsidies" for fossil fuels. But, in large part, these are not subsidies at all. ... Obama, in proposing to eliminate expensing of these drilling costs, is not abolishing a tax subsidy, but is imposing a tax penalty. And, given his often-articulated disdain for fossil fuels, he is probably quite aware of this fact. How to spell Obama energy policy: 'D-e-l-a-y'. The need to develop America's bountiful fossil fuel resources will only intensify as our economy grows and those of emerging world economic powers like China and India similarly expand. But President Obama is moving national energy policy in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of aiding exploration and development of available fossil fuel resources, the administration appears to be doing everything possible to slow or even stop it. Obama's Tonya Harding energy policy: Politicians would have us believe there's a Brave New World of renewable energy out there. But like the book, the reality of our current energy policy is more of a dystopia. Case in point: With great fanfare last October, President Obama took a trip to Florida to celebrate raising the electricity bills of Sunshine State residents. Well, not really. But that is in effect what happened. Power plants criticize proposal to block use of seawater for cooling machinery. [California] water board regulators are mulling a plan to force the power companies to spend billions to stop vacuuming the ocean for water to cool their machinery. Mostly, the companies don't want to. Energy Suicide: Unplugging America. The U.S. is home to huge reserves of coal. It is often called the Saudi Arabia of coal. The same applies to oil. For all the talk of "energy independence", the U.S. through its energy policies has been embarked since around the 1970s on something I call energy suicide. If there is one thing the Greens truly hate it is the fuels we use to maintain our economy and our lifestyle. High on the list is coal, but it is essential to understand that the Greens are at war with oil and nuclear power as well. In California, quest for cleaner power hits tortoise-sized speed bumps. On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions in the United States between wilderness conservation and the quest for cleaner power. Our National No-Energy Policy: Thomas Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research, recently offered a chilling description of our national energy focus. "When it comes to paving the way for the responsible development of homegrown, job-creating energy resources, no administration in history has done more to ensure producers do less." You Have to Watch Both of Obama's Hands. [Scroll down slowly] Utilities have to hold back on investments in coal-fired plants until the situation is clarified. Which might just suit Vice President Joe Biden, who announced during the campaign that no coal plants would be built during an Obama administration. ... The president seeks relief from the [OPEC] cartel by talking of "energy independence," while Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar decides to "improve protection for land, water and wildlife" by imposing new regulations that make it more difficult to develop oil and gas resources on 260 million acres of federal land. Obama turns off homegrown energy. The Interior Department has collected only one-tenth as much revenue from oil and gas lease sales in 2009 as it did in 2008. Revenue from such lease sales produced a return for the taxpayer of $942 per acre in the last year of the Bush administration, compared with only $254 per acre in the first year of the Obama administration. Presently, not quite 3 percent of the 2.46 million available [acres of public land] are leased and that percentage is headed down. Under Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, fewer acres on- and off-shore were leased in 2009 than in any previous year. Cheap Natural Gas and Its Enemies. A vast reservoir of clean-burning natural gas could be available at reasonable cost in the coming years, freeing us from some of our dependence on imported energy. Yet there are those who consider such a development a threat. Top Ten Green Auto Headlines of 2009. Higher fuel-economy standards forced increased production of nickel-hydride batteries for hybrids, which in turn jump-started the nickel-mining industry. Green jobs? Nope. "Environmental groups find the rush to bring in mining projects alarming," reported the Detroit News as the National Wildlife Federation filed suit against mining permits in job-starved Michigan. Save the Planet by Banning Ice Cream. If you believe the global warming crowd, then you must believe that we have to minimize our energy consumption. Are you willing to wear the same clothes for years to forgo the energy needed to produce new ones? Are you willing to live without cars, air conditioning, television, heat, holiday dinners, computers, and ovens? If this seems extreme, consider their premise: Our use of energy, in any amount, takes us that much closer to destruction, therefore any reduction must be good. Big Oil Bites Back. Wednesday [5/27/2009], Chevron was descended upon by a zoo-full of San Francisco leftists pushing rain forest sentimentalism, Burma, and other pet causes dear to the no-soap crowd. They journeyed all the way to San Ramon, Calif. to shout "Shame on you!" and "No blood for oil" and worse yet to make demands on the company. ... The real aim of all these attacks is to end these companies' world leadership in oil extraction. The green groups want to put an end to what the oil companies do best, from finding oil in the world's most hostile climates like the Arctic Sea, to extracting oil from abandoned wells, to drilling oil 12 miles through salt walls under the sea. The ultimate goal is less oil to power American industry and to maintain the quality of private life. L.A. may drop plans for controversial transmission line. Los Angeles officials said the city may abandon plans to build a highly controversial "green" power transmission line through unspoiled desert and wildlife preserves on a route east of the San Bernardino Mountains, focusing instead on alternative pathways mostly along an interstate highway where high-voltage lines already exist. The Editor says... Does anyone remember the California energy crisis of 2000? They're setting themselves up for another one. The lunatics of California would rather have "unspoiled desert" in their state than electricity in their homes. And if you live anywhere near a desert, wouldn't you want to have air conditioning? Greenpeace protesters occupy Alberta oilsands site. A group of Greenpeace activists have scaled three smokestacks at a Shell oilsands upgrader plant in northern Alberta in a call for action on climate change. Three of the protesters were arrested as they tried to gain access to the site. Judge blocks drilling on refuge. A federal judge has indefinitely blocked gas and oil drilling on a wildlife refuge that sits next to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in south-central Colorado. U.S. District Court Judge Walker Miller on Thursday [9/3/2009] granted a preliminary injunction, ruling environmental groups presented adequate evidence that drilling would cause irreparable injury to Colorado's Baca National Wildlife Refuge. Renewable Energy, Meet the New Nimbys. Environmentally friendly energy projects are running into the same cries of "not in my backyard" that stymied a previous generation of alternative-power efforts. Even as Americans tell pollsters they are eager for alternatives to fossil fuel, some are fighting proposals for solar and wind projects and for the thousands of miles of transmission lines that would be needed to carry the cleaner energy to market. The protests echo grass-roots opposition that has blocked nuclear plants and energy producing trash incinerators for decades. EPA to Kansas: Start over on coal plant proposal. A federal official has told Kansas to start over its review process for a proposed coal-fired electric plant in southwest Kansas that Gov. Mark Parkinson had endorsed. Sunflower Electric Power Corp., based in Hays, plans to build the electric plant in Finney County. Sunflower had wanted to build two plants, but Rod Bremby, the state's secretary of health and environment, rejected an air-quality permit for them in October 2007, citing their potential carbon dioxide emissions. US nuclear recycling faces the axe. Earlier this week, the administration of President Barack Obama quietly cancelled plans for a large-scale facility to recycle nuclear fuel. The move may prove a fatal blow to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) set up by previous president George W. Bush. Six charged after Niagara Falls observation tower stunt. State Parks Police arrested six activists who unfurled a 70-foot banner this morning off the observation deck in Niagara Falls State Park in protest of the use of tar sands oil. The sun and the oceans do not lie. The moves now being made by the world's political establishment to lock us into December's Copenhagen treaty to halt global warming are as alarming as anything that has happened in our lifetimes. Last week in Italy, the various branches of our emerging world government, G8 and G20, agreed in principle that the world must by 2050 cut its CO2 emissions in half. Britain and the US are already committed to cutting their use of fossil fuels by more than 80 percent. Short of an unimaginable technological revolution, this could only be achieved by closing down virtually all our economic activity: no electricity, no transport, no industry. Boom in hydropower pits fish against climate. The Rocky Reach Dam has straddled the wide, slow Columbia River since the 1950s. It generates enough electricity to supply homes and industries across Washington and Oregon. But the dam in recent years hasn't produced as much power as it might: Its massive turbines act as deadly blender blades to young salmon, and engineers often have had to let the river flow over the spillway to halt the slaughter, wasting the water's energy potential. The Editor says... Properly designed hydroelectric facilities include screens and fences to keep fish and debris and swimmers out of the turbines. Closing the Door on Building New Coal Power Plants. Community [i.e., environmentalist] opposition, legal challenges, and financial uncertainty over future carbon costs are prompting companies to rethink their plans for coal. Since the beginning of 2007, 95 proposed coal-fired power plants have been cancelled or postponed in the United States — 59 in 2007, 24 in 2008, and at least 12 in the first three months of 2009. This covers nearly half of the 200 or so U.S. coal-fired power plants that have been proposed for construction since 2000. Obamamotive. [Scroll down] Don't get the idea that this is about clean energy. If it were, the Obama administration would be pushing for nuclear power as the rest of the world is doing. A May 20th AP article reports that President Obama has agreed to "transfer sensitive nuclear items" to the United Arab Emirates to help that nation build its nuclear power industry to supply the UAE's "growing demand for electricity." It seems the United Arab Emirates can produce electricity from clean, inexpensive nuclear power and the Obama administration will help them, but the United States will have to make do with windmills and solar panels. To add insult to injury, the article points out that as part of this agreement the UAE will buy the nuclear fuel from the US. "No Coal" Goal. The road to Copenhagen in December 2009, where the United Nations will attempt to come up with a successor to the Kyoto (global warming) Protocol, is already before us. The signs along the road indicate the global-warming alarmists are already blitzing the general public and the media about the supposed need to severely limit fossil-fuel usage, particularly coal. Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired power. Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said. Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday [7/1/2009]. The Editor says... Guess what, L.A. — the climate will inevitably change, and you'll be stuck with higher electric rates for no reason! No Energy from this Executive. "As I've often said, in the short term, as we transition to renewable energy," President Obama stated in April, "we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. ... We still need more oil, we still need more gas. If we've got some here in the United States that we can use, we should find it and do so in an environmentally sustainable way." Does anyone believe Obama was serious about this? Given his practice of misdirection — saying one thing, doing another — no one should have. Now, nearly five months into the Obama presidency, it's clear he didn't mean a word of it. His administration is impeding, not promoting, increased production of oil and gas, as it is of coal and nuclear power. America's Nuclear Power Lag: While President Barack Obama welcomed the "peaceful development" of nuclear power plants in Iran and other countries which do not see themselves as friends of the United States, he and his liberal Democratic colleagues seem intent on killing off the remnants of the nuclear power industry in the United States. Although candidate Obama said he would consider nuclear power use if a reasonable solution can be found to storing nuclear waste, President Obama has taken absolutely no action in developing civilian nuclear power. The comprehensive energy program of the Democratic Congress, the Waxman-Markey bill does not even mention nuclear power. FutureGen 'Clean Coal' Project Scaled Back by Obama. The scope of the stalled FutureGen "clean coal" project in central Illinois is being scaled back by the Obama administration in an effort to revive the plans for a coal-fired power plant that spews fewer gases into the air. The U.S. Energy Department said today [6/12/2009] it will support a modified version of the proposal, seeking to build a plant in Mattoon, Illinois, that can capture and bury 60 percent of its carbon emissions. The Bush administration had crafted the original idea for a plant that could trap almost 100 percent of emissions, and then canceled it after costs exceeded estimates. Our Self-Created Energy Problem. Canada, rarely thought of as an oil-rich nation, is in fact awash in crude. Indeed, it is America's primary source of imported oil. The province of Alberta alone holds 173 billion barrels of crude. Some government analysts say that's enough to supply U.S. petroleum needs for 24 years. This Canadian crude doesn't gush from the ground. The tarlike oil is mixed with sand and has to be extracted using heat. The process emits more carbon dioxide that conventional drilling. Environmentalists, who've yet to see any oil they like, consider it dirty oil. Get The Frackin' Gas. An oil company wants to invest its profits in clean-burning American natural gas. A Hungarian billionaire and a "green" politician want to stop it. This is the real Climate-gate scandal. America "awash in natural gas" but will enviros stop its production? Fossil fuels account for 84 percent of all the energy America uses now and they will account for 78 percent in 2035, according to U.S. government projections that include the most likely levels of growth in renewable energy source like wind and solar. That in turn means we are going to need all the oil and gas we can find and produce for the foreseeable future. The Danger of Environmentalism. A grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism. The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism's goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion. Environmentalism vs Creativity: For decades environmentalists have cried that man should adopt an "alternative" form of energy. But in this freest country on earth, exactly how have they exercised their liberty to try and make their dream come true? Well, they support like-minded politicians — who've invented nothing but obstacles to innovation. They march in protests — that have created nothing but vandalism. And they rage against capitalism — the only system by which worthy creations can effectively be financed, marketed and widely distributed. Environmentalist Economic Strangulation. Solar energy requires vast territories for solar cells -- as many as 46,000 square miles would have to be covered by solar panels. One logical place for a "solar energy farm" would be the wide-open, sunshine-rich, sparsely populated Mojave Desert. However, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) already has nixed that possibility in the name of wilderness protection. As a frustrated Gov. Schwarzenegger lamented, if you can't put solar panels in the Mojave Desert, then where can you put them? Dianne Feinstein: I Brake for Turtles. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, thinks he has a partial solution to America's dependence on foreign oil. But he says liberals and environmentalists are rejecting his plan to make it easier to build solar and wind power stations. California's Mohave [sic] Desert is an inhospitable place, he notes, but 19 companies think it's perfect for siting solar or wind facilities on 500,000 acres owned by the federal government there. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who used to be San Francisco's mayor, is having none of it. She is pushing legislation to turn the land into a national monument, which would prevent such development. Feinstein: Don't Spoil Our Desert With Solar Panels. California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy. The Editor says... Democrats like Ms. Feinstein are constantly crowing about "energy independence," yet they seem to find insurmountable problems with everything from oil wells to windmills and solar panels. I wonder... what energy source would she suggest we all use? And how much time does she spend in the currently-unspoiled desert? Feinstein to introduce legislation to establish 2 national monuments in Mojave Desert. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says she plans to introduce legislation today to establish two national monuments on roughly 1 million acres of Mojave Desert outback that is home to bighorn sheep and desert tortoises, extinct volcanoes, sand dunes and ancient petroglyphs. Its centerpiece, Mojave Trails National Monument, would prohibit development on 941,000 acres of federal land and former railroad company property along a 105-mile stretch of old Route 66, between Ludlow and Needles. The Editor says... Why is Senator Feinstein so eager to "prohibit development?" Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power. Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress on Monday [12/21/2009] to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region. ... Her intervention in the Mojave means it will be more difficult for California utilities to achieve a goal, set by the state, of obtaining a third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020; projects in the monument area could have supplied a substantial portion of that power. NIMBY Feinstein nixes solar, wind farms. Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department, has scuttled plans to build 13 multi-million dollar solar plants and wind farms on a million acres in California's Mojave Desert proposed as a national monument. Feinstein's move will severely complicate her state's quixotic effort to obtain a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Obama nukes nuclear storage. For more than two decades, the Congress, the president and the sprawling federal bureaucracy have worked to find a safe place to store the waste of nuclear reactors. Yucca Mountain, a remote formation in the deserts of Nevada, was the chosen site. Now President Obama, bowing to the demands of a fraction of anti-nuclear activists, has thrown 22 years of hard work up in the air. Yucca Mountain, Though on Hold, Would Be Very Safe. President Barack Obama has proposed a budget that would eliminate funding for the nearly completed Yucca Mountain storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Proponents vow not to abandon the plan, and they have strong scientific reasons to support it. Yucca Mountain was selected as the nation's first repository for high-level nuclear waste because of its many natural barriers preventing the escape of radioactive particles. These include the mountain's surface soils, its overall physical shape, the thick rock layers above and below the levels used for storage, and the very impermeable materials located below the area's deep water table. Obama Budget Abandons Yucca Mountain. In a significant energy policy redirection, the Obama administration appears poised to pull the plug on funds for permanent nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. President Barack Obama's recently unveiled budget eliminates funding for the Yucca Mountain geologic repository, in spite of years of planning and almost $8 billion invested in the project. Harry Reid's Land Grab: The 1200-page, pork-laden, $10 billion proposal locks up millions of acres of energy-rich property by designating it as environmentalist-friendly "federal wilderness" area where not even as much as a bicycle would be permitted to travel across the land. Many of these areas recently became available when the ban on domestic drilling in Western states expired last fall and the liberal left couldn't muster the courage to keep it in place due to rising energy prices. Now Democratic leaders are using different legislative strategies to put a new kind of ban in place. Lost In An Energy Wilderness. Earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 Utah oil and gas leases that had gone through seven years of studies, negotiations and land-use planning. They were rejected because temporary drilling operations might be "visible" from several national parks more than a mile away. We are not making this up. Some of these parcels are in or near the Green River Formation, an oil-rich region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming that's been called the "Persia of the West." The Long Awaited Re-Emergence of the Silent Majority. Radical environmental legislation, in the form of endangered species acts, clean water acts, salmon recovery acts, inhibiting or outright prohibiting energy source extraction, power generation by any energy means, or the construction of oil refineries, and the fraud that is man-caused global warming in the form of CO2 emission limits and the insane cap and trade policies, has cutoff American creativity, ingenuity, industriousness and its envied economy, bringing the economy to its knees and rendering the United States a third-world country. Cap and Trade Primer: Eight reasons why cap and trade harms the economy and reduces jobs. The most popular way to regulate carbon dioxide emissions is through a cap and trade program. President Obama and many policymakers support some form of this regulatory policy. ... These proposals are very, very costly and economically damaging. If enacted, last year's flagship cap and trade proposal, the Lieberman-Warner bill, would increase the cost of gasoline by anywhere from 60 percent to 144 percent and increase the cost of electricity by 77 to 129 percent. A Country at the Mercy of Environmentalists. For several decades, environmentalists have managed to get Congress to keep most of our oil resources off-limits to exploration and drilling. They've managed to have the Congress enact onerous regulations that have made refinery construction impossible. Similarly, they've used the courts and Congress to completely stymie the construction of nuclear power plants. As a result, energy prices are at historical highs and threaten our economy and national security. Pickens plan is hot air that may burn America. Radical environmentalists with the ear of Washington's new one-party political leadership oppose new domestic oil, natural gas and coal exploration and constructing new nuclear power plants. Nothing but "alternative" energy seems acceptable. One of the most prominent alternatives is the "Pickens Plan," trumpeted by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. Did someone mention T. Boone Pickens? Let's sit in the dark and freeze to death. We keep hearing about alternative energy. President Obama is calling for a Manhattan Project on alternative energy. We already had a Manhattan Project on alternative energy 65 years ago. We called it the Manhattan Project. Its research eventually led to the development of nuclear power plants. France gets 87 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. We stopped building nuclear power plants in the United States 30 years ago after a movie starring Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon scared everyone, and there was a non-fatal accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. When green has shades of gray. Green-energy advocates and land preservationists in California are on opposite sides of a proposal to place solar-mirror fields in the Mojave Desert. The dispute is reminiscent of the battle over wind power in Nantucket Sound — a clash of competing "goods" where all the players wear green hats. But as with Cape Wind, the threat of global warming is too great to keep all undeveloped land off the table. Capitol Hill's Coal-Fueled Power Plant Dims Clean Energy Hopes. As Congress tries to clean up the nation's energy sources and cut gases blamed for global warming, it is struggling to do so in its own backyard. The Capitol Power Plant, a 99-year-old facility that heats and cools the hallowed halls of Congress, still burns coal and accounts for one-third of the legislative branch's greenhouse gas emissions. For a decade, lawmakers have attempted to clean it up. Controversy Over Yucca Mountain May Be Ending. More than two decades after Yucca Mountain in Nevada was selected to be the national nuclear waste repository, the controversial proposal may finally be put to rest by the Obama administration. In keeping with a pledge President Obama made during the campaign, the budget released last week cuts off almost all funding for creating a permanent burial site for a large portion of the nation's radioactive nuclear waste at the site in the Nevada desert. Has Obama killed nuclear power? It looks like Obama's budget intends to give up on implementing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. (Congratulations, Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV). So, nuclear waste would continue to sit around nuclear power plants. Which means nobody is going to build anymore nuclear power plants in the U.S. ever. Yucca Mountain Site is Ideal for Spent Nuclear Fuel. Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste have been accumulating in the United States for nearly 60 years, when nuclear materials were first used to produce electricity and to develop nuclear weapons. Waste that was planned for disposal at the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada resides instead in temporary storage at 121 sites in 39 states. After decades of scientific study, it is clear no legitimate safety issues preclude opening Yucca Mountain for the storage of spent nuclear fuel. Utility Suspends Nuclear Plant Effort. A utility in Missouri said Thursday that it was suspending its efforts to build a new nuclear reactor, making its proposed plant, Callaway 2, the first of the so-called nuclear renaissance reactors to fall by the wayside. The industry has been looking forward to its first construction start in 30 years. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 17 companies have filed applications to build 26 reactors. Discovered: 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Good news for America undermines the green energy agenda. The Wall Street Journal reports a huge new discovery of natural gas — a fossil fuel so clean even liberals can stand it. ... Good news, right? It's good for consumers, it's good for the country and the economy, and it's good for the world's resources. ... But it's bad for the Fear Industry ... it's bad for our media airheads, who have to think of whole new scare headlines ... it's bad for the Green Doom Brigade. Obama sounds death knell for nuclear power. Under the guise of cutting wasteful spending, President Obama is terminating support for the Yucca Mountain spent nuclear fuel repository in Nevada. While not unexpected, this development means that there will be no place to store nuclear waste, probably for decades, other than at temporary storage locations at each of the nation's nuclear power plants. Democrats are opposed to coal-fired power plants — unless they own them. Green lobby guides Democrats on climate bill. Democratic lawmakers who spent much of the Bush administration blasting officials for letting energy lobbyists write national policy have turned to a coalition of business and environmental groups to help draft their own sweeping climate bill. And one little-noticed provision of the draft bill would give one of the coalition's co-founders a lucrative exemption on a coal-fired project it is building. Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy. Let's start by deciphering exactly what Mr. Obama includes in his definition of "renewable" energy. If he's including hydropower, which now provides about 2.4% of America's total primary energy needs, then the president clearly has no concept of what he is promising. Hydro now provides more than 16 times as much energy as wind and solar power combined. Yet more dams are being dismantled than built. Since 1999, more than 200 dams in the U.S. have been removed. Blowhards. For the last seven years and counting, the green entrepreneur Jim Gordon has been trying to build a fleet of wind turbines in federal waters near the upscale seascapes of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The site seemed ideal, given the stiff ocean breezes and the eco-friendly politics in Massachusetts. The company says its 130 towers could meet 75% of the region's electricity needs and reduce carbon emissions by some 734,000 tons every year. The sort of people who can afford to use "summer" as a verb are in favor of all that. Completely in favor, really. But they did want to raise one quibble. Unfortunately, the wind farm would create "visual pollution" in Nantucket Sound, particularly the parts within sight of their beachfront vacation homes. Saving lives with coal. Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz. Moreover, the vast bulk of modern power plant particulates are ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate. "Neither substance is harmful, even at levels tens of times greater than are ever found in the air Americans breathe,"Schwartz says. Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gas: You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalists' attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. Lawmakers ask coal-fired plant near Capitol to switch to gas. Four days before a planned civil disobedience action at a coal-fired power plant near the U.S. Capitol, the leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate asked Thursday for the plant to replace all its coal with natural gas. ... The power plant, three blocks south of the Capitol, has been running every day since it went into service in 1910. It provides heating and cooling for the Capitol, the Library of Congress and about 20 other federal buildings on Capitol Hill, using both coal and natural gas. Radical Environmentalism Is An Unmitigated Farce. My other issues with environmentalists have to do with their getting in the way of a free society to provide the resources necessary to keep that society going economically. Environmentalists have stopped oil refineries and nuclear power plants from being built for over 25 years. That's why a gallon of gas is now well over $2.00 [in September 2005] and will not likely come down and that's why our power capacity is at or near maximum. ... Environmentalists have stopped the drilling for oil in areas of known oil reserves, thus making us more dependent on foreign sources and driving up the cost of oil and oil-associated products, accordingly. Energy in the Balance. Take the example of renewable energy projects, the very sort about which environmentalists often wax lyrical. But "the greens are blocking the very transmission network needed for renewable electricity to move through the economy," according to The Wall Street Journal. The utilities willing to spend $1 billion to build the needed 240 miles of transmission line are projecting a completion date of 2014 at the earliest because of the length of permitting hearings and subsequent appeals. Minnesota Green Group Fights Wind Power Transmission Line. A Minnesota environmental activist group is fighting against the construction of power lines to deliver wind power to the state, shortly after environmental activist groups successfully pressured the state government into enacting renewable power mandates. Less than two years after the state legislature passed an aggressive renewable power mandate, the Citizens Energy Task Force has registered as a "legally intervening party" and is drafting legal arguments asserting the proposed wind power transmission lines unlawfully threaten regional wildlife. The Editor says... Environmentalists apparently thrive on problems rather than solutions. They want to replace reliable oil and gas with intermittent wind and solar power. They want us to use the power of the wind, but they oppose the construction of electric transmission lines. There is no way to satisfy environmentalists, other than to stop using energy altogether. Clean-Coal Debate Pits Al Gore's Group Against Obama, Peabody. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his Alliance for Climate Protection say clean-coal technology is a fantasy. Peabody Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. coal producer, says another prominent Democrat has pledged to make the technology a reality: President Barack Obama. New Utah Power Plants Restricted by Referendum. Sevier County, Utah voters have approved a referendum requiring public approval for new coal-fired power plants, placing severe restrictions on the ability of power companies to meet growing electricity demand in the region. The vote may be challenged in court. Sevier Power Co. is seeking to build a 270 megawatt coal-fired power plant on 300 acres of privately owned land in central Utah near the town of Sigurd. With passage of the referendum, Sevier Power's proposal will be subject to a special election. Court halts Utah oil and gas leases. A judge late Saturday [1/17/2009] halted the Bush administration's efforts to open 110,000 acres of federal land in Utah to oil and gas exploration, ruling that the danger of damaging the pristine land required further study before leases were awarded. The leases to the parcels had been auctioned off Dec. 19 in a move that environmental groups said was a last-minute gift to the energy industry before President Bush left office. Bias alert! A "gift to the energy industry" is a gift to the energy consumer. Personally, I'd rather enjoy cheap gas in my neighborhood than "pristine land" way out west. Environmentalists file 11th-hour lawsuit to block proposed lease sales in Utah. Environmental groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday as a last-ditch effort to block the sale of leases for 110,000 acres of federal land in Utah that the Bush administration plans to auction off on Friday. Critics say the proposed lease sales are an 11th-hour attempt by the administration to leave its mark on the striking, energy-rich red-rock landscape of southern and eastern Utah. The Editor says... Read between the lines: The landscape is "energy-rich" and the environmentalists don't want that energy to be tapped. Environmentalists look to Obama to limit drilling. Environmentalists on Monday [11/10/2008] applauded an announcement that U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama would consider curtailing oil and gas drilling in some areas, and expressed hope future energy policy decisions would contain more environmental protections. The co-chair of Obama's transition team, John Podesta, said on Sunday that Obama probably would reverse an executive order by President George W. Bush allowing drilling in fragile lands in Utah. The Editor asks... What is fragile land? Democrats Still Aren't Serious About Drilling. After a five-week paid vacation, Democrats are back in Washington and claiming that they want to do something about oil prices. But the problem is that their plan, which passed the House yesterday [9/16/2008] and will likely come up for a vote in the Senate later this week, will not produce a single drop of oil. Why? Because it does nothing about environmental groups that are suing to stop drilling. Second thoughts on warming: President-elect Barack Obama wants to phase out coal-based electricity generation, switch to renewable energy and follow Europe's lead on climate change. That could prove difficult. Coal generates half of all U.S. electricity. Wind provides less than 2 percent of all electricity and cannot be relied on when it's needed. Europe's lead can't even be defined, much less followed. Biden: 'No coal plants here in America'. Some great rope line video from Joe Biden's recent Ohio swing, where he was asked by an anti-pollution campaigner about clean coal — a controversial approach in Democratic circles for which Obama has voiced support, particularly during the Kentucky primary. Biden's apparent answer: He supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States. "No coal plants here in America," he said. "Build them, if they're going to build them, over there. Make them clean." Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants. Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday [9/24/2008] to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon. The former U.S. vice president, whose climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award, told a philanthropic meeting in New York City that "the world has lost ground to the climate crisis." Gore's Rebellion. Speaking last Wednesday [9/24/2008] on a celebrity panel in New York, the Nobel Prize Laureate proclaimed: "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration." He added, "clean coal does not exist." Mr. Gore didn't explain how far he thinks his young acolytes should go in their rage against the coal-burning machines that provide about 50% of U.S. electricity. Sit-ins? Marches against power plants? How about trashing power lines: What could he mean by "civil disobedience"? Gore the Vandal: Did you see the news item about Al Gore's speech this week in which he urged "civil disobedience" to stop the construction of coal-fired plants to meet our nation's growing need for more electrical power? Gore epitomizes what I suspect future generations will call "The Great Global Warming Hoax", but in the meantime, he is able to generate the bogus science and anti-energy propaganda that is at the core of environmental ideology. Up in smoke. The Environmental Protection Agency's rejection of a permit for a Utah coal plant this week spells trouble for three coal-fired power plants proposed in Nevada. Environmentalists are hailing the decision, released Thursday [11/13/2008] by the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board, as the final straw for new traditional coal plants. Utah's permit was denied because it did not limit greenhouse gas emissions ... . Outdoor wood boilers under fire. Who doesn't love the smell of a wood fire? The scent of a burning oak or maple log can brighten even the dreariest winter day. ... The problem is a home furnace called an outdoor wood boiler. The furnaces are designed to burn wood, wood pellets or corn in an outdoor shed, heating water that is piped into the house. Unlike a wood stove or a campfire, however, wood boilers give off copious amounts of smoke. Hidden Audio: Obama Tells SF Chronicle He Will Bankrupt Coal Industry. Imagine if John McCain had whispered somewhere that he was willing to bankrupt a major industry? Would this declaration not immediately be front page news? Well, Barack Obama actually flat out told the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate) that he was willing to see the coal industry go bankrupt in a January 17, 2008 interview. The result? Nothing. Palin Attacks Obama on Coal Production. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin unleashed a new volley against Barack Obama on a four-city tour of Ohio on Sunday [11/2/2008] by touting newly released audio comments made by the Democratic presidential candidate promising to restrict the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the U.S. The issue is particularly sensitive in coal-rich Ohio, West Virginia, and Colorado. Obama made the comments to the San Francisco Chronicle in January, which were posted on YouTube over the weekend. Ohio Coal Association Says Obama Ticket Not Supportive of Coal. Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association (OCA), today [11/3/2008] issued the following statement in response to just-released remarks from Senator Barack Obama about the nation's coal industry. "Regardless of the timing or method of the release of these remarks, the message from the Democratic candidate for President could not be clearer: the Obama-Biden ticket spells disaster for America's coal industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who work in it. Palin, Obama Camp Spar Over 'Bankrupting' Big Coal. Is there more daylight between Republican and Democratic energy proposals than commonly thought? In the election's final weekend, coal once again became the battlefield, with a broadside attack from Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Sen. Barack Obama's plans to "bankrupt" the coal industry. She referred to a January interview Sen. Obama gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in which he said that new environmental regulations — including caps on greenhouse-gas emissions — would make traditional coal-fired plants terribly expensive. We Cannot Worship Nature and Remain Free. When I heard Barack Obama promise to bankrupt the coal industry I did not hear a man at war with coal — I heard a man at war with man. His harsh words for the coal industry sprang from his near deification of nature and his subsequent willingness to sacrifice not only our livelihoods in the name of "environmental responsibility" but our freedom as well. The Great Global Warming Swindle. A very large section of the world's population still does not enjoy the benefits of electricity. ... These people burn wood or dried dung in their homes to cook their food. They have no artificial light or heat in their homes (huts). Their wretched fires give off horrific amounts of smoke and eat up fuel (trees). When it gets dark they must sleep. When it gets cold they shiver (it gets cold in Africa too you know). And of course no electricity also means there are no fancy things like water purification plants. ... Getting electricity is a matter of life and death for about a third of the world's population. Africa has coal and oil, but the greens say these must be left untouched. This is barbaric. The fruits of environmentalism: UK faces blackouts within 10 years after closure of coal power plants. Britain faces blackouts within ten years as power stations go out of service. Energy experts claim government dithering has failed to guarantee the construction of new plants. Nine oil and coal-fired power plants are to close by 2015 because of an EU directive that aims to limit pollution. At the same time, four ageing nuclear power plants will also be shut. Utah coal plant permit blocked by EPA panel. The Environmental Protection Agency was blocked Thursday [11/13/2008] from issuing a permit for a proposed coal-burning power plant in Utah without addressing global warming. The ruling by an agency appeals panel means the Obama administration probably will determine the fate of other similar plants. The panel said the EPA's Denver office failed to adequately support its decision to issue a permit for the Bonanza plant without requiring controls on carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas. The Editor says... Note to Associated Press writers: Please note that "the leading greenhouse gas" is water vapor, not carbon dioxide. Harry Reid Sneaks in Oil Shale Ban. Leave it to Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid to crash the Energy Freedom party. Not only is he crashing the party, he's doing so through the side door where he thinks no one can see him. Just when it appeared that we could celebrate Congress lifting the ban on oil shale, Senator Reid "has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout." Cheap Natural Gas and Its Democrat Enemies. We have the power to tap vast shale gas reserves that lie under our feet through large swaths of America, but special interest groups aligned with the Democratic Party are trying to frustrate plans to bring this cheap, plentiful, and clean energy to the surface. Who are the irresponsible parties? Environmentalists balk at drilling off NJ coast. With oil and gas drilling heating up as an issue in the presidential race, environmentalists and the governor reiterated their opposition to tapping reserves off the state's coast, saying it would endanger the environment and the tourism industry on which New Jersey is so dependent. "It is a dark, dark day for the natural coast. Some might say it's as black as oil," said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, who joined environmental and fishing groups at a news conference Wednesday on the Avon boardwalk. Congressional corruption: The energy crisis comes to rest at the feet of the Democrats. For more than 30 years, the Democrats have used whatever rules and procedures necessary to block or prevent the energy industry from keeping up with the growing demand. Democrats have prevented the construction of a single nuclear plant, or a single oil refinery, and the development of our domestic energy resources. It is the Democrats that are now preventing even a reasoned debate. Pedaling no-gas options. Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives sent a message last week to hard-working commuters forced to pay historically high prices for gasoline: Ride a bike. The message was buried on page 255 of a 290-page bill the Democratic leadership introduced at 9:45 p.m. last Monday night, forced through the Rules Committee at 10:00 p.m., and put up for a "debate" and final vote — with no amendments allowed — on Tuesday evening [9/16/2008]. Who Are You Calling Stupid? [Scroll down] There's a reason why we don't have more coal-fired and nuclear plants generating the electricity we need. There's a reason our electric power grid is not being upgraded to meet our future needs. There's a reason oil companies won't spend billions to build new refineries. There's a reason food costs more when corn is converted into fuel instead of food. The reason is thirty-one years of government regulations and general interference with the power and energy industries that must answer to their investors while coping with "environmental" laws that slow or render impossible the provision of our energy needs. We Can Thank Shortsighted Politicians for High Energy Prices. For decades left-leaning politicians have advocated higher prices and less energy. They were going to save the environment by punishing Americans into driving less and driving smaller cars. Now their policies have succeeded with a vengeance. The very left wing politicians who favored a policy of no oil and gas exploration, no use of coal, no development of nuclear power, and no aggressive development of new technologies are now panic-stricken that their policies of higher prices have led to higher prices. Environmentalism's Big Lie: Renewable Energy. Claims that renewable energy can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power are a fraud. In California, moreover, environmentalists have revealed that their real attitude toward renewable energy is no less hostile than their attitude toward all other forms of man-made power. After the installation of hundreds of "alternative" energy plants in the state — in the nation's most ambitious program to build environmentally correct power plants — the greens have begun to reject one renewable power technology after another. A Step Back From Enviro Lunacy. Lobbyists and litigators for environmental restriction groups have produced energy policies that I suspect future generations will regard as lunatic. We haven't built a new nuclear plant for some 30 years, since a Jane Fonda movie exaggerated their dangers. We have allowed states to ban oil drilling on the outer continental shelf, prompted by the failure of 40- or 50-year-old technology in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969, though current technology is much better, as shown by the lack of oil spills in the waters off Louisiana and Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina. Color Energy Woes Green. The global economy depends on available, affordable energy. Many place their hopes for abundant energy supplies in yet-to-be-imagined technologies. But while researchers tinker with far-off possibilities, there's something we should do right now to keep our primary energy sources flowing — break the radical environmentalists' chokehold on national energy policy. Seeing The Light: Most of France's electricity has been generated by nuclear power for years, and now Great Britain is again looking to atomic energy. Why can't we increase nuclear output in this country? The answer is, of course, irrational opposition by environmentalists. They screech about greenhouse gas emissions from gas- and coal-fired electric plants but, with a few exceptions, they fanatically resist the most reasonable alternative: nuclear power. Greens Will Leave us Cold and Hungry. Earthworks is about to initiate its own "No Dirty Energy" campaign "to alert the public to the climate, ecosystem and community risks associated with mining and burning the world's dirtiest fuel sources?" Labeling coal and oil "dirty" is pure PR and ignores the fact that coal, a cheap and abundant energy sources, provides just over fifty percent of America's electricity, an energy without which the entire nation would cease to function. It ignores the way the Green's campaign against oil has for four decades thwarted the right of American's to access and use its national oil and natural gas reserves yet to be found and extracted from 85% of our coastlines or the well-known fact that billions of barrels of oil remain untapped in ANWR. Blame the greens when the lights go off. In successive weeks, Greenpeace has denounced proposals for new coal-fired power stations and a new generation of nuclear power plants. It may be true that clean-coal technology is a long way off, but whatever other complaints can be made about it, nuclear power is an alternative to fossil fuels and honest greens are hard-headed enough to admit it. James Lovelock, the greatest environmentalist of our time, describes it as 'the one safe, available, energy source' and despairs at the green movement's 'irrational' objections. The Nancy Pelosi of Kansas. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas … has spearheaded Kansas efforts to ban new coal plants, becoming the first state to reject new energy generation on health (read global warming) grounds. … But as Planet Gore's own Sterling Burnett has reported, 13 potential Kansas wind-farm projects are endangered as a direct result of the state's rejection of the coal plants! Britain Plans World's Biggest Tidal Power Station. Great Britain is mulling plans to build the world's largest tidal power station. Though the climate-friendly energy source is expected to provide 5 percent of the country's power, environmentalists oppose the project, which they say will destroy vital wildlife habitat. Uranium mining potential: What does uranium have in common with Arctic oil, offshore natural gas, coastal wind and cellulosic ethanol? They're all sources of energy that government bureaucrats have declared off-limits — needlessly. Just last month, Rep. Raul Grijalva, Arizona Democrat, declared an emergency situation to withdraw public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon from uranium mining. Virginia Is Sitting on the Energy Mother Lode. Virginia is one of just four states that ban uranium mining. The ban was put in place in 1984, to calm fears that had been sparked by the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island outside of Harrisburg, Pa. in 1979. ... [Henry Bowen and Walter Coles] are asking the state to determine whether mining uranium really is a hazard and, if not, to lift the ban. But they've run into a brick wall of environmental activists who raise the specter of nuclear contamination and who are determined to prevent scientific studies of the issue. Interior to halt uranium mining at Grand Canyon. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce Monday that his department is temporarily barring the filing of new uranium mining claims on about 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon, an Obama administration official said. The land is being "segregated" for two years so that the department can study whether it should be permanently withdrawn from mining activity, said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Democrats' Drilling Bill Angers Environmental Purists. All summer long, House Republicans staged weekly news conferences outside the Capitol calling for more offshore oil drilling. And they were usually met by an assortment of environmental protesters chanting in unison, trying to drown out the GOP's pro-drilling voices. Some even wore polar bear costumes to protest Arctic drilling proposals. Did someone mention polar bears? No Energy, Please. Andrew Mencinsky, executive director of Surfer' Environmental Alliance, called the natural gas project "an ecological disaster waiting to happen — one that could be triggered by an accident or a terrorist attack." Yeah, right. Terrible things could happen, might happen, or may happen. In fact, accidents happen. That's why they're called accidents. People and businesses go about their lives acting with reasonable caution. We don't live our lives based on what the Greens call "the precautionary principle", the belief that any possibility of a problem is sufficient reason to not precede with any project. Were that the case none of us would never get behind the wheel of our car because auto accidents kill about 40,000 Americans every year. So much for "checks and balances." Uranium mining halted by House. House Democrats on a single committee used an emergency power Wednesday to halt new uranium mining claims near the Grand Canyon, in a move Republicans say violates the Constitution. Voting 20-2, the Natural Resources Committee passed a resolution declaring an emergency and directing the Interior Department secretary to block new claims. Under a 1976 act of Congress the new resolution has the force of law, without needing the full House or Senate. Legislating from the bench: Georgia Judge Blocks Coal Power Plant. In yet another skirmish involving arguments over human-induced global warming, a Georgia judge has halted construction of a coal-fired power plant. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore invalidated a state-issued permit for the $2 billion, 1,200-megawatt Longleaf Energy Plant. Moore's decision, handed down July 1, stated Dynergy must first obtain a permit from state regulators limiting the amount of carbon dioxide the plant would be allowed to emit. Enviros sue to stop drilling. A coalition of 10 environmental and wildlife organizations filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver on Friday [7/11/2008] in an effort to stop hotly contested drilling on the Roan Plateau. … The Roan Plateau, northwest of Rifle, has become a battleground between energy interests and environmentalists who hope to keep drill rigs off the top to protect deer and elk habitat and creeks full of native cutthroat trout. The Editor says... If my car ran on cutthroat trout, I'd root for their side. Let's Drill. Eighty-five percent of the untapped domestic sources of oil have been put off-limits. There's a federally mandated moratorium on drilling offshore, and huge roadblocks to exploiting the oil on the vast federal lands have been erected. "What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity," wrote Robert Samuelson recently. Lifting the moratorium requires action by Congress and the White House. So don't hold your breath. The Democratic Congress is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environmental lobby, which regards oil exploration, much less drilling, as a sin against nature. Shut Up and Produce Some Oil. Liberals are flailing about looking for some political cover on energy and gas prices. For decades now, they have supported the policies of extremists who have systematically sought to shut down every major energy source for our economy. We can't drill for oil offshore, we can't drill in the frozen tundra of north Alaska, we can't even develop oil shale on the mainland. Liberals are even opposing the development of new oil discoveries in the Plains states. Report: Most oil, gas beneath public lands off-limits. A new report from the Bush administration says most of the oil and more than 40% of the natural gas beneath public lands in the United States are off-limits to drilling. Rolling back environmental safeguards and employing new drilling technologies would give energy companies access to 19 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, administration officials said Wednesday [5/21/2008]. Coal Power Opposition Raises Blackout Possibilities. The lights may soon go out in the Washington, DC metro area and other parts of the country due to environmental activist opposition to coal-fired power plants, energy analysts are warning. "Electric power has already become painfully expensive in Washington and its suburbs. Now, local utilities, say, it could become something even worse: scarce," the Washington Post reported on February 3. Protest halts coal train for six hours. Thirty-seven demonstrators were arrested after about 1000 people halted trains in Newcastle yesterday [7/12/2008] in a protest against the coal industry's role in climate change. … Three coal trains bound for Carrington Coal Terminal — one of the ports which make Newcastle the world's biggest export point — were halted for about six hours after about a dozen protesters chained themselves to carriages. Hundreds of others lined the fence as mounted police held them back from the rail line from 11:00 am until about 2:30 pm. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." |
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Document location http://www.akdart.com/enviro12.html Updated August 30, 2010. Page design by Andrew K. Dart ©2010 |