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Windmill generators: See this page. Ethanol: See this page. Biodiesel: It Doesn't Take a Rocket Scientist…. [Here]'s what has been happening in the fuel tanks of trucks across Minnesota because of the biodiesel mandate that was put into effect last year. Over 60% of the diesel trucks in the state have had their fuel tanks and fuel filters gummed up by the soybean oil that the government forced into the fuel tanks. Biodiesel is now slightly cheaper than regular diesel. While soaring fuel costs are the bane of most businesses, Oregon makers of biodiesel are celebrating. Their product now is cheaper than the stuff that comes out of the ground. Orang-utans home destroyed for bio-diesel. The Orang-utans of Borneo are facing an unprecedented threat as their habitat is destroyed to satisfy increasing global demands for bio-fuel. As jungles are rapidly replaced by palm oil plantations, the great apes starve and are hunted, mutilated, burnt and snared by workers protecting their crops. At a rehabilitation centre run by the charity Borneo Orang-utan Survival, there are more than 600, mostly orphaned babies. Biofuel: Bad for the Environment? Two new studies released Thursday [4/10/2008] call into question the global movement toward biofuel. According to these researchers, production of biofuel actually contributes to global warming, doing more harm than good. Biofuels may harm more than help. Biofuels, championed for reducing energy reliance, boosting farm revenues and helping fight climate change, may in fact hurt the environment and push up food prices, a study suggested on Tuesday [9/11/2007]. In a report on the impact of biofuels, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said biofuels may "offer a cure that is worse than the disease they seek to heal". A New 'Green' Body Count Begins. Biofuels have turned out to be a lose-lose-lose proposition. Once touted by the greens and the biofuel industry as being able to reduce the demand for oil and lower greenhouse gas emissions, biofuels have accomplished neither goal and have no prospect for accomplishing either in the foreseeable future. Chinese Demand Sends Christmas Tree Prices Soaring. Demand for Christmas trees is rising due to increasing exports and the growing number of single-person households. Meanwhile the supply of trees has decreased because several thousand hectares of tree plantations in Germany have been given over to more profitable uses, such as lucrative biofuel crops. Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a 'Clean' Fuel. After residents of the Riverbend Farms subdivision noticed that an oily, fetid substance had begun fouling the Black Warrior River, which runs through their backyards, Mark Storey, a retired petroleum plant worker, hopped into his boat to follow it upstream to its source. It turned out to be an old chemical factory that had been converted into Alabama's first biodiesel plant, a refinery that intended to turn soybean oil into earth-friendly fuel. D1 Oils says US subsidies have forced it to shut UK refineries. The enormous damage being done by "splash-and-dash" imports of American biodiesel was highlighted yesterday when one of the UK's leading operators, D1 Oils, said it was closing down all its refining operations in Britain after running up a £46m annual loss. Biofuels under fire at International Energy Forum. Biofuels, once seen as a key factor in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, are behind the current global food crisis, major oil producers and consumers charged at an energy forum here on Monday [4/21/2008]. Rush to biofuels leaves a world of emptier plates. In early 2007, two University of Minnesota economists forecast that biofuels would sharply increase food prices by 2020, leading to a steep rise in the number of empty bellies in the world. How wrong they were. Soaring rates of hunger didn't take a generation. It took a year. Gore Ducks, as a Backlash Builds Against Biofuel. In an interview last year, Mr. Gore expressed his support for corn-based ethanol, but endorsed moving to what he called a "third generation" of so-called cellulosic ethanol production, which is still in laboratory research. "It doesn't compete with food crops, so it doesn't put pressure on food prices," the former vice president told Popular Mechanics magazine. Feeling blue over trying to be green: Two papers, in the journal Science, rocked the biofuels world by claiming that plant-based fuels cause more greenhouse-gas emissions than dirty, evil old oil. The reason is that it takes land to grow fuel. That inevitably leads to the destruction of forests and grasslands, the studies say. Repeal the MN Biodiesel Mandate — Do It for the (Frostbitten) Children!!. All schools in the Bloomington School District will be closed today after state-required biodiesel fuel clogged in school buses Thursday morning and left dozens of students stranded in frigid weather, the district said late Thursday. Rick Kaufman, the district's spokesman, said elements in the biodiesel fuel that turn into a gel-like substance at temperatures below 10 degrees clogged about a dozen district buses Thursday morning. Montana Biodiesel Producer Owes Farmers $1.2M For Last Year's Crop. A Montana biodiesel company, which has received more than $1.6 million in grants and loans from the state and a regional economic development corporation, owes farmers in Montana and North Dakota $1.2 million for crops grown last year. How Government Botches Biofuels. Biofuels were originally conceived as the fuel of choice for automobiles when the internal combustion engine was first developed. Biofuels later re-emerged as a possible alternative to petroleum for our liquid fuel needs. Proponents touted biofuels as carbon neutral, and possible to generate not only from crops like corn and sugar cane, but also from agricultural or industrial waste like wood chips and bagasse, leftover material from sugar-cane production in southern Gulf states like Louisiana. Medvedev slams biofuel producers at grain summit. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has urged countries to switch to non-food sources of biofuel to prevent the spread of hunger in a world where every sixth person is malnourished. "We are advocating production of biofuel from other, non-food sources," Mr Medvedev said in a speech inaugurating the launch of a global grain summit in his native Saint Petersburg. More information filed under Ethanol is not such a great idea. Fluoride in the Public Water Supply: Fluoride: Friend or Foe? Fluoride is a known toxin, slightly less toxic than arsenic and more poisonous than lead. The industrial chemicals used to fluoridate over 90 percent of fluoridated water in the United States, (fluorosilicate acid and sodium silicofluoride), are by-products of the phosphate fertilizer industry and have never been tested for safety or effectiveness. The Fluoride Deception. In a society where asbestos, lead, silica, beryllium and many other carcinogens have found their way into the marketplace and then been recalled, one has to wonder why fluoride, so toxic it is used as a rat poison and pesticide, is embraced so thoroughly and so blindly. Citizens uniting against fluoride. A group of private citizens in San Diego County is planning to file a large-scale lawsuit in federal court against public water districts and challenge the constitutionality of using industrial-grade hydrofluosilicic acid to fluoridate drinking water. Fluoride: Miracle drug or toxic-waste killer? While few would argue that topical application of minute amounts of fluoride on teeth would reduce cavities, deliberately ingesting it — even in trace amounts — is risky. The fluoride added to public drinking water is actually fluorosilic acid. It is described by critics as an industrial waste product. Supporters prefer to call it an industry byproduct. Most of it has come from Florida's phosphate fertilizer industry. Fluoridation: Mind Control of the Masses. "At the end of the Second World War, the United States Government sent Charles Eliot Perkins, a research worker in chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology, to take charge of the vast Farben chemical plants in Germany. "While there he was told by the German chemists of a scheme which had been worked out by them during the war and adopted by the German General Staff. "This was to control the population in any given area through mass medication of drinking water. In this scheme, sodium fluoride occupied a prominent place. "Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotising a certain area of the brain and will thus make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. "Both the Germans and the Russians added sodium fluoride to the drinking water of prisoners of war to make them stupid and docile." Why I Changed My Mind About Water Fluoridation: Large-scale surveys from United States, from Missouri and Arizona, have since revealed the same picture: no real benefit to teeth from fluoride in drinking water. For example, Professor Steelink in Tucson, AZ, … found: "When we plotted the incidence of tooth decay versus fluoride content in a child's neighborhood drinking water, a positive correlation was revealed. In other words, the more fluoride a child drank, the more cavities appeared in the teeth". From other lands — Australia, Britain, Canada, Sri Lanka, Greece, Malta, Spain, Hungary, and India — a similar situation has been revealed: either little or no relation between water fluoride and tooth decay, or a positive one (more fluoride, more decay). Solar power: Solar Energy Is Far from Ready to Replace Petroleum. The principal use of petroleum in the United States is for transportation, not electrical generation. In 2002, petroleum generated slightly more than 2 percent of total electricity generated at U.S. power plants. That same year, solar sources generated about 0.01 percent of the nation's electricity. The biggest competitor to solar electrical generation is not petroleum but coal, which generates about 54 percent of the nation's electricity. The source of this coal is the United States, which has immeasurable amounts of it and requires no military commitments outside its borders to protect it. Florida Electricity Costs Skyrocket as Utility Invests Heavily in Solar. Florida Power & Light (FPL) customers are being hit with a 16 percent hike in electricity prices as the utility company invests more heavily in solar power. FPL's ongoing solar investment appears to violate a state law requiring utilities to provide power from the least expensive available source. San Francisco Solar Initiative Too Costly. $100 million solar power initiative approved by San Francisco voters in 2001 has yet to produce any solar power, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission reports. Prior to the 2001 solar power ballot initiative, solar power advocates promised the costs of solar panel technology were poised to drop dramatically. [And they were wrong.] Solar Power: Too Good to Be True. For decades, there have been delirious proclamations that the world would soon run on solar energy. Those statements always have sounded too good to be true … and, sure enough, they always have been false. Solar panels a 'loser,' professor says. Installing solar panels on homes is an economic "loser" with the costs far outweighing the financial benefit, a respected University of California-Berkeley business professor said Wednesday [2/20/2008]. The technology, using photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, is not economically competitive with fossil fuels and costs more than other renewable fuels, said Severin Borenstein, who also directs the UC Energy Institute. "We are throwing away money by installing the current solar PV technology," he said. Neighbors Clash Over Trees, Solar Power. In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. Update: Landowner Must Cut Redwoods to Accommodate Neighbor's Solar Panels. In a battle between next-door neighbor environmentalists, a Sunnyvale, California couple is being ordered to cut down their backyard redwood trees or face up to $1,000 per day in fines. The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office issued the order to Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett after their neighbor, Mark Vargas, complained the redwoods were partially shading a solar power panel Vargas had installed a few years after the redwoods were planted. The Editor says... This decision sets an important precedent: Solar panels trump redwood trees, even if the trees were there first. Trees Block Solar Panels, and a Feud Ends in Court. Call it an eco-parable: one Prius-driving couple takes pride in their eight redwoods, the first of them planted over a decade ago. Their electric-car-driving neighbors take pride in their rooftop solar panels, installed five years after the first trees were planted. Schwarzenegger Misfires With Solar Subsidy. Photovoltaic (PV) systems convert sunlight into electricity. This is great, but for a few problems: They are costly, they rarely produce the electricity claimed, and, even with subsidies, PV does not pay for itself. Solar Junk: In California, where solar energy usage has become most common, some 20 homeowners' associations have laws in place making it harder to install solar panels. Read more about the California Energy Crunch of 2000, and see if all those solar panels did any good. California ran into an energy crisis because the population is growing steadily but there are no new power plants. Environmentalists have made it all but impossible to build new power plants in California. "Million Solar Roofs" Bill Dies in California Assembly. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Million Solar Roofs" program (the state Senate bill known as SB1), which would give billions of tax dollars to the solar power industry and force home builders to offer solar power as a standard component of all new home construction, died in the state's assembly September 8. Spiraling cost estimates largely killed the bill. Renewable Portfolio Standard Threatens Consumers. The notion that an RPS will include a "portfolio" of renewable energy sources is misleading — wind energy is the only economically viable renewable energy source given current technologies. Although other renewable sources, such as biomass and solar, have long-term potential, they are currently no more than niche technologies. Voters Reject Solar-Powered Housing Development. Voters in Livermore, California on November 8 rejected an initiative that would have allowed construction of the nation's largest solar-powered community. MSNBGreen: The King Kong of the corporate world needs tax breaks, subsidies and favorable regulations in order to make green technology profitable. Indeed, GE has nearly cornered the market on the solar panels necessary to implement Kyoto-style reforms. Global warming hysteria is good for its bottom line. Solar Meets Polar as Winter Curbs Clean Energy. Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy. This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine. Problems with 'green' energy you may not have heard about. After a big snowstorm, your electricity supply is reduced or terminated, if you are depending on solar. ... Keep in mind the unreliability and hazards of alternative power the next time Obama sings the praises of green energy and tells us how wonderful it will be when he shuts down coal powered facilities. E-waste looms behind solar-power boom. Solar is a renewable source of energy, and solar panels don't pollute when they are generating electricity. But the upstream process of making solar panels involves a number of toxic chemicals. Most solar cells are made out of silicon, the same material embedded in billions of electronic chips. As a result, the burgeoning solar photovoltaics (PV) industry faces an electronic-waste problem. The Solar and Renewable Utopia: Carter Redux, that's the only way to put it. After 30 years out of power, the purveyors of the Solar and Renewable Utopia are back. We're going to develop windmills, make solar panels affordable, and redesign buildings so they use only half as much energy — in theory, at least. The subtext, of course, is this — we won't have to deal with coal, nuclear, or any of those other nasty technologies that aren't "clean and renewable." So what's wrong with this picture? Well, the problem is that 30 years hasn't changed the physics of things like the intensity of sunlight or wind power. Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies. Analysis shows wind and solar power are ridiculously expensive, compared to natural gas, coal and nuclear power. Green power's hidden agenda: Wind, solar, and geothermal, by contrast, are the most expensive alternatives to coal. A kilowatt of power from such renewables typically costs about ten times as much as a kilowatt from coal — and more than six times as much as a kilowatt from nuclear or hydropower. Alternative energy promoters, including former vice president Al Gore, promise that these prices will decline if only the government subsidizes the necessary technological innovation. Those promises have not come true over the past three decades, and it's extremely unlikely that they ever will. Troy's celebrated solar house left in dark. It was supposed to be a shining example of the green movement — a completely independent solar-powered house with no gas or electrical hookups. Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot. But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed. Pipes burst in solar house. Students from Lawrence Technological University, with help from DTE Energy, built the house as part of a national solar decathlon two years ago, said Eric Pope, the news bureau managing editor at LTU in Southfield. [Rush] Limbaugh said the solar home "looks like a trailer and cost 900 grand. The floors blew up because the pipes froze. No electricity. No gas. The future!" And he was just getting warmed up. Green Follies: Gov't Built Solar House Falls Apart. Oh, there are all sorts of reasons why this engineering marvel was an utter failure. There is finger pointing and head scratching all around. But the singular fact of the matter is that this project is a failure because it was not undertaken by business in a situation where success meant fulfilling a business plan to satisfy investors in order to obtain profit. No, it was a dalliance by professors financed by government without any expectations or requirements for success. Bono Discovers Sustainable Development Isn't Sustainable. The big problem with renewable energy is that it just doesn't renew itself. The sun does not shine enough and the wind doesn't blow enough to power the towns, cities, factories, hospitals and schools that make our lives so livable. No environmentalist would ever allow their child to be treated in a hospital fully powered by "renewables". They would not take the risk that the wind might stop whilst their baby was on the operating table. ... Renewable energy and sustainable development are for "other people". Austin Consumers Avoid Pricey Renewable Power. Austin Energy, a publicly owned power company and a city department of Austin, Texas, has found itself stuck with surplus renewable power as city residents have declined to sign up for higher rates under the city's voluntary GreenChoice program. Contracting with renewable power providers and offering the service to customers sounded like a good idea to city officials until the price tag came in at up to three times the cost of conventional power. City residents aren't buying. 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? Is Solar Power Dead in the Water? Congress's rush to embrace solar power is having some unintended consequences. It will turn over a large chunk of federal land to private energy companies, and it may involve withdrawing billions of gallons of water from sensitive desert habitat. By 2015, Congress wants the Interior and Energy Departments to place, on federal land, renewable energy projects that can generate at least 10,000 megawatts of electricity. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 has set off a frantic land grab as solar and wind energy companies rush to obtain permits for projects in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. L.A. Voters Reject Solar Initiative. In a surprising blow to environmental activists and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, Los Angeles voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have required the city to install 400 megawatts of solar panels by 2014. ... The opposition took offense at the secretive manner in which the initiative was drafted, and they also focused on the high cost of solar power. Global Warming Blues: Green electric power from windmills and solar energy is impracticable. Its expensive and due to the erratic nature of sunshine and wind, solar and wind power must be backed up by duplicate power plants or by energy storage systems that are as expensive as duplicate power plants. It sometimes seems that the advocates of solar power don't realize that the sun does not shine at night. Spain's Solar-Power Collapse Dims Subsidy Model. Spain's hopes of becoming a world leader in solar power have collapsed since the Spanish government slammed the brakes on generous subsidies. The sudden change has rippled across the global solar industry, in a warning of the problems that government-supported renewable-energy programs can encounter. Highest Cost Generating Plant Comes On Line in Florida to Obama Fanfare. Florida Power & Light (FPL) has built a 25 megawatt photovoltaic power plant in Southern Florida that will supply power to 3000 homes and businesses — a small fraction of the company's over 4 million customers. ... FPL spent $152 million building the plant, which amounts to $6,080 per kilowatt — a figure substantiated by the Energy Information Administration, who ranks photovoltaic solar the highest cost technology of a potential slate of 20 possible future generating technologies. Energy to spare. Under the inspiration of the Green Zeitgeist, I cannot go into a magazine shop without finding some science-lite cover story on new prospects for harnessing solar, thermal, wind, tidal, or whatever "renewable" forces. There is an immense credulous audience out there, willing to be entertained by such nonsense. No one with a grasp of high school physics should take any of these schemes seriously. In each case, we are looking at a crank idea from the hippie era, which has not since been significantly improved, because it can't be. Organic food: Nature's Toxic Tools: The Organic Myth of Pesticide-Free Farming. It is important to address the common misperception that organic farming is "pesticide-free." Organic farmers are allowed to use a number of toxic chemical pesticides, and many organic crops are routinely sprayed with pesticides. [PDF] Organic farming 'no better for the environment'. Organic food may be no better for the environment than conventional produce and in some cases is contributing more to global warming than intensive agriculture, according to a government report. The first comprehensive study of the environmental impact of food production found there was "insufficient evidence" to say organic produce has fewer ecological side-effects than other farming methods. Poison bug 'more likely to be found in organic chickens'. Organic chickens sold by leading supermarkets have been labelled a health threat by a damning investigation. Researchers claim they are more likely to carry the deadly food poisoning bug campylobacter than factory farmed chicken. As many as nine in ten of the organic chickens showed up positive for the bug. Reasons you should buy regular goods: Companies marketing organic products, and your local grocery chain, want you to think organic food is safer and healthier, because their profit margins are vastly higher on organic foods. The USDA Organic label does not mean that there is any difference between organic and regular food products. Organic farms simply employ different methods of food production. Activism Disguised As Science. A new study published in an alternative agriculture journal has gained widespread attention by claiming that organic farming not only could adequately feed the world, it might even yield more food and require less farmland. It is a truly sensational claim. In science, the more sensational the claim, the more robust the evidence needed to support it. This time, the evidence doesn't stack up. The Problem With Organic Food: Organic food has garnered an extraordinary amount of attention from the media and, along with "local" food, is a darling of foodies and environmentalists, who talk up its civic virtues and benefits to the environment. There's just one problem with this: agriculture has moved away from small-scale, local, and organic farming because these types of farms are land- and labor-intensive and don't do a very good job of feeding lots of people. In addition, they are not definitively better for the environment, and their growth would lead to higher food prices than most Americans are willing to pay. Organic Failure. Henry Waxman is at it again. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade-climate change bill, which has been called the largest tax bill in history because it would levy a national tax on energy use, narrowly passed the House in late June and is still pending in the Senate, but the California Democrat has already moved on to his next bad idea: trying to save the nation's populace by making farmlands sterile, so that only organic foods can be grown. Worse than global warming. Go on, eat organic food if you like, spend more than you would on ordinary food and dream that it somehow makes you healthier than you would be and the world more ecologically sound, but find time to pray that not too many others emulate you. It would be an incredible catastrophe if everyone went organic. ... Growing organic food is supposedly kinder to land than growing food by ordinary means, but it consumes enormously more land per unit produced. One reported estimate is that no forests would be left if you tried to supply total human food needs this way, and that, even then, many would starve. Organic food is just a tax on the gullible. A few years ago my wife decided we should have an entirely organic vegetable garden. To this end she refused all man-made fertilisers and ordered a truckload of pigeon droppings. What could be more natural? Neither was there anything unnatural in the germs I inhaled through the spores of our organic manure, thereby contracting psittacosis. This developed into "atypical" pneumonia, which was of course resistant to all standard antibiotics. Had a hospital doctor not guessed the cause and put me on a drip with the appropriate drugs — ooh, chemicals! — I could have become a fatal casualty of the organic movement. Obviously my wife might have ordered cow manure rather than pigeon poo; then I could have been felled by E coli instead. Wheat, Yes, Wheat! Dr. David Bragg, Ph.D., an extension entomologist, recently enumerated the insect pests that can be depended upon to attack wheat. They include the Russian Wheat Aphid, the Ladybird Beetle, the English Grain Aphid and Rosy Grass Aphid. Then there's the Haanchen Barley Mealybug and Wireworm Beetle Larvae, as well as the False Wireworm, the Cereal Leaf Beetle, Cutworms and Armyworms. By no means should we leave out the Wheat Stem Maggot, the Wheat Stem Saw Fly, and the Wheat Joint Worm. I want you to think about this army of insect predators the next time some environmental group is demanding that all pesticides be banned and that all grains and vegetables be grown "organically." Recycling: Compost Conserved, Lifetime Wasted. A more intrusive regime for the simple act of discarding something could hardly be devised. There will be — count 'em — three color-coded bins into which garbage must be classified, as it is assessed for compostability and recyclability. ... This government-in-your-garbage ordinance is in response to a self-inflicted wound. It is deemed necessary in order to comply with the city's self-imposed goal of 75% recycling by 2010, as a waypoint to zero waste by 2020. It would be much cheaper to just dig a hole. Mandatory Recycling Wastes Resources and Harms the Environment. "In mid-December 2003, the Seattle City Council decided to make curbside recycling mandatory. The measure, which goes into effect in January 2005, is a misguided step that will burden taxpayers, antagonize residents, and waste resources. As an economist who has been studying recycling for nearly 15 years, I long ago learned that the desire for curbside recycling is based mostly on misconceptions." Gang Green: Many studies have shown that the environmental benefits from household recycling are minimal or at least highly exaggerated (because it uses a lot of energy and those recycling trucks emit a lot of greenhouse gases). America is not in danger of ever running out of landfill to store our garbage. For example, a study by Daniel Benjamin, an economist at Clemson, finds that we could store all of America's garbage for the next century within the property of Ted Turner's ranch in Montana, with 50,000 acres undisturbed for the horse and bison. Eco-activists' Gross Distortions are Behind California's Crusade to Recycle TVs and PCs. Californians buying a TV, home computer, or laptop must now pay $6 to $10 to finance a costly program to collect and recycle all used machines throughout the state. Recycling — righteous or rubbish? The economics suggest a middle road. Careful cost-benefit analysis shows that recycling often isn't cost-effective: Many programs try too hard, in a sense, by recycling products that cost more to reprocess than is warranted by the associated environmental and economic benefits — essentially going too far in the cause of environmental protection. But economists also suggest that some level of recycling is entirely sensible from an economic standpoint. Recycling is 'Like Throwing Money Away'. Curbside recycling is one of the most wasteful endeavors practiced by local governments, concluded an investigation by an Orlando, Florida television news station. According to WFTV Channel 9, recycling programs typically fail to pay for themselves and can cost taxpayers tremendous amounts of money — while providing very negligible benefits. Eight Great Myths About Waste Disposal: Since the 1980s, many have claimed that the United States faces a landfill crisis. In fact, the United States today has more landfill capacity than ever before. In 2001, the nation's landfills could accommodate 18 years' worth of rubbish, an amount 25 percent greater than a decade before. Recycling: It's a bad idea in New York. New York is but the latest of a growing number of cities that have found the cost of recycling garbage is far, far greater than the costs of simply dumping it. Despite flowery promises and earnest intentions, mandatory municipal recycling programs across the United States have proven an expensive economic and environmental flop. Little sustains this odd brand of civic religion beyond the quasi-religious devotion of the Green faithful. It's OK to Throw it Away: Tell Your Kids. Rule number one, don't be intimidated by your kids. They have a misplaced sense of moral superiority on environmental issues. Polls show that most information adults get about the environment comes from their kids, who in turn get their views from school and children's television. One poll concluded that 63 percent of school children have lobbied their parents to recycle. Don't roll over. The kids, their teachers, and Captain Planet are wrong. Celebrate Earth Day by Ending Mandatory Recycling! Mandatory recycling wastes resources — it does not save resources. The belief that it does is one of our great superstitions. Anyone who has ever bothered to learn the facts knows this. A Consumer's Guide To Environmental Myths and Realities. MYTH #1: We are running out of landfill space. All of the garbage America produces in the next 1,000 years would fit in a landfill that occupies less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the continental United States. … MYTH #6: Recycling is always good. Recycling itself can cause environmental harm, e.g., more fuel consumption and more air pollution. As a result, the environmental costs of recycling may exceed any possible environmental benefits. … MYTH #8: Recycling paper saves trees. Since most of the trees used to make paper are grown explicitly for that purpose, if we use less paper, fewer trees will be planted and grown by commercial harvesters. Recycling paper doesn't save trees, it reduces incentives to plant them. Time to recycle recycling? What … Al Gore and many other environmentalists may not appreciate is that recycling paper is actually a carbon positive process. … Contrary to received wisdom, paper is one of the least recyclable materials in circulation. Rethinking Recycling: Doesn't it go without saying that businesses should recycle paper? No, answers Ken Braun, cofounder and chairman of Pepper's, a retail chain of natural-ingredient personal-care products, and an avid conservationist who has much to say — and do — about recycling. Braun's concerns once dictated buying only recycled paper for his company's office supplies. He's changed his mind. Not because recycled paper is more expensive than virgin (though it is) or less well finished (that, too), but because in talking to suppliers he determined that the chemicals employed in recovering old paper did more harm to the environment than chopping down new trees did. Markets are Better than Mandates at Determining Recycling Levels. As conditions become less favorable to the use of recycled materials, the cost of doing so rises, resulting in net social losses. For instance, under worst-case conditions, requiring 30 percent recycled content in all glass packaging can cost, on average, $119/ton more than using virgin material. Mandating 30 percent recycled content in all paper packaging can increase costs by an average of $80/ton. There is a clear reason why recycling participation is so low: Recycling makes no economic sense. If the value of recycled goods was as much as or more than the cost of collecting the goods, recyclers would pay people for them. The fact that recyclers don't pay for used goods tells us a government-financed program is an economic loser. Recycling: Your Time Can Be Better Spent! Many people believe recycling either pays for itself or is worth the cost. Both positions are wrong. Every community recycling program in America today costs more than the revenue it generates. The value of recycled materials on the open market has declined dramatically in recent years, and in many cases there is no market at all. Time for a New Look at Recycling. Recycling, originally sold as virtually a cure-all for solid waste problems and as an environmental feel-good to boot, has been greatly oversold. The Utter Waste of Recycling. Ask yourself about the utility of recycling. Glass is made from sand. The Earth is not running out of sand. Newspapers, when buried, stay intact for decades and, when burned, become mere ashes. Recycling plastic requires as much or more energy than to produce it. Its uses, however, are extraordinary, contributing to a healthier lifestyle for everyone. So, why recycle? Recycling is a Waste. Much of the impetus for mandatory recycling programs came from a 1980s Environmental Protection Agency study showing that the number of landfills was decreasing. While this was true, the landfills themselves were getting bigger, and the total capacity was increasing! Indeed, the U.S. currently has 18 years worth of landfill even if no new landfills are built. And at current rates of disposal, a single landfill just 100 yards deep and 35 miles square could contain all the garbage generated in the U.S. for the next 1,000 years. Recycling goes from boom to bust as economy stalls. Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables. Our Widespread Faith In Recycling Is Misplaced. A decade ago a wandering garbage barge set off a political crisis: Where will we put our trash? The media inflamed people's fears of mounting piles of garbage. A variety of interest groups - particularly "public relations consultants, environmental organizations, waste-handling corporations," according to journalist John Tierney - lobbied to line their pockets. Politicians seeking to win votes enacted a spate of laws and regulations to encourage and often mandate recycling. [To make the average German feel superior at a time when, objectively, his life was getting worse] recycling measures were introduced, ostensibly to push Germany along the road to economic self-sufficiency. This device, adopted in World War I, as well as World War II, certainly had no particular economic impact. Its real purpose was psychological: to create a sense of community of shared participation in the war effort. Even today, elderly Germans, some of whom stuff their cupboards with old string as they were told to do in the Third Reich, still remember warmly the recycling, fuel-saving, and housekeeping aspects of the Nazi era. It was one of the hidden links that subtly connected the regime with its citizens. Why The Trash You Sort Isn't Recycled: My neighbors are unhappy to learn that the trash they've carefully sorted for years into brown bottles, green bottles, cans, and paper is being dumped back into one pile at the local landfill. Except for aluminum cans, no one wants the sorted trash items. Is this bad for the environment? Probably not. Mountains of recycled rubbish spring up across UK. Experts estimate that up to 15 percent of all recycling is now being stored in warehouses and ports, waiting for a buyer. Some of the waste could be stuck there for a year. ... Prices have now fallen so far that the cost of making new plastic is cheaper than reusing the recycled material. UK's growing waste paper mountain as market collapses. Taxpayers are facing a multi-million-pound bill to store 100,000 tons of waste paper and cardboard as the British recycling industry plunges into crisis. Rubbish carefully sorted by householders is piling up in vast warehouses as the market for waste paper collapses, and experts have warned that the mountain of garbage could double in the next three months. Recycling Is Garbage. Recycling could be America's most wasteful activity. … The obvious temptation is to blame journalists, who did a remarkable job of creating the garbage crisis, often at considerable expense to their own employers. Newspaper and magazine publishers, whose products are a major component of municipal landfills, nobly led the crusade against trash, and they're paying for it now through regulations that force them to buy recycled paper - a costly handicap in their struggle against electronic rivals. Recycling program costs Austin $900K. The City of Austin said its new single stream recycling program is not a big "waste" despite a near $900,000 shortfall. The environmental group, Ecology Action of Texas, said the program caused the city to lose that amount after going into effect last fall. However… What to Do with Three Billion Abandoned Tires? Cement kiln recyclers put them to good use. Few things are more unsightly than a pile of discarded tires. Unfortunately, America has quite a few such piles. There are about 3 billion abandoned tires in the U.S., with another 200 million being added each year. Hydrogen: Hydrogen produces only water when it burns. So naturally people would like to see automobiles use hydrogen as fuel. But unfortunately there just isn't enough energy available from a gallon of liquid hydrogen to justify the cost. And liquid hydrogen would require a highly specialized gas tank. Then there is the problem of hydrogen production. Hydrogen doesn't gush out of the ground in West Texas. You can make hydrogen at home with a 9-volt battery and a glass of water ... but not enough to start your car. Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Have Environmental Drawback: Researchers have issued a report saying that if hydrogen replaced fossil fuels, large amounts of hydrogen would drift into the stratosphere as a result of leakage and indirectly cause increased depletion of the ozone. Whatever happened to the hydrogen economy? Even in Iceland, whose grand ambitions for a renewable hydrogen economy once earned it the title Bahrain of the north, visible progress has been modest. After years of research, the country now boasts one hydrogen filling station, a handful of hydrogen cars, and one whale-watching boat with a fuel cell for auxiliary power. ... In California, where governor Arnold Schwarzenegger promised a "hydrogen highway" with 200 hydrogen filling stations by 2010, there are just five open to the public. The Realities of a Hydrogen Economy. Among other things, (1) It costs about $5 to produce enough hydrogen equivalent to the energy potential of one gallon of gasoline. (2) Hydrogen's low density would require 21 tanker trucks to haul the amount of energy delivered by a single gasoline truck today, and a hydrogen tanker traveling 500 kilometers would use an amount of hydrogen equaling 40 percent of its cargo. (3) At room temperature, hydrogen takes up 3,000 times more space as an energy-equivalent of amount gasoline, therefore, compressed or liquefied gas must be used in vehicle tanks; but tanks on today's hydrogen vehicles take up to eight times as much space as a normal gas tank to store an equivalent amount of fuel. The Great Hydrogen Myth: Hydrogen is held out as a clean-burning, virtually inexhaustible source of energy, but as a Washington Times editorial pointed out in November [2002], others "suggest it is a gaseous dream rising on the rhetoric of environmental windbags." If enough billions are spent, it seems reasonable to expect hydrogen to become an energy source, but like most environmental pipe dreams, this one has a silent agenda of eliminating petroleum as an energy source, nor can we reasonably expect a dramatic breakthrough. Hydrogen Cars Won't Make a Difference for 40 Years. President Bush, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the big automakers agree on this much: They love hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology and its promise of a zero-emission, petroleum-free future. Unfortunately, experts say it will be 40 years or more before hydrogen has any meaningful impact on gasoline consumption or global warming, and we can't afford to wait that long. In the meantime, fuel cells are diverting resources from more immediate solutions. Hydrogen cars and hot air: Would you buy a car that costs 10 times as much as a hybrid gasoline-electric one, like the Toyota Prius? What if I told you it had half the range of the hybrid? What if I told you most cities didn't have a single hydrogen fuelling station? Not interested yet? This should be the deal closer: what if I told you it wouldn't have lower greenhouse-gas emissions than the hybrid? … Nobody should get terribly excited when a car company rolls out its wildly impractical next-generation hydrogen car. LA gas station gets hydrogen fuel pump. The Shell station near Interstate 405, which was charging $4.59 per gallon of regular gas Thursday [6/26/2008], features one pump with a bright blue "Hydrogen" label above a video monitor that dispenses the fuel by the kilogram. Hydrogen is made and stored in a tank above the dispenser. For now, the fuel is available to roughly 100 hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road in California, all of them being used in demonstration programs by motor companies, said Roy Kim, a spokesman with the California Fuel Cell Partnership. Because all the cars are in those programs, drivers won't be charged for filling up at the station. The Editor says... Notice that hydrogen is dispensed by the kilogram, but there is no mention of the price per kilogram, if someone were to try to make a purchase. Notice also that hydrogen is considered safe in cars but not in blimps. US govt hydrogen highway runs out of road. The original hydrogen plan was announced by then President Bush in 2003 and, to date, the US government has spent around $500m (£328m/€367m) on the project. There's not much to show for it other than some Honda FCX Claritys and Chevrolet Equinoxes running around California, and 70-odd hydrogen filling stations nationwide. Not so much a case of hydrogen tech being put on the back burner but rather being wrapped in cling film and shoved to the rear of the freezer. DOE to slash fuel cell vehicle research. The Department of Energy's proposed budget boosts research on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources but makes cuts in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles because the technology is many years from being practical. The DOE published details of its $26.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget request on Thursday [5/7/2009], and Energy Secretary Steven Chu held a news briefing to cover the highlights. Hybrid / Electric Cars: Electric cars would be wonderful if they were affordable and cost effective in the long run. But in order for hybrid cars to be competitive, the price of gasoline would have to be about twice what it is currently. Electric cars are the environmentalists' dream come true — except in many cases they are recharged overnight by electricity from a nuclear power plant! Lights out for electric carmaker. Management at long-struggling Think Nordic, which once made the popular Think City electric cars, conceded Thursday [2/23/2006] that it was effectively bankrupt. Hybrid car sales stall as cost of going green is turn-off. Petrol-electric cars have been hailed as saviours of the environment and every "green" celebrity is driving one, but hybrids are failing to impress consumers and sales are falling. Hybrid Cars' Fantasy Mileage Ratings Drive Into the Sunset. Hybrid car economics will face a new road test this month with the arrival of fresh models sporting revised mileage ratings from the Environmental Protection Agency. This year, new test standards have forced manufacturers to lower advertised efficiency claims on most models compared to previous years, and car lots are bracing for a tougher environment for hybrid sales. The Hybrid Hoax: They're not as fuel-efficient as you think. Most cars and trucks don't achieve the gas mileage they advertise, according to Consumer Reports. But hybrids do a far worse job than conventional vehicles in meeting their EPA fuel economy ratings, especially in city driving. Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005. Why Hybrid Cars Aren't Selling Well: The sale of hybrid automobiles constitutes an anemic 1.8% of all vehicle sales, down from a peak of 2.1% in October 2006. I would suggest that Americans aren't all that "green" despite the endless print and broadcast media harangues that our wonderful lifestyles are to blame for everything from hurricanes to frizzy hair. Those who have tried to be green have found that there are considerable additional costs involved and this has proven particularly true of hybrid cars…. For now, gas will be champ. Every time I hear of a promising new electric vehicle (EV) or a "breakthrough" battery, my eyes roll back in my head. The cars are either hugely expensive or tiny, slow and impractical. Their claimed ranges are either double-digit small at neighborhood speeds or ridiculously optimistic at highway speeds. The batteries are typically single-cell wonders in a lab, many years and dollars away from vehicle size. Hybrid vehicles' overall energy costs exceed those of comparable non-hybrids. Even sales of the Toyota Prius — the darling of the greens — have dropped significantly. The only segment besides taxis where hybrids are still holding steady — taxpayers will be happy to note — is the car fleets maintained by the government. What's particularly interesting is that individual consumers are defying all expectations and turning their backs on hybrids at a time when gas prices are soaring. Hybrid hysteria. Remember methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), the green gasoline additive that was supposed to save the planet but was an environmental, public-health and economic disaster? Remember ethanol, the green gasoline additive that replaced MTBE and was supposed to save the planet but has been an environmental, public-health and economic disaster? Well, now Gang Green is pushing the hybrid vehicle. Hybrid Hypocrisy. The megawatt popularity of hybrids is dimming and Americans are rediscovering their favorite automotive guilty pleasure, gas-guzzling SUVs. And here's something even more shocking: a surprising number of Americans have it both ways. They own a hybrid and an SUV. According to an analysis for NEWSWEEK by researcher GfK Automotive, 24.2 percent of hybrid owners also have an SUV in their garage. The Editor says... That's not necessarily hypocrisy. One compensates for the other. And if you can afford both, who has the authority to tell you what kind of car to drive? Have You Hugged a Hummer Today? In the real world — outside of the Environmental Protection Agency's tax-payer funded testing sites — hybrids don't deliver anywhere close to the gas mileage that the agency attributes to them. The Hybrid Hoax: They're not as fuel-efficient as you think. When Treasury Secretary John Snow announced guidelines for a new tax cut for the rich here last week, liberals did not denounce him. That's because the proposed tax breaks were for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, the favorite ride of environmentalists this side of bicycles. But the dirty secret about hybrids is that, even as the government continues to fuel their growth with tax subsidies, they don't deliver the gas savings they promise. Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage. The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate 'green car' is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer. Smug eco-preachers a turnoff. Out of a record one million new cars sold in Australia during the 2006-07 financial year, just 2081 — or 0.5 percent — were eco-friendly hybrids. More than half of these were bought by governments. During the entire year, just 791 hybrids went to private buyers. Will plug-in hybrids crash the grid? Duke Energy says no. Duke Energy and smart grid company GridPoint said on Thursday [3/27/2008] that they have found a way for people to charge plug-in hybrid cars in a way that won't bring the power grid to its knees. The companies said that they have completed a test using GridPoint's SmartGrid Platform device to charge up cars after 10 p.m. … In the worst-case scenario, the United States would need to build 160 new power plants to accommodate plug-in hybrids. The Editor says... Notice that the people at the power company think you're smart enough to buy a hybrid car, but not smart enough to charge the batteries at the right time. A better solution would be to make the price of electricity drop at midnight. "Smart" metering would have to be used, of course, but savvy consumers would then find a way to do their laundry and wash the dishes when rates are low. It certainly sounds like the hybrid cars are real power hogs when they're charging, if the power grid can't support very many of them. But consider the implications: If you save $100 a month on gas, but you spend an extra $200 a month on electricity, you obviously haven't gained anything. Blind people: Hybrid cars pose hazard. Gas-electric hybrid vehicles, the status symbol for the environmentally conscientious, are coming under attack from a constituency that doesn't drive: the blind. Because hybrids make virtually no noise at slower speeds when they run solely on electric power, blind people say they pose a hazard to those who rely on their ears to determine whether it's safe to cross the street or walk through a parking lot. Lawmaker: Electric Cars Are Too Quiet. Electric and hybrid vehicles may be good for the environment, but a California lawmaker says they're bad news for the blind. State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, a Long Beach Democrat, is pushing a bill aimed at ensuring that the vehicles make enough noise to be heard by the blind and visually impaired when they're about to cross a street. Congress to Introduce Bill to Protect Blind People From Hybrid Cars. A bill intended to protect blind people and other pedestrians from the dangers posed by quiet cars will be introduced Wednesday [4/9/2008] in Congress. The measure would require the Transportation Department to establish safety standards for hybrids and other vehicles that make little discernible noise, including an audible means for alerting people that cars are nearby. Not as green as they claim to be. Just how green should you feel driving the new Chevy Tahoe hybrid sport utility vehicle? The eight-passenger vehicle is plastered with "hybrid" labels. An automobile magazine panel that included the executive director of The Sierra Club named it the "Green Car of the Year." But the Tahoe gets only about 20 miles per gallon … [And it weighs three tons]. Eco-friendly claims for 'hybrid' cars dismissed as gimmickry. Cars promoted as eco-friendly were criticised yesterday [5/18/2008] for pumping out up to 56 percent more carbon dioxide than the manufacturers claim. Three models, including the Honda Civic hybrid, performed so badly in tests that their environmental claims were dismissed as a gimmick. A further five vehicles, including Volkswagen's Polo BlueMotion, hailed as Britain's greenest car when it was claimed that it emitted less than 100 grams of CO2 per km (g/km), failed to match the claims made by their makers. Hybrid batteries spark waste fears. Australia has no ability to environmentally dispose of the batteries from the Toyota Camry hybrids whose production has been championed by Kevin Rudd. Labor in Victoria, where the cars will be built, has conceded a "current hole" in the nation's recycling policies means there is no capacity to environmentally dispose of the nickel-metal hydride car batteries from the 10,000 hybrid cars to be produced by Toyota every year from the start of 2010. Obama's Car Puzzle. You have in GM's Volt a perfect car of the Age of Obama — or at least the Honeymoon of Obama, before the reality principle kicks in. Even as GM teeters toward bankruptcy and wheedles for billions in public aid, its forthcoming plug-in hybrid continues to absorb a big chunk of the company's product development budget. This is a car that, by GM's own admission, won't make money. It's a car that can't possibly provide a buyer with value commensurate with the resources and labor needed to build it. It's a car that will be unsalable without multiple handouts from government. Sales of green cars go into reverse. Sales of electric cars have fallen by more than half this year, according to figures released two days after the Government's climate change advisory body predicted a huge increase. Only 156 electric cars were sold from January to October, compared with 374 for the same period last year. Electric shock: green Prius fails to pay its way. The great problem with the Prius — and it is the same problem that dogs the development of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and other magical-sounding car technologies — is that the companies need to be building and selling an awful lot of them before the cost comes down to the point where anyone and everyone can imagine paying the higher price of going "green". Lithium-rich Bolivia now a global player. In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: Almost half of the world's lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found in Bolivia — a country that may not be willing to surrender it easily. Obama's Clean Car Chimera. Will our freeways soon be clogged with high-tech cars propelled mostly by electricity? The floundering automaker, General Motors, has promised to bring its Chevy Volt PHEV to market by 2010. Not to be left out, Ford and Chrysler have also announced plans to sell PHEVs in the next couple of years. ... However, without a plentiful supply of reliable long-range batteries, all such promises of a glorious electrically driven future are just so much hot air. Nothing to Fear but O Himself. [Scroll down] In the same paper, Obama's team dissed the Chevy Volt, the electric car dubbed 'the Barack Obama of automobiles' by The Atlantic. How right they were. Like Barack Obama, the Volt is a fuzzy little puff of idealism that makes no sense where rubber meets road. No one is going to pay SUV prices — $40,000! — for a tiny clown car and the Volt needs to be charged for six hours to provide a 40-mile ride. Electric cars don't make carbon emissions disappear, either. They merely outsource them to the nearest plant (which is more likely to run on coal than anything else.) Would You Buy an Electric Car? Unlike political rhetoric read from a teleprompter, cars are real. You can touch them and drive them and determine whether or not they're good, bad or indifferent. And the reality is that electric cars don't match the performance of conventional vehicles you're driving now. GM Says Chevrolet Volt Won't 'Pay the Rent'. General Motors is pouring money into the Chevrolet Volt but concedes it won't make money on the range-extended electric vehicle anytime soon. Newly installed CEO Fritz Henderson argues that pioneering projects like the Volt typically lose money until the technology catches on. It is simply the cost of doing business. Electric cars labelled 'overhype' at Shanghai Auto Show. [Scroll down] However, other executives at the Shanghai Auto show suggested that electric car technology was still in its infancy. "From what we have seen so far the technology is not that advanced in terms of battery life, range, and recharging," said Nick Reilly, the head of General Motors in the Asia-Pacific region. "If you look at the detail, they tend to not to perform as well on these measures. But they have a good price and we know the Chinese government is investing a lot of money." E-car industry agrees on one plug to rule them all. Electric car makers and power companies are to unveil this week a standard Europe-wide power plug to recharge the batteries of electric vehicles, the German newspaper Die Welt reported Sunday. ... The connectors were designed for a 400-volt power supply with up to 63 amperes of current. The Editor says... The news item immediately above is far more interesting than you might think. If you have to supply 400 volts at 50 amps to recharge your car, that's 20,000 watts of power! (The standardized connector mentioned above would be capable of handling 25,200 watts.) That's probably more power than the rest of your household lights and appliances combined. And the real irony here is that the people who want you to drive an electric car to "save the planet" are the same people who don't want you to buy a big television set, because wide-screen TV's use too much power. US lawmakers to de-silence electric cars. A bill that will require electric and hybrid cars to make enough noise so that blind folks can hear them coming has been introduced in the US Senate. The bill, S. 841 -- more pedestrianly known as the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 -- doesn't specifically mention adding noise to otherwise silent vehicles. It merely instructs the US Secretary of Transportation to conduct a study to devise and require a "non-visual alert regarding the location, motion, speed, and direction of travel of a motor vehicle." Fuel for Thought: Imagine that you are in the market for an electric motor to replace the gas-guzzling internal combustion engine that powers your car. Before you make the switch, you're certain to ask: How much electricity will have to be purchased from the power company to take an otherwise identical car as far down the road as it used to go on a gallon of gasoline? ... An optimistic estimate ... would be 40 KWh (kilowatt-hours) of electricity per gallon of gas. The Editor says... One gallon of gasoline has a potential energy of 116,090 BTU*, which, according to my calculations, would be the equivalent of just over 34 kWh. And yet, neither a gasoline engine nor an electric motor is 100% efficient, so the 34 kWh figure doesn't tell the whole story. Study: Electric cars not as green as you think. [Scroll down] The carbon dioxide emission reductions from these 1 million electrical vehicles in Germany's transportation sector would be only 1 percent, according to the study, and overall national carbon dioxide emissions would only be cut by 0.1 percent. "That is not a very big deal," [Viviane] Raddatz said, adding that "it is not going to help us out of the transportation emission mess." How green is my Prius? The short answer is: nowhere near as green as Leonardo diCaprio and the eco-glitterati were led to believe when they bought it. Powered by two engines — a standard 76 hp, 1.5-litre petrol engine and a battery engine (an immediate extra cost) the Toyota Synergy System sounds like the answer to an eco-dream. Well it was under the pre-2008 EPA regime of standard tests (including running the car at 8 mph) that allowed makers to make unrealistic claims for its mileage. When the EPA introduced a more realistic standard of testing in 2008 the average mileage dropped to 45 mpg, around the same as a normal car. But building a hybrid like the Prius causes far more environmental damage than producing a normal car. How an electric car could kill you. When cars run on electric power, they not only save fuel and cut emissions but also operate more quietly. ... Some drivers say that when their cars are in electric mode people are more likely to step out in front of them. The solution, many now believe, is to fit electric and hybrid cars with external sound systems. Electric Cars Will Not Decrease Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Says Federal Study. The stimulus law enacted in February promoted the purchase of plug-in electric cars by the federal government and the broader market, but a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this month says that the use of plug-in electric vehicles will not by itself decrease greenhouse gas emissions. To do that, the report argues, the United States would have to switch from coal-burning plants to lower-emission sources to generate electricity such as nuclear power. Future of electric cars needs juice. In Yokohama, Japan, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn used the opening of the automaker's new corporate headquarters to unveil its first all-electric car called the Leaf. Details were scant for the Leaf, a four-door subcompact, which will go on sale in the U.S. and Japan next year. But Nissan did say that the car will go 100 miles on a charge and that the batteries alone will cost about $10,000. Customers are intended to buy the car and lease the batteries. Will Electric Cars Wreck the Grid? Plug-in electric cars could destabilize the distribution of power, a utility executive cautioned at a conference here this week. Ed Kjaer, director of Southern California Edison's electric transportation advancement program, said plug-in manufacturers, designers and component makers are poised to capitalize on a "perfect storm" that could push electric cars into the mainstream. 'Green' Car? Try Blackout City. Sorry, the new Chevrolet Volt does not promise a "green" revolution — indeed, the car could trigger a whole new wave of blackouts. Chevrolet notes that the key to high-mileage performance to the tune of 230 miles per gallon "is for a Volt driver to plug into the electric grid at least once each day" to get "40 miles of electric-only, petroleum-free driving." But that won't be "petroleum-free" in much of the country — because so many utilities use heavy fuel oil to generate that electricity. Will the Chevy Volt's 'Shaky' 230 MPG Save General Motors? After years of building big trucks and SUVs, the Big Three Detroit automakers for the last year have been pegging their hopes on fuel-efficient hybrid cars. The most-dramatic and hyped of these is the Chevrolet Volt, which General Motors now says could get up to 230 mile (sic) per gallon, the first mass-produced American vehicle to ever achieve triple-digit fuel economy. The Editor says... Why stop there? Why not claim that it gets 1000 mpg? You could make that claim, if you only drove the car on its batteries and recharged them every day. Volt Sticker Shock. We live in incoherent times, but maybe someone can explain it to me: How does a $40,000 "economy" car make economic sense? The $40k is the price GM will reportedly charge for its all-electric Volt sedan — due out in late 2010 as a 2011 model. Unlike current hybrids, which mostly get going on their internal combustion engines — with their battery packs and electric motors providing a supplemental boost — the Volt will be propelled entirely by electric motors and batteries. Electric Car Gas Mileage Estimates Misleading. These miles per gallon measures for electric cars are getting ridiculous. Last week, General Motors announced with great fanfare that its new Chevy Volt will get 230 miles a gallon. Nissan quickly announced that its new car, the Leaf, will get 367 mpg. ... It makes it sound as if the total emissions generated by the car would be very small. However, how "green" the car is greatly depends on how the electricity was generated in the first place. Audi Chief Calls Chevy Volt "A Car For Idiots". In a frank conversation with MSN writer Lawrence Ulrich, Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen has said that the Chevy Volt will fail and that anybody who buys the car is an idiot. Not only that, de Nysschen has lumped proponents of any type of electric car into a category of "intellectual elite who want to show what enlightened souls they are." As hybrids gobble rare metals, shortage looms. Among the rare earths that would be most affected in a shortage is neodymium, the key component of an alloy used to make the high-power, lightweight magnets for electric motors of hybrid cars, such as the Prius, Honda Insight and Ford Focus, as well as in generators for wind turbines. Close cousins terbium and dysprosium are added in smaller amounts to the alloy to preserve neodymium's magnetic properties at high temperatures. Yet another rare earth metal, lanthanum, is a major ingredient for hybrid car batteries. Nissan Adds 'Beautiful' Noise to Make Silent Electric Cars Safe. Electric and hybrid cars, with little or no engine noise, are lauded for their silence, yet some groups including advocates for the blind say pedestrians may fail to notice them approaching. To address those safety concerns, transportation agencies in the U.S. and Japan may mandate artificial sounds for the vehicles. Clusters of plug-in cars will tax local power grids. There have been a number of studies measuring whether the national power grid can fuel large numbers of electric vehicles. But the biggest concern regarding the impact of plug-ins is at the local level, where adding just a few vehicles could strain a local circuit, said Peter Darbee, the CEO of California utility Pacific Gas & Electric, during a talk at the Business of Plugging conference here Tuesday [10/20/2009]. Compact fluorescent light bulbs:  This entire subsection has moved to a page of its own. Banning Plastic Bags: Leftists are constantly making the erroneous claim that "we live in a democracy", yet they never put decisions like this on a ballot and let the voters decide. Notice, if you will, that small individual freedoms — the ability to choose simple things like "paper or plastic" — disappear first in the areas of our country where liberals predominate. 'If I had a nickel for every bag,' sez Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg wants to nickel and dime you at the grocery store -- taxing you an extra 5 cents for every plastic bag you take home. The controversial charge could raise at least $16 million for the cash-strapped city while keeping tons of plastic out of landfills, city officials said Thursday [11/6/2008] -- but some outraged shoppers aren't buying it. Nanny State, USA. This week San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags from city supermarkets and drug stores. San Francisco generates an estimated 180 million plastic bags each year, and the city counsel [sic] wants them gone. Grocery shoppers will have to find an alternative within six months. A series of blunders turned the plastic bag into a global villain. Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. San Francisco is the First City to Ban Plastic Shopping Bags. Supermarkets and chain pharmacies will have to use recyclable or compostable sacks. The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation Tuesday [3/27/2007] to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain pharmacies in about a year. Plastic bags may be banned in Boston. The Boston City Council wants to ban the use of plastic shopping bags at supermarkets, pharmacies, and convenience stores in the city, saying the ubiquitous bags are a hazard to the environment and a maddening blight of the landscape. Santa Barbara Takes a Step Toward Banning Plastic Bags. City leaders on Tuesday [5/15/2007] took a step toward banning Styrofoam containers used for prepared food and plastic bags used at grocery stores in their efforts to become more environmentally friendly. The Plastic Bag Ban is Full of Holes. Plastic bags cost about a penny each, paper costs about a nickel and compostable bags can run as high as 10 cents each. … Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is because four times as much energy is required to produce paper bags and 85 times as much energy is needed to recycle them. San Francisco may charge for grocery bags. San Francisco may become the first city in the nation to charge shoppers for grocery bags. The city's Commission on the Environment is expected to ask the mayor and board of supervisors Tuesday [2/2/2005] to consider a 17–cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery bags. While the goal is reducing plastic bag pollution, paper was added so as not to discriminate. They went even further... Starting Tuesday, plastic bags illegal at big S.F. grocery stores. Starting Tuesday [11/20/2007], large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect. Ignore the greenwash... plastic is fantastic. What will happen if Edinburgh taxes plastic carrier bags? The answer came from the Scottish Parliament's Environment Committee after two years of hearings and expert evidence. If you don't have time to read thousands of words on their website, the conclusion comes in just six words — "the environment will be worse off". Surprised? Surely plastic bags are a danger to the environment. Wrong. Over two years, this claim was demolished by experts and science at an estimated cost of £2 million of Scottish taxpayers' money. I love plastic bags. Is the lack of intellectual rigour in the whole debate about plastic bag use annoying you? Of course, it is politically correct not to like them; to front at the shops with a handbag full of crisp green or red or yellow or purple bags to carry your purchases. And it's politically incorrect to argue what I'm about to do here: that perhaps plastic bags might not be the environmental bogie we claim. Whole Foods to sack plastic bags by Earth Day. Natural and organic grocer Whole Foods Market announced today it will stop using disposable plastic grocery bags at supermarket checkouts and encourage reusable bags instead. Plastic bags choke Garrett. Here we go again — another green crusade in which facts are invented to scare you into doing something dumb. This time our evangelical Environment Minister says he'll this year take away your plastic shopping bags — the ones that are so useful that we use more than 4 billion of them each year to cart home our shopping. What must we use instead to carry home the fortnightly shopping: suitcases? Rolls of green bin liners? And how annoying not to have those plastic bags to reuse for everything from wrapping leftovers and wet clothes to picking up manure. Ban on bags can't carry weight. Plastic bags are under siege, pilloried globally as a menace to the environment and a symbol of man's conspicuous consumption, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Without plastic bags we would all buy less, goes the thinking. But, of course, we won't. Paper or plastic? Either bag would cost you 20 cents extra. To reduce trash, Mayor Greg Nickels wants Seattle shoppers to pay a fee on all disposable bags — paper and plastic — at grocery, convenience and drug stores. Customers would be charged a 20-cent "green fee" per bag used at the checkout line. If approved by the City Council, the fee would take effect Jan. 1. "The answer to the question 'Paper or plastic?' should be 'Neither,'" Nickels said at a news conference Wednesday morning [4/3/2008]. Bags are a tiny fraction of sea trash. I figured if anyone would jump for joy at Seattle's crusade against plastic bags, it would be the flotsam guy. … So when I asked him what he thought of Seattle's plan to crack down on disposable grocery bags, I was surprised when he sort of shrugged. "It's OK, but plastic bags are not the real problem," he said. "It's one little battle out of a million. Go look at what the ocean carries in on a given day. You'll see what I mean." Biodegradable bags may not be as green as they seem. As though the paper-or-plastic question weren't vexing enough, now some retailers are finding that the "biodegradable" plastic bags they'd hoped would please green shoppers might not be so Earth-friendly after all. Lunds and Byerly's recently replaced its plastic bags with a biodegradable bag made of low-density polyethylene that purportedly breaks down when exposed to sunlight, oxygen, soil, moisture and microbes. But biodegradable bags are still petroleum-based…. Environmental Activist Failures Highlight Earth Day. [Scroll down] Earlier this year ... scientists reported that plastic bags are having virtually no impact on marine life or other animals. Although a single study several years ago found that 100,000 marine animal deaths occur each year from all forms of environmental plastic (most notably six-pack holders), scientists reported this year that the number of deaths attributable to plastic grocery bags is almost zero. Loblaws bags a nickel starting tomorrow. It's like there's a scarlet letter burned across Jennifer Sutcliffe's forehead as she hastily piles eight bags of groceries into the cart — "P." For plastic. For polluter. "I have cats. I use them for the litter," she clarifies apologetically. Not good enough. Gazing down the line of nine open cashiers, Sutcliffe is the only one who didn't BYOB. The 40-year-old retreats from the Loblaws store, which as of tomorrow will begin a plastic fee of 5 cents per bag. A source said proceeds will go to the World Wildlife Fund. The Editor says... Dear Jennifer: Find yourself another place to buy groceries, and let the earth-worshiping hippies shop at Loblaws. Plastic Bag Fears Based on Misquoted Study. Shoppers the world over can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that leading scientists are stepping forward and defending the widespread use of plastic bags at supermarkets and other retail outlets. … The plastic bag scare, it turns out, is based on a 1987 Canadian study that investigated the harm to marine mammals and seabirds from discarded fish nets. For reasons not fully understood, Australian researchers, in a follow-up study conducted 15 years later, mistakenly attributed the death of 100,000 marine animals to plastic bags instead of the "plastic litter" cited in the Canadian research. Whole Foods Gets it Wrong. Whole Foods has banned plastic bags. The only free bags that it provides to customers at the checkout are paper bags. The company has eliminated consumer choice, pandering to political correctness. Whole Foods is leading people to believe that it is making a positive contribution to the environment by providing paper bags rather than a plastic bags. It is not. It is hurting the environment. Bags get sacked. So there's this guy at the Evanston Farmers Market, earthy type, grows organic arugula and bok choy and all manner of eco-friendly hippie chow. His stand is a favorite stop for greenish types and locavores and, well, people who get up early on Saturdays to buy stuff like fresh arugula and bok choy. But as wildly popular as Henry Brockman and his operation might be, there was one thing that drove the environmentally friendly farmer nuts. It was the plastic bags. LA bans plastic bags. The city of Los Angeles will ban plastic bags from retail stores from July 1, 2010, following similar regulations already enforced in San Francisco. Los Angeles, the second-largest US city behind New York, would ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los Angeles City Council said. Save the Plastic Bag. We are a California-based coalition of businesses and citizens. We are concerned about the one-sided myths and false information circulating on anti-plastic bag websites and in the media about plastic bags. It's time to answer back with the facts. (When we refer to plastic bags, we mean plastic carryout bags that you get at the supermarket or grocery store checkout.) Plastic bag FAQ. Are plastic bags recyclable? Yes, absolutely. In California, large supermarkets are required by law to provide plastic bag recycling receptables for consumers to dispose of bags. Virtually all of the bags placed in these recycling bins are actually recycled into new products. Free grocery bags targeted for extinction in California. The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life. From the city of San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans. In India, plastic bag use is a capital offence. The global battle against plastic has taken a draconian turn with officials in Delhi announcing that the penalty for carrying a polythene shopping bag would be five years in prison. Officials in India's capital have decided that the only way to stem the rising tide of rubbish is to outlaw the plastic shopping bag. Panel votes to ban plastic retail bags. A Senate committee Wednesday night voted 4-3 for a bill that would ban plastic bags in large retail stores within three years. Critics complained that the bill would drive consumers to paper bags, which cause their own set of environmental problems. But supporters said the idea was to get customers to use some sort of reusable bag. Plastic bags must go, Basnight says. State Senate leader Marc Basnight has one word for shoppers: plastics. And he wants them banned. Basnight, the Manteo Democrat and restaurateur who is one of the state's most powerful leaders, is pushing a bill that would ban plastic shopping bags in Outer Banks counties. It's a pilot program that, if successful, could be imposed statewide. Colorado Senate Bags Plastic Shopping Bag Ban. The Colorado Senate has rejected a bill that would have made Colorado the first state to ban plastic shopping bags. Proponents of the bill had argued plastic bags are not biodegradable and can harm wildlife. Opponents noted plastic bags are recyclable and studies show plastic bags have minimal negative impact on wildlife. In addition, opponents had noted a ban on plastic bags would increase use of paper bags, which take up more landfill space than plastic bags. Paper bags are also much bulkier and heavier than plastic bags, which means transporting paper bags requires the burning of more fossil fuels than the transport of plastic bags. Back to plastic? Reusable grocery bags may cause food poisoning. Get out your bleach and launder those reusable fabric grocery bags after each use. You're not clogging up landfill with plastic throw-aways, but your environmental conscientiousness could make you sick. The Editor says... Landfills do not get "clogged up" — they get deeper and wider. Landfill capacity is not threatened by plastic grocery bags. Obama: Not The First Head Of State To Design Cars. That's environmental paranoia in a nutshell for you. It isn't really about the environment, it's about control. You, too, are going to be forced to look as stupid as the guy pulling ten canvas bags out of his faux leather man-purse. If you dare show up at any grocery store in Toronto, Canada, without your own ratty, reused bags, you'll be charged five cents for each one — a tax on your audacity, collected by the City. U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags. Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday. ... [A total] ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. ... In the United States, only San Francisco has completely banned plastic bags. The Editor says... Hmmm... Do the governments of San Francisco and China have a lot in common? Colorado Senate Bags Plastic Shopping Bag Ban. The Colorado Senate has rejected a bill that would have made Colorado the first state to ban plastic shopping bags. Proponents of the bill had argued plastic bags are not biodegradable and can harm wildlife. Opponents noted plastic bags are recyclable and studies show plastic bags have minimal negative impact on wildlife. In addition, opponents had noted a ban on plastic bags would increase use of paper bags, which take up more landfill space than plastic bags. Obamacare Or Logan's Run. I'd like to know where the environmental hypocrites are hiding, knowing that the health plan bill, H.R. 3200, is 1,000 pages long and has been distributed to all the members of the House and Senate. Shouldn't they be ranting about the poor trees that have been destroyed for this bill the same way they successfully demonized the supermarket brown bags? Those bags were replaced by plastic bags that shredded before shoppers reached the parking lots. Now these flimsy bags are being replaced by cloth bags made in China that will carry your precious, organic tasteless produce and the planet will be saved, thanks to you. Seattle Voters Reject 20-Cent Grocery Bag Fee. Seattle voters have rejected a 20-cent fee for every paper or plastic bag they get from supermarkets, drug stores and convenience stores. The city's incumbent mayor didn't fare much better than the fee, trailing two challengers in a bid for a third term. With about half the ballots counted in the all-mail vote, the bag fee was failing 58 percent to 42 percent in Tuesday's [8/18/2009] primary. Soiled, reusable shopping bags pose health risk: Study. The Environment and Plastics Industry Council stated Wednesday [5/20/2009] that a study it funded shows reusable bags "pose a public health risk" due to high counts of yeast, moulds and bacterias in dirty reusable bags. ... But B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said reusable bags do not pose a serious public health risk if consumers treat bags as they would cutting boards or food preparation surfaces, and wash them regularly and dry them well. The Editor says... This study was released in May, 2009, but it still pops up occasionally on days when the news business is slow Critics like to point out that the study was undertaken and funded by a plastics manufacturing group, and after all, what else would such a group conclude, but that plastic bags are better than reusable ones. Nevertheless, disposable bags are disposed of — along with any bacteria they may carry — while reusable bags accumulate bacteria until they are washed with hot soapy water. Of course the environmentalists are also opposed to hot soapy water, because it takes energy to heat the water and the soap may contain toxic chemicals. Car pooling and mass transit: See this page. "Green" jobs: The Green Wind Of Destruction. To say we're skeptical of the administration's claim that green jobs will bolster economic recovery is putting it mildly. It's much easier to believe that needless environmental rules will cause widespread job losses. Green Job Efforts Kill 2.2 for Every One Created. The Spanish government's renewable energy initiatives have destroyed 2.2 jobs for every new "green" job created, concludes a new study by economics professor Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. Calzada says American jobs will suffer the same fate if the United States similarly attempts to promote renewable energy at the expense of conventional energy sources. Unpleasant surprises buried in cap and trade. If cap and trade is an energy and global warming bill, why is a three-year package of unemployment benefits, job training and relocation expenses buried deep within its fine print? And why is a federally subsidized "job bank" needed if laid-off workers would quickly be rehired for higher paying "green" jobs? The fact that generous unemployment benefits are buried in the bill means that "green jobs are bunk," the conservative Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman told The Examiner. The Myth of 5 Million Green Jobs. [Scroll down] The central finding of the study is that — treating the data optimistically — for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, "Spain's experience reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created." Despite expensive and extensive green-job policies, a surprisingly low number of jobs were created. And about two-thirds of those "green" jobs were just to set up the energy source, in construction, fabrication, installation, marketing and administration. Only 10 percent of the green jobs created were permanent jobs actually operating and maintaining the renewable sources of energy. 'Green Jobs' Picture Mostly Shades of Gray. "Green jobs" have been touted as the silver bullet for the nation's growing unemployment problem, jolting the economy out of recession, ridding dependence on foreign oil, and making the environment cleaner. It's an enticing solution to cure much of what ails our country today. Unfortunately, such initiatives are often too good to be true, which requires a look into the underlying reality of the green jobs plan. Tilting at Green Windmills. The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs? Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it. 'Green jobs' studies contain fundamental flaws, think tank experts say. As Congress debates this week the Obama-Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade anti-global warming bill, its advocates frequently claim that moving to alternative energy sources will create legions of new "green jobs." Those claims are often backed by reference to one or more of a trio of supposedly scientific studies ... Problem is, accoding to Beacon Hill, all three are based on fundamentally flawed reasoning. Green-collar promises and realities. Energy-efficiency efforts have been ongoing for decades. Calling the relevant positions "green-collar" is good PR, but often merely redefines previously existing jobs and doesn't expand the actual employment base. The convenient fantasies of President Obama: If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. ... Big business is ready to create green jobs — if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking. Green Jobs and a Green Economy Will Fail Like Van Jones. Van Jones perpetuated the view that environment and climate change are ideal vehicles for advancing total government control. In 1993 former Senator Timothy Wirth, now Director of the UN Foundation, said, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." Italics in original. Obama Uses Feds to Protect His 'Green Jobs' Fantasy. On numerous occasions, to tout his own agenda President Obama told America to "take a look at what's happening in countries like Spain" to witness his model for a "green jobs" economy. Well, a team of Spaniards produced an academic study, officially of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, which revealed that Spain's scheme has proven a disaster. "Green" buildings: Children 'falling asleep in stuffy eco-classrooms'. Children are falling asleep in class because new eco-friendly schools have appalling ventilation, experts warned today. Builders have created air-tight classrooms which are intended to reduce heat loss but also stop carbon dioxide escaping. Higher CO2 levels in newly-built schools are leaving children drowsy and less able to concentrate, researchers from University College London and Reading University found. Climate Change department keep air-conditioning rather than open windows. Plans to switch off the air-conditioning and instead open windows at the Department for Energy and Climate Change have been scrapped after staff complained about the noise. ... The trial was abandoned after three days because staff at the department complained about noise from construction works, "the wrong kind of breeze" and the potential security risk. Earth hour: Hour of no power increases emissions. When asked to extinguish electricity, people turn to candlelight. Candles seem natural, but are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light globes, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights. If you use one candle for each extinguished globe, you're essentially not cutting CO2 at all, and with two candles you'll emit more CO2. Moreover, candles produce indoor air pollution 10 to 100 times the level of pollution caused by all cars, industry and electricity production. Global warming worriers feel heat of hypocrisy. It's Earth Hour tomorrow [3/28/2009], warming worriers — your chance to prove how much you don't care. For a start, you'll prove how much you don't care about being a hypocrite. Let's sit in the dark and freeze to death. On Sunday, lefties will celebrate Earth Hour by shutting off the lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. A whole bunch of cities and corporations will also turn down the lights to show their political correctness. Besides, it is Sunday night and none of these businesses and government offices are open anyway. We had plenty of Earth Hours in Western Europe from 500 AD to 1000 AD. We called it the Dark Ages, a time when the Western World regressed and abandoned all the cultural and scientific achievements of the Roman Empire. No Drop in Electricity Usage in NY and CA at Earth Hour. The Greenies did not convince the average liberal New Yorkers and Californians to turn off their lights at the appointed Earth Hour of 8:30 PM local time. By looking at real time data in New York and California, there was no drop in electric usage. Does lighting candles for Earth Hour defeat the purpose? During Earth Hour, what will most participants use for illumination? Candles. ... All these burning wicks raise the question: Are the emissions from these candles worse for the climate than simply leaving the lights on? After all, candles emit carbon dioxide too. The "smart" power grid: Smart-grid hackers could cause blackouts. Deployments of smart grids should be slowed until security vulnerabilities are addressed, according to some cybersecurity experts, citing tests showing that a hacker can cause a major blackout after breaking into a smart-grid system. "Smart Grids" & Monitoring Your Power Use. [Scroll down] The "Smart Grid" is, for the most part, not about getting power to consumers, but about monitoring and controlling that power once it reaches its destination. ... Whereas present electric meters simply measure the total power consumption of a home or business, "smart" meters will collect far more specific information on power usage. As Bob Sullivan at the Red Tape Chronicles observed regarding the "Smart Grid," the tale your new electric meter will be able to tell about your life and habits may be of interest to criminals and other people with an inclination to snoop on you. What will talking power meters say about you? Would you sign up for a discount with your power company in exchange for surrendering control of your thermostat? What if it means that, one day, your auto insurance company will know that you regularly arrive home on weekends at 2:15 a.m., just after the bars close? Welcome to the complex world of the Smart Grid, which may very well pit environmental concerns against thorny privacy issues. Related material: Time-Of-Day Electricity Pricing: Most consumers don't know it, but the overnight price for electricity at wholesale can be practically zero. Utilities and other power producers are sometimes actually forced to pay industrial consumers to use electricity in the early-morning hours -- because it's too expensive to shut down power plants at night. With time-of-day pricing, consumers would be encouraged to alter their habits -- running the dishwasher at night, for example -- and pounce on such bargains, while evening out demand. Dallas may be among the first cities to get "smart" electric meters. Broadband over power lines plan is dead in Dallas. An ambitious plan for using power lines to deliver fast Internet service to 2 million Dallas-area homes collapsed Thursday [5/8/2008], when Oncor agreed to buy the system. Current Communications said it will sell its so-called smart grid of networking equipment to the utility for $90 million. … Here in Dallas, residents should still be among the first in the nation to see how much smart grids can improve power networks. Power to the People. Using taxpayer-subsidized solar power panels as a backdrop, President Obama recently announced another $3.4B in taxpayer subsidies to help upgrade the nation's electrical power grid. The spending includes "smart meters" that theoretically could be used by bribable government officials to throttle back power to the homes of unsupportive constituents. Not that they actually would engage in such despicable extortion, of course... Okay, maybe in Chicago. And Detroit. Miscellaneous: No benefit in drinking eight glasses of water a day, scientists say. The idea that drinking eight glasses of water a day is good for your health has been dismissed as a myth. Scientists say there is no evidence drinking large amounts of water is beneficial for the average healthy person, and do not even know how this widely held belief came about. Treehuggers Against Trees: When the pioneers first entered the great forests of America, they found that the Native Americans had managed the forests for centuries. Their woodlands contained very few big trees — maybe fifty such trees per acre. Apparently the Indians had set regular, low intensity fires which burned away accumulations of undergrowth, deadwood, dying trees and particularly small trees growing between the big trees. The larger trees were unharmed, because of their thick fire-resistant bark. These fires kept the forest healthy by providing a barrier to disease. Save The Earth — Hug A Logger. As environmental alarmists entertain themselves by turning off lights, their efforts sometimes lead to unintended consequences. A new study, for example, shows they may be warming the earth by saving trees. How Green Is a Fake Christmas Tree? Although some fakes are crafted from recyclable material, about 85 percent of artificial trees are made in China from the petroleum-based plastics polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride, commonly known as PVC or vinyl. The natural-tree industry says PVC could contain lead and is potentially harmful to workers manufacturing it. And any plastic tree will someday end up in a landfill, where it could take millions of years to disintegrate. From a consumer perspective, PVC trees are only dangerous if they catch fire, producing the toxic, highly acidic gas hydrogen chloride. Carbon Nanotubes: The New Asbestos? Nanotechnology experts are calling for prompt government action to ensure that carbon nanotubes are properly regulated, after researchers discovered that some carbon nanotubes can cause precancerous growths in the same way that asbestos does. Environmentalists always say, "If only we could learn from the dolphins..." Baby Dolphin Murders Blamed on US Military. These aquatic mammals where literally beaten to death with multiple internal injuries, lacerations, contusions and the like. Back in 1997 the whole C.S.I. treatment was given these animals and guess who these scientists first blamed? You guessed it, the United States Military. It turns out, however, that scientists have now realized that it is the "smartest" fishie on earth that is responsible. Yes, they were surprised to discover that dolphins are outright murderers. Vitamin pills 'increase risk of early death'. Popular vitamin supplements taken by millions of people in the hope of improving their health may do no good and could increase the risk of a premature death, researchers report today. They warn healthy people who take antioxidant supplements, including vitamins A and E, to try to keep diseases such as cancer at bay that they are interfering with their natural body defences and may be increasing their risk of an early death by up to 16 percent. Drano Used in Processing Soybeans. We've been duped into believing soy is a health-giving product because the Asiatic people use soy and are sooooo healthy. What we weren't told is that the Asiatics ferment the beans in order to eliminate the health hazards. … [Scroll down] The next step is that the refined oil is mixed with sodium hydroxide — NaOH — which most of us know as Drano, at a temperature of 167°F. That's right — the exact same corrosive lye you pour down your drain when it's clogged. Sugar-free gum poses a health hazard. Chewing too much "sugar-free" gum can lead to severe weight loss and bowel problems, doctors are warning. Many "sugar-free" products such as chewing gum and sweets contain a sweetener called sorbitol. It is a sugar alcohol with around a third fewer calories than sucrose, or table sugar. However, the substance can have laxative effects if taken in large enough amounts — a fact that many people are unaware of because potential side-effects are usually listed in small print on the packaging, say the researchers. Energy Saving Day flopped, say organisers. Energy Saving Day was a flop, its organiser admitted last night after the National Grid confirmed that across Britain energy use went up by just over one percent. … The E Day website encouraged participants to turn off as many appliances as possible and to leave them unused for as long as possible. But by mid afternoon it was clear from the meters on the Day's website that consumption was about 600 megawatt hours across the country, higher than what the National Grid estimated was used on a normal February day. Garden Biohazard: Man Killed By Compost. A man has died after inhaling lethal spores which grew on rotting compost in his garden. The 47-year-old fell ill less than 24 hours after being engulfed by "clouds of dust" while working with rotting tree and plant mulch. At first medics thought the previously healthy welder had pneumonia when he was admitted with severe breathing problems. But when antibiotics failed to help, tests showed evidence of Aspergillosis, a reaction to Aspergillus spores. Did thick brush, environmental concerns worsen Martin Fire? State officials attempted to clear brush two years ago on the piece of land where a fire now raging in Santa Cruz County began, but much of the work was delayed and ultimately not finished because of opposition from two local environmental groups. … The reserve, an ancient seabed famed for its rare plants and trees, has not had a significant fire since 1948. As a result, dead trees and brush were piled high. Kicking the Tires of T. Boone's Natural-Gas Car. Automakers have been trying to get the public to buy natural gas vehicles since the 1970s. Yet, despite millions in tax subsidies, today there is only one — count them: one — -compressed-natural-gas (CNG) product in America's showrooms. It's the Honda Civic GX and it ain't exactly flying off the shelves. Vegetarians warned that 'superfood' tofu may harm your memory. Eating high levels of some soy products, including tofu and other so-called 'superfoods,' may increase memory loss, scientists say. Experts funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust found a 20 percent lower level of brain functioning compared with those eating very little of the product. Vegan diet increases the risk of birth defects, scientists warn. Women who are strict vegetarians or vegans may be a greater risk of having a child with birth defects because they are likely to be deficient in vitamin B12, researchers warned. Research carried out in Ireland has found that women with low levels of B12, found in meat, eggs and milk, when they conceive are at greater risk of having a child with neural tube defects. Superfood rice bran contains arsenic. Rice bran — a so-called "superfood" — might contain dangerous amounts of a natural poison. A new study suggests that rice bran, the shavings left over after brown rice is polished to produce white rice grains, contains "inappropriate" levels of arsenic. Why not raw milk? For those of you who don't know what raw milk is, let me enlighten you. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. That's right! Straight from the udder to you! … Do [the proponents of raw milk] not realize that without pasteurization the safety of consuming that milk is seriously questionable? That cow lives on a farm, not in a sterile facility! Where has that udder been; what has it touched; what kinds of bacteria has that milk been exposed to that are not removed because it's not been pasteurized? States pay a price for bottle deposit laws. Michigan would have at least $10 million a year more for environmental cleanup if not for people redeeming containers that were bought in other states. Chicago's 'green' promise fades. Mayor Richard Daley promised long ago that his administration would start fighting global warming by buying 20 percent of its electricity from wind farms and other sources of green energy. But more than two years after the deadline he set, the city continues to get nearly all of its power from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants, according to records obtained by the Tribune. Spokane residents smuggle in real suds over useless "green" brands. The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. ... It's not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green. Commentary from Greenie Watch: The phosphate in regular dishwashing detergents also happens to be a basic fertilizer. Most people who know farms will have heard of superphosphate. Plants love phosphates. Just like they love CO2. Horrors! say the Greenies. It helps nasty plants to grow too. Helping farmers to trap fertilizer runoff from their farms would make more sense if there is any real problem with it. Nuclear only safe option. Majestic dams set in pristine, forested water catchments become tourist attractions in their own right and their names are bywords in feats of engineering: Hoover, Aswan, Boulder, Three Gorges, Hume. But they are the deadliest form of power generation known to man. Hydroelectricity kills thousands each year and claims many more lives than other forms of energy generation — natural gas, LPG, oil and even coal, the mining of which can be perilous. Dams regularly fail, sometimes catastrophically. Just three days ago a dam burst in Jakarta killing 77, with 100 people missing. The Fine Print: What's Really in a Lot of 'Healthy' Foods. The yogurt aisle is dizzy these days with products that promise to reduce your cholesterol, control your blood pressure, protect your digestive health or boost your immune system. In many cases, it's a single ingredient that provides the benefit, and you can find much more of it in other sources. Hydroelectric, Tidal, and Geo-thermal energy sources. [Scroll down] Some of the Greens already hate hydroelectric and for certain they would hate geothermal if they knew the type of facilities that it would entail. But even with the more radical characters aside hydroelectric and geothermal are very site specific. One cannot generate new mountains laden with running water nor can a geothermal anomaly with prolific hot water or steam reservoirs can be made to order. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either hydroelectric or geothermal but they happen where they happen and cannot be manufactured anywhere else. Regarding tidal energy, this has been just talk for at least forty years, an academic exercise with little relation to implementation reality. Back to the Environmental Issues Page Jump to Environmentalists Oppose Every Practical Source of Energy Back to the Home page 
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