Windmill generators:
Personally, I'd love to have a big windmill generator in my back yard, since there is
plenty of wind in this part of the country. It would help take the edge off my
electric bill even if the windmill only supplied power to my hot water heater. But the wind
doesn't blow constantly or even predictably, so I would be unable to depend on it. And
even if the wind blew all day and all night, I'd have a hard time generating power as cheaply as
I could buy it from the local electric utility.
I am astonished to hear lately that many liberal environmentalists are opposed
to windmills because they are unsightly. But if they can be used to reduce
your electric bill, wouldn't they look really good? Isn't this the "renewable
energy" the environmentalists are so excited about?
Pitched as source of clean energy, ranchers
say mills are an eyesore. Though embraced by state political leaders as a clean, renewable
electricity source and welcomed by many rural landowners as newfound income, wind farms are gathering fresh
opposition from Texas ranchers who say they are an ugly, noisy blight on the wide-open landscape.
Opponents say the turbines, which extend up 400 feet to the tips of their blades, not only threaten birds
and wildlife but devalue property in areas such as the distant outskirts of Dallas-Fort Worth, where ranchland
is increasingly being used for recreation and second homes.
Who knew a "free" source of
energy could be so expensive? For wind turbines to produce power, the wind must blow. Because
the wind does not blow constantly, wind turbines produce a fraction of their potential generating capacities.
Furthermore, winds blows the least during the summer months when power is needed the most. ERCOT relies on
just 8.7% of wind power's capacity when determining available power during peak summer hours. Also, due to
wind's intermittency, wind farms must rely on conventional power sources to back up their supply.
Blown Away. How can I possibly claim that every
kilowatt hour generated by wind power doesn't eliminate that much pollution from a coal-fired plant?
Because it's true. Most of our country is tied together in electrical grid so that power can be routed
from one area to another as demands change from place to place. Electricity is not stored on the grid.
If a portion of the power comes from wind generation, there must always be a backup in the event this drops
significantly — like perhaps to zero. These backup plants must be kept running as it requires hours
if not days to bring them up to a level where they can provide power.
Wind Power Risks: It is now becoming more common
to hear of wind power caused outages. The outages are either a loss of service because the wind has stopped blowing
or, surprisingly, because there is too much wind. These problems were not so apparent when the percentage of wind power
was low compared to the overall capacity, and in particular to rapid response generators such as hydro. It seems that
wind power has become too successful and the engineering required to integrate it into different grids has lagged behind.
Leader of Ohio Environmental
Group Testifies Against Wind Power Proposal. Tom Stacy, managing director of
the environmentalist group Save Western Ohio, presented compelling testimony to the Ohio House
of Representatives Public Utilities Committee that a proposed renewable power mandate would
substantially harm the environment and local communities. The mandate, Stacy noted,
would cause the construction of a growing number of wind turbines, a poor source of energy
that harms wildlife and takes up excessive amounts of land.
Loss of wind
causes Texas power grid emergency. A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday [2/26/2008],
coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to
cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday [2/27/2008]. Electric
Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred
at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state.
Committee
Acts to Doom New England Wind Farm. A Senate-House conference committee has approved a
measure that would effectively kill a proposal for the first large offshore wind farm in the United
States, in Nantucket Sound south of Cape Cod, Mass.
Democrats Lead the Fight Against West Virginia Wind
Farms. U.S. Reps. Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall, both West Virginia Democrats, are leading
a high-profile fight against industrial wind farms on the state's mountaintop ridges.
Wind Turbines Kill Raptors, Lead to Rat
Infestations. Predictions by bat experts that expanded industrial wind farms in West Virginia
will increase numbers of disease-carrying mosquitoes and crop-destroying grasshoppers, locusts, and moths
are not the only expected ecological consequences of expanded wind farms. Giant wind turbines take an even
greater toll on birds, including many endangered species and birds of prey instrumental in controlling
rodent populations.
Windfarms provide
no useful electricity. Wind turbines provide power when the wind is strong enough and
not too strong. It is very difficult to predict the precise moment when a windfarm will start to
provide electricity to the grid. And the wind can change over a large area. Hence,
the presence of many windfarms in a locality causes power surges.
Greenie alarmists miss
the target. Electricity from wind farms costs double or more that from coal-fired power plants
and is unreliable, adding further to power costs. The Victorian Government has admitted that the Green
Power scheme to encourage consumers to use more expensive green power has been a less than resounding success.
California Wind Power Worries
Environmentalists. Defenders of Wildlife contends any new wind farms should be required to comply
with a long list of siting considerations in addition to the guidelines designed to prevent them from being
built in roadless forest areas or avian flyways. … "Ground-disturbing activities, such as road construction
and the clearing of forests for new power lines, also result from wind farm construction," [spokesperson Kim]
Delfino said.
Wind Farms Costly for Kansans. Wind
farms proposed for the state of Kansas would take money out of citizens' pockets, harm the Kansas economy, and
provide few if any environmental benefits, a new study finds. The study, conducted by former New England
Electric System Vice President Glenn Schleede and released on March 1, 2005, documents that Kansas
consumers will pay higher taxes and higher electric bills if the state chooses to adopt wind power
recommendations made by the Kansas Energy Council (KEC). The KEC, in its Kansas Energy Report 2005,
recommends Kansas bestow special privileges on the wind power industry, such as tax exemptions, direct cash
subsidies, and a mandate that all Kansas citizens purchase a certain percentage of their power from large
wind farms.
Enviro Group Sues Wind Farm to Stop Bird
Deaths. Giant wind turbines at Altamont Pass, California, are illegally killing more than
1,000 birds of prey each year, according to a lawsuit filed January 12 by the Center for Biological
Diversity. The suit demands an injunction halting operation of the turbines until and unless protective
measures are taken and highlights increasing concerns regarding a power source long hailed as environmentally
friendly by environmental activist groups.
Wind
turbines send wildlife diving for cover. Noisy wind farms in California are making squirrels
edgy and prone to scurrying for cover. This change in behaviour could have knock-on effects on animals
that depend upon the squirrel, such as the golden eagle, which feeds on the rodent, and the red-legged frog
and California tiger salamander, which live in its burrows.
German Government Study Questions Value of Wind
Power. Opposition spokesmen such as Klaus Lippold MP [say], "The problem with wind farms is that
you have to build them in places where you don't need electricity. The electricity then has to be moved
somewhere else. There is growing resistance in Germany to wind farms, not least because of the disastrous
effect on our landscape."
Louisiana Wind Farm Economically
Unviable. A proposed wind farm off the coast of Louisiana is economically unviable, wind farm
supporters admit, and will fail unless the state forces its citizens to purchase the power at up to three times
the cost of conventional power. Wind power supporters are seeking just such a requirement in a proposed
renewable portfolio standard. (See page 10 of the January 2005 Environment & Climate News)
Comparing the costs of various methods of power
generation. Electricity generated from new fossil fuel plants powered by natural gas or coal
costs 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Wind power costs 6 cents per kilowatt hour —
including federal subsidies amounting to 1.8 cents per kwh. Solar power costs 14 cents kwh
for thermal processes and 19 cents kwh for photovoltaic generation.
Wind Power: Red Not Green. Renewable energy
promoters claim that wind power is cheap, safe and "green." These claims are untrue. Wind power is
expensive, doesn't deliver the environmental benefits it promises and imposes substantial environmental
costs. Accordingly, it does not merit continued government promotion or funding.
Renewable Electricity 'Creating' Jobs, Destroying
Wealth. All over the world, for several centuries, workers have become more productive and their
services have risen in value. Renewable energy mandates, currently in force in 20 states, reverse
this progress and require a cut in worker productivity and energy efficiency. Twenty states have set
standards that require utilities to obtain some of their power from "renewable" resources such as wind
turbines and solar panels.
Negawatts: The renewable resource best beloved of
ecophiles is wind power. Despite decades of subsidies (amounting to more than $1,200 per installed
kilowatt), wind power remains stubbornly uneconomic. One problem is that the wind usually refuses to blow
hardest at times of peak demand for electricity, generating only about 7.5 megawatts per 50 MW of
nameplate capacity at peak. "Wind farms" are thus sometimes called "tax farms."
British Studies Show Prohibitive Cost of
"Renewable" Energy. A pair of British studies released in March and April 2004 show relying on
wind power or other non-nuclear "renewables" to reduce air pollution or carbon dioxide emissions forces
consumers to pay at least twice as much as they currently pay for electricity generated from fossil fuels or
emissions-free nuclear power.
There's too little power in
wind. The 83 existing and proposed windmills in Wisconsin generate very little
electricity and cannot make a significant contribution in supplying Wisconsin's electricity
or improving its reliability. The total output from the 35 windmills on four existing
wind farms represented just 0.082 percent of the state's 1999 electricity production.
Map: United States Average Annual Wind Power.
Wind Power Prices Rising, Defying Predictions of
Renewable Power Apologists. The price of wind turbines is rapidly rising, defying global warming
alarmists who justify renewable power subsidies and mandates by claiming prices for the economically
uncompetitive renewable power will fall as more industrial wind farms are built.
Awww... Windmills might spoil the view of Cape Cod.
Save Teddy Kennedy's
view. Congress is about to decide whether a developer whom the Senate last year handed the
exclusive right to build a 24-square-mile array of 417-foot-high windmills in the middle of the Nantucket
Sound — off Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket — should be allowed to proceed. The
area's most famous resident, Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-Mass.), has teamed up with Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens
and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, to stop it.
Ted Kennedy: Build the 'Wind
Farm' Elsewhere. Sen. Ted Kennedy has strongly opposed an environmentally friendly "wind
farm" off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. Now he supports building another wind
farm — in somebody else's "backyard."
Foes of
Cape Wind project see contributions drop sharply in 2006. Opponents of a planned
wind farm off Cape Cod see a sharp drop in contributions. In 2006, the Alliance to
Protect Nantucket Sound raised about $2 million, according to federal tax filings
submitted this month. That's less than half what the group raised in each of the
prior two years.
Turbine
plan brings whirlwind of questions. For years, environmental groups have viewed electricity-producing
wind farms with a touch of reverence: energy from the natural rhythms of the air, without the need for fossil
fuels or polluting greenhouse gases. But questions about the risk, cost and environmental impact of offshore
wind threaten to slow what some call a headlong state rush to approve a $1.6 billion, 150-turbine wind farm
off Rehoboth Beach, along with one of two on-land, backup natural gas-powered generating plants.
Texas
Tops in Wind Energy Production. Long known as a top oil- and natural gas-producing state, Texas
has gained new energy acclaim by becoming the nation's top producer of wind energy. Texas capacity stands
at 2,370 megawatts, enough to power 600,000 average-sized homes a year, according to a midyear report released
Tuesday [7/25/2006] by the American Wind Energy Association.
Illinois
senators hold up FAA nominee over wind farms. Illinois' senators are blocking President Bush's
nominee for a Federal Aviation Administration post as they seek his administration's answer to whether wind
farms interfere with military operations. … Before they release their hold, they want the FAA to issue a
conclusive determination as to whether the operation of wind farms under construction in the Midwest in such
places as Bloomington, Ill., will interfere with radar systems.
The Editor says...
Are military radar systems so crude that they can be spoofed by windmills? Of
course not. The Senators' concerns are purely political.
Cape Wind Has Powerful Critics,
Supporters. The Cape Wind project has powerful opposition, including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
(R) and the Bay State's senior Democrat senator, Edward M. Kennedy. An environmental group, the
Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, also has worked against the plan. ... Supporters of the project argue the
wind farm would generate 170 much-needed megawatts of electricity to a high-cost region. ... The project would
generate about 2.5 percent of the electricity used by Massachusetts, or 1 percent of that used by
all of New England.
Wind
farms generate bird worries. The rapid expansion of wind energy farms in the Columbia River
Gorge's shrub steppes could put hawks, eagles and other raptors on a collision course with fields of giant
turbines and their 150-foot blades. By year's end, more than 1,500 turbines will be churning out
electricity in the gorge, a windy corridor at the forefront of a nationwide effort to produce cleaner
energy.
Questions Plague Efforts to Grow Wind Power
Use. Interest in wind power production seems to be on the rise, with recent numbers from the
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) predicting a continuing boost in wind power production thanks to
increasing government subsidies and mandates.
But a verdict on the long-term viability of wind as an
energy source has yet to be reached, and no hope is in sight for the scores of birds and bats meeting
grisly fates among the turning turbine blades.
Wash Governor Forces Wind Farm Over Local
Protest. Residents of Kittitas County, Washington are expressing their outrage at Gov. Christine
Gregoire's (D) September 18 decision to overrule county officials and allow 65 new, towering wind turbines
to be built on hillsides surrounding the town of Ellensburg. Kittitas County commissioners had rejected
the proposed wind farm, noting local opposition to the 410-foot wind turbines that are expected to destroy
scenic views, kill birds and bats, and create loud, reverberating noise in addition to generating a relatively
small amount of electric power.
Wind Power Costs Continue to Rise.
The U.S. Department of Energy reports the average cost of a turbine per megawatt of power generated rose
17 percent in 2006 and will likely rise by more than 14 percent this year. Because utilities
have no control over these costs, ratepayers or taxpayers end up paying the final bill. In addition,
wind farms have already been constructed in the most productive wind sites, leaving less-productive and
less-reliable sites available for current and future wind farm construction.
Wind
power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought. One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at
wind power is variability. That is, when the wind drops (or blows too hard) the windmills stop
spinning and you get no power.
Wind farms 'a threat to
national security'. Ambitious plans to meet up to a third of Britain's energy needs from
offshore wind farms are in jeopardy because the Ministry of Defence objects that the turbines interfere
with its radar. The MoD has lodged last-minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms in the
line of sight of its stations on the east coast because they make it impossible to spot aircraft, The Times
has learnt.
The Editor says...
The British must be using really primitive radar equipment, if it can't tell the difference
between a windmill and an airplane.
Dissenting opinion:
Energy's Prevailing Winds:
Last year, [T. Boone] Pickens correctly predicted that we would be seeing a $100 barrel of oil, and
he recently announced plans to build a $10 billion, 150,000-acre wind farm in the Texas panhandle, which
would be the biggest in the world.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Recycling:
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."
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.
Regarding the environmental impacts of recycling, sending large, polluting
garbage-collection trucks on an additional trip to every house in a municipality
worsens air quality and wastes gasoline. Moreover, the recycling facilities
themselves are notoriously harmful to the environment, with recycling facilities
at times representing more than 25 percent of EPA's worst superfund
sites.*
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.
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.
— Adam LeBor
and Roger Boyes: "Seduced by Hitler", page 30.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Car pooling and mass transit:
See this page.
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.
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?
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