Tag: energy

We’re diving deep into “geek world” today with a story that combines economic hardball, the periodic table of the elements, and a barely noticed provision of the Defense Authorization Act that seeks to break a monopoly which today gives China near-absolute control over the materials that make cell phones, electric cars, wind turbines, and pretty much every other tool of modern life possible.

If we successfully break the monopoly, we’ll be able to create millions of new manufacturing jobs in this country-and if we don’t, somebody else owns the 21st Century.

Ironically, the global warming we’re trying to fight with new green technologies might be an ally in our efforts to make those very same green technologies happen.

There’s a revolution in industrial processing going on, rare earths are at the center of it all…and in today’s story, the revolution will be televised.

…a Zombie nightmare rides again.

Photo: Jonathan Lee. Me, Bob Del Tredici, Steve Wing and my hubby casing the FedEx Global Education Center lecture hall at UNC-CH, where all buildings and all departments are now owned by Big Business and Corporate sponsors, much to the dismay of the research faculty.

There are a great many important issues on our plates these days. Health Care (or merely insurance) Reform, two wars of invasion and occupation that show no signs of ending any time soon, an overstretched and vastly underappreciated military, a serious economic collapse and ever-lengthening Great Recession, home foreclosures, unemployment, torture as government policy, war crimes of the last administration stubbornly ignored, and the never-ending assault on the Constitution our erstwhile leaders swore to protect and defend. We who like to think of ourselves as Progressives and are keeping up with issues and actions via the ‘net and blogosphere do what we can on all of the issues, even if not all of them are The Most Important Issue we are personally engaging in our real life spheres. I am adding one more, which probably won’t be at the top of the list for most, but which has been around long enough that it does deserve a place in the lineup of things progressives should keep track of.

This week my husband and I were invited to attend and participate in a lunchtime seminar and evening lecture presentation by Robert Del Tredici of Vanier College in Quebec, Canada. “Looking Into the Nuclear Age: On Life, Art and the Bomb” was stunning. We’d been invited by epidemiologist (and friend) Steve Wing of UNC Chapel Hill, who hosted the event along with artist Elin O’Hara Slavick. Steve had conducted an independent epidemiological study of cancers in the area of Three Mile Island back in the early 1990s, and came to conclusions that directly contradicted those of previous studies and the U.S. government, which has insisted to this very day that no one was harmed by the meltdown.

Steve’s study was to have been evidence in a class action lawsuit in the 1990s with more than 2,000 plaintiffs who had developed cancer after the accident at TMI in 1979. My husband and I were to have been the backup evidence to support his study in that lawsuit, having been the designated “reporting agents” under provisions of 10CFR.21 for the health physics contractor at Three Mile Island immediately following the accident. Neither we nor Steve ever made it to court, as the lawsuit was finally dismissed for “lack of evidence” when the defendants convinced Judge Rambo that the only evidence admissible must be the coverup the guilty parties themselves provided. Duh.

Some Four Plus Decades of, Enough is Enough

We’ve been going through this for some four decades now, and it’s gotta Stop Now, but I doubt it will, because it comes mainly from those that don’t serve as they wrap themselves in the banner of a political party that’s “Strong On National Defense” while condemning all others as not! It’s in their political ideology to be used and accepted by those that claim that ideology, like they found great enjoyment wearing and laughing about “purple heart bandages” not long ago. Even some who serve, and do so in our wars and occupations of choice will use it, strickly as their political meme, disgracing their own service as they attack their brothers and sisters, never having real facts to back up their claims, and never apologizing especially to their brothers and sisters!

    The Wonk Room (@ ThinkProgress.org) spoke with Perlmutter today, who explained the economic benefit that he hopes the GREEN Act will have for American households, and particularly those with low- to moderate-incomes:

It helps low- and moderate-incomes. It helps all income levels, because utility costs have been going up for, you know, the last umpteen years. And particularly for low- to moderate-income earners, that’s a big part of their discretionary income, what they have left over at the end of the month, after paycheck and groceries and everything else. So if we can help them control or even shrink utility costs, it’s like a pay raise to those people…We’re hoping to shrink energy costs by 30 percent.

    More below the fold on some good news

Welcome to the 19th installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies.

Even though Congress is out of session and the members are back home getting shouted down and physically assaulted by lobbyist-funded mobs of teabaggers, there are still a few things going on in the committees. This week, I will look at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has two field meetings (in Alaska and Colorado) scheduled this month.  

     The concept is very simple. You are what you eat.

     Economically speaking, this also means that you are what you consume.

    Since consumer spending makes up over 70% of our national eonomy, logic dictates that the smarter, healthier and more sustainable our purchasing is as individuals, the more sustainable and strong our national economy will become.

    The simple ripples in the water can have drastic effects, in the long run.

     So, here’s what we do.

    If Americans ate less meat, less fast food and manufactured food and instead ate more locally grown fruits and vegetables, as well as whatever food you can grow yourself, we could bring about the change we need without having to wait for anyone to take the lead.

    Simple changes to your daily diet, even if done in moderation, combined with enough people doing the same thing can literally change the world.

The startup company Better Place, that’s who!

The scheme these guys have undertaken solves one of the major problems of electric cars: recharging.  Better Place’s approach: replace the whole battery in less time than it takes to fill up a tank with gas!  Recharge the batteries at leisure and reuse.  If you buy an electric car, you subscribe to their service and can swap out drained batteries for recharged ones at properly equipped stations.  The other crucial step in the process is to connect up with fuel stations to install the replacement bays.  Wherever you can get gas, you can get a battery! Here’s a cool demo of the technology.

Who knows if this will work?  But it seemed to me to be a pretty interesting concept.

So far nothing has worked; not bailouts, or conversions to bank holding companies, not front page stories or investigative committees…nothing is helping the economic crisis it only continues to get worse.

What if we cannot stop the economic crisis from continuing to deteriorate, what if the economic levees break?

How is our government (Federal, State, Municipal) preparing for the worst case scenario?

How are we hoping they are preparing, what should we be expecting of them, what can we do?

cross-posted at Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

God works in Mysterious Ways

Right as they are on the brink of selling “Clean Coal Technology” to the American Public, Kingston Tennessee gets buried in 300 million tonnes of coal sludge. Its now in the watershed.

Have a nice fucking day, morons. Nothing like cadmium in your water cocktail with a nice fat lead stick to swizzle it and a sprinkle of mercury bits on the brown foam topping.

For the sake of a job, you have been poisoning yourselves, your children and grandchildren for a hundred years. How long will the denizens of Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky put up with Coal Mining not only for its irresponsible lack of environmental control, when will they figure out its just a bad overall idea, plain and simple?

Whether or not you believe in God, this is one of those moments where you have to think “Instant Karma” and think it a grand scale wake the fuck up call.

“Clean” coal is like saying “Dry” rain.

Proof of both is now soaking the Earth.