Archive Page 2
God Answers Conservative Prayers
This is funny. It almost makes me believe in the power of prayer.
Filed under: politics | Leave a Comment
Biden Likes Railroads
Well, that helps explain Obama’s pick of Joe Biden for his Vice-President. MissLaura at DailyKos, and Atrios both report that Biden is a passionate supporter and user of Amtrak.
Support for the train system fits right in with Obama’s economic program. An important part of that program involves creating jobs by re-investing in the national infrastructure, and Biden will certainly be on board with that (so to speak) in regards to Amtrak.
For me, the economic benefits we would gain from upping our investment in the railroads, and infrastructure in general, is a no-brainer. What is more interesting is considering Biden’s case from the public choice perspective. In classic, public choice analysis a Senator like Biden would choose his positions from a calculus of trying to simultaneously maximize his income from corporate donors and his political support from voters. And I have no doubt whatsoever that Biden engages in such calculations. But then you have the intrusion of the personal into the calculation; Biden’s personal use of and commitment to public rail (see the story from Atrios, linked above). These personal commitments can shift the public choice economics of a proposal away from the equilibrium that pure, impartial, political calculation would have settled on. And I am therefore happy to have Biden on board for the Obama campaign and, hopefully, the Obama administration.
Filed under: Obama, infrastructure, transportation | Leave a Comment
Obama and Oil Drilling
I think that Obama is making the right call about compromising on oil drilling in order to get renewable energy tax credits passed.
Here’s my thinking:
- In order to make any serious progress on reducing oil burning, we have to develop renewable energy sources in quantities sufficient to replace the energy we get from oil.
- An absolute, necessary requirement for that development is renewal of the renewable energy tax credits, and the sooner, the better. There are massive amounts of private capital poised to commit to developing renewables, but investors could get spooked if they think that the tax credits are uncertain or unreliable.
- Therefore, if we don’t get the renewable tax credits extended, and soon, then it won’t really matter whether or not the oil companies start drilling off of Florida. Florida will flood as global warming takes hold, and then we’ll have a whole, new, pristine coastline free of oil rigs. I mean, seriously, if we don’t stop global warming then no one is going to notice the environmental costs of increased coastal drilling. Continue reading ‘Obama and Oil Drilling’
Filed under: climate change, natural commons, politics, renewable energy | Leave a Comment
Nice little article full of tips from someone who often gets his letters published. My favorite quote is:
A letter is not the place to ramble on. Choose your strongest point and make that point in clear language. You can support your point with a few different bits of evidence, but don’t make multiple arguments.
Sounds like good advice for writing blog posts as well.
Filed under: activism | Leave a Comment
Reactions to Pickens’ Plan
Right now, we get about 20% of our electricity from burning natural gas. If we started getting that electricity from renewable sources instead, then we could take the natural gas we would save and use it to run our cars (or a lot of them) and thereby reduce our use of planet-warming, atmosphere-polluting oil. This thought is the essence of the “Pickens Plan,” the latest project of financier and oil magnate T. Boone Pickens.
I just read about the plan yesterday. Specifically, Pickens wants to use wind energy to replace the natural gas we currently use for electricity generation. We would get a win on reducing carbon pollution from burning gasoline for transportation, and also get a start on building our renewable energy sources. It’s a nice, big, high-level thought, and I love big, high-level thoughts. The plan is also more than a thought: Pickens claims to have sunk $58 million so far into realizing this idea. So I figure the plan is worth looking at for a minute, because whether or not the plan is practical or even desirable, it has some very interesting aspects.
- First, the plan dovetails nicely with Gore’s call for generating all of our electricity from renewable sources. If Pickens will help us get enough wind energy going to take care of 20% of our electricity generation, then we’re 1/5 of the way home, no matter what happens with our use of natural gas.
- Pickens intends to profit from this by selling wind-powered electricity. He is investing serious money in building wind generators in the Texas panhandle. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Yes, capitalists of the world, please, invest your capital in renewable energy rather than shale oil extraction, or climate skeptic think tanks, or more off-shore drilling. I hope Pickens gets rich all over again from wind energy.
- One of the most fun aspects of the plan is the way that it works on two energy markets simultaneously: the electricity generation and the transportation. That is probably also its weakest point: it’s going to be a big enough job to get wind energy and other renewables in place for electricity generation without trying to control exactly what gets done with the natural gas that wind energy replaces. Fortunately, the policy initiatives that will support the two parts of the plan are separable. We can go for a win on wind-generated electricity without committing ourselves to natural gas as an auto fuel.
- However, if you accept the idea that corn and soy ethanol is a bad idea, and believe that cellulosic ethanol is too far off, then a big effort to use natural gas as a fuel looks like a better idea than it does at first glance. Not a convincing idea, but better than I first thought. And yes, Pickens has also made investments in vehicles that run on natural gas, so he will be profiting from that end of the deal too.
- Pickens has built a Web 2.0 site to generate grassroots, public support for his scheme. So it’s an astroturf organization, but without the lies about who pays the bills, because Pickens’ organization dreams of becoming a real boy with real public support. Pickens wants his name all over this, which suggests that he may have convinced himself that he’s actually doing a legitimate thing.
Interesting stuff, and I’ve only barely looked at it. At this moment, my bottom line would be that we have to be cautious about the natural gas part (think corn ethanol), but any help we can get in pushing forward Gore’s goal of completely renewable electricity is welcome.
Thanks to ItsSimpleSimon over on Daily Kos for my first encounter with this, and for his critique of the natural gas element of the plan.
Filed under: climate change, electricity, renewable energy | Leave a Comment
Paul Krugman gives a nice synopsis of the problems with McCain’s push for oil drilling as a solution to higher gas prices. The money quote:
… the U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an “insignificant” impact on oil prices.
I’d like to see the Energy Administration source he is quoting. I guess I’ll google it later.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
So Obama is working against us on FISA and telecom immunity. That is very disapointing, to say the least. I would love to hear his rationale on that, but I don’t think we’re going to get that anytime before January 1st, 2009.
But what we do have right now is a new coaltion to fight the FISA sellout. (I think that “sellout” is a reasonable term here from several different perspectives.) It’s called Strange Bedfellows, and it’s a coalition of Ron Paul libertarians and various liberal bloggers like Glenn Greenwald, all with the blessing of the ACLU.
One thing I really like about this group is that it is determined, in the event that we lose this fight, to punish the Democrats who have taken the lead on the sellout: Steny Hoyer, Chris Carney, and John Barrow. This is the key requirement for political reform, both necessary and sufficient, because the fear of a powerful, primary challenge is one of the few things now that will cause the Democrats in Congress to straighten up and fly right. And the Ron Paul people have demonstrated an ability to raise the kind of money that can make a real impact in a few select primaries. If we knock even one of these guys out of office, and make sure that everyone knows that we did it because of the FISA sellout, then that should go a long way towards giving the Democrats a real commitment to civil liberties.
I support Obama for President, fully and completely, but I don’t have any stars in my eyes. In order to do the right thing, an elected official, even Obama, needs political support sufficient to overcome the vested interests who are opposed to doing the right thing. Another way to phrase that same thought is to say that any politician will do the right thing if you can apply enough political pressure to force him or her to do it. Either way you want to phrase it, it is now clear that we need to employ some serious political muscle if we want to see the Bush-Republican attacks on civil liberties corrected in an Obama-Democratic administration. Seriously going after a couple of FISA sellouts is a really good way to employ political muscle.
I’ve been trying to send a little money Obama’s way every month, but this month I’m going to send my donation to the Strange Bedfellows coalition. And I’m going to make sure to tell the Obama campaign about it, because basic economics tells me that Obama can’t be expected to make the best policy choices if he doesn’t face any costs for making bad ones.
Thanks to The Political Inquirer for the original link to Glenn Greenwald’s article, and thanks to Glenn Greenwald for the link to Simon Owen’s piece. Ain’t the Internets wonderful? For updates on the situation, check the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Deeplinks blog.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
I Wish I Had Said That
This from Glyn Moody at Open… “I’ve railed frequently against the con-trick of calling intellectual monopolies ‘intellectual property’, which tries to endow monopolies with the warm and fuzzy feeling people have for property.”
This insight is going to find its way into my writing on intellectual monopolies from now on.
Filed under: economics, free/open source | Leave a Comment
Solar Trees
 |
| A Solar Grove at the Kyocera Solar parking lot. |
Well, not really. But a San Diego firm is marketing “solar trees” that stand 12 feet tall and provide both shade and electricity. They are intended to be clustered into “groves” that cover large parking lots.
The downside is that they’re not really trees at all and look about as ugly as the original parking lot. The plus side is that they’re not any uglier than the original parking lot, and provide 10 kilowatts of electricity per tree. Plus the shade, which I would really appreciate in the sort of 90 102-degree weather that we’re going to have we had in San Jose today on June 19th. There’s more information at Sustainable Industries, which is an interesting magazine that I just discovered.
Filed under: electricity, renewable energy | Leave a Comment
Search
-
You are currently browsing the Republic of the Bees weblog archives.
